FIRE - family and friends just can't relate!

[Del Q]

My FIRE date is 1/1/2016, I've been planning for it since 1984. I also happen to be moving from the small town where I've lived my whole life. I've been a small town business owner and have been very active in volunteer groups, civic organizations and anyone else who needed help in a small town. (It goes with owning a business) I hear a lot of critical comments such as "you made all your money off of us and now you're leaving" My closest friends and immediate family know it's the result of 35 year so of work & financial responsibility. I'm 50 and I've found it's easier to just tell people I've got a new job lined up in a different town.


My father passed away in August and a lot of people are talking that I must have fallen into a pile of his money to be able to leave my business. Little do they know his estate wasn't large enough to probate (under $50,000) and he left it all to Mom. People in a small town will speculate and I don't engage with them when they ask personal questions. I'll move on and be forgotten soon and then they'll talk about someone else.

 

[Davis65]

Uh Oh, catsouttathebag now. To me luck is something that comes along, once maybe twice, to be consistent day after day has nothing to do with luck and more to do with persistence, reaching goals and self-determination.

Oh indeed. I wanted to say, "No luck, just savings and investing". No lottery winning or inheritance here. But she's 53 with 6 years to go, so if she wants to believe it's luck, she's welcome to it.

 

[urn2bfree]

...had remarked that ER was a terrible waste of my education.

As an ER'd physician, I get that one. Or a corollary- "but we have to find something so we can harness your brain power! It's going to waste!"

First of all the education was not "wasted". It allowed me to earn enough, quickly enough to retire early, which I consider a good return on my investment. As for society, I will concede that anyone paying taxes has a small point. Physician's training is subsidized by Medicare taxes. Now, my absence in the field is NOT depriving anyone access to care. However, there is such an oversupply in the area where I work that one could argue that my early exit unduly affects costs by upsetting the supply/demand curve. However, medical fees are both so regulated and opaque that they are largely untethered or weakly tethered by supply and demand. Still, an investment was made by society and if they feel my early exit has somehow not been "fair" I would suggest they make their expectations and demands more explicit. State medical schools do this. If you attend a state medical school with tuition loans, those loans can be forgiven if you stay practicing within the state. The military also demands service in exchange for subsidies.
If we were to have such a policy for the Medicare subsidies, what would be the length of service required? I would add and argue that the hours and pay of residents and fellows already comprise some sort of payback in the form of incredibly cheap medical laborers.

I reject out of hand the notion that someone else could not do my job as arrogance. ( A common trait found among physicians- and likely one of many reasons physicians do not retire early). There may be highly specialized areas of expertise wherein the world only has a few capable practitioners...but for most medical care and care providers -this is not really an issue.

As to "harnessing my brain?" Been there, done that. That is why I ER'd. I wanted to be FREE from others slapping harnesses on my existence for their benefit. I want to run free and be the sole determinant of how and where my brain is used. If that is wasting my brain power, then all the exercise we do to stay physically fit is "wasted." All that energy spent running or swimming or weight lifting instead of plowing a field, or turning a mill wheel or planting a garden or picking up trash.


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[EastWest Gal]

As an ER'd physician, I get that one. Or a corollary- "but we have to find something so we can harness your brain power! It's going to waste!"

First of all the education was not "wasted". It allowed me to earn enough, quickly enough to retire early, which I consider a good return on my investment. As for society, I will concede that anyone paying taxes has a small point. Physician's training is subsidized by Medicare taxes. Now, my absence in the field is NOT depriving anyone access to care. However, there is such an oversupply in the area where I work that one could argue that my early exit unduly affects costs by upsetting the supply/demand curve. However, medical fees are both so regulated and opaque that they are largely untethered or weakly tethered by supply and demand. Still, an investment was made by society and if they feel my early exit has somehow not been "fair" I would suggest they make their expectations and demands more explicit. State medical schools do this. If you attend a state medical school with tuition loans, those loans can be forgiven if you stay practicing within the state. The military also demands service in exchange for subsidies.
If we were to have such a policy for the Medicare subsidies, what would be the length of service required? I would add and argue that the hours and pay of residents and fellows already comprise some sort of payback in the form of incredibly cheap medical laborers.

I reject out of hand the notion that someone else could not do my job as arrogance. ( A common trait found among physicians- and likely one of many reasons physicians do not retire early). There may be highly specialized areas of expertise wherein the world only has a few capable practitioners...but for most medical care and care providers -this is not really an issue.

As to "harnessing my brain?" Been there, done that. That is why I ER'd. I wanted to be FREE from others slapping harnesses on my existence for their benefit. I want to run free and be the sole determinant of how and where my brain is used. If that is wasting my brain power, then all the exercise we do to stay physically fit is "wasted." All that energy spent running or swimming or weight lifting instead of plowing a field, or turning a mill wheel or planting a garden or picking up trash.


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+1

Well said. I nodded in agreement with every paragraph.


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[Kabekew]

I sold my business and de facto retired at 40 (46 now), but I don't tell people "I'm retired." I say I sold my company and now I'm working on new projects and looking for new opportunities. Nobody has ever questioned that, plus it's true for me. Maybe they're hobby projects, but they're projects. And if a new opportunity fell in my lap, sure I'll take a look at it, although the threshold to pursue it is really, really high now.

I think people still working assume "retirement" means sitting around all day living a life of leisure, which of course we know isn't quite the case (even my 70-something parents have projects going on and keep busy most days). That's why I anyway don't like saying "I'm retired."