How long was your glide path? What advice can you share?

[CO-guy]

For some, the glide path is a period leading up to FIRE. For others, it seems that it's a time after FIRE. At 52, I view it as the latter based on my own circumstances.

My FIRE date was about six months ago. I had every intention of leaving the day after my resignation was effective, but now I'm back part-time (half-time pay plus benefits for ~10h/wk remote). I don't need the income, but it was too good an offer to turn down.

I run a consulting business where I'm (usually) the sole consultant. My planned glide path is 5-years to taper off my consulting work. I started last year by raising my fees and focusing on the most lucrative work, which has boosted my income even further with fewer hours of my time. But what happens in 4.5 years when things don't taper-off naturally?

While my portfolio is bit light and real estate heavy, I'm currently in a position where rentals and passive income cover the monthlies. My better half will be continuing in her role for another 7 years, so in theory I could just stop consulting and quit the part-time. But I don't feel like anything I'm doing is getting in the way of my fun. Of all the things related to FIRE, this is an area that confuses me. Do I keep pricing myself out of the market until I'm replaced? I surely don't plan on doing anything unenjoyable, but what if I keep enjoying what I'm doing? Why stop then?

 

[Car-Guy]

About 2 years. I didn't hate my job but rarely looked forward to going to work, especially the last 3 to 5 years. About 2 years before I retired I knew I was easily FI, but, I also realized I could come close to doubling my NW by continuing to work for another two years, so I did. It was a simple trade off for me. I did less and was paid more (a lot more) the last few years I worked than anytime in my career. I spent more time counting my money and calculating/projecting my income each day than doing anything for the company.

 

[old medic]

About 3 years. I had hit the date that I could step off the train and get 100% of my pension. But kept plugging along adding more time and salary to the pension equation, and more into 401 nest egg. I loved what I did, but the BS kept getting deeper.

 

[bloom2708]

I am 52, heading toward 53. I am currently CoastFIREing in a pretty easy position.

My wife is dabbling at the church preschool part time.

I am coasting as kid 3 is currently a sophomore in HS. Hoping to hit the brakes when she is off to college. Kids 1 and 2 will be fully launched.

You can coast as long as it takes. No rules. Time it up with some milestone or just keep werking if you want to.

 

[RetiredHappy]

I wanted to work until I reached 62 but just stepped off the treadmill at 53 when my husband said we should sell the business and retire. Our business sale closed 3 months later and we were done. I had planned to go back to work in some capacity a year later but I had too much fun being retired that I never went back. Having enough money to retire was never an issue even when we were working so there was no financial pressure to get back to work.

 

[pacergal]

Now that I think about it, Mine was about 10 years.
I was fully vested with 100% pension at age 54 after 30 years, but I wasn't ready then and my contract had a small article (that many did not read) where if you had been hired before a certain year, had worked 30 years, and were age 60, you could retire with your full medical insurance paid 100% until age 65. It was worth it to continue.
So I worked 6 more years until I retired, then worked on call for 4 more.

So I have been completely retired/no work for the last 3 years. Wonderful!

 

[Onda]

Took me 1 day in 2022 and with 7 digit portfolio growth in 2023 I rather focus on other things.

 

[Koolau]

Relayed in other threads, I became FI at 51 (pension/retiree health vested) plus my yearly investment results typically exceeded my salary. BUT I was enjoying the "niche" I had created for myself at Megacorp (so I stayed until 58.) I've always suspected that Megacorp finally realized I was "happy" at my w*rk and decided "We can't have THAT!" So they informed me that I would be doing something I didn't want to do from then on. I said "No, I won't. My last day is Friday." So was my glide path after FI or that last few days after I gave my notice? I don't know the answer and YMMV.

 

[rk911]

My dad died from a heart attack in 1969 when he was 48. He was rail thin but smoked like a chimney. At least he died on the golf course doing what he loved.

I was worried as I approached 48 (1998) but a stress test and exam showed my heart was in good shape. I was heavy but did not smoke or drink coffee or alcohol. Stress was my issue. I resolved to retire at in 2000 when I turned 50 but certainly no later than age 55.

I started educating myself about SS and pension benefits...when each could kick in and calculating/estimating $ amounts. I started looking at health care options and learned that I could stay on my employers group policy until I turned 65 as long as I paid the premium. We had records in Auicken about what we spend going back years which enabled me to estimate post-retirement expenses. The only debt we had in 1998 was a 15-yr mortgage which we were already working to pay off early.

Two-years later I was mentally ready but couldn't convince the employer to pony up the extra $ to the retirement system...essentially 5-yrs worth of their share of pension payments. Our mortgage was all but paid off but it was not to be.

Over the next 5-years we continued to invest and save, save and invest. I kept updating a spreadsheet with new figures on SS, pensions (my wife was also planning to boogie at 55) and expenses. The mortgage went buh-bye in 2001 or 2002 (THAT was a glorious feeling...100% debt free!). Age 55 was the earliest I could retire in my pension system without any special hoops the employer would have to jump through...but I would lose .5% in pension benefit for every year I was younger than 60 (2.5%). That was manageabke. So in February of 2005 I gave 6-mos notice.

That was the longest 6-mos of my life! My replacement shadowed me for a few weeks. They threw me a very nice retirement party on my 55th birthday, which was a Thursday. The next day I turned in my keys, picked up my next to last paystub, said my final goodbyes and walked into retirement. The next morning my wife and I left on planned 10-12 week RV trip. When we returned home in October I was in full retirement mode.

I'm in my 20th year of retirement and loving it. Our income is from SS and pensions. Still living waaay beneath our means. With two exceptions and RMDs (RMDs go to charity via DAF and QCD) we have not taken any withdrawls from our investment accounts.

No regrets, no looking back. I was 285-lbs when I retired. Today, I was 202 after my shower. I've had a few health issues lately (prostate surgery in July and now a pinched nerve) but, overall...Life isn't good. Life is great!

 

[MarieIG]

Well OP - it seems to me you're basically there. You are FI - and are doing what you want. As long as you want to consult - consult - and when you don't - don't.

 

[brett]

My glide path was six weeks. The time between when I was advised a package was coming and when I actually got it. I was thrilled. I had been anticipating one for the past 18 months.

What did we do in those six weeks besides starting to clean out my desk?

First was engaging a lawyer to negotiate a better package. Took no time because I had done the research and knew who I wanted to engage.

Second was deciding that we did not want to stay in our home. Too large, too much upkeep, needed some renos. That took all of 2 minutes.

Third was deciding to downsize, sell, and travel internationally for 9-12 months while homeless, placing our belongings in storage. That took about 10 minutes. The bigger issue was where to start, where to go. We both had bucket lists for that.

That took up the first two weeks. The rest was spent deciding what to do to prepare our home for sale, moving as much as possible to email, and shopping for a reliable container/storage firm.

I believe that the short glide path and that busy post retirement period helped enormously to ease us into retirement, change our respective mindsets, and transition us into a different lifestyle altogether. Everything happened quickly. Our home sold within a week, possession was six weeks later. Before we knew it the storage container was in our driveway and we only had a few days to fill it. We staged a fair amount in our garage in preparation for it's delivery.

The financial, investment, and tax considerations were all in place prior to to the early retirement date. From that perspective we were ready and willing to go. The sooner the better!
Our respective wills were up to date. We had changed investment advisors and consolidated our investments to make it easy for DW in case I fell off my perch. Until then I had managed all the finances, the numbers.

My advice.....have your financial ducks in a row a few years prior. Always be thinking about what you want to do, what changes you wish to make to your lifestyle. It was easy for us because we were both used to change. We both worked in environments that were always changing, we traveled frequently, and we had moved cities a few times for work opportunities. Forget about the poor me business and get on with your future life. No need to live in the past as it were. Be flexible and embrace the positive change that early retirement can bring to your life.

 

[W2R]

Mine was 10 years. I knew exactly what day I was going to retire - - the first day when I was allowed to retire with retirement benefits, which was 10 years after I was first hired. I needed the federal retiree health insurance since there was no ACA to depend upon back then, and private insurance was frightfully expensive.

Since I always knew my retirement date, there was no question in my mind. I was a little floored during my last year when I realized that my retirement date was on a Saturday, because I didn't know if I could retire on the weekend. So, I retired two days later on a Monday.

No desire whatsoever to work even one day longer than I had to work.

When I first came to this forum, my chosen username was Want2Retire because of my intense desire to retire ASAP. And really, I did, two days extra or not. Life is awfully doggone good, y'know?

​

 

[jollystomper]

My "official" glide path ended up as 2 years and a few months. Here are my glide path adventures as they happened: https://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f28/omy-glide-path-plans-81406.html

 

[disneysteve]

I'm still gliding.


Since 2017 I have gone from full time (36 hrs) to part time in 2021 (24 hrs) to per diem in 2022. As a per diem, I can work as much or as little as I want. We have a minimal requirement of 24 hours every 12 weeks, so basically 8 hrs/month. For the past year or so I've mostly been doing 8 hrs/wk, sometimes 4, a couple of times 12, and several weeks none. My plan for 2024 is to aim to average 4 hrs/wk instead of 8.


I'm extremely fortunate to have a job that is incredibly flexible in that way. All I have to do is pull up the list of open shifts in Teams and pick the ones I want to work. There are always plenty of open shifts, plus almost every day we get messages from people looking for coverage because something came up as well as last minute messages when someone calls out for some reason. Finding 4 hours/wk to work is like finding a needle in a stack of needles.


My advice? If you enjoy what you're doing and it still gives you ample time to enjoy life, that's fine. I just worked today for the first time in 10 days and at a site where I haven't been for a few months and everyone was super excited to see me. I got a very nice greeting and it was nice to catch up with everyone. I enjoy the socialization aspect of the job almost as much as the financial aspect. As long as that continues to be true, I'll keep at it for a while. And only working 4-8 hours per week (or zero) obviously gives me loads of time to do everything else I want to do with my life.

 

[Gumby]

The earliest I could have left work was a year and a half before I actually did. Primarily due to the need to secure retiree healthcare, which would not have been available if I left before then.

 

[FLSUnFIRE]

I don't really think of a glide path but the sequence of events was basically:


10/19: LNW hit 33.3 times my expenses -what I considered necessary for FI in my 40s
10-11/19: While traveling with my supervisor hinted that I will likely resign in 2020. (My plan was July 2020 but I was not specific)
Spring 2020: COVID uncertainty along with the market drop - told my supervisor I wasn't likely to leave as soon as I hinted.
Fall 2020: Market rebounded during the year (LNW never dropped below 31.5 times my expenses -trailing 12mo so some big 1-time expenses rolled off as my portfolio dropped). Decided July 2021 would be my FIRE date
3/2021: Discussed in confidence with my "work friend" that had been placed between me and my supervisor in a shuffling of positions. He was going to be leaving in July for a year on an assignment and the office planned for me to take over his duties (in addition to mine! )so I didn't want to cause complete pandemonium leaving at exactly the same time without warning.
5/2021: Verbally told my chain of my plans. They requested written notice so they could begin hiring process so I did (mistake looking back).
5-7/2021: Work squandered the opportunity for me to train someone/have an orderly transfer and also was slow to initiate hiring even though I tied my hands with the written resignation letter. I was even more demotivated and frustrated at the incompetency as I sincerely wanted to be helpful and not burn any bridges/leave a mess. I mentally retired and those 2 months were some of the longest of my life... I just wanted to be gone.
7/2021: Quit, and it was and is great. Coincidentally, it was the same week my work friend left on that assignment.

6/2023: Got a call out of the blue asking if I'd be interested in coming back PT. While not for the exact same position many of my old duties would likely have fallen on me as they had been rotating people in and out trying to find someone with the skills and ability to tolerate it since I left -still "vacant" and chaotic. I declined. Enjoying life too much for that #$@!% now.
Today: I don't know how I ever did it! The anal glaucoma has aggressively spread throughout my body in the last two and a half years.


ETA: Less of a glide path than a crash. While the marriage/divorce delayed my FIRE over the longer term, the divorce resulted in much lower living costs and once I sold the moneypit the amount I needed dropped by about 2/3 so I went from very not FI to very FI quite rapidly.

 

[Ronstar]

My glide path was about 12 years from 2002 to 2014. I wanted to retire in 2007, but DW wanted to hang on until 2014 for retiree healthcare, so I hung on working as little as possible.

Started on the path working about 60 hours per week, ending at 10-15 hours per week. This gave me a gradual transition into retirement. The last few years on the path gave me time to engage in hobbies and to practice / fine tune retirement expenses. Essentially retirement training camp. I was 100% retirement ready when I left work.

 

[DrRoy]

Mine was 9 months. I thought about part time but now I am so glad that I completely pulled the plug. In your spot, I would at least keep raising price and reducing hours.

 

[Lewis Clark]

Mine was three years. In the first year, I went from 100% down to 30%.

In the second and third years, I worked at about 15% of full time.

At the end of the third year I became unemployed. : )

 

[1242Vintage]

I had a very short glide path. Covid hit very early 2020, I sent all my employees home to work remote, and since the “fun” and challenge of work was gone wrapped up a few projects and retired 5 months later

Only thing that kept me at work as long as I did was one last promotion. I was chasing the position of Principal Engineer of our organization. Checked that box Fall of 2019 and retired May 2020.

 

[Flyfish1]

My path was about 8 years. I informed my medical partners in 2015 of my plans to slow down and retire by age 60. Jaws dropped across the room. Pretty funny actually looking back on it. Covid forced my hand a bit as the practice almost collapsed, but my plans did not. I was working with a super smart financial coach, at the time ( not Dave Ramsey..lol! ) and we figured the math out together that age 60 would work.

I remember going into surgery one day and an Orthopod said to me " Wow! you're like a guest Surgeon these days and I replied " Yep on a Glide Path". He got it and smiled.
I'm Blessed! Happy Holiday Everyone!

 

[FREE866]

Interesting question. Mine, in hindsight, was pretty abrupt.



Summer of 2016 on a conference call with clients I thought to myself " ugh I really don't want to be doing this anymore". Did some research, ran my numbers through a couple retirement calculators and was like OMG I think I can do this in a couple years.


Didn't wait that long. January 6, 2017 I walked out of the office for the last time.

One of the best days of my life!!

 

[intent]

I'm in a similar situation as the OP. I stopped working full-time in April 2021. My wife retired in Jan 2020. My plan, however, always included continuing with consulting work, which I am still doing.

I haven't put a timeline on how long I will continue consulting. I mean, I have multiple iterations of spreadsheets that include various timelines, but mainly I just use them to prepare for tax implications and model Roth conversions. I initially modeled up to 7 years of consulting. Now, I model it year-to-year because, after a couple of years of doing it I'm finding myself less and less interested in accepting projects. The work was never enjoyable, per se, but it wasn't very demanding and didn't bother me. It still isn't very demanding, but I'm finding that it's becoming more difficult to pull myself away from my hobbies just to make a bit more money. Especially as the extra money doesn't cover needs, only wants.

Basically, I feel like I've confirmed to myself the golden rule of FIRE - Once you've achieved the ability to be flexible, be flexible.

 

[big-papa]

About 2 years. I had always been monitoring things, but my last employer got a new CEO after the original retired after several decades. Nothing noticeable for about a year or so, then a lot of changes started happening in rapid succession - changes that many of the very long term employees were not really prepared for or happy about. And judging from the barrage of comments on glassdoor these days, they still aren't happy about...

Then my boss was let go and was replaced with somebody I knew very well. In our first 1:1 with him as my boss, he asked me directly what my glide-path was. I gave him a vague range of 6-12 months but told him that I'd stay as long as needed to find and train my replacement. That took longer than anybody expected and the result was such that I was able to vest in all of my 2022 and 2023 RSU's as well as corporate bonuses for both years. I retired in June.

So about 2 years from when I started to seriously think about an exit plan and about 15 months after the first 1:1 with the boss until I was out the door. He gave notice himself shortly after I left. I owe it all working out to the fact that my boss and I had developed a very good, mutually respectful working relationship over the years I was employed there and the fact that his own management was onboard with several extensions I requested before I finally pulled the plug. It had been quite a while since the last time I was able to leave an employer on my own terms and it felt great!

Cheers.

 

[KrisQuit]

My glide path was mostly accidental.

When the pandemic hit, we were all sent home to work and essentially sit on Zoom meetings for ten hours a day. As a leadership and organization development manager in HR, my workload quickly increased (developing solutions and working to implement new policies) to meet the challenges our staff were facing as the world shut down, schools went remote, services were difficult to find. We did not want to lose our talent, and we were working excessively long hours and weekends to keep the company moving forward.

A year of this, and I was burned out. I had planned for an early retirement for a long time, but now I was truly done, just waiting for 55 to get access to retiree health insurance. I gave six months' notice as I knew my position was difficult to fill (which they still didn't manage to fill), and I was ready to walk out.

Then I was asked back to consult for a year on a project near and dear to my heart (a few days a month at just a little over half my annual salary), and that became my glide path. I completed my contract, put some extra money in savings, and walked out the door, again.

I think from this, I would say that the glide path is best if it is not part of the financial plan, just a lessening of everything so there is a gentler transition from working life to retirement life. I am glad I did what I did. It wasn't always fun, but it certainly convinced me that I had made the right decision.