Author Topic: How did I ever have time to work?  (Read 8227 times)

FINate

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How did I ever have time to work?
« on: July 12, 2017, 04:51:00 PM »
[apologies if this topic is a rehash of another thread I don't know about]

We hit FIRE 2 years ago. Today was a typical day:

* Woke up with the kids at around 8
* Breakfast
* Did some work on my wife's bike to get it ready for a ride she went on today
* Took care of kids while wife went on said ride
* Gardening/yardwork
* Harvested and cleaned some veggies for dinner tonight
* Some volunteer work for our church and a non-profit
* Made lunch
* Played with kids
* Archery practice in preparation for deer season
* Leg workout
* Work on some logistics for upcoming backpacking trip
* Tea time

I honestly don't know how I had time to work before FIRE.

Anyone else experience this?

Related: What's up with people who retire and return to work 2 months later because they're "bored out of their minds"? I don't get it. I liked my job okay, but there are approximately 1000 other things I'd rather do than commute and have someone telling me what to do.

Cossack

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Re: How did I ever have time to work?
« Reply #1 on: July 12, 2017, 05:43:53 PM »
I know right. I often think the same thing. How do people work and still have a life?


SwordGuy

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Re: How did I ever have time to work?
« Reply #2 on: July 12, 2017, 05:54:35 PM »
Less than 11 months before I get to experience what you're describing!

Mr. Green

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Re: How did I ever have time to work?
« Reply #3 on: July 12, 2017, 06:01:20 PM »
I can relate, and I'm not even really doing anything in FIRE yet. No projects, no hobbies, no kids, nothing. The days still manage to get away pretty easily. I definitely need work on the structure thing a bit to keep myself from falling into the lazy pit.

Financial.Velociraptor

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Re: How did I ever have time to work?
« Reply #4 on: July 12, 2017, 06:08:53 PM »
Haha.  Time really flies when you are having fun.

Lepetitange3

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Re: How did I ever have time to work?
« Reply #5 on: July 12, 2017, 06:34:57 PM »
Some days (today) I wonder this.  Others....I'm never "bored" but I feel like I should have done "more" whatever that is even though my days are super full, I mean I have 4 kids.  I just FIREd this year so hoping the weird work related I didn't do enough fades out

FINate

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Re: How did I ever have time to work?
« Reply #6 on: July 12, 2017, 07:11:48 PM »
Some days (today) I wonder this.  Others....I'm never "bored" but I feel like I should have done "more" whatever that is even though my days are super full, I mean I have 4 kids.  I just FIREd this year so hoping the weird work related I didn't do enough fades out

I had something similar the first year. A low-level background...anxiety?...hard to place the feeling. The stress of the daily grind was gone, which was greatly appreciated, but would occasionally get that "I should be doing more" feeling. Like I was slacking off at work and worried about getting caught. For me this slowly waned at around 6-9 months.

Lepetitange3

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Re: How did I ever have time to work?
« Reply #7 on: July 12, 2017, 07:19:25 PM »
Appreciate you mentioning that FINate.  I've been making the spouse a little crazy with the philosophical meandering and vague anxiety.  So hopefully it will fade out soon :)

EscapeVelocity2020

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Re: How did I ever have time to work?
« Reply #8 on: July 12, 2017, 08:57:39 PM »
I seem to hear this all the time from retired counterparts (seem to know more and more retired folks as time goes on, especially being in oil & gas).  Then I hear folks here retiring early with a fallback plan of eventually going back to work. 

I guess it is not that different from the on-again off-again folks I've come across over the years (piping designers, welders, foremen), but they knew they would go back to work (working crazy hours for crazy income when the next goldmine came along).  In fact, that was their premise - living super-cheap / super-flexible lives, and it worked through the 90's and first decade of '00.  There were also the 50+ yo retirees (management) that came back on contract for 6 - 12 months and made a year or two (or three or four, the less you need the more they give you!) of income before hanging it up for good.

Maybe this is the way of the future - a more gig-based economy once you have some experience, but less 'crazy income' if more people do it.  More likely, experienced but bumpy resume people are depending on the same or better income and will have to settle for longer hours and average pay.  With the added perception that life outside work (having gardens / small farms, serious hobbies (writing, art, coding), managing finances or taking health more seriously) will make it harder to sell time for steady income and benefits, I wonder if this will become a new problem. 

In other words, maybe semi-ER is the way of the future and FI still just happens at SS age / or maybe ER before FI becomes a problem?

Hope I'm not derailing an otherwise happy thread - as long as the stock market goes up and inflation is low, the 4% rule has been 100% successful - this is just the futurist kinda stuff that I like to ponder for fun; I'm FI but not ER.

FINate

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Re: How did I ever have time to work?
« Reply #9 on: July 12, 2017, 09:11:09 PM »
Hope I'm not derailing an otherwise happy thread - as long as the stock market goes up and inflation is low, the 4% rule has been 100% successful - this is just the futurist kinda stuff that I like to ponder for fun; I'm FI but not ER.

No, it's fine. I was FI a few years before RE because I had a hard time believing I was really FI. Are you willing to talk about why you're not yet RE?

EscapeVelocity2020

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Re: How did I ever have time to work?
« Reply #10 on: July 12, 2017, 09:41:27 PM »
Hope I'm not derailing an otherwise happy thread - as long as the stock market goes up and inflation is low, the 4% rule has been 100% successful - this is just the futurist kinda stuff that I like to ponder for fun; I'm FI but not ER.

No, it's fine. I was FI a few years before RE because I had a hard time believing I was really FI. Are you willing to talk about why you're not yet RE?

Sure, but it's pretty boring.  My wife and I both worked when we started having kids, with the 100% focus on RE.  She retired when the second child arrived, I kept working (health benefits, not quite FI).  Then we moved overseas with my job and hit FI.  We moved back to Houston, bought a house in a nice school district, and life was OK, but then Macondo happened.  I leveraged contacts I made on my overseas assignment and we were soon on a plane to Dubai. 

Fast forward to 2.5 years later, we are back in Houston, same house, life is good and very affordable.  The internet keeps things interesting, travel has been awesome, we can afford all sorts of dream experiences cheaply.  The world is our oyster!  Why shut off any of the wide open possibility (like, earlier this year, I traveled to Singapore, South Korea, and new parts of China with complete strangers for business - good times, but I missed my kids).  I like that friction in my life, as opposed to being retired and home with my kids all the time. 

I dunno, it's not anything I can specifically put my finger on - I just think that this lifestyle is right for us and my employer, and if I get fired (with severence), then that was what was meant to be.  But I'm not looking a gift-horse in the mouth :)

FINate

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Re: How did I ever have time to work?
« Reply #11 on: July 12, 2017, 10:52:47 PM »
Hope I'm not derailing an otherwise happy thread - as long as the stock market goes up and inflation is low, the 4% rule has been 100% successful - this is just the futurist kinda stuff that I like to ponder for fun; I'm FI but not ER.

No, it's fine. I was FI a few years before RE because I had a hard time believing I was really FI. Are you willing to talk about why you're not yet RE?

Sure, but it's pretty boring.  My wife and I both worked when we started having kids, with the 100% focus on RE.  She retired when the second child arrived, I kept working (health benefits, not quite FI).  Then we moved overseas with my job and hit FI.  We moved back to Houston, bought a house in a nice school district, and life was OK, but then Macondo happened.  I leveraged contacts I made on my overseas assignment and we were soon on a plane to Dubai. 

Fast forward to 2.5 years later, we are back in Houston, same house, life is good and very affordable.  The internet keeps things interesting, travel has been awesome, we can afford all sorts of dream experiences cheaply.  The world is our oyster!  Why shut off any of the wide open possibility (like, earlier this year, I traveled to Singapore, South Korea, and new parts of China with complete strangers for business - good times, but I missed my kids).  I like that friction in my life, as opposed to being retired and home with my kids all the time. 

I dunno, it's not anything I can specifically put my finger on - I just think that this lifestyle is right for us and my employer, and if I get fired (with severence), then that was what was meant to be.  But I'm not looking a gift-horse in the mouth :)

Thanks for sharing. Makes sense.

TartanTallulah

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Re: How did I ever have time to work?
« Reply #12 on: July 13, 2017, 12:11:09 AM »

I honestly don't know how I had time to work before FIRE.

Anyone else experience this?

Not me, yet, though I expect to be similar when I retire.

When my father retired slightly (64) early due to a good offer of voluntary redundancy, I was sure it wouldn't last. He'll go scatty, I said. Within six months he'll be working in the hardware store or the garden centre, I said.

Wrong!

Nearly 15 years on, he's filled his days most effectively and never shown a hint of missing work.

(Though oddly, he and my mother, who retired in her 40s for health reasons, are opposed to the idea of me stopping work at 55. I smell a family script.)

Linea_Norway

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Re: How did I ever have time to work?
« Reply #13 on: July 13, 2017, 04:04:18 AM »
I know right. I often think the same thing. How do people work and still have a life?

That is right, we who still work don't have a life, at least not in the way we would fully like it. That is why we are on this site, saving for FIRE. :-)

Of the OP list of things in a typical day, we have to do similar of these things in the weekend and in evenings, instead of relaxing in the evening. Or we have to pay someone else to do it (like in my example of kindergarten). If we decide to go on a hiking trip, these weekend chores typically keep waiting until we are home some weekend later.

* Woke up with the kids at around 8 (wake up at 6:30)
* Breakfast (fast)
* Did some work on my wife's bike to get it ready for a ride she went on today (evening/weekend)
* Took care of kids while wife went on said ride (pay for kindergarten)
* Gardening/yardwork (weekend)
* Harvested and cleaned some veggies for dinner tonight (part of dinner preparation, right before cooking)
* Some volunteer work for our church and a non-profit (weekend)
* Made lunch (very fast made pack of sandwiches during breakfast preparation)
* Played with kids (kindergarten or evening)
* Archery practice in preparation for deer season (weekend/evening)
* Leg workout (evening)
* Work on some logistics for upcoming backpacking trip (several evenings and putting items on list the rest of the day)
* Tea time (we drink tea after dinner while watching the news on TV)

Vacation periods and not being at home have a whole different feeling about them. We do not need to do anything. And yes, sometimes we should have done so much more.

libertarian4321

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Re: How did I ever have time to work?
« Reply #14 on: August 17, 2017, 07:10:27 AM »
I was a full time early retiree for 4 years before sorta going back to work on a "work from home" deal.

People used to ask me "how do you fill your day?"

Never once, during that 4-years was I bored.  Certainly never bored enough to think "Gee, I really wish I could go out and fight traffic then spend 8-10 hours being a drone in an office."

-read- you'll learn so much if you don't drag yourself home dead tired from a crappy job every night
-take classes
-play computer games
-volunteer- doesn't matter what you like to do, there is likely a volunteer opportunity that fits your passion
-see every museum/historical site in the city (most major cities will have several most people have never heard of)
-take the dogs and/or children to the park
-run for political office
-fix everything in the house, even the things that aren't broken

You get the idea.  You'll run out of time long before you run out of things to do.

About the only way you'll be "bored" is if you are one of those people who's job is his life (those folks don't do well in retirement) and just can't let go of whatever your job was.


arebelspy

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Re: How did I ever have time to work?
« Reply #15 on: September 12, 2017, 06:55:40 PM »
We hit FIRE 2 years ago.
...
I honestly don't know how I had time to work before FIRE.

Anyone else experience this?

Related: What's up with people who retire and return to work 2 months later because they're "bored out of their minds"? I don't get it. I liked my job okay, but there are approximately 1000 other things I'd rather do than commute and have someone telling me what to do.

We're also at 2 years FIRE'd, and experiencing the same thing. 

The days are just packed.

Though sometimes it's packed like you describe, and sometimes it's more like this:
I am a former teacher who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, spent some time traveling the world full time and am now settled with three kids.
If you want to know more about me, this Business Insider profile tells the story pretty well.
I (rarely) blog at AdventuringAlong.com. Check out the Now page to see what I'm up to currently.

FINate

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Re: How did I ever have time to work?
« Reply #16 on: September 12, 2017, 07:39:17 PM »
Love it. We have some days like that and appreciate that we don't feel pressure or stress about it.

EscapeVelocity2020

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Re: How did I ever have time to work?
« Reply #17 on: September 12, 2017, 07:55:26 PM »
There should definitely be less stress to working, I think that's where the traditional 'workplace' is failing in the face of increasing productivity.  Economists predicted that the 40-hour workweek should eventually shrink, but Capitalism seems to think this means less workers and lower pay, as opposed to a happier workforce producing the same for a living wage and less hours per week...  Eventually, in our lifetime, we will see if workers still have any power or influence, or if the Owners (a la Piketty) have won.