[FONT="]Hello fellow early-retirees,[/FONT]
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[/FONT][FONT="]I’ve enjoyed reading the posts here for the past few weeks, and having just submitted my official 2-week notice this morning thought now was a good time to celebrate by joining the FIRE community. I’m a 56-year-old engineer—make that retired engineer. I’ve been easing into retirement since 2006, when I switched to part-time consulting employee status. The “easing in” approach worked well for me. At first, the freedom to do whatever I wanted on my days off was pure bliss. But after a few months, I realized I had a problem—I didn’t know what to do with all that extra time. Fortunately, my job still kept me busy much of the time, and the income still paid the bills.[/FONT]
[FONT="]In the meantime, I hired a financial planner to create my retirement plan, and was expecting to use him to manage my nest egg going forward…until he told me the fee for his services! That’s when I decided to try the Do-It-Yourself approach instead. With some trepidation, I started to read up on the subject. It proved to be not too difficult, so I kept at it. And then a strange thing happened. Much to my surprise, I discovered I actually liked learning about investing, and putting my new-found knowledge to work. What started out as a chore became a hobby, and then a passion. The subject just turned out to be a really good fit for me. Reading and studying the markets combined my math background with my interests in history and mass psychology (I’m an avid reader of economic and financial history—especially books on panics, bubbles and market crashes).[/FONT]
[FONT="]So, having figured out what I want to do (am now writing a book on investing), I decided I was ready to take the plunge and retire fully. I’m looking forward to joining the conversations here (no surprise, you’ll probably find me on the forums dealing with financial issues most of the time). When not writing I plan to spend much of my time at the local IHOP, enjoying late morning breakfasts with the other retirees.
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[/FONT][FONT="]I’ve enjoyed reading the posts here for the past few weeks, and having just submitted my official 2-week notice this morning thought now was a good time to celebrate by joining the FIRE community. I’m a 56-year-old engineer—make that retired engineer. I’ve been easing into retirement since 2006, when I switched to part-time consulting employee status. The “easing in” approach worked well for me. At first, the freedom to do whatever I wanted on my days off was pure bliss. But after a few months, I realized I had a problem—I didn’t know what to do with all that extra time. Fortunately, my job still kept me busy much of the time, and the income still paid the bills.[/FONT]
[FONT="]In the meantime, I hired a financial planner to create my retirement plan, and was expecting to use him to manage my nest egg going forward…until he told me the fee for his services! That’s when I decided to try the Do-It-Yourself approach instead. With some trepidation, I started to read up on the subject. It proved to be not too difficult, so I kept at it. And then a strange thing happened. Much to my surprise, I discovered I actually liked learning about investing, and putting my new-found knowledge to work. What started out as a chore became a hobby, and then a passion. The subject just turned out to be a really good fit for me. Reading and studying the markets combined my math background with my interests in history and mass psychology (I’m an avid reader of economic and financial history—especially books on panics, bubbles and market crashes).[/FONT]
[FONT="]So, having figured out what I want to do (am now writing a book on investing), I decided I was ready to take the plunge and retire fully. I’m looking forward to joining the conversations here (no surprise, you’ll probably find me on the forums dealing with financial issues most of the time). When not writing I plan to spend much of my time at the local IHOP, enjoying late morning breakfasts with the other retirees.
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