You should expect one or more 10% corrections in any given year. A 20 to 30% correction should be expected every 2 or 3 years. Fortunately, the nominal 50% drop in 2008/2009 usually only happens every 30 or 40 years. Up until now, the market has always come back in a reasonable period of time.
If you FIRE in January you get health insurance with the employer subsidy for a month. No big deal but....
I'm planning to pull the plug 5 Jan 2015 with one goal to take vacation over Christmas and New Years weeks. I also want to avoid any question on some company contributions to my SERP account that vests on 12/31/14. It's not a fortune but it's mine. Where's Scrooge McDuck when you need him!
The company has given people 2 weeks notice even when they are terminated for cause. If for cause, they get cash. Any RIFs have to come in for the money so who gets the better deal? In return we are asked to give 2 weeks notice when terminating. I'll do that and I will stay a bit longer if asked to smooth out any transition for my last project. This company has been very good to me when I needed the opportunity.
Thanks for reminding me that we are unlikely to see a 50% drop in stocks next year !
I'm going to use the total portfolio return approach, and keep balancing back to 38% to 40% stocks, with the rest in bonds/cash. If we have a bad sequence of returns, that will mean we will be living on bonds we sell, and cash, until stocks recover. Fortunately we have well over 10 years living expenses in bonds/cash, and pensions/social security will be coming in 6 to 10 years as reinforcements, depending on what social security timing strategies we wind up with.
I need to fess up a little - technically I'm FIRE 2015. I'm giving three notice the middle of December, so I can call myself a December 31, 2014 FIRE. Plenty of notice. Yes, they've been good to me, and so has the oil business lately. However, like you, I'm waiting until January 9th for the exit interview. There won't be any W*RKING days for me in 2015 other than that exit interview. I'm going to pick up the five days of monthly and annual flex time and floating holidays in January, be paid for staying home.
And of course get another month of COBRA, plus get my wife enrolled in some benefits she isn't enrolled in at the present. COBRA still looks like it could wind up being cheaper than the health insurance now available with the ACA if our income is too high for subsidies.
Plus I get paid for 6 weeks vacation for 2015 by staying until December 31st. It's amazing all the little treats you can pick up if you dig through the HR site, and their policies.
One thing I want to miss is the performance review cycle in February / March ! Why would I want to go through that for a raise I won't be able to use? I'll miss the April bonus too, but I'm ready to FIRE.