Hello there, all my lovely fellow Mustache people!
I've been lurking in this thread, creepin' on you all, for the better part of this year, trying to decide if I want to officially throw my hat into the class of 2021 FIRE cohort ring. My original timeline targeted FIRE in 2024 (when I turn 40) or 2025 (when the mortgage is paid off), but the income, savings, and market return numbers have really snowballed in our favor over the past few years (or decade, really), and we've managed to hit our FI numbers way ahead of schedule.
My FIRE date was never explicitly pegged on hitting a specific NW number, or even disliking my job, so I would have been perfectly happy to keep chugging along (and continue running up the score) until 2024/5 rolled around. However, after a really rough year at work in 2019 during which I suffered repeated mental breakdowns... I realized that maybe I ought to seriously consider deploying the FU stash, and just get out, especially if the situation does not improve.
So a new plan was hatched, where we would tie up various loose ends this year (mostly involving big ticket home repair projects that we've been putting off), and then I can give notice and be donezo either late 2020, or early 2021. That plan lasted all of two months before Covid hit, portfolios plunged (mine was still allocated 90/10, so it got pretty ugly), and I desperately tried to talk my exhausted and stressed out self into sucking it up for the remaining duration of the pandemic, so that I could keep buying low through the next recession. I am so confused by the market recovery, and fear that it isn't real/won't last.
(Also, most of the house projects never got done, because bringing in potentially plague-ridden contractors didn't feel right. Plus, they were all already booked by everyone else trying to do the same exact thing we were doing.)
Anyway, the main reason I'm waffling on 2021 is because the future still feels so uncertain. I want to see if there's a fall wave, if the vaccines and therapies work, if the market crashes again (and stays crashed this time), or if President Fuckface Von Clownstick actually gets re-elected. And I still have no idea how these factors will influence my decision to move forward with FIRE in 2021. Am I the only one who feels that way, and is on the fence as a result?
At the end of the day, I just have to convince myself that it's win/win either way -- either I hold onto the security (and salary) of a genuinely impactful job (I'm actually doing Covid research these days, which is not helping the burnout, guilt, or ambivalence that I'm feeling about walking out), or I get to enjoy some well-earned freedom with the rest of you fine folks.
In the meantime, checking these forums keeps me sane. This is quite a year, and quite a journey to be on, so thank you all.