Force Severance / Struggling

[Lewis Clark]

Congrats on finding a good place you seem to be happy with!

 

[Koolau]

Folks, Just over a year has passed since the initial post, and thought I would update again.

I really appreciate all the thoughtful comments and ideas, this forum is great for folks making serious comments, and learning new things.

I decided to take another job, but I was clear that work/life balance was important to me at this time, and I am not moving. So, the deal is work from home and travel, roughly 50/50. I don't make as much, but still easily cover all our costs and allows me to save a decent amount. But, the pressure is gone, and I work more as a "consultant" - no calls at night or weekend, show up "this would really work better..." and leave

My wife quit her job so she can go back to taking care of the domestic affairs.

My son got a great scholarship, and we have to fund minimal amounts for him. My youngest has a few more years to go, and if we aren't as lucky on scholarships, I have my son's 529 we could reassign and her 529.

But here's the thing. I loved retirement, and my wife didn't mind working. But, her working really only covered insurance. So me working again, we can let the financial side improve some more. I feel I am doing OMY again, but the cost of insurance, and expenses being quite a bit more than I planned is driving some of this. With insurance costs exploding for auto, homeowners and of course health is ridiculous.

As for retirement, the first couple months were kind of slow. Lots of Youtube. But, then I got going... lots of (low cost) projects around the house that I never had time for, and once I started it just kept going. I have bought a lot of tools, and it's been really fun. But the paid work is now taking away my fun work time.

Here's the remarkable one. I have always hated cutting the lawn, dealing with the grass, paying for the water bill, and it showed. For some reason this spring I got an urge to have one of those great lawns. So, leveled the yard, getting rid of weeds, repaired the sprinklers, fertilizing, regular cutting, and danged if it didn't work, and the yard looks great. All done myself, didn't hire anything out. I didn't know you could train Bermuda, but if you cut it regular (pretty low), it really fills in awesome and stops growing much vertically. The yard is like a green carpet. Even the wife is impressed.

Spend is running more like $120k without considering health insurance. Probable $20k per year for health insurance( if wife doesn't go back to work, she could easily get her old job back, but it is so low paying). So puts us around $140k-$150k budget (same as my original goal before the severance). And after a good year of returns, I am getting close to that $5M target.

I am kind of resigned to working to 55 (2027). At that point, I won't have any kids left at home (or at least not in high school), and should be quite a bit of overkill on the financial side, assuming we don't have another major stock market debacle. However, with the market at such high levels, all the talk about a "lost decade" - last time I remember all this talk was 1999-2000, and danged if there wasn't another lost decade. So that brings a pretty bad sequence of returns.

Anyway, I failed at my trial run at retirement ( but loved it!), and the plan is for 55 (unless there is a downturn in the industry, and being a more expensive employee,...) That gets all the kids out of HS, and the wife will be more willing to travel. We will also likely sell the house and move to a lower cost location ( we are not in a HCOL area, but its not cheap either).

So, between now and 55 we have to figure out where we want to live in retirement, and get that started. I would like to build a house in a more rural area, probably within an hour of a major airport, so we can travel all we want. This is all much more comfortable to do with a bit more budget buffer.

Thanks for the great update. Glad to hear things are w*rking out for you for the most part. There will always be some uncertainties, but it sounds like you have a good handle on things. Keep us posted.

 

[indiajust]

Consider it a trial run. You have a better idea of what you want and what you enjoy. You will be that much better prepared emotionally (and financially) when your dance card comes up again.