Basically FI, yet filled with doubt

[Kid_Sneelock]

Life Situation:
Me (44), DW (42), two kids (6 and 10), living in a MCOL suburb in the Midwest. I have been in the same field (healthcare data/analytics) my entire career and, despite steady career progression, am feeling simultaneously bored and burned out. I feel like I ought to be doing something else, but fear of worst case scenarios leaves me feeling stuck.

Gross Salary/Wages:
Me: $194k plus bonus up to $24k. There have been no-bonus years and this year isn’t looking so hot, so I won’t include the bonus in the total.
DW: $70k
Total: $264k

Individual amounts of each Pre-tax deductions:
Me: $23k (plus 6% company match)
DW: $23k (plus 6% company match)
Dependent Care FSA: $5k
HSA: $5k (companies contribute the rest up to the annual max)
Insurance (med, dental, vision, AD&D, supplemental life): $2.9k

Other Ordinary Income: None

Qualified Dividends & Long Term Capital Gains:
Qualified dividends: $33k

Current expenses (monthly):
Mortgage P&I + taxes: $1700
Water/sewer/garbage: $100
Electric: $225
Natural gas: $80
Internet: $75
Cell phones: $75
Groceries/supermarket stuff: $1k
Restaurants/bars: $650
Gas: $50
Healthcare: $550 (on HDHP w/ HSA plans so we pay most costs out of pocket)
Pet care: $140
Home supplies: $600 (in practice this is an “everything else” slush fund)
Car maintenance: $75
Vehicle licensing: $65
Entertainment & technology: $100
Gifts: $320
Kids stuff (clothes, toys, supplies): $600
Kids classes/extracurriculars (incl. summer camps): $865
Piano lessons: $100
After school care: $352
Costco/Amazon Prime memberships: $23
Auto insurance: $88
Life insurance: $105 ($1.5M coverage)
Umbrella insurance: $24 ($2M coverage)
Charity: $70
House cleaning: $220
Vacation/travel: $770
House maintenance sinking fund: $500
Monthly taxable/brokerage account contributions: $2000
Individual spending money (allowances to ourselves, essentially): $800 ($400 each)
Total expenses: $12,322/mo, $147,864/year (not including taxes)

Assets:
401(k)’s: $271k
Traditional IRAs: $1.51M
Roth IRAs: $294k
HSAs: $57k
Taxable/Brokerage: $2.02M
Total liquid/semi-liquid: $4.15M

Primary residence (SFH): $450k

Total assets: $4.6M

Liabilities:
Mortgage: $232k 30-year at 2.625%, 27 years remaining

Specific Question(s):
As I mentioned above, I’m feeling bored/burned out after over two decades of my healthcare data/analytics career. It brings me little satisfaction and I feel my work is good for nothing other than the paycheck. I’ve been in some variation of this rut ever since I discovered FIRE and MMM almost 15 years ago. Back then, I hung all my hopes on early retirement as the “way out,” but as time goes by I’ve become more receptive to trying to find a different job or career that fits me better.

I’ve taken on positions of increasing responsibility over time because that seemed like the only way to advance my career and earn more money. I’m currently in a director-level role and am finally coming to terms with the fact that this is just not work that I care about or enjoy doing. I sometimes fantasize about going back to an individual contributor role, with less responsibility, in something more technical. I majored in computer science but haven’t done any actual programming in over 15 years. As a way of hedging my bets, I applied and was accepted into an online MS in computer science program, which might help me “reboot” the technical side of my brain.

$4.15M at a conservative 3.5% WR gives me just over $145k which more or less matches our current spending (I know there is plenty of fat to be trimmed in our budget). Further, my wife wants to keep working, at least for a few more years. We should be good to go. That’s when the what-if’s start coming.

What if…

…markets tank shortly after I quit and we’re exposed to massive sequence of returns risk?
…I’m forced to look for work in a recession to replenish our depleted stash, but can only find jobs that are significantly worse than what I currently have?
…several years of retirement render me unhireable for jobs that any typical person would consider “good” (i.e., some combination of good compensation, flexibility, meaningful work, etc.)

Basically, I’m skeptical of the oft-repeated “just go back to work” advice that comes up whenever worst case scenarios come up in FIRE planning. I feel as though I’ve painted myself into a corner in my career, with what limited skills and experience I’ve been able to acquire having little to no value outside of the very particular niche I operate in. Healthcare is notorious for being 10 years behind the curve technology-wise, and I haven’t done much to expand my knowledge beyond what’s needed to do the job in front of me day-to-day. Essentially, I feel lucky to have somehow landed the position I currently occupy (despite not actually enjoying it) and assume that I’d be unable to find anything close to it again if I were to quit.

So I guess what I’m asking is, how can I learn to tolerate the uncertainty around FIRE and career optionality? I know this is a psychological issue (I believe I have the math under control) and I have been in therapy, slowly chipping away at the emotional baggage that has left me clinging to a job that I’m simultaneously dying to leave.

Any advice appreciated.

[swashbucklinstache]

You're at a WR that is unlikely to fail, spending significantly more than the median household, and are comfortable trimming fat if you need. I'd be surprised if life insurance is something that makes sense in your case. I wouldn't count the 2k taxable brokerage contribution as spending, would removing that lower you to 10k a month?  That's a sub-3% WR before looking at taxes and healthcare in RE.

My questions
Will your wife continue to work? Missed this, answered above and will continue.
Will you stay in this area forever, or happily live in similar COL in the future?

Your what-if questions were these...

…markets tank shortly after I quit and we’re exposed to massive sequence of returns risk?
…I’m forced to look for work in a recession to replenish our depleted stash, but can only find jobs that are significantly worse than what I currently have?
…several years of retirement render me unhireable for jobs that any typical person would consider “good” (i.e., some combination of good compensation, flexibility, meaningful work, etc.)

...and the answer is that all of these together would almost certainly not matter at all, except perhaps to your psychology, which is real of course. For example, if your WR is 3%, you'd need a 25% drop to reach 4% WR. You didn't share allocation but how often does that happen, only to then still have a CAPE-blind 95% chance of success (US anyway)?

Your next question is

how can I learn to tolerate the uncertainty around FIRE and career optionality?

My advice is to start by removing some uncertainty, with kids and school as your door opener.

-As a director you can talk to your boss, your peers, and your former leadership peers, people all in hiring position roles, about your options specifically. Tell those you trust that you are exploring taking time for family and to be a full-time student for two years either now or at some point in your career. Ask your former coworkers at other companies to be brutally honest about if they would hire you as a director, senior manager, and IC. If they are interested, ask them what business conditions would negate that. You might hear that they really wouldn't, and then you know there's more risk. Or you might get a standing offer to return at any time or in the future. You might even get an immediate part-time IC role at 60% your current hourly wage while you go to school. You might end up with two 50% time IC roles, an overall more resilient setup than you have now. I trust as a director you know how to ask these questions and interpret the answers you get.
-Run the actual numbers on healthcare and taxes in RE to refine your proposed WR%.
-Are there any university or local government jobs around? They might be obligated to share hours and pay and might have part-time options available. If there are, forcing yourself to apply and get an offer might be a worthwhile thing to explore. If a very safe part-time offer paying 75k was physically in your hand, would you take it? Why or why not? What would the pay or your stache need to be for you to say yes? Why? It is nearing a 0% WR at that point =)

Beyond that are psychological exercises and questions to ask yourself, things your therapist is more qualified to explore than I am. For me it would involve lots of hypothetical questions forcing including taking things to extremes to force decision points and lots of spreadsheets. Messing around with ACA, capital gains tax rates, property tax rates, if US returns will look like the rest of the world, lifelong support of kids, what would life look like at 5mm, 6mm, what are the odds you get there anyway etc. etc.

Posting your long ago case study for context for others =)
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/reader-case-study-semi-mustachian-family-facing-high-housing-costs/msg852784/#msg852784

[shuffler]

For me, the best route to confidence was through analysis.

(I believe I have the math under control)

Politely disagree.  Your current assessment of your expenses is incorrect/incomplete, and anyway it is less relevant than what you anticipate your expenses to be in retirement.

I'd recommend you make a good estimate of your post-FIRE expenses.
You can start from your "current" expenses, but several corrections need to be made.

Specifically:
  The P in PITI is not an expense.
  The Insurance part of PITI seems to be missing from your expenses.
  Your mortgage ends.  Your current math requires 1700/mo * 12mo / 3.5% = ~$583k in your stache to support your mortgage.  IMO, you should just use the pay-off amount to budget ($232k), whether or not you plan to pay it off before retiring.
  After-school care is similarly short-lived and will only be required for a few more years, it seems.
  College(s) may be an expense.
  Health Insurance expenses will likely change dramatically post-retirement.  Go figure out what you'll likely pay.
  Income Taxes seem to be ignored in your current expenses.  Go estimate your post-FIRE tax situation.
  Brokerage account contributions are not an expense.

$4.15M at a conservative 3.5% WR gives me just over $145k which more or less matches our current spending

Even if you only correct the $2k of savings into your brokerage, it would bring your current expenses to $10,300, which would be just below 3.0%.

Then if you model paying off your mortgage, you find:
    (($10300 - $1700)*12)/(4,150,000-232,000) = 2.64%

Then, yes, go trim lots of fat from your budget, too.
Then go model your wife wanting to keep working for a few more years.

My point is that the math seems to be indicating a *much* better situation than what you've sketched for yourself in your post.  I suspect you're not fully appreciating how good of a position you're already in.

Life Situation:
What if…

…markets tank shortly after I quit and we’re exposed to massive sequence of returns risk?
…I’m forced to look for work in a recession to replenish our depleted stash, but can only find jobs that are significantly worse than what I currently have?
…several years of retirement render me unhireable for jobs that any typical person would consider “good” (i.e., some combination of good compensation, flexibility, meaningful work, etc.)

You're only looking at the possible negative effects of quitting your job.
Have you given as much consideration to the definite negative outcomes of continuing in your job?
  *  Less time for family, especially while your kids are young and before they get busy with their own lives in the mid-teen years?
  *  Less time for non-work goals.  Not only in the present sense of having only so many hours per week, but also in the bigger picture sense of only having so many years of your life?
  *  Less health for non-work goals.  You're 44.  When I was 43 I shifted to part-time work because I knew that while I wasn't old yet, I wasn't young any longer either.  I fully retired at 45.  I had physical goals I wanted to pursue, and no guarantee that I'd still be capable of those goals if I delayed retirement to work a few more years.  On the contrary -- more years in a stressful work environment would hasten a decline of health, while early retirement's reduction of stress and ample time for exercise would increase it.

With all the money you have, can you really afford to not retire?

[swashbucklinstache]

For me, the best route to confidence was through analysis.

(I believe I have the math under control)

Politely disagree.  Your current assessment of your expenses is incorrect/incomplete, and anyway it is less relevant than what you anticipate your expenses to be in retirement.

I'd recommend you make a good estimate of your post-FIRE expenses.
You can start from your "current" expenses, but several corrections need to be made.

Specifically:
  The P in PITI is not an expense.
  The Insurance part of PITI seems to be missing from your expenses.
  Your mortgage ends.  Your current math requires 1700/mo * 12mo / 3.5% = ~$583k in your stache to support your mortgage.  IMO, you should just use the pay-off amount to budget ($232k), whether or not you plan to pay it off before retiring.
  After-school care is similarly short-lived and will only be required for a few more years, it seems.
  College(s) may be an expense.
  Health Insurance expenses will likely change dramatically post-retirement.  Go figure out what you'll likely pay.
  Income Taxes seem to be ignored in your current expenses.  Go estimate your post-FIRE tax situation.
  Brokerage account contributions are not an expense.

$4.15M at a conservative 3.5% WR gives me just over $145k which more or less matches our current spending

Even if you only correct the $2k of savings into your brokerage, it would bring your current expenses to $10,300, which would be just below 3.0%.

Then if you model paying off your mortgage, you find:
    (($10300 - $1700)*12)/(4,150,000-232,000) = 2.64%

Then, yes, go trim lots of fat from your budget, too.
Then go model your wife wanting to keep working for a few more years.

My point is that the math seems to be indicating a *much* better situation than what you've sketched for yourself in your post.  I suspect you're not fully appreciating how good of a position you're already in.

Life Situation:
What if…

…markets tank shortly after I quit and we’re exposed to massive sequence of returns risk?
…I’m forced to look for work in a recession to replenish our depleted stash, but can only find jobs that are significantly worse than what I currently have?
…several years of retirement render me unhireable for jobs that any typical person would consider “good” (i.e., some combination of good compensation, flexibility, meaningful work, etc.)

You're only looking at the possible negative effects of quitting your job.
Have you given as much consideration to the definite negative outcomes of continuing in your job?
  *  Less time for family, especially while your kids are young and before they get busy with their own lives in the mid-teen years?
  *  Less time for non-work goals.  Not only in the present sense of having only so many hours per week, but also in the bigger picture sense of only having so many years of your life?
  *  Less health for non-work goals.  You're 44.  When I was 43 I shifted to part-time work because I knew that while I wasn't old yet, I wasn't young any longer either.  I fully retired at 45.  I had physical goals I wanted to pursue, and no guarantee that I'd still be capable of those goals if I delayed retirement to work a few more years.  On the contrary -- more years in a stressful work environment would hasten a decline of health, while early retirement's reduction of stress and ample time for exercise would increase it.

With all the money you have, can you really afford to not retire?

I agree with all this too. It's really so incredibly unlikely that the best solution for the potential problems a MCOL slightly high spending family with 4.6 million dollars might encounter is to work more up front in a job you don't like. If you made 800k a year and expressed desired lifestyle changes then maybe. Maybe. If you were instead retired right now would you accept an offer for your current role?

[Villanelle]

So find a part-time job.

It seems pretty clear that you don't need one, especially if you trim some of the most egregious fat, which may be easier to do if you aren't working.  Groom your own dog and be slightly more thoughtful with grocery shopping, and you've probably got $400/mo there alone. 

But if you want to coast FIRE a bit, or smooth the edges, or ride things out a few years to try and hedge against SORR, or whatever you want to call it, part-time work seems ideal.  Talk to your current employer and see if it's a possibility.  Or do something entirely different.  Substitute teaching is about as flexible as it gets, for example.  Pay is mediocre, but you don't need a ton of money.  Or find something else. 

Again, you don't need it.  But if you need the mental reassurance, it's still better than working FT at a job you detest.

[Freedomin5]

There are many strategies to hedge against SORR. "Go back to work" is not the only strategy. Most people on this forum put in place many many ways to hedge against SORR, which might include one or more of the following: building a reverse equity glide path, building a 5-year CD ladder, building up a giant cash cushion, figuring out part-time work, putting in place one or more passive income streams, and probably a few more I can't recall at the moment.

[ATtiny85]

Taxable/Brokerage: $2.02M

What is in the $2.02M that produces only

Qualified Dividends & Long Term Capital Gains:
Qualified dividends: $13k

?

[father time]

Our assets/expenses/age/locations/mindset are similar so "I hear you."  Here's what I would say:

1.  Congrats on building up an impressive brokerage account.  That is a nice war chest that should let you sleep well at night.  As someone else noted, what do you own there that only yields $13K/year?  Screams tech stocks, perhaps. 

2.  Relatedly, I am also scared of SORR.  To counter that, my non-IRA/401(k) money is weighted away from stocks, with a significant chunk of boring-ass bonds.  Yeah the return ceiling is low, but at 4+% a bond ladder is going to let me sleep at night and is north of the "4% rule" to boot.  Needless to say, you aren't able to touch your IRA for another 15 years so that should be equities and just set it and forget it.  If that bucket is worth less in 15 years we all have bigger problems to worry about.

3.  As someone else noted, your 24k/yr in taxable contributions goes away at ER.  So your actual annual spend is only $123K. 

4. Set a date to leave but don't tell anyone yet for obvious reasons.  I have.  If the market takes a gigantic dump, I might soldier on a bit longer.  But setting a date in my own mind has made work a bit more tolerable.  You can always come up with a doomsday scenario for why ER might not work -- believe me, I have done that to myself too.  But then I tell myself what is going to be a REAL tragedy is if I am sitting at this desk on my 60th bday with way more money than I need and I have wasted all those remaining "good years" in the interim because I was too scared.  Time is the most important currency -- don't waste it at a crappy job you hate with your numbers!!

5.  Good luck. You are going to be fine. 

[Villanelle]

There are many strategies to hedge against SORR. "Go back to work" is not the only strategy. Most people on this forum put in place many many ways to hedge against SORR, which might include one or more of the following: building a reverse equity glide path, building a 5-year CD ladder, building up a giant cash cushion, figuring out part-time work, putting in place one or more passive income streams, and probably a few more I can't recall at the moment.

Very good point. 

OP, IF the SHTF,  can you stop most eating at restaurants, clean your own house, watch your own kids afterschool, and do only one modest staycation for a year or two?  Just those changes during a down market will decrease your expenses by about $20k. 

Skip summer camp for the kids (which could also be a great lesson on fiscal responsibility, explaining inflation, talking about risks and benefits of the stock market, etc.) IF there's a bad year/years early in your retirement.  That's another ~$8k year saved (and still some money left for a couple week-long day camps or similar). 

Instead of returning to paid employment, dust your own living room and play scrabble with your kids after school Are you planning on keeping that after school care expense when you retire?  It not, then it's an overall expense decrease, not just a possible SORR hedge.)  Give fewer, more thoughtful gifts ($2k).  Turn down the thermostat and water heater by a couple degrees (maybe $1k).  I'm sure there are more but those alone are about $30k year.  And remember, you don't have to automatically do these things.  You'll probably never have to do all, and likely not even any, of them.  And if you do have to implement some/all of them, it's probably for a year or two, max.  So it's not that you can never go to Europe or send your kids to $10,000 worth of summer camps.  It's just that for 1-2 years, you vacation locally or at least nationally, and hit Spain and Portugal when the market recovers.  And your kids do a week of coding camp and a week of soccer camp for 1 year, then return to...whatever camp costs $5k/kid/year.  So it's the *possibility* of *temporary* cuts. 

And with all that, you never have to return to work. 

I think most people plan for a combo of things.  I'm a freelance writer.  I make shit money, but my first option would be to ask my primary employer of they have any additional projects.  (They almost always do, but I know that in a bad market, others will likely be looking to expand, too, so I don't count on this.)  I'd also happily walk some neighbors' dogs, substitute teach, or do odd jobs for an older person.  9We live very close to a retirement community.)  But DH and I are also open to adding a meatless day to our weekly menu, skipping nicer vacations for a couple years, and cutting out some lazy processed foods we rely on a bit too much anyway. 

Then there are the strategies that Freedom mentions, like cash or a CD-ladder to get you through the first few years when SORR are worst.

We have some of these in our layered strategy.  Anyone can (and should) have a layered approach.  It's not just, "dang, the market's down 25%, looks like I have to grind to find regular employment."  Especially with a budget as large as yours, with fat to trim as needed.  You say that "just go back to work" is "oft-repeated".  But I don't see that repeated here much at all.  What I see people say repetitively is, "there are lots of things I can do, one of which is maybe go back to some form of paid work, and with a robust strategy in place, I'll be fine." 

[Fru-Gal]

I know this will fall on deaf ears but holy shit you have so much money. In 10 years it will double. It's almost like you are trolling. Over $4 million at age 44 and you're watching your mental and physical health fade away while you wonder whether it's enough?!? Think about your kids. What is this learned helplessness teaching them about life?

[Kid_Sneelock]

You're at a WR that is unlikely to fail, spending significantly more than the median household, and are comfortable trimming fat if you need. I'd be surprised if life insurance is something that makes sense in your case. I wouldn't count the 2k taxable brokerage contribution as spending, would removing that lower you to 10k a month?  That's a sub-3% WR before looking at taxes and healthcare in RE.

Good points all. I wouldn't say that I'm completely comfortable trimming fat, mainly due to the potential dynamic it could introduce into my marriage of me "policing" the family spending, much of which is managed by my wife. But it could certainly be done if push comes to shove. Agree that we can probably cancel the life insurance, and that the brokerage contributions aren't really expenses.

My questions
Will your wife continue to work? Missed this, answered above and will continue.
Will you stay in this area forever, or happily live in similar COL in the future?

I believe we will stay in this area for at least the next 12 years or so while my kids are in school. Not 100% sure after that. Most of my friends and family are in the area, but my wife grew up elsewhere and has never been a huge fan of the midwest winters. I think it's unlikely that we'll end up in a VHCOL area, though

Your what-if questions were these...

…markets tank shortly after I quit and we’re exposed to massive sequence of returns risk?
…I’m forced to look for work in a recession to replenish our depleted stash, but can only find jobs that are significantly worse than what I currently have?
…several years of retirement render me unhireable for jobs that any typical person would consider “good” (i.e., some combination of good compensation, flexibility, meaningful work, etc.)

...and the answer is that all of these together would almost certainly not matter at all, except perhaps to your psychology, which is real of course. For example, if your WR is 3%, you'd need a 25% drop to reach 4% WR. You didn't share allocation but how often does that happen, only to then still have a CAPE-blind 95% chance of success (US anyway)?

You're right, it is mostly psychological. I'm also thinking of scenarios I've modeled (FIRECalc, etc.) where although there is a 100% success rate, the worst-performing year has portfolio value running more or less horizontally, oscillating above but never touching $0. Although that technically counts as a "success," I imagine it would be somewhat stressful to live that experience over a 50-year retirement.

Your next question is

how can I learn to tolerate the uncertainty around FIRE and career optionality?

My advice is to start by removing some uncertainty, with kids and school as your door opener.

-As a director you can talk to your boss, your peers, and your former leadership peers, people all in hiring position roles, about your options specifically. Tell those you trust that you are exploring taking time for family and to be a full-time student for two years either now or at some point in your career. Ask your former coworkers at other companies to be brutally honest about if they would hire you as a director, senior manager, and IC. If they are interested, ask them what business conditions would negate that. You might hear that they really wouldn't, and then you know there's more risk. Or you might get a standing offer to return at any time or in the future. You might even get an immediate part-time IC role at 60% your current hourly wage while you go to school. You might end up with two 50% time IC roles, an overall more resilient setup than you have now. I trust as a director you know how to ask these questions and interpret the answers you get.
-Run the actual numbers on healthcare and taxes in RE to refine your proposed WR%.
-Are there any university or local government jobs around? They might be obligated to share hours and pay and might have part-time options available. If there are, forcing yourself to apply and get an offer might be a worthwhile thing to explore. If a very safe part-time offer paying 75k was physically in your hand, would you take it? Why or why not? What would the pay or your stache need to be for you to say yes? Why? It is nearing a 0% WR at that point =)

These are all good suggestions. In the past, I have never really let on to anyone at work, much less my boss, that I've been dissatisfied with my job, out of fear that it would negatively change their perception of me and affect my job security. This fear has decreased as my stache has increased but never fully disappeared. But at this point I probably have more to gain than to lose by being honest with my boss.

Re: the question of a $75k part-time job offer, provided the particulars of the job were decent and I was interested in the work, I'd absolutely take it. I just have trouble conceiving of what kind of job like that might exist for me. I've had this mindset throughout my career that the only jobs I'm qualified for are those that are substantially similar to the ones I've already done or have been doing. That's part of the reason I've been in this particular field all these years. My "competitive advantage" has been my healthcare domain experience combined with my analytics background. I could pivot to another industry (finance, education, etc.), but then I have no advantage over anyone with general analytics experience, and am disadvantaged against anyone with domain-specific experience. Rationally, I know that all sorts of people have accomplished these kinds of career pivots, but I have had a hard time getting over the mental barrier.

Posting your long ago case study for context for others =)
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/reader-case-study-semi-mustachian-family-facing-high-housing-costs/msg852784/#msg852784

Wow, I had actually completely forgotten that I had written that case study almost 10 years ago. Amazing to look back and see how much has changed, and how many of the things I was worrying about back then are just no longer relevant. Most of the "what-if's" I had back then didn't come to pass.

[dandarc]

Taxable/Brokerage: $2.02M

What is in the $2.02M that produces only

Qualified Dividends & Long Term Capital Gains:
Qualified dividends: $13k

?

$2 million in an S&P 500 fund would produce about $30,000 in dividends per year. So what are you invested in that is throwing off such a small amount of money?

[Kid_Sneelock]

Taxable/Brokerage: $2.02M

What is in the $2.02M that produces only

Qualified Dividends & Long Term Capital Gains:
Qualified dividends: $13k

?

$2 million in an S&P 500 fund would produce about $30,000 in dividends per year. So what are you invested in that is throwing off such a small amount of money?

This is a typo, it's actually $33k. I'll correct it in the original post.

[Kid_Sneelock]

For me, the best route to confidence was through analysis.

(I believe I have the math under control)

Politely disagree.  Your current assessment of your expenses is incorrect/incomplete, and anyway it is less relevant than what you anticipate your expenses to be in retirement.

I'd recommend you make a good estimate of your post-FIRE expenses.
You can start from your "current" expenses, but several corrections need to be made.

Specifically:
  The P in PITI is not an expense.
  The Insurance part of PITI seems to be missing from your expenses.
  Your mortgage ends.  Your current math requires 1700/mo * 12mo / 3.5% = ~$583k in your stache to support your mortgage.  IMO, you should just use the pay-off amount to budget ($232k), whether or not you plan to pay it off before retiring.
  After-school care is similarly short-lived and will only be required for a few more years, it seems.
  College(s) may be an expense.
  Health Insurance expenses will likely change dramatically post-retirement.  Go figure out what you'll likely pay.
  Income Taxes seem to be ignored in your current expenses.  Go estimate your post-FIRE tax situation.
  Brokerage account contributions are not an expense.

Thanks for calling those points out. You're right that they affect the numbers quite a bit.

Re: college, we have 529s for the kids that should cover 4 years of in-state schooling for each. We don't include the 529s in our FIRE calculations.

Re: health insurance, we'll be able to stay on my wife's insurance while she's still employed. Beyond that, I'll need to look at the ACA exchanges to get a better idea of what we'd be paying.

Life Situation:
What if…

…markets tank shortly after I quit and we’re exposed to massive sequence of returns risk?
…I’m forced to look for work in a recession to replenish our depleted stash, but can only find jobs that are significantly worse than what I currently have?
…several years of retirement render me unhireable for jobs that any typical person would consider “good” (i.e., some combination of good compensation, flexibility, meaningful work, etc.)

You're only looking at the possible negative effects of quitting your job.
Have you given as much consideration to the definite negative outcomes of continuing in your job?
  *  Less time for family, especially while your kids are young and before they get busy with their own lives in the mid-teen years?
  *  Less time for non-work goals.  Not only in the present sense of having only so many hours per week, but also in the bigger picture sense of only having so many years of your life?
  *  Less health for non-work goals.  You're 44.  When I was 43 I shifted to part-time work because I knew that while I wasn't old yet, I wasn't young any longer either.  I fully retired at 45.  I had physical goals I wanted to pursue, and no guarantee that I'd still be capable of those goals if I delayed retirement to work a few more years.  On the contrary -- more years in a stressful work environment would hasten a decline of health, while early retirement's reduction of stress and ample time for exercise would increase it.

With all the money you have, can you really afford to not retire?

Yeah, you're definitely right that I'm weighting the possible negatives of quitting over the definite negatives of staying. I think there is a lot of status quo bias in the way I've been thinking about my options. It's like I'm staying on this track not because it's been going so well, but because nothing terrible has happened. It's avoiding a particular type of negative outcome as opposed to pursuing something more positive. I'll have to think more on that.

[Kid_Sneelock]

So find a part-time job.

It seems pretty clear that you don't need one, especially if you trim some of the most egregious fat, which may be easier to do if you aren't working.  Groom your own dog and be slightly more thoughtful with grocery shopping, and you've probably got $400/mo there alone. 

But if you want to coast FIRE a bit, or smooth the edges, or ride things out a few years to try and hedge against SORR, or whatever you want to call it, part-time work seems ideal.  Talk to your current employer and see if it's a possibility.  Or do something entirely different.  Substitute teaching is about as flexible as it gets, for example.  Pay is mediocre, but you don't need a ton of money.  Or find something else. 

Again, you don't need it.  But if you need the mental reassurance, it's still better than working FT at a job you detest.

My knee-jerk reaction to this post was to ask, "where are all these part-time jobs that don't suck?" The example you gave of substitute teaching sounds like a nightmare to me, based on what I hear from actual teachers about the experience of teaching K-12 these days. But that's just one example out of millions of jobs. They can't all suck. I think I'm starting to realize that the only way to truly understand what's available/possible is to actually job search in the real world, rather than job searching in my head. We're in a position where I could try something and abandon it if it didn't work out, although I wouldn't want to repeat that process over and over again.

[Villanelle]

So find a part-time job.

It seems pretty clear that you don't need one, especially if you trim some of the most egregious fat, which may be easier to do if you aren't working.  Groom your own dog and be slightly more thoughtful with grocery shopping, and you've probably got $400/mo there alone. 

But if you want to coast FIRE a bit, or smooth the edges, or ride things out a few years to try and hedge against SORR, or whatever you want to call it, part-time work seems ideal.  Talk to your current employer and see if it's a possibility.  Or do something entirely different.  Substitute teaching is about as flexible as it gets, for example.  Pay is mediocre, but you don't need a ton of money.  Or find something else. 

Again, you don't need it.  But if you need the mental reassurance, it's still better than working FT at a job you detest.

My knee-jerk reaction to this post was to ask, "where are all these part-time jobs that don't suck?" The example you gave of substitute teaching sounds like a nightmare to me, based on what I hear from actual teachers about the experience of teaching K-12 these days. But that's just one example out of millions of jobs. They can't all suck. I think I'm starting to realize that the only way to truly understand what's available/possible is to actually job search in the real world, rather than job searching in my head. We're in a position where I could try something and abandon it if it didn't work out, although I wouldn't want to repeat that process over and over again.

Right.  What sucks for one person wouldn't suck for another.  And remember that the calculation for "suck" has to take into account that this is a temporary thing.  So while I think subbing (or nearly an PT job) would suck long term, for a year or two?  Meh.   For me, subbbing probably wouldn't suck.  When you aren't the FT teacher, many of the awful elements facing teachers go away.  It's a job for which you have total control over your schedule, which is super appealing when we are talking about a job to bridge through a bad market.  If you have a group bike ride on Tuesdays, you don't work Tuesdays.  If you want to go on vacation for a week, you don't accept jobs.  But it's surely not for everyone.  (Unless things were really bad, I'd likely not take junior high jobs as those seem least attractive to me.)

And even job searching probably doesn't show you all the options, depending on what's available.  Maybe in a down market other people are working longer hours so they'd be happy to pay a neighbor to let out their dogs or take them for a walk.  Or to pick up kids from school, make them a snack, and supervise for an hour or two until parents get home. Maybe adult children who usually travel to help elderly parents can no longer afford to do so and find it's cheaper to pay you to pick up prescriptions once a month and do a few hours of house chores.  Maybe parents who usually pay for expensive camps will no longer be able to do so, but would love to have a creative engineer in the neighborhood do STEM-Tuesdays for an hour or two during summer months, with create and fun science-based projects. 

These are the types of jobs that likely wouldn't be posted, and that might be more common in a down market (rather than many of the jobs that might become more scarce).  They are also likely not posted on job boards. 

[Kid_Sneelock]

Our assets/expenses/age/locations/mindset are similar so "I hear you."  Here's what I would say:

1.  Congrats on building up an impressive brokerage account.  That is a nice war chest that should let you sleep well at night.  As someone else noted, what do you own there that only yields $13K/year?  Screams tech stocks, perhaps. 

2.  Relatedly, I am also scared of SORR.  To counter that, my non-IRA/401(k) money is weighted away from stocks, with a significant chunk of boring-ass bonds.  Yeah the return ceiling is low, but at 4+% a bond ladder is going to let me sleep at night and is north of the "4% rule" to boot.  Needless to say, you aren't able to touch your IRA for another 15 years so that should be equities and just set it and forget it.  If that bucket is worth less in 15 years we all have bigger problems to worry about.

3.  As someone else noted, your 24k/yr in taxable contributions goes away at ER.  So your actual annual spend is only $123K. 

4. Set a date to leave but don't tell anyone yet for obvious reasons.  I have.  If the market takes a gigantic dump, I might soldier on a bit longer.  But setting a date in my own mind has made work a bit more tolerable.  You can always come up with a doomsday scenario for why ER might not work -- believe me, I have done that to myself too.  But then I tell myself what is going to be a REAL tragedy is if I am sitting at this desk on my 60th bday with way more money than I need and I have wasted all those remaining "good years" in the interim because I was too scared.  Time is the most important currency -- don't waste it at a crappy job you hate with your numbers!!

5.  Good luck. You are going to be fine.

Thanks for the reassurance. I have to remind myself that while my relative youth and good health seem like "just the way things are" right now, it won't always be that way. There will be some point in the future where I'll realize that the window has closed on certain experiences/goals/plans because I've aged out or am not healthy enough. It's one of those things that you appreciate most when it's gone.

[Kid_Sneelock]

Anyone can (and should) have a layered approach.  It's not just, "dang, the market's down 25%, looks like I have to grind to find regular employment."  Especially with a budget as large as yours, with fat to trim as needed.  You say that "just go back to work" is "oft-repeated".  But I don't see that repeated here much at all.  What I see people say repetitively is, "there are lots of things I can do, one of which is maybe go back to some form of paid work, and with a robust strategy in place, I'll be fine."

I see your point. I need to do some more thinking about the specific "layers" I can employ to help assuage my fears. I think I've been spooked by, among other things, some of the "flexibility-skeptical" content from Big ERN's Safe Withdrawal Rate Series:

https://earlyretirementnow.com/2018/05/09/the-ultimate-guide-to-safe-withdrawal-rates-part-24-flexibility-myths-vs-reality/
https://earlyretirementnow.com/2018/05/23/the-ultimate-guide-to-safe-withdrawal-rates-part-25-more-flexibility-myths/

But those posts generally test flexibility strategies individually, not as part of a multi-layered strategy.

[swashbucklinstache]

My questions
Will your wife continue to work? Missed this, answered above and will continue.
Will you stay in this area forever, or happily live in similar COL in the future?

I believe we will stay in this area for at least the next 12 years or so while my kids are in school. Not 100% sure after that. Most of my friends and family are in the area, but my wife grew up elsewhere and has never been a huge fan of the midwest winters. I think it's unlikely that we'll end up in a VHCOL area, though

Your what-if questions were these...

…markets tank shortly after I quit and we’re exposed to massive sequence of returns risk?
…I’m forced to look for work in a recession to replenish our depleted stash, but can only find jobs that are significantly worse than what I currently have?
…several years of retirement render me unhireable for jobs that any typical person would consider “good” (i.e., some combination of good compensation, flexibility, meaningful work, etc.)

...and the answer is that all of these together would almost certainly not matter at all, except perhaps to your psychology, which is real of course. For example, if your WR is 3%, you'd need a 25% drop to reach 4% WR. You didn't share allocation but how often does that happen, only to then still have a CAPE-blind 95% chance of success (US anyway)?

You're right, it is mostly psychological. I'm also thinking of scenarios I've modeled (FIRECalc, etc.) where although there is a 100% success rate, the worst-performing year has portfolio value running more or less horizontally, oscillating above but never touching $0. Although that technically counts as a "success," I imagine it would be somewhat stressful to live that experience over a 50-year retirement.

Run your numbers again at the 2.64% someone calculated above and see what it looks like. Then, as they said, run it at 2.64% but with your wife's income for 3 years. This got you started, I added 9k for taxes as a complete guess.https://www.cfiresim.com/ad2e7d4d-b463-4417-ae2d-d7258deb6fe7 This isn't gospel or anything but I don't see a year you're ever below 1.7 million dollars.

Your next question is

how can I learn to tolerate the uncertainty around FIRE and career optionality?

My advice is to start by removing some uncertainty, with kids and school as your door opener.

-As a director you can talk to your boss, your peers, and your former leadership peers, people all in hiring position roles, about your options specifically. Tell those you trust that you are exploring taking time for family and to be a full-time student for two years either now or at some point in your career. Ask your former coworkers at other companies to be brutally honest about if they would hire you as a director, senior manager, and IC. If they are interested, ask them what business conditions would negate that. You might hear that they really wouldn't, and then you know there's more risk. Or you might get a standing offer to return at any time or in the future. You might even get an immediate part-time IC role at 60% your current hourly wage while you go to school. You might end up with two 50% time IC roles, an overall more resilient setup than you have now. I trust as a director you know how to ask these questions and interpret the answers you get.
-Run the actual numbers on healthcare and taxes in RE to refine your proposed WR%.
-Are there any university or local government jobs around? They might be obligated to share hours and pay and might have part-time options available. If there are, forcing yourself to apply and get an offer might be a worthwhile thing to explore. If a very safe part-time offer paying 75k was physically in your hand, would you take it? Why or why not? What would the pay or your stache need to be for you to say yes? Why? It is nearing a 0% WR at that point =)

These are all good suggestions. In the past, I have never really let on to anyone at work, much less my boss, that I've been dissatisfied with my job, out of fear that it would negatively change their perception of me and affect my job security. This fear has decreased as my stache has increased but never fully disappeared. But at this point I probably have more to gain than to lose by being honest with my boss.

Just reiterating that only you can know if your boss should be on your list. I'd guess so, and would for sure think peers are, but use your head =).

Combining this

Re: the question of a $75k part-time job offer, provided the particulars of the job were decent and I was interested in the work, I'd absolutely take it. I just have trouble conceiving of what kind of job like that might exist for me. I've had this mindset throughout my career that the only jobs I'm qualified for are those that are substantially similar to the ones I've already done or have been doing. That's part of the reason I've been in this particular field all these years. My "competitive advantage" has been my healthcare domain experience combined with my analytics background. I could pivot to another industry (finance, education, etc.), but then I have no advantage over anyone with general analytics experience, and am disadvantaged against anyone with domain-specific experience. Rationally, I know that all sorts of people have accomplished these kinds of career pivots, but I have had a hard time getting over the mental barrier.

and

These are the types of jobs that likely wouldn't be posted, and that might be more common in a down market (rather than many of the jobs that might become more scarce).  They are also likely not posted on job boards.

Let me be more direct on the crowd's behalf: You are a director, so it is unlikely you'll ever want to find a job from a job board again. Create this role on your team and then take it. Or, tell your director peers outside of the company to make it for you. What would you do if your peer came to you wanting something like this on your team? Your competitive advantage in a hiring manager's eyes as an IC isn't "healthcare domain experience combined with my analytics background" it is that plus "made it to director so probably not a shithead." Maybe that doesn't get you out of healthcare analytics right away, but you get your IC skills back and leave in a year if you want. Healthcare analytics is a huge field too, there are lots of options.

[BeanCounter]

@Kid_Sneelock
for a brief second I thought I wrote this post. I FIRE'd from a large hospital system finance career four years ago. I was unfulfilled and totally burned out. At the time our kids were 11 and 8 and I wanted to stop hiring summer and after school help, and spend time with my kids. You and I have nearly identical net worth and expenses. We also live in the midwest.

 TRUST ME THAT YOU WILL BE FINE. Here's why-
   -Your expenses will go down naturally. Just glancing at your budget I see things that I'm sure will decrease if not go away entirely once one of you is home.
   -We did change our AA to 80% equities, 10% stock, 10% cash. That 10% of cash could cover nearly 3 years of expenses in a market downturn. And then we can pull from bonds. This is our plan to reduce SORR
   -Work and money will find you. I've been doing some part time consulting. I'm sure you could do the same. I work for myself, on my terms on a 1099. That seems to work well for me. Much of this work I've found by doing volunteer work (accounting, finance, bookkeeping etc) and then the people I meet volunteering have paid work they offer me.
But before you do any paid work, just enjoy some time off, decompress and spend time with your kids. Work on reducing some expenses. THEN venture out and start doing volunteer activities and see what happens.

Full disclosure-My spouse is still working because he enjoys it but also health insurance is challenging. In a nutshell we don't want to get our expenses down to make ACA premiums reasonable, and we don't like the ACA option that include the local Children's hospital in our area for our family. One spouse working to maintain employer sponsored insurance is helpful but I probably wouldn't stay in a miserable job for it.

[Rockies]

You are done, and you need to stop working. But dont just stop. Think about your goals,passions, etc and start making a plan for the next 5-10 years. You are at the point where you can do whatever you want.

So many years of burn-out stress has probably numbed your brain and not made you able to conceive of a reality of life outside work and exactly what you would do.

I recommend starting the transition by getting involved in a local non-profit, hobbiest club, meetup group, etc. Also set some real goals (allow yourself to be flexible, as once you quit things may change) for yourself.

But yes, you are excessively more than fine. You could always cut expenses if one of the bad scenarios comes up, and you'd still be more than fine.

What will end up happening here if you dont make a change is you may suffer some serious health setback from work stress/burnout and then you will be forced into a retirement you can't enjoy. Stop before that happens!! Honestly this is your #1 risk factor, and much higher than any of the things you are worried about.

[farmecologist]

@Kid_Sneelock

We all have different psychological barriers to retiring early.  By far the largest one for us, and also the largest motivator to keep working, was getting our kids "launched".  Our definition of "launched" means getting both of them out of college without debt, and making sure they have "real" jobs with healthcare, etc...

Well, all of that happened this year.  Son graduated with a BS in astrophysics and landed a fully paid grad school PhD gig at Dartmouth.  Dartmouth's PhD package is unbelievably good.  Daughter graduated with a masters degree and landed her first job as a mental health therapist.

The only downside is that the motivation to work is now basically...gone.  We are having a hell of a time hanging on, and will likely retire early in the next year or two.

[Laura33]

Posting your long ago case study for context for others =)
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/reader-case-study-semi-mustachian-family-facing-high-housing-costs/msg852784/#msg852784

Wow, I had actually completely forgotten that I had written that case study almost 10 years ago. Amazing to look back and see how much has changed, and how many of the things I was worrying about back then are just no longer relevant. Most of the "what-if's" I had back then didn't come to pass.

This is the most significant thing you've written here.  Read that list of what-ifs and worries.  Now go back and read your current post of what-ifs and worries.  There's a pretty obvious lesson you can apply from that earlier post to your current one.

Your concerns are psychological, not financial.  Have you always been so pessimistic?  Do you always worry that anything different would necessarily be worse than what you have now?  How many of those things you actually fret about have ever actually happened??  You have a wife, a family, a home, two steady incomes, and more money than 95% of the American public will ever see in their lives.  You are the American dream.  So why are you still so unhappy?  And if all that isn't working to make you happy, then isn't it time to try something else? 

When your brain is creating your own problems, you need to consciously challenge those negative thought cycles when they happen.  What if the market crashes right after you quit?  It might.  So what affirmative steps can you take to protect against that?  Well, your wife works, so that's half of your expenses covered.  If you create a bond or CD ladder with 5 years' expenses in it, you can easily ride out any market dip.  Done, sorted.

What if you need a job again and can't re-create your current job and income?  So what?  You hate that job; why would you want to subject yourself to it again?  And is your $4M going to disappear entirely?  Even if it drops by a full 50%, that still covers half of your annual expenses.  If your wife is working, you don't need to earn another penny.  If she's quit, and you still have a mortgage, you either need to cut $70K from your expenses, find a job that pays $70K, split the difference and cut $20K/earn $50K, or -- God forbid -- eat into your capital for a short period of time.

What if you're out of work in 10 years and need/want another job but now your skills/experience are dated?  Go back to college, get another degree, study something that interests you just for fun -- then you'll have updated skills and access to the school's career center.  You have $4M.  You can afford another degree even if you never "use" it a day in your life. 

What if you retire now and everything goes into the shitter?  Well, what if you work another 10 years and then die the day after you retire?  Which one of those scenarios is more likely? 

OR:

What if you retire now and everything goes into the shitter?  Well, what if you spend the next 20 years doing exactly what you're doing now?  How happy are you going to be you spent another two decades of your life earning more money that you don't need and won't even be able to spend before you die?  Again:  which of those scenarios is more likely? 

tl;dr:  you are the only one holding yourself back.  If you haven't worked on this with your therapist, please do so.  It's just sad to spend so much of your limited life energy worrying and fretting instead of enjoying all of the luxury and freedom you've earned.

[Kid_Sneelock]

Posting your long ago case study for context for others =)
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/reader-case-study-semi-mustachian-family-facing-high-housing-costs/msg852784/#msg852784

Wow, I had actually completely forgotten that I had written that case study almost 10 years ago. Amazing to look back and see how much has changed, and how many of the things I was worrying about back then are just no longer relevant. Most of the "what-if's" I had back then didn't come to pass.

This is the most significant thing you've written here.  Read that list of what-ifs and worries.  Now go back and read your current post of what-ifs and worries.  There's a pretty obvious lesson you can apply from that earlier post to your current one.

Thanks for your comments, @Laura33. It's true that a lot of the stuff I was focused on then just doesn't apply anymore. Of course, I have since accumulated some new worries that weren't on my radar back then, but the general lesson that we're generally pretty bad at predicting our long-term futures (and the pitfalls that might derail them) still applies.

Your concerns are psychological, not financial.  Have you always been so pessimistic?  Do you always worry that anything different would necessarily be worse than what you have now?  How many of those things you actually fret about have ever actually happened??  You have a wife, a family, a home, two steady incomes, and more money than 95% of the American public will ever see in their lives.  You are the American dream.  So why are you still so unhappy?  And if all that isn't working to make you happy, then isn't it time to try something else?

I've always been cautious and prone to rumination, but things came to a head in my late 20's/early 30's when my job and career disillusionment became impossible to reconcile with the expectations from my younger years. I blamed myself for what I was experiencing and feeling and went through several years of depression. This is also when I realized that I could skate by on minimal effort at work as long as I produced the bare minimum, kept showing up when expected, and acted generally friendly towards everyone.

Although I haven't really felt acute depression over the past 10 years or so, it has been replaced with a type of cynicism that has colored my thinking. I think there is also some shame/guilt that probably comes from my upbringing (i.e., I should be happy with the job I have because many jobs are worse, and wanting something better means I must be entitled or feel that I deserve special treatment). This is all stuff I've discussed with my therapist but obviously haven't fully resolved.

When your brain is creating your own problems, you need to consciously challenge those negative thought cycles when they happen.  What if the market crashes right after you quit?  It might.  So what affirmative steps can you take to protect against that?  Well, your wife works, so that's half of your expenses covered.  If you create a bond or CD ladder with 5 years' expenses in it, you can easily ride out any market dip.  Done, sorted.

I think one of the mental/emotional hurdles I deal with is a fixation on making decisions that are "optimal" or "correct," even when the available information I have makes that impossible to guarantee. So if I retire and the market drops 50%, I'm telling myself that I would have been so much better off if I had just stuck it out for a few more years and added to my stache at a discount. That equity valuations were sky high and I should have seen it coming. While I wouldn't expect others to have anticipated events like this, I don't generally give myself the same grace, and I fear the sense of regret I would feel if I were in that situation. Never mind that my family and I are still paying the bills and generally doing all right through all this...we could be doing better, financially at least, if I had made the "correct" (in retrospect) decision.

Of course, this discounts all the other ways of thinking about well-being (emotional, physical, spiritual, social, etc.).

What if you need a job again and can't re-create your current job and income?  So what?  You hate that job; why would you want to subject yourself to it again?  And is your $4M going to disappear entirely?  Even if it drops by a full 50%, that still covers half of your annual expenses.  If your wife is working, you don't need to earn another penny.  If she's quit, and you still have a mortgage, you either need to cut $70K from your expenses, find a job that pays $70K, split the difference and cut $20K/earn $50K, or -- God forbid -- eat into your capital for a short period of time.

What if you're out of work in 10 years and need/want another job but now your skills/experience are dated?  Go back to college, get another degree, study something that interests you just for fun -- then you'll have updated skills and access to the school's career center.  You have $4M.  You can afford another degree even if you never "use" it a day in your life. 

What if you retire now and everything goes into the shitter?  Well, what if you work another 10 years and then die the day after you retire?  Which one of those scenarios is more likely? 

OR:

What if you retire now and everything goes into the shitter?  Well, what if you spend the next 20 years doing exactly what you're doing now?  How happy are you going to be you spent another two decades of your life earning more money that you don't need and won't even be able to spend before you die?  Again:  which of those scenarios is more likely? 

tl;dr:  you are the only one holding yourself back.  If you haven't worked on this with your therapist, please do so.  It's just sad to spend so much of your limited life energy worrying and fretting instead of enjoying all of the luxury and freedom you've earned.

I think another mental hurdle I'm facing is the feeling that if I make a big change, I'll only get one shot at it...that I have to get it right the first time. That if I do something completely different, and it doesn't work out, it will somehow damage my credibility or count as a "failure." Again, I think this goes back to messages I received during my upbringing. Getting comfortable with the idea that I might have to try several different things before I find something that works is a real challenge. But as you said, I have to consider the risks of staying on the same track, as well as the risks of doing something new. I think my mindset has been downplaying the former and exaggerating the latter.

[Dicey]

Per usual: what @Laura33 said.

From my own perspective: your kids are at great ages. There is nothing better in the world that you can give them than time spent with you. Love them, guide them, teach them, enjoy them. If the SHTF, you can go back to work when they're in college. Hint: It won't.

Forget the Master's for now. I wouldn't be surprised IF you do go back to work, it will be in a totally different field.

You have put yourself in an incredibly favorable position. Carpe Diem.

[Jacinle]

Find a burnout coach , professional mentor to figure out your next step?

Some therapist help personal growth as well and help figure your ideal life

[Ladychips]

First, @Laura33 is a freaking genius, and everything she says is the gospel truth.

Second, you're imagining what can go wrong. Have you given any consideration to what can go right? I promise you, retired life can be better than your wildest dreams. And if I'm wrong, you can change what you are doing any time you want.

Third, I've always been a champion level worrier. One of my very favorite things about retiring was putting that load down. I'm 25 physical pounds lighter, but feel 100 mental pounds lighter.

I would encourage you to read some of the journals of people who have retired and some of the yearly cohort threads. I'd even encourage you to read that train wreck of a thread 'did 21/22 people pick the worst year to retire'. But don't read the posts from the people still working. They are only theorizing. Read the posts from the ones who have retired. They know. You'll see there are many, many ways to handle what appears to be challenging times.

I hope you find your way to a life of freedom and joy. And that you take your wife and kids along for the ride.

[Glenstache]

Would you retire to something or away from something?

[Dicey]

Would you retire to something or away from something?

IME, it makes no difference. Being FIRE is fantastic in its own right. People who can figure out how to FIRE have the skillset to figure the the rest out, too.

[lhamo]

So funny to go back and read your 2015 case study -- I had just moved back to 98125 to start my FIRE life at that point, and am still here, now in my own little house in Meadowbrook that I managed to snag for a good price last year!

My FIRE life started when I was 46 and allowed me to spend a lot of time/energy on my kids when they were teens.  That was one of the best things to ever happen to us.  I have WAAAAY less of a stash than y'all do, and some cash flow anxieties as I am sinking money into the house (adding a bath, replacing most of those aluminum windows) and also trying to live off non-retirement investments until I hit 59.5 in another 3.5 years. But I still haven't tried to find paying work to supplement as I relish the freedom of not having to clock in on anybody else's schedule.

I would urge you to give it a try.  You have plenty of assets to fall back on if you need to.  It is pretty easy to cut spending when you have more time.

[Simpli-Fi]

I read this and it mimics my state of mind about 3-4 years ago.  The best news of the day should be with your assets, you have OPTIONS! and should have very little stress.

It was very hard to step away from the fire hose paychecks, however my stash is up an amount with 2 comma's in it without much effort since Downshifting / Coasting...because like you I am cautious about spending entirely from savings, so a steady income is preferable but only if I chose it.

I'll break down my steps and hopefully you can have some take away and make your own path.

Downshift
this was fun for awhile, as I took on an individual contributor role that was a cake walk.  However, the self accomplishment satisfaction was 100% gone and while I didn't think this was a big deal...it began to altered my mood and my family noticed; I was no longer important in the workplace.  I was doing a 40 hour a week job with about 10 hours of effort...work / life was way more life but it was tough to let the work ego fade away.

The next twist I came up with was finding a job that would put me outside my comfort zone and learn new skills that I could benefit from vs. using my established skills in an attenuated manner solely for punching a clock for a little paycheck.

I took an entry level job, that I've never done in an industry that I have ZERO experience...basically square one, but since I am a proven professional [resume/references says so...and I interview well when I have nothing to lose...OPTIONS, I found a company that was willing to take a risk on me because I wanted it [new professional training] bad enough for my own selfish reasons.

The team mentoring me are experts at what they do and are so head strong, and my success is important to them...and they won't let me fail, and this is far better than the other situation I described.

So my vote is, instead of paying for online education that takes time away from earning a living (double fund sink), find a company that will train you while you earn an income!  The catch is, you will have to navigate a way to show you add value...and maybe this is my ego hang up again, but at least I don't feel like I will get fired even though I operated at the bottom of the pack.

Life is too short to do something you aren't enjoying, you have options...now go explore them!  Obviously, you figured the "rich life" thing out...you can do it again, but this time tailor it for what makes sense now!

edited to add

My FIRE goal is flexible, but I'd like to pull the trigger no later than 15 years from now. Maybe 10 if things go really well.

Objectively, I have a very good job. I just find myself getting bored a lot of the time and daydreaming of things I'd rather be doing than sitting in an office.

NEWS FLASH:  THINGS WENT REALLY WELL!

[Kid_Sneelock]

The next twist I came up with was finding a job that would put me outside my comfort zone and learn new skills that I could benefit from vs. using my established skills in an attenuated manner solely for punching a clock for a little paycheck.

I took an entry level job, that I've never done in an industry that I have ZERO experience...basically square one, but since I am a proven professional [resume/references says so...and I interview well when I have nothing to lose...OPTIONS, I found a company that was willing to take a risk on me because I wanted it [new professional training] bad enough for my own selfish reasons.

The team mentoring me are experts at what they do and are so head strong, and my success is important to them...and they won't let me fail, and this is far better than the other situation I described.

So my vote is, instead of paying for online education that takes time away from earning a living (double fund sink), find a company that will train you while you earn an income!  The catch is, you will have to navigate a way to show you add value...and maybe this is my ego hang up again, but at least I don't feel like I will get fired even though I operated at the bottom of the pack.

This part is fascinating to me. As I alluded to in earlier posts, I would love to pivot to a different, possibly related (but not necessarily?) career with less responsibility and more learning. I feel like I'm getting dumber with each passing year in my current role, rehashing meetings/projects/problems that I've dealt with many times before. The stress of being responsible for more and more while being interested in less and less of it is eating away at me.

I think the idea of the online, part-time MS in CS was what I initially came up with to accomplish that kind of pivot. The idea that a company would hire me in my current state, without some additional credential to prove my value, honestly didn't occur to me. I'll check your post history as I'm sure you've already written about it, but I would love to learn more about how you chose the job/industry you landed in and how you managed the transition. The way you describe it, it almost sounds like an apprenticeship. That sounds amazing to me.

[FIRE 20/20]

I agree with basically everything that has been said.  I have a couple of additional questions, and I might have missed where you addressed these in one of your posts somewhere.  How does your wife feel about you quitting?  Also, would a part-time job where you currently work be a possibility?  It sounds like you have a particular background that is highly valuable to your current employer.  Rather than lose you completely, even if they don't have any policy for part-time workers (unlikely), they may be willing to keep you on at far fewer hours each week.  I'm a big advocate for going part time because it worked out so incredibly well for both me and my partner.  We were doing jobs where part-time work was not only unusual, but often perceived to be nearly impossible.  But we both had skills and experience that made us valuable enough that our company was happy to have us working in any capacity rather than not at all, so we made job opportunities for ourselves.  I wouldn't be surprised if you had the kind of professional capital to make that a good option for your employer.  I found the transition to part-time extremely beneficial in my transition to full-time FIRE. 

[bacchi]

I agree with basically everything that has been said.  I have a couple of additional questions, and I might have missed where you addressed these in one of your posts somewhere.  How does your wife feel about you quitting?  Also, would a part-time job where you currently work be a possibility?  It sounds like you have a particular background that is highly valuable to your current employer.  Rather than lose you completely, even if they don't have any policy for part-time workers (unlikely), they may be willing to keep you on at far fewer hours each week.  I'm a big advocate for going part time because it worked out so incredibly well for both me and my partner.  We were doing jobs where part-time work was not only unusual, but often perceived to be nearly impossible.  But we both had skills and experience that made us valuable enough that our company was happy to have us working in any capacity rather than not at all, so we made job opportunities for ourselves.  I wouldn't be surprised if you had the kind of professional capital to make that a good option for your employer.  I found the transition to part-time extremely beneficial in my transition to full-time FIRE.

Agreed. I did the same. With FI money and professional capital, the OP can likely create their own part-time gig. Make it a contract/1099, make it WFH or 1 day/week, and be the expert that contributes as needed. It keeps some cash flow coming in and reduces the SORR concern.

[Kid_Sneelock]

How does your wife feel about you quitting?

She's generally very receptive to the idea of me quitting. I think she sees the stress and anxiety I've been dealing with and would love to see that reduced. She has said that she's comfortable being the sole wage earner "for at least a few years," meaning that she might then join me in ER rather than expecting me to find new employment. Although I have doubts that it would actually play out that way. She is driven by an overriding sense of responsibility and her identity is pretty tied up in her work/job.

Also, would a part-time job where you currently work be a possibility?  It sounds like you have a particular background that is highly valuable to your current employer.  Rather than lose you completely, even if they don't have any policy for part-time workers (unlikely), they may be willing to keep you on at far fewer hours each week.

There is certainly no existing blueprint at my employer for a part-time version of the role I'm in. I could broach the subject with my boss, but I'm not sure how it would go. The organization is under some pretty significant financial pressure and is in cost-cutting mode. That could be an argument supporting a part-time option. It could also be an argument for elimination of the role.

Beyond that, while less work overall would certainly help, I feel like I have a fair amount of baggage with this organization that makes me more interested in a clean slate. I wouldn't fully rule the option out, though.

[Simpli-Fi]

I'll check your post history as I'm sure you've already written about it, but I would love to learn more about how you chose the job/industry you landed in and how you managed the transition. The way you describe it, it almost sounds like an apprenticeship. That sounds amazing to me.

I haven’t written too many details about this other than the concept as I became enlightened to it.  Feel free to message me any questions that peak your interest.

I feel like I have a fair amount of baggage with this organization that makes me more interested in a clean slate. I wouldn't fully rule the option out, though.

I tried reducing hours with the same company I was working FT…and they even had a policy, however local management was aware of “my skill set” and consistently hassled me to come back full time.  We even had an agreement to revisit my schedule 6 months after going PT…every six week, like clock work, they had a new opportunity that required me to return FT.

I quit in month 5.

[jeroly]

When you get rid of the non-expense expenses like savings you're down to $123k, which even when grossed up for taxes gets you a WR under 4% so you are likely good to go from the FI side of FIRE, especially when you consider that your current budget includes heaps of child-related expenses that may either disappear immediately (eg childcare expenses) or over time.

I FIREd at 41 and haven't regretted it.  Occasionally the mood has struck me and I've taken a job here and there when there was alignment with my interests, but it's always been on my terms and I've never had the 'Sunday oh-no's' dreading my return to the office, like I did in my earlier work incarnations.  I have valued the extra time FIRE got me with my kid and the non-work world. Go for it!

[ixtap]

The thing is, even if you need to replenish, that doesn't mean you need to look for work during the recession. You can just keep your eye out for something interesting when it comes along.

I also try to keep a few things in mind:
- the 4% rule takes into account a pretty sucky SOR. That is, it is a sustainable withdrawal rate through crap
-most people tighten the belt during a recession, even if they don't need to. It seems to be human nature in reaction to poor economic news
-as early retirees, our plan ignores SS. We are just so far away from collecting that our plan needs to be quite robust to get us there. It will be an old age buffer for us
-even if you feel you need income, you probably only need enough to stem the bleeding. You don't need to save up, you probably won't even need to sustain your lifestyle, just put the brakes on the drawdown

I still panicked a bit when my partner put in their notice with just a few weeks warning. And we are currently paying housing expenses for a third party, so we are certainly getting used to reining in our own expenses.