Dd852
Full time employment: Posting here.
I've made a habit of doing anniversary posts to mark another year out of the office and work. This year... six years completed! And they've been very good.
I continued to do some consulting this past year, but only because it involved long distance travel to places i wanted to go and didn't want to pay for. DW and I have spent loads of time in theaters, in museums, sitting at home reading, running, traveling... all good. Our health has continued to be basically really fine (58&62... I know the odds are no longer in our favor but hoping to continue to roll good numbers). My mother (82) has had a run of scary issues, but has pulled through each time. Having no work obligations has certainly made it easier for us to visit and manage.
On the financial side... we've loosened the controls a bit now that we have some experience of FIRE under our belt and the markets have helped us dodge sequence of returns risk at the start (and in fact have given is the gift of the opposite!). Our current spending is 3% over our 60 month average: enough to notice the difference but not so much that we couldn't pull it back again in a hurry.
Even with that increase, we still are spending just 2.84% of our current liquid assets. If I cancel out Mr. Market and just look at our spend vs. our inflation-adjusted assets at the start of retirement, we're at 3.2%, which seems still on the happily conservative side.
So no complaints and no regrets! If I could lock in this level of health and energy for another couple of decades, I'd really be happy!
Best wishes and the best of luck to all of you, those already out, those teetering on the edge of "maybe one more year" and those still a few thousands or more away from being comfortable to make the the plunge.
cheers
I continued to do some consulting this past year, but only because it involved long distance travel to places i wanted to go and didn't want to pay for. DW and I have spent loads of time in theaters, in museums, sitting at home reading, running, traveling... all good. Our health has continued to be basically really fine (58&62... I know the odds are no longer in our favor but hoping to continue to roll good numbers). My mother (82) has had a run of scary issues, but has pulled through each time. Having no work obligations has certainly made it easier for us to visit and manage.
On the financial side... we've loosened the controls a bit now that we have some experience of FIRE under our belt and the markets have helped us dodge sequence of returns risk at the start (and in fact have given is the gift of the opposite!). Our current spending is 3% over our 60 month average: enough to notice the difference but not so much that we couldn't pull it back again in a hurry.
Even with that increase, we still are spending just 2.84% of our current liquid assets. If I cancel out Mr. Market and just look at our spend vs. our inflation-adjusted assets at the start of retirement, we're at 3.2%, which seems still on the happily conservative side.
So no complaints and no regrets! If I could lock in this level of health and energy for another couple of decades, I'd really be happy!
Best wishes and the best of luck to all of you, those already out, those teetering on the edge of "maybe one more year" and those still a few thousands or more away from being comfortable to make the the plunge.
cheers
