For Those FI - What Are Your Favorite Aspects?

[Route246]

We accepted that we were FI about 7 years ago (we are 67/66 now). Here is a list my my favorite aspects once we got there. What are yours?

• Never worry about bills impacting household budget, especially broken appliances, emergency home repairs, etc. I remember the days when I would poop bricks if the washer broke or plumbing sprung a leak.
• Having enough to pay for the best LTC when we need it, covered my father's LTC even though he could afford it, we took care of it so he did not have to dip into his bank accounts. It was a wonderful feeling to do this, but of course we knew we would get it back from our inheritance in the end.
• Having enough to pay for an out-of-pocket medical emergency, including for extended family requiring experimental treatment, etc.
• Just being able to look at consumables with the knowledge that we could get that if we wanted it.
• Being able to make impactful charitable contributions which is something we have always wanted to do but felt we couldn't quite afford it at the time
• Being able to fly business class and first class for overseas trips

One thing we found out was when we were younger and couldn't really afford much, we are now in the position to afford anything and we realize that we really didn't need it at the time. Now, we are paying huge premiums for very small, incremental benefits with our BTD mindset. In the past 3 years we upgraded our range, refrigerator and dishwasher to professional grade at 3x for dishwasher, 4x for range and 8x for refrigerator and we now realize how nice it is to have the highest quality appliances and features they add. Now that it has been normalized my wife appreciates it and is glad I convinced her to BTD on these upgrades.

 

[Sojourner]

Aside from your age (I'm in my late 50s), you sound almost exactly like me, @Route246. I think my list of favorite aspects of being FI would be very, very similar to yours.

Due to the big market run-up this year, I am quickly approaching the $6MM liquid/investable NW mark, which in turn translates to roughly a $200k annual SWR. At that level of "safe" spending, I actually find myself struggling a bit to think of more ways to "blow that dough" that don't feel like just throwing money away. DW and I have talked about upping our spending on travel (e.g., always booking the premium, 5-star AirBbB places, flying first/business class on all flights longer than 3 hours, etc.). These are the kinds of things that are my favorite aspects of being FI nowadays, and in particular, being "ChubbyFIREd". I think my list of favorite aspects of FI today would be significantly longer than my list 10 years ago when I first stepped into the FIRE lifestyle. Back then, I wouldn't have listed things like buying top-of-the-line appliances and always flying first/business class on long-haul flights. Feels good to be able to think of those now as "doable, no worries"!

 

[Luvtoride]

Interesting thread @Route246 I have to laugh at your last bullet point because this is a saying I use when discussing wealth and spending now that we can afford it... "If we don't fly first class (business class) then our kids will".

The first bullet is also applicable to us as when we need something fixed or replaced, we don't stress about it like we did when we were younger and raising our kids and that's a good feeling.

I would add to the list....Helping out our kids with the extras to give our grandkids awesome experiences. No, we don't buy them THINGS, but we pay for summer camp (sleepaway for the two older ones and day camp for the 5-year old). We know that we have started a precedent doing this but have built these annual costs into our future year budgets, including for our babydoll, 16 month old to attend camp in the future. We also help to pay for some of their sports and leisure activities including dance and ice hockey participation and lessons. All of these things would stretch their parents budgets if they needed to pay for them, but we are happy to help out with these expenses now that we can afford to.

 

[rk911]

We accepted that we were FI about 7 years ago (we are 67/66 now). Here is a list my my favorite aspects once we got there. What are yours?

• Never worry about bills impacting household budget, especially broken appliances, emergency home repairs, etc. I remember the days when I would poop bricks if the washer broke or plumbing sprung a leak.
• Having enough to pay for the best LTC when we need it, covered my father's LTC even though he could afford it, we took care of it so he did not have to dip into his bank accounts. It was a wonderful feeling to do this, but of course we knew we would get it back from our inheritance in the end.
• Having enough to pay for an out-of-pocket medical emergency, including for extended family requiring experimental treatment, etc.
• Just being able to look at consumables with the knowledge that we could get that if we wanted it.
• Being able to make impactful charitable contributions which is something we have always wanted to do but felt we couldn't quite afford it at the time
• Being able to fly business class and first class for overseas trips

One thing we found out was when we were younger and couldn't really afford much, we are now in the position to afford anything and we realize that we really didn't need it at the time. Now, we are paying huge premiums for very small, incremental benefits with our BTD mindset. In the past 3 years we upgraded our range, refrigerator and dishwasher to professional grade at 3x for dishwasher, 4x for range and 8x for refrigerator and we now realize how nice it is to have the highest quality appliances and features they add. Now that it has been normalized my wife appreciates it and is glad I convinced her to BTD on these upgrades.

All of the above except we don't have a household budget and we don't fly. But if we did it wouldn't be in coach, Life is bery bery good.

 

[jollystomper]

I simply enjoy that any "surprise" expenses (good or bad) are at worst a temporary annoyance, with no impact to our desired lifestyle and, over time, to our financial assets.

 

[Lewis Clark]

I simply enjoy that any "surprise" expenses (good or bad) are at worst a temporary annoyance, with no impact to our desired lifestyle and, over time, to our financial assets.

Could not have expressed it any better than this.

 

[Onda]

 

[Jerry1]

On the road to FI was financial security. That’s when something like an unexpected car expense stopped being a crisis and just became an aggravation that was solved by writing a check. That was in my 30’s and was a great milestone.

FI meant that any day I stayed at work was of my own choosing. That day came at 55 when I vested in my retiree health insurance. I was probably technically FI before that, but there’s no was I was voluntarily walking away from that benefit.

Now, in our 60’s, FI means we don’t really think about money in any negative way. i.e. we know we got this, financially speaking. Our only concern is whether it will be enough to cover LTC and in our under $2M life, it’s just an unknown we’ll have to live with. We should be fine in all but the worst case scenarios - Alzheimer’s come to mind.

The biggest change for me is going from a place of accumulation and buying to a place where I really have an internal discussion about whether I really want something and the decision doesn’t have much, if anything to do with money. I could buy a new car today and when I was working, I leased cars so I did end up with new cars often. Now, I ask myself what would I get out of a new car that I don’t already have and since I haven’t come up with a good answer, I still have my truck.

 

[Romer]

We accepted that we were FI about 7 years ago (we are 67/66 now). Here is a list my my favorite aspects once we got there. What are yours?

• Never worry about bills impacting household budget, especially broken appliances, emergency home repairs, etc. I remember the days when I would poop bricks if the washer broke or plumbing sprung a leak.
• Having enough to pay for the best LTC when we need it, covered my father's LTC even though he could afford it, we took care of it so he did not have to dip into his bank accounts. It was a wonderful feeling to do this, but of course we knew we would get it back from our inheritance in the end.
• Having enough to pay for an out-of-pocket medical emergency, including for extended family requiring experimental treatment, etc.
• Just being able to look at consumables with the knowledge that we could get that if we wanted it.
• Being able to make impactful charitable contributions which is something we have always wanted to do but felt we couldn't quite afford it at the time
• Being able to fly business class and first class for overseas trips

One thing we found out was when we were younger and couldn't really afford much, we are now in the position to afford anything and we realize that we really didn't need it at the time. Now, we are paying huge premiums for very small, incremental benefits with our BTD mindset. In the past 3 years we upgraded our range, refrigerator and dishwasher to professional grade at 3x for dishwasher, 4x for range and 8x for refrigerator and we now realize how nice it is to have the highest quality appliances and features they add. Now that it has been normalized my wife appreciates it and is glad I convinced her to BTD on these upgrades.

Good list

Not stressing over work

Being more relaxed as I have all the time I want or need to do something

Just being able to do what I want to do when I want to

Spending lots of time with Grand kids

Hanging out more with my wife

Traveling when and where we want and being able to extend it if we are having fun with no scheduling commitments

 

[CO-guy]

I simply enjoy that any "surprise" expenses (good or bad) are at worst a temporary annoyance, with no impact to our desired lifestyle and, over time, to our financial assets.

Interesting list, and I agree with this statement as my top bullet point. We're more charitable, worry less about the income side of the equation, spend more time on the "play" side of the equation, but the hardest part about a broken appliance where we live is getting service in any reasonable amount of time.

However, we're not big on biz/1st class flying. We're going to Japan next year, and flying business for that trip. I did the same for China a few years ago. It's just not worth wasting days of vacation being "broken" from sitting uncomfortably for 12 hours. However, for anything under 4-5 hours, we usually fly coach. I don't drink, rarely eat airplane food, and I'm just not that large of a person. So really it's just a wider seat, which seems pointless. I fly enough that I sometimes get upgraded for free to economy plus, and it's nice to be seated up towards the front, but that's about it.

 

[Route246]

I simply enjoy that any "surprise" expenses (good or bad) are at worst a temporary annoyance, with no impact to our desired lifestyle and, over time, to our financial assets.

Could not have expressed it any better than this.

Same here. This is so huge thinking back how I used to stress about every unexpected repair and replacement that happened. It really used to bother me so much, my wife not so much.

 

[Dtail]

Very simply at the top of the list is never having to work again and I loved my career.

 

[athena53]

I would add to the list....Helping out our kids with the extras to give our grandkids awesome experiences. No, we don't buy them THINGS, but we pay for summer camp (sleepaway for the two older ones and day camp for the 5-year old). We know that we have started a precedent doing this but have built these annual costs into our future year budgets, including for our babydoll, 16 month old to attend camp in the future. We also help to pay for some of their sports and leisure activities including dance and ice hockey participation and lessons. All of these things would stretch their parents budgets if they needed to pay for them, but we are happy to help out with these expenses now that we can afford to.

Amen to that. DS and DDIL are wonderful with money but don't live lavishly. I take the kids to a local hotel overnight when I visit (the pool and the breakfast are huge attractions) and also take them to Chicago a couple of times a year (one-hour flight, 2 nights in hotel). Before COVID we attended the Sugar Plum Fairy Ball in KC, a kid-friendly event since they were a bit too young to sit through the Nutcracker performance, and in 2022 DDIL, the 2 girls and I all went to the Nutcracker. Out of their budget but not put of mine! The oldest actually performed (as a mouse) last year in Des Moines. Parents pay for the ballet lessons but I'd spring for them if they couldn't. And the 529s are looking good.

And it's also the little (to me) things. I've never really struggled financially- comfortable middle-class upbringing, parents paid for college. Things were a bit lean when I was in college (didn't want to break the bank when I had 4 siblings attending after me) and when I was married to my Ex the spendthrift but I never worried about the basics. But...last week my computer died, I realized my car A/C isn't cooling and I'd been planning to get a new phone. I can do all of them. Annoying but I don't have to borrow, do without anything else or take on credit card debt. It's a good feeling.

 

[dunkelblau]

I think reaching FI relatively early altered my career trajectory in a positive manner. I recall soon after hitting this milestone, how my attitude towards my colleagues, my management chain, and my customers changed, once I realized they needed me more than I needed them. I could focus on the technical aspects of my work and set all of the interpersonal parts aside. My reputation became that of a strong performer in stuff I happened to like doing, and mediocre at best when working on anything else. This may be why I was given extraordinary leeway in choosing my assignments.

Where I worked the big money was in upper management (no surprise). But I realized how my personality was a poor fit for any kind of supervisory role around the time I hit my first FIRE target. So once the promotion opportunities started coming, I was able to take a pass, and after seeing what that kind of job was doing to my more-sensitive colleagues, it was a relief. I think the worst part of any job is the fighting for advancement (politics, back-stabbing, stealing credit, etc), and I feel lucky that FI took me out of that cage match. I guess my humblebrag is that I was able to FIRE without ever having to terminate anyone, and I never asked for a raise either.

In retrospect hitting FI early probably delayed my retirement by a decade or so.

 

[kgtest]

FI to me is knowing it will take some seriously bad luck that no amount of planning would have prepared us for to spoil our dreams.

If that bad luck comes, so be it... but it feels good to just not have to worry about expenses and budget as much as we used to.

I liked the idea of when I was in my 30s and knowing we could cover any large problem that came up with our stash. Hitting the 40k saved mark felt really good for some reason and that's when I started tracking things a little closer and realized FI might be attainable.

There were moments of insecurity as we figured it out and added to the family. Hitting 1MM NW was a nice sort of nail in the coffin. It was like, okay, we are legit millionaire's now...never believed THAT was possible. Going towards the second seems quite satisfying with the way the markets dialed up lately.

Clearing 100k hurdles under 2 months time is an impressive thing to monitor and watch real-time as it unfolds. That helped us feel really comfy.

The most fun part to me has been the wisdom and knowledge shared and gained along the way with others.

 

[emmaswan]

I think reaching FI relatively early altered my career trajectory in a positive manner. I recall soon after hitting this milestone, how my attitude towards my colleagues, my management chain, and my customers changed, once I realized they needed me more than I needed them. I could focus on the technical aspects of my work and set all of the interpersonal parts aside. My reputation became that of a strong performer in stuff I happened to like doing, and mediocre at best when working on anything else. This may be why I was given extraordinary leeway in choosing my assignments.

Where I worked the big money was in upper management (no surprise). But I realized how my personality was a poor fit for any kind of supervisory role around the time I hit my first FIRE target. So once the promotion opportunities started coming, I was able to take a pass, and after seeing what that kind of job was doing to my more-sensitive colleagues, it was a relief. I think the worst part of any job is the fighting for advancement (politics, back-stabbing, stealing credit, etc), and I feel lucky that FI took me out of that cage match. I guess my humblebrag is that I was able to FIRE without ever having to terminate anyone, and I never asked for a raise either.

In retrospect hitting FI early probably delayed my retirement by a decade or so.

This is an absolutely brilliant post. Saving these words of wisdom.

 

[Route246]

I think reaching FI relatively early altered my career trajectory in a positive manner. I recall soon after hitting this milestone, how my attitude towards my colleagues, my management chain, and my customers changed, once I realized they needed me more than I needed them. I could focus on the technical aspects of my work and set all of the interpersonal parts aside. My reputation became that of a strong performer in stuff I happened to like doing, and mediocre at best when working on anything else. This may be why I was given extraordinary leeway in choosing my assignments.

Where I worked the big money was in upper management (no surprise). But I realized how my personality was a poor fit for any kind of supervisory role around the time I hit my first FIRE target. So once the promotion opportunities started coming, I was able to take a pass, and after seeing what that kind of job was doing to my more-sensitive colleagues, it was a relief. I think the worst part of any job is the fighting for advancement (politics, back-stabbing, stealing credit, etc), and I feel lucky that FI took me out of that cage match. I guess my humblebrag is that I was able to FIRE without ever having to terminate anyone, and I never asked for a raise either.

In retrospect hitting FI early probably delayed my retirement by a decade or so.

Having credit stolen for achievements is always a risk if you can't defend politically. I have had so much stolen in my career that it no longer bothers me. It made me a much better writer of documentation, publishing papers and leaving bread crumbs showing who was there first. Much of my best stuff can't really be stolen unless they are really clueless because it involves answering for it when it is in the critical path and root cause analyses is required.

 

[DayDreaming]

Peace of mind, in knowing that I did well and don't need to worry much about money matters.

 

[Koolau]

Since I'm still reasonably frugal, some of the ability to BTD is blunted. For me, the big deal about FI was that I could relax and enjoy the remainder of my c@reer on my terms. The very day the j*b was no longer to my liking was the day I gave my notice. YMMV

 

[5Miler]

DGF and I are slowly starting to realize we don't have to lose sleep over money anymore. We have had a number of financial setbacks this year that in years past would have been jarring but now are just not a big deal.

1) In January the 20 year old garage refrigerator bit the dust so we quickly bought another on to the tune of $1K.
2) In April/May during our 5 week dive trip we arranged with another couple that we would rent the truck the first two weeks and they would cover the last two. The husband ended up having a major heart bypass surgery 3 weeks before the trip so I covered the second car instead for $900.
3) As my dive buddy's are 64 and 75 year old women, we added a lot of boat dives rather than shore dives and paid for private dive masters on shore dives to help me get everyone in the water safely for over $2K additional.
4) Came home from the dive trip to find a very large southern pine tree died so had to have two trees removed and a stump ground in my front yard for $1,800.
5) Just got the trees taken care of and our 13 year old kitchen refrigerator died possibly in sympathy with the previous garage refrigerator. That's another $2,300 plus tip to the installers. Thank you big Memorial Day sales.
6) Paid final for our September Alaska Cruise at somewhere north of $3K.
7) Booked cruise for March next year and bought airfare to Miami for it. Only $500 for airfare so far.
8) Discovered bargain pricing for Bonaire airfare for next spring's dive trip so had to jump on them. Two first class tickets for $3.2K instead of the usual $4K to $5.2K. Current price for two is $6.2K.
9) Booked first class tickets to Seattle for the Alaska Cruise in September - $3.6K.
10) Still need to book two first class tickets to Hawaii for our cruise there next September. Maybe in December when we may be able to use a Delta coupon that will be due to us.

Yeah, a couple of years ago we would be crapping ourselves if faced with these expenses. Instead I went out Friday and ordered myself a $1.2K present for myself for my 71st birthday next week. We didn't even need to take an IRA/401k distribution to help cover the expenses. As I have stated previously, DGF and I never made the big bucks so we lived reasonably frugal lives before retirement. We have been retired 12 years (me) and 10 years (DGF) and have only recently begun to enjoy more fully what we worked for the last 30 years together.

 

[mystang52]

We have always followed a budget...and still do. Part of our budget was for vacation expenses. I used to say that one of the things I especially enjoyed during vacation was I didn't count pennies. We simply did what we wanted to do, without regard to cost. Now, we approach every day with that attitude.

 

[Aerides]

Never having to get the cheapest version of whatever trip/car/service/repair, etc.

When I hire a plumber/electrician/service, I want them licensed and insured, and I want permits pulled. I don't want to call "that guy" everyone in the neighborhood recommends.

When I shop for a new car, I start with the features and style I want, and let that dictate a budget, vs. the other way around.

When I travel, I seek out the finer/nicer hotels. I learned long ago that even the lowest price room in the five-star hotel is going to make for a far nicer trip than the three-star. Location, service, and amenities will almost always be better.

And yes there is a certain calmness of knowing that if something can be fixed or improved by throwing money at it, we can and will.

 

[1242Vintage]

Yes our extensive winter travels to warmer climates, nice cars and fun hobbies are awesome …. But … the best aspect of FI for wife and I is knowing that we earned it all on our own.

Started as newlyweds in June 1987 with literally zero in a crappy apartment with a few pieces of second-hand furniture in Fresno, CA with no air conditioning in the middle of a brutal summer. I clearly remember right after we got married asking wife to put a few items back at the grocery store because couldn’t afford them.

Clawed our way up from there. Every financial move, risk and decision was ours … together!

 

[Koolau]

Adding to my previous response: Knowing that it's very unlikely that I will ever again have to look for a pay check producing activity is golden. I simply have no desire to ever w*rk again. I think (black swan events excepted) I'll be able to live out my life "un-empl*yed."

 

[Luvtoride]

Yes our extensive winter travels to warmer climates, nice cars and fun hobbies are awesome …. But … the best aspect of FI for wife and I is knowing that we earned it all on our own.

Started as newlyweds in June 1987 with literally zero in a crappy apartment with a few pieces of second-hand furniture in Fresno, CA with no air conditioning in the middle of a brutal summer. I clearly remember right after we got married asking wife to put a few items back at the grocery store because couldn’t afford them.

Clawed our way up from there. Every financial move, risk and decision was ours … together!

@1242Vintage great assessment! My wife and I often say the same thing now in retirement. We busted our asses for our entire careers (my wife’s a nurse who worked continuously even while raising our 2 daughters) and earned everything we have now. It’s a great feeling and we’re not so humble about this! Thanks for the insight.