Anyone nearing FIRE and obsessed?

[akck]

Is anyone on this board not obsessed?

Ha

+2

It would have been a much shorter thread had that been the question asked.

 

[RobLJ]

We could do it next year, when I qualify for formal retirement based on employer rules, but I'm planning for 2-4 years. It would be tighter next year, with less margin of error.

Wife wants to move to the West Coast closer to the kids but still work; if so, then it could happen in 1-2 years, particularly if I can go on modified work for a year or two or three.
At this point, I'm just sketching the main scenarios on the assumption she might start job looking after her bonus next year. I'm not at the point of looking at the calendar, since the future is fluid, but there are plenty of options, and the possibility is a lot closer than I ever thought it might be. We're paying of the house this month with idle cash and hit 3 portfolio milestones this week, for net worth, for my pieces, and for the total investment.
While numbers and talking to the retired indicated the accelerated roll-up of net worth (if one is lucky) in the final years, psychologically I was not prepared for the last two years, particularly after '08 which was not nearly as traumatic in our case as for most. This raises the issue of retiring at the point the market crashes, of course, which is always a possibility but even more possible, given our timing. I'm bullish until 2014 and after that, not so much.

 

[ikubak]

I started visiting this site in Dec 2007. At the time I was remotely thinking about ER. I think TromboneAL was the first person to greet me here and make me feel welcomed. Then I got started reading and learning from all the great people on this forum and realized there were a slew of ERs and ER wannabes here. I was and still am a wannabe.

The great recession hit and the wisdom here helped keep me calm through the disastrous market. I had told DW that we needed one more good stock market sell-off while we were pumping $ into the market to get us to FI. We hit FI a couple of years ago and now I am planning to RE in April or May 2015, just gotta vest in the pension plan. Obsessed? I am NOW! I got my spreadsheet and I'm counting down the days.

 

[panacea]

Obsessed for sure... although retirement is still a few years off. How many times a week do I really need to look at my investment total? How many times a month must I review my expenses to figure out what I really need for a future retirement income?? I mean, c'mon, we're probably 14 years away from pulling the trigger!! Still, I suppose there are probably more destructive obsessions than this.

 

[YoCo618]

I retired last year in August. At the police dept I worked for we had a pretty decent pension plan and were unionized. We had what's called the D.R.O.P (deferred retirement option plan). Part of our contract was that you could retire at20 and enter the drop for 5 additional years which is what I opted to do. I left a year early due to my supervisor was itching for me to strangle him. I always prided myself in making quality arrests that lead to convictions but he wanted arrests just for numbers, so when I was taking more days off then going to work I knew it was time to go and that year of really good money I left on the table wasn't quite worth my sanity. I figured I've been working since I was 21 in this field time for new adventures.

 

[butterfly]

To me, retirement is interesting because it is a chance to reinvent your life. I've heard over and over that the happiest retirees are those who prepare for retirement -- not merely financially, but psychologically.

It is ironic, but because I spent so much time trying to figure out what my "re-invented," future, retired self would look like, I ended up re-inventing my present self. Thinking about retirement led me to thinking about what REALLY mattered. It's the same as thinking about death, in a way, although a bit more cheerful.

That is cool. Us too. We have narrowed down our spending over the years to correlate to what we actually desire and enjoy, by doing that we have realised the essence of who we are. It sounds simple, but we feel we were sucked into the vortex of consumerism ena societal expectation before this.

I don't think of it as an "obsession". I think of it as "planning".
Surprisingly it has made it easier dealing with the job and finances.

Yes, I am a planner. I live with a calculator near me at all times!

Since I discovered this site and MMM, I've been obsessed with ER for nearly a year now and am now just over a month out from it. I've been reading on the topic profusely in that time, trying to see if there is something in my planning that was missing.

It took about six months of such study to realise that my ER fundamentals are sound and that the only notable risk is that of a catastrophic external financial event (eg. severe market crash) in the early days of ER. I've adequately mitigated that through keeping my foot in the part time door and finishing up some study that could either get me a better job than the one I had or lead to further study purely for self gratification purposes ie. win-win!

In other words, my obsession led to understanding and acceptance. If there is anything to get from my story it is: if you are going to be obsessed with ER, at least channel it in a constructive direction.

Awesome, I agree.

We are FI now but due to business commitments we are not RE until 1st September next year, unless we sell our current business. If not, we have enough to close it down and walk away. Retired and free.

We would prefer to sell it, obviously, but will have had it on the market for 15 months by then, so will have given it a go. Our friends and family think we are crazy, but we count the days!!!!!!