What income did you give up?

[Amethyst]

Some of us are compensated more than others - in terms of money. But nobody gets more than 24 hours in a day.

So from that perspective, those who capture more of those hours for their own lives, are the rich ones.

Amethyst

[Danmar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corporateburnout Are you kidding? If not he is the owner of the most valued NFL franchise the Dallas Cowboys....

Thanks. I know the NFL is really big in the US. But most of the rest of the world doesn't even know what NFL stands for or where Dallas is.

[MRG]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Danmar Thanks. I know the NFL is really big in the US. But most of the rest of the world doesn't even know what NFL stands for or where Dallas is.

Some things aren't worth knowing. JJ is one human I wish I heard a lot less about.

[hnzw_rui]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rodi 1) I made a WHOLE lot less than most of the folks here - but still managed to retire at age 52... does that make me a winner (for retiring so young) or a loser (for making sub 100k... by choice since I was 80% part time AND stayed off the management track by choice.)

You're a winner in my book. It's not all about the money. Work-life balance is also important. I see some in our management dealing with a bunch of political crap and suffering from burnout so I've got no desire or ambition to go higher.

I only started saving for retirement last year so I'm still working full time but I definitely plan on going on voluntary furlough (or maybe even a sabbatical) once the portfolio is bigger even if that means retiring a year or two later. I doubt the extra year or so in retirement would be very noticeable but having the extra time now would be precious.

[EastWest Gal]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amethyst Some of us are compensated more than others - in terms of money. But nobody gets more than 24 hours in a day. So from that perspective, those who capture more of those hours for their own lives, are the rich ones. Amethyst

+1.

I only left money behind. (10 years X $150+K.) But I feel like I left myself behind in 1988 when I finished my residency and started practice. I'm still looking for me. Starting to find myself bit by bit.


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[Letj]

How much you gave up seems to be pointless because at some point in your life, if you plan on retiring, you have to give up dollars. Presumably, the longer your career, the more dollars you would give up.


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[EastWest Gal]

And also the more years you give to that career.


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[Senator]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Letj How much you gave up seems to be pointless because at some point in your life, if you plan on retiring, you have to give up dollars. Presumably, the longer your career, the more dollars you would give up.

Very true. But it is a lot different walking away at 56, with no SS or pension, than walking away at 65+. Or getting laid off and deciding to quit looking for work

[Letj]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Senator Very true. But it is a lot different walking away at 56, with no SS or pension, than walking away at 65+. Or getting laid off and deciding to quit looking for work

True but there's a huge advantage, in my view, to retiring earlier, if you can, when you consider that life is finite. This assumes that someone would rather do something else with their life besides work. To hold on just for the money when you have a burning desire to live life on your own terms seems silly to me. I would say if you've won the game, walk away with all your winnings.


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[Lucantes]

Quote:

Originally Posted by photoguy If you are happy then you are a winner. Nothing worse than trying to live according to other people's expectations.

+1

[skipro33]

I walked away from a $150,000 a year job with benefits worth about $50,000 a year for a retirement income of about $85,000 a year. The $85,000 a year is more than I had to spend when I was making $150,000 a year due to savings, costs of keeping a job, car, etc. I now have ALL my time to shop smart, enjoy my life and have more spendable income than I did at the high paying job.

Don't look at the salary, look at the spending budget between retiring and working.

BTW, The longer I was away from work, the more money it would take me to go back to work. At 3 years retired, there is no practical amount of money that would get me to go back to work full time. Why when I have enough to do everything I really want to do and the time to do it? If I had more money, I'd be blowing it or worrying over it in this market. How is that retirement; worrying about money in any fashion?

[iac1003]

I gave up my salary on 12/15 of $135K working 1 day a week from April-December and before that 3 days a week - easing into ER and less income. The year before was well over 200K working 3 days a week.

So far, so good. We have DH RMDs and SS, the latter of which will not be taxed for the 1st time since he started collecting it.


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[kcowan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Danmar Thanks. I know the NFL is really big in the US. But most of the rest of the world doesn't even know what NFL stands for or where Dallas is.

The only owner I know about is Paul Allen. Dallas? Yes Marc Cuban owns the Mavericks.

[2017ish]

We currently make, before taxes (and bundling in "employer" profit sharing contributions), approximately 3x our projected first year's spending in retirement. Varies depending upon how busy our primary wage-earner (DW) is, and what she is busy with.

[Bir48die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by skipro33 I walked away from a $150,000 a year job with benefits worth about $50,000 a year for a retirement income of about $85,000 a year. The $85,000 a year is more than I had to spend when I was making $150,000 a year due to savings, costs of keeping a job, car, etc. I now have ALL my time to shop smart, enjoy my life and have more spendable income than I did at the high paying job. Don't look at the salary, look at the spending budget between retiring and working. BTW, The longer I was away from work, the more money it would take me to go back to work. At 3 years retired, there is no practical amount of money that would get me to go back to work full time. Why when I have enough to do everything I really want to do and the time to do it? If I had more money, I'd be blowing it or worrying over it in this market. How is that retirement; worrying about money in any fashion?

+1

[World Traveler]

This is a great thread. I'm on the fence. After retiring from the military I thought I would go back to work and retire at 55 when FI would be 100% but after enjoying a vacation and not liking the idea that I have to get back to work I am re-evaluating.
I have a 153k job with 16% from my company going to a 401k. Now it comes down to retiring at 52 or OMY. Freedom and life ahead outweighs job and money IMO.


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[Hiredgun]

Gave up about $900K a year and shut down our practice about 3 years ago. My wife was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer (currently cancer free and doing well!).

We were already winding down the business, figuring that around 4 mil was sufficient, even tho we were in our late 40s. Business was way too stressful and not worth the pain. Sure, we could have hung in there another 10 years and retired with 10-15 mil, which is a completely different lifestyle, but nowhere worth the pain those years would have inflicted.


Like many have said, you only live once. And I am now seeing how precious life is and how short it can be (funerals of several friends, ages 45 to 70). So yeah, we only get 1 shot and we have no regrets.

God Bless All,

Hiredgun

[marko]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Senator When you finally declared FIRE, what was your number that you gave up?

High six figures. But as I've noted before, I wasn't given a choice.

Fortunately, we were spending low six figures. We knew the day would come sooner or later, so we didn't go nuts during the high times.

Actually in a good market year (and a re-activated trust fund) we come pretty close to our earlier income.

[freetodream]

About all I can say is wow to the high incomes; OK I should just keep w*rking!! Married with a single income average of $60K/year with two major advantages.... low stress job most days & a db pension.

[karen1972]

Sorry hadn't realized my STEM comment had generated so many comments.

So for me it starts with college where there are not as many women in STEM and this has a few outcomes
* Because dorms were split by gender, the men would all get together in their dorms to do their homework, leaving you the odd man out.
* Your female friends are all cutting up magazines for early childhood ed or fashion and your stuck at a computer for hours trying to figure out where your software went wrong making you "out of the loop".. it can be rather isolating.
* Dating is often a mixed reaction and because the hours tend to be longer to study in STEM, it often impacts those relationships because you can't just skip assignments.

So say you get through those social issues and stay the course and graduate and get your first job.

*STEM is often very competitive (look at Google or Microsoft interviews). Women are not necessarily trained to be competitive but taught to be cooperative. It comes down to gender rolls and starts when girls are 3+. I have noticed that women that were in competitive sports or competitions in childhood do better in STEM because they are trained to compete, win and lose. Trained that its ok to say your the best.
* women tend to help others without taking credit. This means it appears your not getting as much done because you spent hours helping a counterpart. This "niceness" factor has hurt many women I know as it actually makes them appear like they are doing less rather than more.
* Women don't tend to brag (cultural) and thus talk about what "we" did and not what "I" did putting us at a performance disadvantage. I had a female manager tell me to always mark my performance review as all 5 out of 5s and then argue down vs. I marked myself as a 3 (average) expecting my manager to tell me how good I was and mark up. She was right, that doesn't happen.
* For some reason there is a phenomenon where a woman can say something brilliant in a meeting and it is often ignored and yet two seconds later a man can repeat the same idea and then that idea gets associated to the guy, not the woman. I've seen this happen a ridiculous amount of times in a meetings. I actually think this is because women tend not to be as forceful in their language and tone so in busy meetings they can be drowned out.
* Men and women just tend to interact on a different basis. Men ask if you saw the game last night, women will ask about family. I've seen time and time again water cooler talk where men can sit there for 20 minutes discussing some game at night and then a woman talk to someone for 5 minutes about some other topic and the manager come in and make some snarky remark about not being paid to chit chat.
* STEM can be a very different environment. When projects are running behind schedule there tends to be a lot of yelling... finger pointing. You have post mortems where everyone is looking for a scape goat. This is not the type of environment that many women I knew could handle.. they really didn't like it and it stressed them out immensely and thus as soon as an option to leave arose, they did. I once was at a customer site where a large wireless carrier had zero service.. the guy sat at my shoulder screaming at me how incompetent I was for almost 4 hours while I try to figure out what went wrong. When I chatted with my female friends after the incident they asked how I didn't break down in tears and why I would let that happen, it was unacceptable.. but that was what I had learned was normal...yeh it sucked but I held it in because crying isn't an option.. crying got you put in the "never to be promoted again" bucket.

So between being passed over for promo/pay increases, being yelled at and blamed for things you didn't do, being under high stress, being dinged because you went home to pick up your kids (even though you made up all the hours and worked twice as hard as your male counterparts).. it wears you down and eventually you quit. Its not that women aren't just as good at the actual job, it that they aren't as good of dealing with the environment that job is in.
I worked in a myriad of jobs at the same company and various other companies and noticed that this behavior tended to only exist in engineering. Moving to other jobs such as project management, this type of behavior didn't exist and jobs were judged on a different basis. Part of it was I didn't notice as much of the over dominant behavior. Ie engineers can be really full of themselves.. this behavior tends to be encouraged because you want the best to do this work. That same behavior is not encouraged or even acceptable in most other fields. It was common to know that this engineer didn't play well with others, was a complete ass, yet was highly praised and promoted as the only guy who knew his stuff. He was applauded for hoarding information... which is just bizarre to me. I'd say at least 1/2 of the highest "performers" fit in that category. At least for this female, having to deal with that behavior every day and it not being reprimanded was mind boggling, frustrating and wore on me.

I believe I was only successful because I dramatically changed my behavior. I'm sure many people thought I was the B-word. I saw that the only successful women in my field were all type A. They stood up to men in meetings and didn't back down. It seemed to be the only thing that was respected (at least at all the companies I worked). I was nice on a personal level but when it came to business it was all non-emotional fact based A/B/C. And I would come home exhausted and emotionally drained because while I was successful at work it wasn't me. About 5 years ago I suffered a back injury and went back to "me"...and stopped getting promoted and was once again passed over, out of the loop, ignored. My career turned back into a JOB and while I was still rated highly I knew that I was done. If I wasn't willing to go into meetings and be forceful and argue with the other engineers then I wasn't going to get ahead any longer.. that is a sad realization but very true.