I don't want to assume that my situation and experience will be identical to a majority of other FIRE candidates, but, from my extensive reading on this and other like forums, my experience feels comparable to many and well aligned in both circumstance and execution. A few observations that I hope will be helpful (and not just cathartic for me.) I retired Oct 26, 2018 at 59 and, as I recently discussed with an intimate friend and financial planner, haven't regretted even a single moment of this first retirement year albeit one big lesson learned- if you're going to retire in northern climates consider late winter early spring as your launch date. Retiring in late summer or autumn means reduced daylight, cold temps, and a lot more indoor time for the all important first 6 months of adjustment. My wife is retired as well. Skipping to the end of this story, I'm going back to work. On my terms, for a year or so. I have started a retirement blog (which I won't share here) but wanted to share a summary for those that are considering FIRE. The first year experience is important to analyze and lends a bit of reflection on years of FIRE planning.
How many times have we all read (in one form or another) two important guiding thoughts regarding early retirement:
- Be sure to retire "to" something vs only retiring "from" something
- If you're bored with work in your life don't think it will be come less boring without work.
These are both ideas that require more than a little consideration. Having a life plan going into FIRE is critical, executing that plan and sticking to it in a way that creates a durable and engrained lifestyle is another challenge all together.
The Plan: Over 30+ years we had saved enough (combination of 401K, pensions, investments, social security and annuities) that the predictive retirement tools all forecasted a more than sufficient cashflow through our 90s. Zero debt was a critical part of our plan. I don't believe sleep in retirement comes easy to those that still have a mortgage or substantial debt to consider. We coordinated a substantial post-tax savings to supplement our income so we could offset our monthly living costs while utilizing the Affordable Care Act. This is a really "be careful" effort, you don't want to fall off the ACA cliff, the financial consequences are significant.
The days: In my working career (especially the last 25 years) I traveled internationally 50%+ of the time. Always away from home, my "to do" list was massive; small but important things mostly. Critical items that popped up during working years were always handled by my wife with trusted tradesmen and an amazing outlay of cash. After an initial 2 months of allowing the dust to settle and recovering from the PTSD of 30 years of work in the tech industry, I seriously began to organize my new life according to my pre-FIRE plan. As previously mentioned, the winter months of initial retirement presented an interesting set of challenges, but indoor projects, some volunteering, guitar practice, reading, and woodworking mostly filled my days. When you start to do the "reality math" around getting up at 7-8AM (sleeping-in is always fine but difficult to get up at 10AM and start a fulfilling day) and busying your day till 6PM(-ish) that's 70 hours per week. In a typical working environment you would occupy the time between 6PM to 10PM with many of those enjoyable personal pursuits and "to-dos," that's 28 hours a week. Filling ~70 hours of what was work time every week, 280 hours per month with your "plan" can be very challenging. Once again, I don't regret a single moment of relaxed retirement, but this is a challenge to be recognized. Retirement means every day is essentially a weekend where as the working life differentiates the days.
Communications and interactions: The effort to foster a collegial environment amongst diverse colleagues in a work setting consumes many hours (no matter your career type) and answers, even stresses our needs for human contact, communication, and daily interactions. Retirement shuts off that source immediately. How nice it was though to extricate myself from the seemingly inane responsibilities of maintaining lines of communications and many relationships based only on the commonality and stresses of work. You begin to notice that your work and working relationships was much of what you discussed with your friends and significant others. There's a myriad of other things to discuss, but while others are still entangled with career problems, your conversation injections about fun retirement things feel less substantive. People always smile and acknowledge how difficult it must be to "not get up before 11AM." That's just an observation and I'm fully immune to feeling sorry that I'm retired, but everyone considering FIRE should understand post retirement communication and relationships; social media cannot replace pre-retirement communications and your friends typically aren't going to be able to enjoy your new FIRE retirement activities with you.
Finances: While we have stuck to the aforementioned financial plan and, in fact, spent less than anticipated in year one, we are finding a desire to plan more elective spending. We are firm believers that retirement spend is really focused on the years 60-75, a time when you want to and have the health and motivation for an active lifestyle. It's not that I assume one becomes a hermit or succumbs to an inactive lifestyle after 75, but, well, you get it. The calculations that my financial-self has done suggests that we consider more post tax, exclusive of retirement funding for elective spend. It would be good to have additional funds to tranche across those years 60-75. You can never have enough but you can get really close. Moral- you typically, inevitably find you wish for more in retirement than what pre-FIRE calculations allow. Many will say they are happy with just being out of the working environment or that a yearly low cost trip to the Carolinas is enough. Those contented folks have my utmost admiration and I have no comments to make about their real, enduring happiness. For many others this is a consideration that bears some thought.
Relationships- My wife and adult children are my best friends. There are many other interesting friends and aquaintences that I enjoyably share my life with but, again, most are not available to share your fun day to day retirement experiences. The dynamic of husband and wife moving from pre-FIRE cohabitation to all-in 24/7 deserves a bit of examination. For many, the post-FIRE relationship will take on new dimensions; don't expect the significant other to be appreciative of your reorganizing the spice cabinet nor will putting the golf clubs in a "better place" be appreciated. While division of labor and territory become more pertinent pursuits, the topic of "me time" becomes almost critical. Whether it is providing for uninterupted and/or private time for one's personal pursuits or acknowledging that their daily nap is sacrosanct, having an official and on-going dialogue about these requirements will save a lot of difficulties and reduce adjustment time. Assuring that you have a plan for a mutual sharing and caring day per week: lunch, museums, movie, etc., can be a glorious and essential part of your new relationship.
Conclusion- Enjoyed all 525,000 minutes of retirement so far. There have been some significant reflections on and adjustments to the pre-FIRE plan that I spent years on. For those that find commonality in my working background and the first year story I have laid out, you may want to factor in these considerations to your decision. For those that aren't of similar circumstance or those that are just contented to be out of the workforce and enjoying retirement minute to minute, good on you and God speed! To be my best self in retirement, I have decided to take advantage of some working and consultation offers. The reality of the situation is probably I will answer a couple requirements over the next year(ish); convince myself again that I was "stress" paralyzed by and unhappy with my work, find that extra cashflow that will permit more splurges, and quench that little voice inside my head that quietly, subliminally says there's still more for you to do. A full year off and then toes back in the water on my terms, that's my best self.
How many times have we all read (in one form or another) two important guiding thoughts regarding early retirement:
- Be sure to retire "to" something vs only retiring "from" something
- If you're bored with work in your life don't think it will be come less boring without work.
These are both ideas that require more than a little consideration. Having a life plan going into FIRE is critical, executing that plan and sticking to it in a way that creates a durable and engrained lifestyle is another challenge all together.
The Plan: Over 30+ years we had saved enough (combination of 401K, pensions, investments, social security and annuities) that the predictive retirement tools all forecasted a more than sufficient cashflow through our 90s. Zero debt was a critical part of our plan. I don't believe sleep in retirement comes easy to those that still have a mortgage or substantial debt to consider. We coordinated a substantial post-tax savings to supplement our income so we could offset our monthly living costs while utilizing the Affordable Care Act. This is a really "be careful" effort, you don't want to fall off the ACA cliff, the financial consequences are significant.
The days: In my working career (especially the last 25 years) I traveled internationally 50%+ of the time. Always away from home, my "to do" list was massive; small but important things mostly. Critical items that popped up during working years were always handled by my wife with trusted tradesmen and an amazing outlay of cash. After an initial 2 months of allowing the dust to settle and recovering from the PTSD of 30 years of work in the tech industry, I seriously began to organize my new life according to my pre-FIRE plan. As previously mentioned, the winter months of initial retirement presented an interesting set of challenges, but indoor projects, some volunteering, guitar practice, reading, and woodworking mostly filled my days. When you start to do the "reality math" around getting up at 7-8AM (sleeping-in is always fine but difficult to get up at 10AM and start a fulfilling day) and busying your day till 6PM(-ish) that's 70 hours per week. In a typical working environment you would occupy the time between 6PM to 10PM with many of those enjoyable personal pursuits and "to-dos," that's 28 hours a week. Filling ~70 hours of what was work time every week, 280 hours per month with your "plan" can be very challenging. Once again, I don't regret a single moment of relaxed retirement, but this is a challenge to be recognized. Retirement means every day is essentially a weekend where as the working life differentiates the days.
Communications and interactions: The effort to foster a collegial environment amongst diverse colleagues in a work setting consumes many hours (no matter your career type) and answers, even stresses our needs for human contact, communication, and daily interactions. Retirement shuts off that source immediately. How nice it was though to extricate myself from the seemingly inane responsibilities of maintaining lines of communications and many relationships based only on the commonality and stresses of work. You begin to notice that your work and working relationships was much of what you discussed with your friends and significant others. There's a myriad of other things to discuss, but while others are still entangled with career problems, your conversation injections about fun retirement things feel less substantive. People always smile and acknowledge how difficult it must be to "not get up before 11AM." That's just an observation and I'm fully immune to feeling sorry that I'm retired, but everyone considering FIRE should understand post retirement communication and relationships; social media cannot replace pre-retirement communications and your friends typically aren't going to be able to enjoy your new FIRE retirement activities with you.
Finances: While we have stuck to the aforementioned financial plan and, in fact, spent less than anticipated in year one, we are finding a desire to plan more elective spending. We are firm believers that retirement spend is really focused on the years 60-75, a time when you want to and have the health and motivation for an active lifestyle. It's not that I assume one becomes a hermit or succumbs to an inactive lifestyle after 75, but, well, you get it. The calculations that my financial-self has done suggests that we consider more post tax, exclusive of retirement funding for elective spend. It would be good to have additional funds to tranche across those years 60-75. You can never have enough but you can get really close. Moral- you typically, inevitably find you wish for more in retirement than what pre-FIRE calculations allow. Many will say they are happy with just being out of the working environment or that a yearly low cost trip to the Carolinas is enough. Those contented folks have my utmost admiration and I have no comments to make about their real, enduring happiness. For many others this is a consideration that bears some thought.
Relationships- My wife and adult children are my best friends. There are many other interesting friends and aquaintences that I enjoyably share my life with but, again, most are not available to share your fun day to day retirement experiences. The dynamic of husband and wife moving from pre-FIRE cohabitation to all-in 24/7 deserves a bit of examination. For many, the post-FIRE relationship will take on new dimensions; don't expect the significant other to be appreciative of your reorganizing the spice cabinet nor will putting the golf clubs in a "better place" be appreciated. While division of labor and territory become more pertinent pursuits, the topic of "me time" becomes almost critical. Whether it is providing for uninterupted and/or private time for one's personal pursuits or acknowledging that their daily nap is sacrosanct, having an official and on-going dialogue about these requirements will save a lot of difficulties and reduce adjustment time. Assuring that you have a plan for a mutual sharing and caring day per week: lunch, museums, movie, etc., can be a glorious and essential part of your new relationship.
Conclusion- Enjoyed all 525,000 minutes of retirement so far. There have been some significant reflections on and adjustments to the pre-FIRE plan that I spent years on. For those that find commonality in my working background and the first year story I have laid out, you may want to factor in these considerations to your decision. For those that aren't of similar circumstance or those that are just contented to be out of the workforce and enjoying retirement minute to minute, good on you and God speed! To be my best self in retirement, I have decided to take advantage of some working and consultation offers. The reality of the situation is probably I will answer a couple requirements over the next year(ish); convince myself again that I was "stress" paralyzed by and unhappy with my work, find that extra cashflow that will permit more splurges, and quench that little voice inside my head that quietly, subliminally says there's still more for you to do. A full year off and then toes back in the water on my terms, that's my best self.
