FIRE in 4-6 years; what do you wish you'd done at this stage

[jollystomper]

This might repeat what a few other have said. tow key things I did in the 4-6 years before retirement:

1) Spend money on major, likely one--time home renovations. For us it was better to do this with current income, as our savings rate was hitting 40%. We did things like new roof, new drive, bathroom renovations, etc. Those items we likely will not have to spend money on again. We probably could have done new appliances even though most were about 5 years old when I retired, but we figured we would still have to replace them in 10-15 years so we just added that to our retirement budget.

2) Built up our desired cash stash to have 3-5 years of withdrawals as to not to be forced to sell equities to get cash. This has served us well in the last 3.5 years.

 

[statsman]

Avoid getting laid off, like so many of my fellow 50+ year-old co-workers during the timespan from 2008-2014.

 

[Car-Guy]

In my case, I wish I would have retired then... Could have and should have. I had enough (and I think I knew it) but played to safe. YMMV.

 

[Hermes]

Thanks. What were the big expenses that went up that caused your expenses to go up 3x?