LivePassionately
Dryer sheet aficionado
Thank you all. I have mostly lurking on the “Life After Fire” forum for past 7 or so years. and posted the first time maybe 3 or so years ago. A lot of this reading has helped me dig deeper into who and what I am and revealed lessons that were far more than financial. I wanted to post this as a thanks to everyone that contributes because you’ve helped me on my journey not only towards retirement but towards life.
Backstory: I am 44 now came on here because I was a nervous wreck regarding retirement when I first started. I had the numbers down solid ($6M+ net worth plus six figure income from rentals) but was unsure for various reasons. I finally set up things so that I’ll wind down to being fully retired by 2025 (I have a co-partner in my company who will take over my shares. I’m working 9 months a year now and will continue to do so until 2025). There are signatures and such regarding the share sales and timing so while it’s years away, it’s really set in stone now
. Anyways, here are some of things that I learned on this journey started by you fine folks.
1. Irrational anxiety can hurt you. I didn’t realize HOW MUCH irrational anxiety I had regarding money. We are in a HCOL area but have made great incomes and live well but definitely below our means and have done so for the last 15 years. Regardless, there was always a constant worry. I’ve slowly begun to whittle this away and it feels refreshing not to think about money all the time (no offense to the fine folks on here but I prefer we should be “vigilant” about our money rather than “ irrationally anxious” about it). I wish there was a place to talk about this a bit more as it would've saved me a lot of emotional as well as financial pain. I’ve also found that the way I grew up, I was told not to invest in anything risky (and also seeing dot-come crash wipe out half my investments in 2000). I have kept seven figures in the bank or in CD’s for over 15 years and realized that this was a terrible thing to do and have to work on my relationship with risk so it doesn’t hurt me investment wise. I foresee just going all in on S&P ETF with cash since I have a long-time horizon. I realized I can’t time the market and I suck at making individual stock decisions since I buy or sell too early so might as well just go with S&P ETF to balance out my real estate.
2. EGO/Self-worth and Money - I didn’t realize how much Ego I had related to money. I had tied my self-worth to it. For example, in the past, I had gotten higher end (six figure) cars just to show “I had arrived”. It took a few years of inner work but I’m finally free of this need to do anything to please others or buy things to look better for others and it’s such a freeing feeling. It has also made my retirement less anxious now because I had dreamed of a big retirement. Now, I would still like something nicer in retirement but I also prefer a small low-maintenance life style and my retirement annual expenditure estimate has gone down significantly.
3. Towards pleasure rather than away from pain. I viewed retirement solely as a “Financial” end to my working career. Frankly, I wasn’t looking forward to that as much. The motto of retiring “to” something has really helped me plan out hobbies and next steps after retirement. I am really looking forward to staying in multiple countries, writing blogs, and being of service. I really wanted to volunteer but after trying it out, I can’t live under all those rules constraints so I’ll have to do it in my own way rather than work for an organization. I’ve also learned that a lot of my wanting to stay busy was so that I was always “striving”. I don’t feel the need to strive as much so the hobbies and interests will only take up so much part of my day and I’m ok surfing the net the rest of the time.
4. Importance of keeping and tracking a budget. I had a loose budget but I never actually measured it. I don’t know why. I think the “Growing up poor” person inside was afraid that since I don’t spend too lavishly, that the watching every dollar was too much, and that I had earned the right to not have to watch every penny that, and that I was afraid to be “cheap” like my immigrant parents who watched and questioned every spending decision. After setting and measuring an annual budget, I realized, we can easily trim 20K just by being cognizant and watching the numbers (wife,2 kids, HCOL area). I didn’t realize how many small bad decisions (and some medium ones) I was making. After doing my first full real budget tracking last few months, it feels so great and I’m kicking myself for not doing this sooner.
5. Assumptions will change after retirement. I love travel and have been doing 5-6 or so trips a year even while working. It struck me that people on this forum who traveled a lot said that after retirement they’d didn’t need to travel as much and a big part of the travel was to get away from work anxiety. To test this out, I had a 3-week sabbatical this December and was going to travel and do some retreats but decided to stay home and enjoyed it as much. What I found is that while I still love travel , when I need to just de-stress, I can do a “staycation” and enjoy it almost almost as much travel for pretty much zero cost.
Again, thank you to all you amazing folks on here and peace, love and joy to you all in your retirement and life journey
Backstory: I am 44 now came on here because I was a nervous wreck regarding retirement when I first started. I had the numbers down solid ($6M+ net worth plus six figure income from rentals) but was unsure for various reasons. I finally set up things so that I’ll wind down to being fully retired by 2025 (I have a co-partner in my company who will take over my shares. I’m working 9 months a year now and will continue to do so until 2025). There are signatures and such regarding the share sales and timing so while it’s years away, it’s really set in stone now
. Anyways, here are some of things that I learned on this journey started by you fine folks.1. Irrational anxiety can hurt you. I didn’t realize HOW MUCH irrational anxiety I had regarding money. We are in a HCOL area but have made great incomes and live well but definitely below our means and have done so for the last 15 years. Regardless, there was always a constant worry. I’ve slowly begun to whittle this away and it feels refreshing not to think about money all the time (no offense to the fine folks on here but I prefer we should be “vigilant” about our money rather than “ irrationally anxious” about it). I wish there was a place to talk about this a bit more as it would've saved me a lot of emotional as well as financial pain. I’ve also found that the way I grew up, I was told not to invest in anything risky (and also seeing dot-come crash wipe out half my investments in 2000). I have kept seven figures in the bank or in CD’s for over 15 years and realized that this was a terrible thing to do and have to work on my relationship with risk so it doesn’t hurt me investment wise. I foresee just going all in on S&P ETF with cash since I have a long-time horizon. I realized I can’t time the market and I suck at making individual stock decisions since I buy or sell too early so might as well just go with S&P ETF to balance out my real estate.
2. EGO/Self-worth and Money - I didn’t realize how much Ego I had related to money. I had tied my self-worth to it. For example, in the past, I had gotten higher end (six figure) cars just to show “I had arrived”. It took a few years of inner work but I’m finally free of this need to do anything to please others or buy things to look better for others and it’s such a freeing feeling. It has also made my retirement less anxious now because I had dreamed of a big retirement. Now, I would still like something nicer in retirement but I also prefer a small low-maintenance life style and my retirement annual expenditure estimate has gone down significantly.
3. Towards pleasure rather than away from pain. I viewed retirement solely as a “Financial” end to my working career. Frankly, I wasn’t looking forward to that as much. The motto of retiring “to” something has really helped me plan out hobbies and next steps after retirement. I am really looking forward to staying in multiple countries, writing blogs, and being of service. I really wanted to volunteer but after trying it out, I can’t live under all those rules constraints so I’ll have to do it in my own way rather than work for an organization. I’ve also learned that a lot of my wanting to stay busy was so that I was always “striving”. I don’t feel the need to strive as much so the hobbies and interests will only take up so much part of my day and I’m ok surfing the net the rest of the time.
4. Importance of keeping and tracking a budget. I had a loose budget but I never actually measured it. I don’t know why. I think the “Growing up poor” person inside was afraid that since I don’t spend too lavishly, that the watching every dollar was too much, and that I had earned the right to not have to watch every penny that, and that I was afraid to be “cheap” like my immigrant parents who watched and questioned every spending decision. After setting and measuring an annual budget, I realized, we can easily trim 20K just by being cognizant and watching the numbers (wife,2 kids, HCOL area). I didn’t realize how many small bad decisions (and some medium ones) I was making. After doing my first full real budget tracking last few months, it feels so great and I’m kicking myself for not doing this sooner.
5. Assumptions will change after retirement. I love travel and have been doing 5-6 or so trips a year even while working. It struck me that people on this forum who traveled a lot said that after retirement they’d didn’t need to travel as much and a big part of the travel was to get away from work anxiety. To test this out, I had a 3-week sabbatical this December and was going to travel and do some retreats but decided to stay home and enjoyed it as much. What I found is that while I still love travel , when I need to just de-stress, I can do a “staycation” and enjoy it almost almost as much travel for pretty much zero cost.
Again, thank you to all you amazing folks on here and peace, love and joy to you all in your retirement and life journey
