How did you finish when you hit FI earlier than planned?

[scrabbler1]

I was already on a glide path toward ER when I switched to working PT back in 2001 after working FT for 16 years. I had set up my first spreadsheet to see how I could pull off an actual ER but didn't have the company stock as valuable as I needed it to be although its value was rising quickly. I planned to cash it out and invest it in a bond fund which would generate enough monthly dividends with a decent cushion to cover my expenses.


Fast forward a few years and by 2006 the stock value was getting close to my desired amount. By early 2007, I was pretty sure it would get there in 2008 so I made a second reduction in my weekly hours worked in anticipation that I would be able to ER by the end of 2008. I didn't expect to get to this point so quickly, but the pieces were falling into place.


I stay pretty much to myself. I am single and childfree, but I am in a LTR with a woman since 2004. I have some volunteer work which was tough to schedule around working even part-time. That obstacle disappeared after I ERed. My even square dancing I could not really do on work days, so I was able to expand on that in ER. Most of my fellow dancers are retired (and much older), but they are only glad I can dance with them more.

 

[pb4uski]

Good problem, right?

- ....How did you type A's wind it down?

- .... Who did you play with??

- .... Was your spouse ready for you to be around, particularly if your are a type A person?

- ....Did any of you have to really educate your spouse on how the world changes when you go from accumulation to living off your assets?

As the say in talk radio, "I will hang up and listen"

Your are right... it is a good problem to have.

I guess that my Type A-ness dwindled over time as I got older and intentionally plateaued my career rather than keeping reaching for the stars. When I was 45 I declined a lucrative partnership opportunity because it looked like a lot of hard work and to be honest, I was already close to FI and didn't think I woud be around long enough to make it worthwhile.... jokes on me... I stayed another 11 years... but that was because I liked the work, the people I worked with and they treated and compensated me nicely.

I never thought about who I would play with even though I was aware of this potential issue from a friend who retired at 50 and found that to be a problem. As it turns out, we have befriended a number of people who retired about the same time that I did... all are older... one friend and I kid that he could be my dad since I was born the same year that he lost his virginity... but we all get along well and have fun. One striking revalation... our friends include a wide variety of folks from a bank CEO, a bank CFO to a painter... and all sorts of in betweens... at least in our group of friends, nobody cares a rat's tail what you did prior to retirement... we're all just here to have fun and we all get along well.

In my case since I was working from home other than occasional business travel, DW was prepared for my being home all the time.

Similar to you, my DW has little interest in finances... she just asked me if we could do it, I said yes and that was the end of it.

 

[kcowan]

I was a mid-level executive for megacorp when I got an early retirement opportunity at age 49. I took my discounted pension and then hung out my single to find consulting work. With 2 exceptions, every consulting engagement lead to an offer for a C-suite position. I took them all because what did I know? They all proved to be very satisfying and lucrative.

But when I hit 60 (after an expensive divorce), I decided it was time to go. DW was not ready but I said I wanted a playmate and she agreed. So we worked through the finances for a couple of years and concluded that we would be OK provided that I kept doing aggressive equity portfolio management as a part-time occupation.

The portfolio cooperated and after 3 years, we decided that could afford to go with buy-and-hold. We were constantly upping our spend to match our "riches" but never kept up. Part of this was a mutual desire to relocate to Mexico for the winter which turned out to be a fantastic financial decision.

So I would say that you need to be flexible and look for breakthrough financial choices if you stumble upon them. Always remain flexible. You might be amazed! We are.

 

[rodi]

I hit my number about 3 years early... Planned to retire at 55, but hit the number at 52. DH had just retired and was not ready for me to retire. I handle the finances in our household - and he was very nervous that my desire to retire was more about wanting to stop working and less about hitting the number...

I showed him all the calculator outputs... Showed him the quicken lifetime planner. We went in and ran the plan through Schwab's retirement program with the Schwab advisor. That last one convinced him. (He trusted her, but not me?)

I had always been busy outside of work and still had (have) kids under roof... so having stuff to do was never an issue... as it was work was interfering with the activities I wanted to do.

I signed up for classes at my local community college to make sure I wasn't in DH's hair too much for our adjustment... 3 semesters of Italian later I had picked up some travel language skills and was also confident that DH and I wouldn't kill each other.

As for market corrections imminent. Maybe. Maybe not. I was convinced the market would crash as soon as I retired... It didn't. But running a back tested calculator like Firecalc can help you figure out if you'll survive a bad sequence of returns. (Significant down market early in the retirement increases chance of failure compared to down markets later in your retirement.)