How did you decide to FIRE?

[friar1610]

Being a Navy guy, I retired twice: once from the Navy and once from what I did after the Navy. People in the Navy had always told me that I'd know when it was time to go. I could have remained on active duty for another couple of years and increased my pension by another 5% to the max 75% of base pay. But, I'd found myself losing enthusiasm for about a year and knew the time was getting close. One day, after an intolerable meeting, I walked directly to the personnel office and submitted my retirement request to retire 60 days later. I enjoyed my Navy career but it was just time. (I was just over 50).

I had a somewhat arbitrary "nut" that I wanted to hit before retiring from my post-Navy "career". I ended up retiring at 58 when about 10% short of that number. As it turned out, my Navy pension and benefits and what I had socked away while in the Navy went further than I had expected. From a purely financial standpoint, I probably could have done fine working only about 5 civilian years, if that. But the larger cushion is nice too. I gave about a month's notice and have had no desire to return to the work force.

 

[statsman]

My mega-corp decided for me when they laid me off, one of many layoffs that had been occurring for 6-7 years prior to mine, and continued for several years afterward. Welcome to business hostile California. Technically, I didn't start my pension for a few years until DW retired from her job in mid-2017.

 

[Dash man]

In 2006 I experienced severe pain from problems with my cervical spine and I knew I’d better dig in for early retirement. At 55 I was eligible for Megacorp healthcare plan for retirees, so I set that as my goal. DW and I started meeting with a financial planner annually to see how we were doing. Shortly after we both turned 56 we hit our numbers and I gave three months notice at the beginning of 2013. DW chose to continue working even though she didn’t need to, and joined me in retirement three years later. We are now three times our number with the long bull market, so things have gone well financially. We’ve enjoyed traveling and helping the kids. We’re now taking care of DFIL in our home who has cancer. But all our grandkids will be living near us by the end of next month, so life is good!

 

[Dalmore]

I knew in my late 20's that I wanted to be FI by the time I was 55. With all the negative looks I would get if I said I wanted to be able to retire at 55, I convinced myself that I just wanted FI and the ability to tell MegaCorp to go pound sand if I wanted to. I didn't really thing about it again (though I saved a lot and LBYM) until I was 53 and between January and March of that year, 10 people had asked me when I was going to retire. At first I was shocked, "Surely I didn't look that old!" Then around April/May of last year I started to seriously consider the option and discovered this site. I dug into my finances and ran the various models, and found that we could do it, and like others here, could have done it a couple years prior. DW was not ready to retire, even though she is a couple years older than I am, so I set a date (April 30, 2020) that we could live with. April has come and gone, and I am still working (But tomorrow is my last day!), and DW is still struggling with the idea of retiring, though it looks like December 2020 will be her date.

 

[MRG]

In 2008 Megacorp's original CEO retired and things started changing. I was already in aggressive contribution mode and doing ok but my assets were concentrated in Megacorp stock.

Megacorp allowed us to move some of our assets out of their control so I moved half and started self managing and trading. I was a monkey with a loaded gun but somehow managed to beat the market handily. Megacorp went downhill after 08; the culture became shark infested, I was just trying to stay low. Eventually everyone turned chickenchit and it all went to crazy town.

I was going hide for two more years and retire in 2014. The fear based culture became increasingly bad, my VP was terrified of his boss the CIO. He showed me his leadership skills at 14 hours into a system outage caused by the customer. The next day I scheduled a meeting with my Fidelity representative; his opinion was another 10 months contributions didn't mean much over my 40 year plan.

I knew my manager would be out of town a day next week so I would have to talk to his boss, the VP. We chatted, he expected me to hit him up for more money, not resign. He asked if I was interested in contract work. I politely declined. He was 50 years old and recently divorced expecting to work till 70. He was RIFFED the next pass.

 

[SeanPizzle]

I have some golden handcuffs on and vesting about 20K per month in ISOs until mid 2022. It's a material amount and I will be 53 and I have told my wife that is when I hang up the high stress career.

 

[racy]

In college I learned thru the Magic of Compound Interest that investment returns would outpace my contributions after awhile. So, I invested early & stayed with it.

I enjoyed my mega corp job up until the point I was given an international project on top of my regular responsibilities. It wasn't fun. Then I came to the realization "I don't have to do this anymore"! Retired at 60: 7 years, 3 months and 9 days ago...

 

[Perryinva]

This site made me a lot more relaxed and comfortable about making my retirement decision, even though I was not RE by default. My own home brewed plans really didn’t start until 2009 when the crash seemed finally over. Before that it was aways 2 steps forward, 1 step back, so I just doggedly kept saving towards a “save as much as I can for as long as I can and hope for the best”, knowing my pension & SS would always allow us to at least live ok. Pension & employer discounted HC were the big factors for me, timing wise, as I really didn’t have realistic date or even faith that I could put aside my estimated number, which would allow me to have an after tax equivalent of my salary for life. That meant age 60 at the earliest.

But I really did enjoy my work, so it wasn’t a problem until more & more family, friends & acquaintances died unexpectedly and the more typical “how many years left healthy enough to do stuff” became a lot more real. Then some good financial moves, (saving until it hurt, higher risk investing etc), the bull run, promotion, home appreciation sales, and suddenly I was staring at my number on the spreadsheet and I was 58. Of course, I knew that could go up & down, so I figured an extra 20% for safety and the OMY started. The ERPs came about every 8-10 years and we were due soon, so I decided either the next ERP or age 63 to decide.

An ERP at age 62 would have been perfect and it came at age 61 & 4 months, close enough. Been retired exactly a year, (getting full severance pay the whole time) and since practically everyone I enjoyed working with took the same package, my couple of friends still there said all the life was sucked out of the department now, & it’s mostly a paperwork nightmare of putting out fires. Glad I left, and we’ve been enjoying retirement except for all the cancelled travel plans.

 

[goingtotravel]

Perfectly timed topic so thank you for starting this thread. Still fighting OMY syndrome but my doctor is strongly advising I retire due to medical issues that have been getting worse due to stress. But really the BS bucket is full and I'm burnt out after over 30 years. I am not eligible with all benefits until next year so hanging on until then (age 56). DH is in a similar situation also planning to retire the end of this year or early next year at 56.

FIRECALC gives us 100% success with a very generous budget. Our pensions+FERS supplement then SS will cover 70% of our budget. Our TSP accounts cover the rest plus some splurging with a very conservative AA.

Still it's hard to switch our mindset and feel comfortable that we can live off our pension and savings even when all the calculators tell us we are OK. We have been tracking our budget closely for a few years and the numbers all work out even with travel and house repairs. Six of my coworkers have announced their retirement dates in the next year but I have been hesitant to announce mine 'just in case' I want to w*rk longer.

We will get there. At least we've narrowed our RE down to a year, right?

 

[Perryinva]

Yea, and 56 is not old at all, so that’s still ER. Think of all the people that both cannot FIRE, or even worse (?) those that can and are totally unaware of, or paralyzed by fear to go. There is no doubt, knowing what I know now, that could I have all the benefits, income & portfolio I had at 60, @56 I’d have been gone. Yet at 56, that seemed almost impossible. (Of course I knew I was working longer to let DW retiRe early at 55). Good for you all. Golden handcuffs are a great description. Greed, fear & OMY drove me the last few years, so I am thankful the early out package came when it did. There was a bump to my pension was an unexpected bonus, so that helped.

 

[jkern]

My plan was to retire between 51 and 55 depending how much money I felt comfortable with. I was laid off at 51 with severance/unemployment equaling about 2 1/2 years worth. So I decided to retire at 51.

 

[Cobra9777]

I retired in 2013 at 52, when the magic number first appeared in my spreadsheet. I probably could have retired 5 years earlier at 47, but that was 2008. The financial world was imploding. I made some rather lucky defensive moves in the portfolio early in 2008, so we sidestepped much of the carnage. But it was still a spooky time to be thinking about ER.

In addition, I wanted the plan to work assuming no SS. Seems kind of dumb now. But I guess that was my "pad" and I spent 5 years building it up.

But perhaps most importantly... at 47, DS had just started college and DD was still in high school. They would overlap for a couple years and we were paying for college out of regular cash flow.

So, despite a fairly toxic work situation, I slogged it out to 52 when DD had only one year of college left and the financial meltdown was fading into the history books.

 

[Arizona1]

I was driving away from my CPA’s office after being told the capital gains taxes on the trailer park I’d sold in 99 was $40,000 to fed & $18,000 to state when I saw a brand new border patrol suburban pulling up to the light. I thought I probably just bought that for the feds.
On the way home I stopped at a grocery store just south of Tucson and saw our tax money being scammed through the system.
I decided to quit my full time job, sell all my rentals and stop participating. Not anything negative but you can only take advantage of someone so much before the don’t want to play anymore.
It was 2000 and I was 34yo. I wish I would have wised up sooner.

 

[Shredder]

I was fired in 04. Not fire, but let go after my 3rd back operation.

I was not prepared at age 49, but made the best of it. My DW worked a few more years, but living below our means and investing saved us. Eventually I qualified for SSD and that was a big help that mostly got invested. It also helped that the times were right market wise.

Now we're worth much more than those rather bleak years. And while we're not rich we do well enough, and are no longer stressed.

While my story is not typical here, it does give me a unique perspective and it's somewhat amusing to read of others struggling with the big decision, while sitting on a huge (to me) nest egg.

 

[Hyper]

Our state was hit by the great recession a cpl yrs later than most. The previous owner's son took over the co and was somewhat of a spoiled playboy that put many of his unqualified buddies in higher positions not to mention that the company was already yrs into the politically correct crap where every employee gets a first place ribbon. The position I was in was to fix problems which was an ok job until all the above mentioned set in. I was absolutely miserable and although despised working there, I had never been without a job that worked many, many hrs a week. DW could see it and said your done! I could have stayed but let things evolve. I was 45 yr old. Now I believe I could have left sooner but not sure I had the maturity to leave sooner. Blessed beyond belief by the good Lord!

 

[DAYDREAMER]

Megacorp opened the escape hatch with a Voluntary Layoff in 2016 (I was 51), of which, included a severence package, and still qualified to take pension at 55. DW and my 401k/savings were overfilling, and just needed to meet the pension rules to pull the chute. Well, VLO was the rip chord that enabled that. DW was offered the same VLO one year later, and her package included healthcare for both of us until Medicare kicked in at age 65.

Here we are 4 years later in retirement bliss with both pensions started, and a 1% withdrawal rate from investments/savings.

+ Neither one of us defined ourselves from our job. It was just a means to an end.

 

[JustVisitingThisPlanet]

Fidelity has another good retirement calculator that anyone can use. You have to at least create a basic guest account but don't have to have any financial accts with them. It has some more conservative scenarios than FIRECalc so if you pass on most conservative scenarios, retiring might work out for you.

 

[Rustic23]

Short answer, I found this site!

Longer answer, DW is/was a school teacher, and I retired military with a good after mil. Retirement job. We bought a lake lot and built our retirement home with the idea we would weekend for several years. We lasted less than one Year and it was information, and discussions here that Allowed it, along with an increasing desire to never leave the back deck!

 

[4nursebee]

Great stuff everyone!
I am envious of the healthcare benefits for some of the early retirees, that is the big factor keeping me working (for now).

 

[swakyaby]

If you FIREd, how did you time quitting work with your desired asset level? Right away?

Wait a year for security? Worked a few more years for some economic benefit such as a pension?

At age 47, I thought about a life plan for my spouse and myself that accounted for FIRE, Medicare, RMDs, when to draw SS, and other financially significant milestones. Admittedly, desired asset levels was a moving target because the cost of paying for healthcare before Medicare was a large unknown. My crystal ball said age 57 would be the approximate age when I would be midway between lean FIRE and fat FIRE. But the long bull market took me to the fat FIRE asset level at age 56, so I gave 6 months notice in 2017 and retired Dec 2017.

I experienced a great sense of relief. The timing felt right. There was so much changing in healthcare—the ever-increasing government regulations, the electronic health record with its data-mining and punitive financial threats, the ever-rising costs of maintaining certifications to practice medicine, additional special taxes to higher income individuals to pay for the ACA, coupled with lower government reimbursements for my services. Like Arizona1 said earlier, I decided it was time to stop playing the game.

 

[Jerseytunahunter]

We have not yet pulled the trigger but talk about it all the time. My wife (teacher) and I (business owner) have the means to retire today but enjoy what we do and are ok going OMY. Ironically, COVID has been a real eye opener as far as FIRE. We have been living at our shore house for the last 3 months working remotely. We always planned to retire here, but now not so sure. Granted, the weather has been lousy and everything is closed, but some weeks feel like a month long. Also, we love to travel and were planning on one trip/month in retirement. Who knows what the future of travel will hold? I don't know if it's quarantine fatigue or what but I'm more confused about FIRE now than I've ever been. I'm 57, DW is 56.

 

[street]

Always an interesting topic when it comes up. My plan was to retire around 55 but I enjoyed my work and was very involved in all aspects of the business I stayed till I was 58.
How I finally made the decision to retire was my wife saying one day, that you know you could of retired years ago, why are you still working. Lol

That got me running running numbers and found this site a year before I finally did it. It was the best move I have ever done and wish I would of done it when I was 55 instead of waiting. The thing was I was having fun enjoyed going to work and doing my job.

 

[samm]

How did you decide to FIRE?

- Planned to retire after private pension eligibility at 57.
- At 57 I decided to keep working as long as work was not too bad
- By age 58-59 my new bosses were laying off many and getting mean in order to boost division profits and their profit-sharing bonuses
- Work became difficult due to deteriorating culture and fear of layoffs
- 59.5. Decided to go
- My employer really changed over the prior 20 years from so-so to worse

 

[Alex The Great]

Great stuff everyone!
I am envious of the healthcare benefits for some of the early retirees, that is the big factor keeping me working (for now).

Same here. I definitely would qualify for ACA subsidies and it is really not a money issue. The problem is too many descent doctors (especially PCP) in SF Bay Area where I live do not accept anyone with insurance from marketplace or Medicaid. It really scare me out of any retirement, not just early retirement.

 

[VFK57]

I planned to retire by age 58 but due to health issues (medication made me drowsy and light headed while constantly working on construction sites of 6' to 12' ladders) needed to retire at 55.