FIRE Cover Stories

[grasshopper]

I am lucky that 5 years ago My wife and I retired to a community where birdwatching is considered a job.

 

[NW-Bound]

...there's no way I can win in this conversation and am worn down and beaten down...

As I have told my family, I am afraid I will live to see the day when the young folks look at [-]geezers[/-] SS recipients with disdain.

Heck, we are there now, and I still yet have a few years to claim my SS and Medicare. Look, no one is safe!

 

[obgyn65]

Hello Nords - no worries. I do not think you should retract anything, especially if your family members have already heard it from you face to face or in email. Take care.

Please let me know if there's a specific post or topic that you think I might prefer to retract. I consider things pretty carefully at the time I'm posting them, and I'll certainly never talk about Jolie Bookspan again on a public forum, but I don't remember each & every post.

 

[obgyn65]

Hello Purron - sometimes I feel guilty also about discussing financial topics and ER since I am already financially independent and still working. Maybe we should set up a password protected thread for those of us who are willing to discuss further without being criticized or having to deflect negative comments ?

Yeah, I heard. I'm supposed to feel guilty because DH worked 31 years for his modest pension. In the good old days, that was something to respect and be proud of. Now we need a "pension cover story" more than a "FIRE cover story" to deflect political diatribes and negative comments.

 

[Sarah in SC]

Obgyn, we also have a handy "report post" feature (the red triangle) on the bottom of any post you deem inappropriate or a personal attack on any member and as a moderator of the forum, I encourage the use of this button for any such violations of the community rules.

 

[REWahoo]

Hello Purron - sometimes I feel guilty also about discussing financial topics and ER since I am already financially independent and still working. Maybe we should set up a password protected thread for those of us who are willing to discuss further without being criticized or having to deflect negative comments ?

What Sarah said about using the report post button.

I'd also add that anyone who is sensitive to criticism and receiving negative comments probably shouldn't be posting to an internet discussion board...

 

[Nords]

Maybe we should set up a password protected thread for those of us who are willing to discuss further without being criticized or having to deflect negative comments ?

Easiest way is to set up an invitation-only social group: click on the "Community" tab at the center of the top of the page, select "Social Groups", then scroll down to "Create a New Group".

You can select the members. You'll want to set the membership to "invitation only" and then start adding the poster names.

 

[Alan]

I've never had to have a FIRE cover story. I guess our families and the circles we move in are different from many.

Our families expected us to be able RE since we were the first ever in our families to even graduate High School let alone get a university degree and a white collar job. There was never any criticism or hostile envy throughout our careers.

At work most of my fellow workers were racing to ER along with me before the pension and retiree healthcare disappeared. Our company was a joint venture between 2 Megacorps and the parent Megacorps had already dispensed with their DB pensions and there was constant pressure on the JV board of directors to do similar.

We spend a lot of time at the YMCA, during the morning hours, where the clientelle are mostly young mothers or retired folks, and we never hid the fact we retired this year. If anyone says anything it is all very postitive. If asked we tell them that I was fortunate to still be working for a company that had a pension plan. (for the record, DW's Megacorp stopped their pension plan some years back and she didn't have enough years to be grand-fathered in so her DB pension became a DC cash balance plan, and when she left she rolled it to an IRA).

 

[NW-Bound]

What Sarah said about using the report post button.

I'd also add that anyone who is sensitive to criticism and receiving negative comments probably shouldn't be posting to an internet discussion board...

I have never felt the need to report anyone. I have teased and taunted people here before, and occasionally have received the same treatment. I would pretend to be offended in order to retaliate another time. This forum has been a media for me to hone writing skills. I do quite a bit of technical writing in my work, but I can inject humor and irony in the posts here. It is fun.

I remember in one past thread about what people are good at, I said I was good at making women mad. I forgot what preceded that. But no, I was not the type who "kisses the girls and makes them cry" when I was young. In fact I used to be timid.

I was never mad at anyone here, probably because I did not frequent the political forum when it was still open. And speak of the devil, it was GONE, before I had a chance to read past posts see what the ruckus was back then. Oh well, if I have not read it in the past 2 years, I probably never will, so it was no big loss.

 

[REWahoo]

...it was no big loss.

+1

 

[brewer12345]

Easiest way is to set up an invitation-only social group: click on the "Community" tab at the center of the top of the page, select "Social Groups", then scroll down to "Create a New Group".

You can select the members. You'll want to set the membership to "invitation only" and then start adding the poster names.

I am genuinely curious: have people done this on er.org? First I have heard about it.

 

[REWahoo]

I am genuinely curious: have people done this on er.org? First I have heard about it.

Guess who wasn't on the invite list...

Kidding aside, the only social group I'm aware of on this forum is the one Nords set up for those who contributed information and input to his book.

 

[brewer12345]

Guess who wasn't on the invite list...

No kidding. Then again, I know I am hard to live with.

But if y'all want to get on with your granny/gramps porn chat rooms, that is fine with me.

 

[NW-Bound]

The thing I see is that it would then be like a club, not a forum.

And if I could say something about p*l*t*cs again, I consider myself a centrist. The proof is that I think my siblings are ultra liberals, while my friends are mostly conservative or libertarian. If I have to listen to just one side, I would go NUTS!!!

P.S. Need to add that I often end up finding myself arguing with both groups, but hey, if you don't argue with people you hang out with, who do you argue with?

P.P.S. My wife and I agree on most things, thank goodness. Any guy has his limits.

 

[Nords]

I am genuinely curious: have people done this on er.org? First I have heard about it.

No kidding. Then again, I know I am hard to live with.
But if y'all want to get on with your granny/gramps porn chat rooms, that is fine with me.

I set up the invitation-only social group for The Military Guide about two years ago. It linked to a website archive where I'd put up PDFs of draft chapters for review & comments. Most of the posts are about what I'd written, or the status of the publisher's query letters, or occasional queries/commentaries from the group. I also put up an early version of the public thread on choosing the book cover.

When I sent out the invitations back in 2008, I looked for the names of everyone who'd ever indicated military service or was a family member of someone in the military. Then I added in the moderators & admins. Your name never came up, and I stopped looking when I got up in the 60s. Some military & family members who joined E-R.org after 2008 got invitations if they were in a particular military branch or duty station, and in a position to make a critical contribution to the book, but at that point I felt the group was big enough.

The social-group software is also a crippled version of the features we enjoy on the public forums, so I think it's frustrating to use them. (I don't know why vBulletin didn't port over the identical full-featured software to the social groups.) They're also not easily checked (like the portal or the "New Posts" link on the public forums) so you have to subscribe to every thread to keep up to date. The main reason I limited the size of the group was that every time I wanted to send out a PM to the membership I could only do it five addressees at a time. That gets old real fast.

If anyone else has started up an invitation-only social group... well... I must not be on that invitation list either. But I already have enough granny porn to last me the rest of my life.

The social groups are a good idea-- I'll start another one someday for discussions of wealth management and philanthropy, and Brewer, you'll definitely be on that invitation list.

 

[brewer12345]

Heh, I am not offended not to be on the list, no worries. It was just a total surprise that the software even allowed a subgroup to form. That and a CFB sighting for the first time in years all within 24 hours. What is next?

Oh yeah, and you will get lots more granny porn as your DW ages...

 

[Sarah in SC]

Brewer, if I start a group dedicated to clown porn, you'll be the first invite, followed closely by HFWR.

 

[FUEGO]

You guys realize that any time anyone googles "FIRE Cover Stories" they are going to see your user names and the particular types of pron you have mentioned, right? People may get the wrong idea about how you are financing your retirement...

 

[Sarah in SC]

You are assuming people will know to google that, Fuego--not right at the top of my list of Google hot keywords. I'm thinking sexier keywords!

 

[Keim]

You are assuming people will know to google that, Fuego--not right at the top of my list of Google hot keywords. I'm thinking sexier keywords!

Yes, they are more likely to think we are a bunch of arsonists or insurance cons. Hmmm... another way to finance an early retirement?

 

[dm]

When my wife told the in-laws that I was early retiring, they thought it was just awful. My mother in law thought it was my duty to make as much as I could so that I could buy more stuff. But they were not to worried about my finances, as I was told long before not to expect anything from them, as they were leaving everything to their son's. Now when I told my Dad, he was happy, of coarse he retired at 57 and said many times that he should have quit sooner.

It's been 3 years now and I sure don't miss work at all. I drop by my old office from time to time to say hi, and grab lunch, but that's as close as I come to paid work. My old boss actually seems happy for me and tells people all the time that I was able to quit at 50.

 

[clifp]

My retirement cover stories have evolved.
Year 1-2. I am taking some time off from my high tech job.
Year 3-5. I am semi-retired, but I am involved with a software start up
Year 6-9 I am semi-retired sometime I say I do financial planning on the side.
Year 9-11. Most of the time I say I am retired, sometimes I say semi-retired.

 

[Purron]

My retirement cover stories have evolved.
Year 1-2. I am taking some time off from my high tech job.
Year 3-5. I am semi-retired, but I am involved with a software start up
Year 6-9 I am semi-retired sometime I say I do financial planning on the side.
Year 9-11. Most of the time I say I am retired, sometimes I say semi-retired.

Year 11+. Sucks to be you.