The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Welcome and General Discussion => Topic started by: retireatbirth on December 27, 2017, 05:17:43 PM
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One thing that frustrates me in the FIRE community is most comments around getting a job in early FIRE failure situations are either overly optimistic or overly pessimistic. You tend to have overly conservative people make comments like "good luck finding a job with a 10 year resume gap" or "would you like fries with that?" while the overly optimistic crowd says things like "just get another job" or "become a barista".
There is certainly a middle ground that hasn't really been explored. While a FIRE failure is not going to be able to get a software engineer job at Google, they aren't going to necessarily need to resign themselves to working at McDonald's or Starbucks either. I think most of us tend to focus on big corporate jobs because it's where we've earned our net worth.
Here are a few ideas I came up with and I'd love to hear from the community:
- Teacher: school districts are always looking for people to take on teaching and, if you're smart enough to FIRE, you're smart enough to at least try out teaching
- Tutoring: less commitment than teaching
- Personal trainer: for the physically fit, focus on training your own demographic and you can build a client base
- Online business: a self-employed option: e-commerce or one of the many only business models
- Retirement community staff: if you've moved to a 55+ community as part of your retirement, there are part time jobs to lead all the activities
- Poker dealer: if you live in Vegas and gambling is your thing, take on the persona of a poker dealer!
If your FIRE fails, you don't need to go back to mega corp and make six figures again as there are plenty of other options that can get your retirement back on track, in my opinion.
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I used to work as a blackjack and poker dealer. Just want to point out that in Vegas it's not that easy. You'll need to either come from an existing poker room somewhere else and have a good audition or have gone to a dealer school locally, maybe work a break in job at some dive before you get to deal at a strip casino. I was dealing for a year and auditioned for a spot at the Wynn before it opened. Did good on hold 'em and stud but had never dealt a hand of omaha in my life so I didn't get the call.
My wife was a craps dealer in tahoe before we moved and she DID get a job at the Rio (then still Harrah's flagship property) but they took her off craps because the action was WAY more intense and she was too green. Back to blackjack and carnival games.
Just wanted to throw that out there, you generally can't just walk on to a table games job on the strip. :D
About the topic itself though, definitely agree if you were say a high earning programmer or IT tech you might not step back into a job at the same level. BUT there are a million small and medium businesses that you could get a spot with. You could also teach classes with a little bit of brushing up, the courses at IT training places tend to be pretty static and limited, students also love having dry lessons made real with real examples from big tech companies. Alternately brush up on a specialization and do 1099 consulting. Short term contracts employment gaps don't matter as much if at all.
And there are always other fields that take some smaller amount of training but are still in demand. My wife just did 1.5 years in esthetician school and immediately got a fairly well paying job at a med spa after 10 years of no work. Salary, tips, commission, medical and 401k.
I think the important thing to start out with is positive mindset combined with pragmatism and cleverness. There is always a way, and often it's not even as hard as people imagine.
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Temp agency fill in positions. During the height of the Great Recession, I did odd jobs through temp agencies. In fact that is how I ended up with my permanent job. As long as you don't expect top dollar, they generally can place you for something. You get the experience and the exposure to a variety of workplaces. Makes it much easier to rack the recent job experience back up.
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Here are a few ideas I came up with and I'd love to hear from the community:
- Teacher: school districts are always looking for people to take on teaching and, if you're smart enough to FIRE, you're smart enough to at least try out teaching
This one might be a bit iffy because many teaching jobs require a credential. However, private and charter schools do not, so this may be a possible avenue.
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Oooh, I like this thread, mainly because I also worry about this!
I like the teaching idea, but I know WA state requires certification, which I wouldn't totally be opposed to getting if it came to that. Does anyone here have experience getting WA state teaching certificate?
The only ideas I have to contribute are just side hustles:
- Airbnb a room (or the whole house while you're already planning to be out of town)
- Rover - watch dogs in your home as a doggie daycare or overnight
- Amazon package delivery
- Teach English online
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"Become a barista" (or barist-o...?) might be a legitimate option... since some chains provide healthcare and other benefits to PT employees.
I think for most people, maintaining professional ties will enable project-based or part time work in their previous field, and that will be the likeliest path to financial recovery if FIRE goes awry.
On a related note, I was at the library several months ago and thinking that it might provide a part-time option for an interesting work environment and some part-time income, so I started chatting with an employee. He is a part time employee and said they require a library science degree even for part time employees... ouch.
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School bus driver or substitute teacher. Our school system is begging for drivers and subs every year.
I work in a psych hospital and recruiting direct care staff is so hard so I think getting a direct care job would be fairly easy even if they pay isn't great. We are a state run facility so we offer excellent benefits which is often lacking with other direct care jobs.
Call centers tend to have high turnover so anyone with decent computer skills should be able to get hired although they often hire through temp agencies.
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PTF :)
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I'm a receptionist now, and have no doubt I could find some sort of receptionist or office clerk work even with a large employment gap. You really only need a nice disposition, pleasant phone voice, and basic computer skills to do this stuff. Well, and not look like a weirdo who would scare off clients. Tons of people already get into these jobs after taking large chunks of time off for other reasons, like raising kids.
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Oooh, I like this thread, mainly because I also worry about this!
I like the teaching idea, but I know WA state requires certification, which I wouldn't totally be opposed to getting if it came to that. Does anyone here have experience getting WA state teaching certificate?
The only ideas I have to contribute are just side hustles:
- Airbnb a room (or the whole house while you're already planning to be out of town)
- Rover - watch dogs in your home as a doggie daycare or overnight
- Amazon package delivery
- Teach English online
Probably not worth the trouble in WA if you're not an experienced teacher or looking at very hard to fill positions. Requirements for initial certification:
1 - Bachelor's degree
2 - Complete state approved teacher training program
3 - Pass pedagogy and content exams
4 - Background testing
Subbing is a good option if you have the required college hours and the personality for dealing with kids.
Upscale restaurant server or bartender is another good option. I have a close friend who makes bank working Friday and Saturday nights at a swanky restaurant.
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I'm still working so I just read this thread out of curiousity. Where I live (not the US), teaching requires credentials (university degree which includes work placements plus possibly other stuff). Even with tutoring, I've heard from a friend (who has a teaching degree and has done tutoring for years) that parents prefer qualified teachers or ex-teachers.
If I needed work and had been out of work for a while, I'd probably go call centre or entry level office job. Or receptionist. (hopefully not downplaying the skills required for those jobs but I have transferrable office/admin skills)
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I used to work at events and festivals and my s/o still does that occasionally. You work yourself to death for a couple of days and walk away with €250-€500 in your pocket. If you're lucky, you can even get to see part of the show / event and sometimes food is included. My s/o does this to earn extra cash (he already has a day job and is starting his own business) but our costs are low enough that to pay our bills he'd only need to work a few of those events every month. We'd be able to live off €1500 together if we had to.
I am planning on getting a teaching qualification as a back-up in a few years. With my degree, I can get a teaching qualification through a 1 year, part time program and because there's a shortage of teachers, the government covers a large amount of the tuition. I don't currently plan on teaching fulltime, just subbing or tutoring, but who knows? I might enjoy it more than I think I'd do. ( teaching seems fun to me, but teaching fulltime looks very stressful and teachers aren't exactly well paid). A teaching qualification is valid for life and with the existing shortages I know many schools are happy to take on teachers who haven't worked in the field for a decade or more. Someone I know recently started teaching again after 11 years as a SAHM. Her old employer actually asked her back.
I always see a lot of people offering cleaning services and mending/tailoring of clothes. These kind of jobs aren't really well paid, but I imagine they are very flexible.
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This has the potential of being a good thread, yet we should watch ourselves. Teaching, especially in a public school is not something anyone can easily do in a pinch. Community College teaching might be, but don’t expect to make a lot. Teaching English online would work. Personal training takes training and experience, again, not necessarily a go to career—also not easy getting clients. The career I’d recommend, although it does take training, is a massage therapist. That career is almost always in need, you can have private clients or work for a medical group and it’s transportable (something you can do anywhere in the world).
Any online business could work, just don’t expect the money to flow right away. You’d want to start before the failure takes hold.
The difficulty is around how big of a failure you’re experiencing? Do you need a little or a lot to get by? FT or PT work? MMM has written about multiple forms of income to prevent failure. If do experience failure you probably FIREd too soon.
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This has the potential of being a good thread, yet we should watch ourselves. Teaching, especially in a public school is not something anyone can easily do in a pinch. Community College teaching might be, but don’t expect to make a lot. Teaching English online would work. Personal training takes training and experience, again, not necessarily a go to career—also not easy getting clients. The career I’d recommend, although it does take training, is a massage therapist. That career is almost always in need, you can have private clients or work for a medical group and it’s transportable (something you can do anywhere in the world).
When you're talking about non-minimum wage jobs, you're generally talking about jobs that you need some kind of training for. Most people on here will already have some kind of degree or special skill set, so I think the best bet is to find something related to that.
I'm not sure about the requirements for a teaching qualification over there, but in my country it's only a cheap, 1 year, parttime program if you already have a Bachelor's degree. Especially if you have STEM background it's very easy to find a school that will actually employ you from day 1 and pay your tuition to get qualified. (this applies only to teaching in high school, it's more difficult to get a primary school qualification). I imagine other countries also have this short-cut route to a teaching qualification if you already have a degree. I agree that if you have to start from scratch, teaching might not be the most efficient way to quickly find a job.
Another option, similar to massage, is working as a beautician. You need some training, but it doesn't take long and because there are several different certificates, you can start working when you get your first certificate and slowly get other certificates as well. You can work as an employee, start your own business, or work as a contractor for a salon.
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One of the reasons I mention massage therapist is because it’s an all genders, all ages, all orientations type career. Beautician would generally be for women (and maybe gay men?). I agree that you should align with whatever your current skills are.
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I will second the school bus driver option. My FIL does this as a retirement job and they are always looking to hire. They make a decent wage $15 - 20 an hour here in Colorado and he gets benefits / PERA
As far as skills they are hiring just about anyone with a pulse and they train you as well so you end up with a CDL license
Downside are the odd hours and driving a bus full of kids
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I think the important thing to remember is that you likely won't need a professional income. Even a minimum wage income can take the pressure of the investment portfolio and provide some breathing room. A lot of folks on here seem to have low FIRE expenses anyway, so they wouldn't need get a high paying job to cover those expenses.
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I think the important thing to remember is that you likely won't need a professional income. Even a minimum wage income can take the pressure of the investment portfolio and provide some breathing room. A lot of folks on here seem to have low FIRE expenses anyway, so they wouldn't need get a high paying job to cover those expenses.
I think part of OP’s point is that most minimum wage jobs are too, umm, low-skilled for most people in FIRE, but exec jobs are too far at the other end. So basically, what jobs are in the middle, don’t need much training and you have some flexibility?
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I think the important thing to remember is that you likely won't need a professional income. Even a minimum wage income can take the pressure of the investment portfolio and provide some breathing room. A lot of folks on here seem to have low FIRE expenses anyway, so they wouldn't need get a high paying job to cover those expenses.
I think part of OP’s point is that most minimum wage jobs are too, umm, low-skilled for most people in FIRE, but exec jobs are too far at the other end. So basically, what jobs are in the middle, don’t need much training and you have some flexibility?
Yep, or too backbreaking. Sure you could work at McDonalds or even retail, but you'd be standing around all day and working with teenagers. These aren't really necessary options unless you are desperate.
Lots of good ideas in this thread. I may start looking into what training I need for the teaching option.
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With out relatively low projected FIRE budget ($40-45k/yr), even a $15/hr job at Trader Joes could make a huge impact to the success likelihood.
2 People working 3X a week = $37,440 a year.
If a bad sequence of returns hit, I would do something like that in a heartbeat. Not to mention you would then get employer subsidized health insurance and other perks (free food).
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I think the important thing to remember is that you likely won't need a professional income. Even a minimum wage income can take the pressure of the investment portfolio and provide some breathing room. A lot of folks on here seem to have low FIRE expenses anyway, so they wouldn't need get a high paying job to cover those expenses.
I think part of OP’s point is that most minimum wage jobs are too, umm, low-skilled for most people in FIRE, but exec jobs are too far at the other end. So basically, what jobs are in the middle, don’t need much training and you have some flexibility?
Yep, or too backbreaking. Sure you could work at McDonalds or even retail, but you'd be standing around all day and working with teenagers. These aren't really necessary options unless you are desperate.
Lots of good ideas in this thread. I may start looking into what training I need for the teaching option.
Paraprofessional may be an option as well. Of course it pays less than a teacher, but same benefits and even better hours. Substitute teaching could work as well, if someone doesn't need a lot of income.
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I think the important thing to remember is that you likely won't need a professional income. Even a minimum wage income can take the pressure of the investment portfolio and provide some breathing room. A lot of folks on here seem to have low FIRE expenses anyway, so they wouldn't need get a high paying job to cover those expenses.
I think part of OP’s point is that most minimum wage jobs are too, umm, low-skilled for most people in FIRE, but exec jobs are too far at the other end. So basically, what jobs are in the middle, don’t need much training and you have some flexibility?
Yep, or too backbreaking. Sure you could work at McDonalds or even retail, but you'd be standing around all day and working with teenagers. These aren't really necessary options unless you are desperate.
Lots of good ideas in this thread. I may start looking into what training I need for the teaching option.
Rules massage out, very tough on the body. This gets mentioned a lot for teaching online: https://m.vipkidteachers.com
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About the teaching thing, I'm a network engineer. I also don't have a degree. (do have a CCIE which is a very high level professional cert I'd keep active after retirement) But it was easy enough for me to work fulltime at a private certification training business at $100k. These days there are training companies like Global Knowledge, Skyline, manufacturers (like Cisco, Palo Alto) and a bunch of smaller tech training places I could choose from.
These companies do 1099 and W2. They don't require a degree and there are no state teaches certificates or creds required. There might be travel depending on if it's one of the big companies (yes) or a smaller local one (no/maybe).
Teaching does not have to be credentialed school system work.
This thread does bring up a point about FIRE vs semi-retirement. I think that I wouldn't initially completely retire, just transition to part time consulting or teaching and not touch the stache. This is partly due to being cautious with what will support us the rest of our lives, and partially to stay sharp. This part time could go from really part time (20 hours) to less and less over time. 1 week a month, 2 weeks a quarter, etc.
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One of the reasons I mention massage therapist is because it’s an all genders, all ages, all orientations type career. Beautician would generally be for women (and maybe gay men?). I agree that you should align with whatever your current skills are.
Really? How does this add to the conversation?
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A few points to consider.
If FIRE was just a couple of years back, one's skills shouldn't be so far out of date that a new job isn't possible. Plus, one will have plenty of spare time to review and get up-to-date again! Network contacts will still be mostly good if one has bothered to keep up the connections.
For a failure concern later than "right after FIRE", anyone who is smart enough, capable enough, and organized enough to FIRE should not wake up one morning only to discover they are broke.
So, that means there should be some warning signs that one should pay attention to finances before stuff goes horribly wrong.
Warning signs allow you to start taking action before the situation has become horrible. It should give you enough time to look for work, train up for certifications, whatever. If your FIRE plan isn't robust enough for this, and a minimum wage job won't be enough to make it work, then maybe it's time to strengten the plan!
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I think the important thing to remember is that you likely won't need a professional income. Even a minimum wage income can take the pressure of the investment portfolio and provide some breathing room. A lot of folks on here seem to have low FIRE expenses anyway, so they wouldn't need get a high paying job to cover those expenses.
I think part of OP’s point is that most minimum wage jobs are too, umm, low-skilled for most people in FIRE, but exec jobs are too far at the other end. So basically, what jobs are in the middle, don’t need much training and you have some flexibility?
Yep, or too backbreaking. Sure you could work at McDonalds or even retail, but you'd be standing around all day and working with teenagers. These aren't really necessary options unless you are desperate.
Lots of good ideas in this thread. I may start looking into what training I need for the teaching option.
You may want to rethink teaching. I am a teacher. I stand all day and works with teenagers!
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A few points to consider.
If FIRE was just a couple of years back, one's skills shouldn't be so far out of date that a new job isn't possible. Plus, one will have plenty of spare time to review and get up-to-date again! Network contacts will still be mostly good if one has bothered to keep up the connections.
For a failure concern later than "right after FIRE", anyone who is smart enough, capable enough, and organized enough to FIRE should not wake up one morning only to discover they are broke.
So, that means there should be some warning signs that one should pay attention to finances before stuff goes horribly wrong.
Warning signs allow you to start taking action before the situation has become horrible. It should give you enough time to look for work, train up for certifications, whatever. If your FIRE plan isn't robust enough for this, and a minimum wage job won't be enough to make it work, then maybe it's time to strengten the plan!
This is all true, I think nothing short of a Great Depression style market crash should cause a mustachian with a properly planned FIRE to need to work, but unfortunately, if that were to happen, likely even the minimum wage jobs would be in high demand.
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[This is all true, I think nothing short of a Great Depression style market crash should cause a mustachian with a properly planned FIRE to need to work, but unfortunately, if that were to happen, likely even the minimum wage jobs would be in high demand.
This is a really good point: income is likely to drop exactly when you need it the most. It's a good reason to keep a large cash buffer, rather than having your entire portfolio in volatile assets.
If the FIRE failure is simply due to underestimating expenses, e.g. if medical costs or property taxes (two things notoriously unaccounted for in CPI calculations) go up faster than expected, that's another matter. I probably would consider a minimum wage job as a last resort, because those are typically not fun as well as poorly paid. I would think that Mustachians would actually have trouble getting low-level jobs, because not only is there an employment gap but many would look overqualified.
I've added to my FIRE checklist "start up and develop an enjoyable and minimally invasive side hustle", like a website or Etsy shop. This is an extra bit of stash insurance, and you can always expand it or ramp up effort if needed. Entrepreneurial ventures are well suited to Mustachians for lots of reasons, e.g. ability to plan ahead and availability of starting capital. And no resume/CV-related issues.
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I just want to point out that if the failure is due to a national downturn, there are opportunities that come with downturns. You can work doing collections or doing repo work.
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This is all true, I think nothing short of a Great Depression style market crash should cause a mustachian with a properly planned FIRE to need to work, but unfortunately, if that were to happen, likely even the minimum wage jobs would be in high demand.
One thing that kind of irks me about these discussions is that people assume that it is easy to walk into a low-level job during a recession. I remember in 2011, my husband was looking for work. A new incentive was offered by the government that made it extremely attractive for business to hire people that were on government assistance (food stamps, welfare, unemployment, etc.). This meant that my DH, who was not on any program, was never offered a job.
Here's some options that might work in a recession: substitute teacher, tax prep/ enrolled agent, notary
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[This is all true, I think nothing short of a Great Depression style market crash should cause a mustachian with a properly planned FIRE to need to work, but unfortunately, if that were to happen, likely even the minimum wage jobs would be in high demand.
This is a really good point: income is likely to drop exactly when you need it the most. It's a good reason to keep a large cash buffer, rather than having your entire portfolio in volatile assets.
If the FIRE failure is simply due to underestimating expenses, e.g. if medical costs or property taxes (two things notoriously unaccounted for in CPI calculations) go up faster than expected, that's another matter. I probably would consider a minimum wage job as a last resort, because those are typically not fun as well as poorly paid. I would think that Mustachians would actually have trouble getting low-level jobs, because not only is there an employment gap but many would look overqualified.
I've added to my FIRE checklist "start up and develop an enjoyable and minimally invasive side hustle", like a website or Etsy shop. This is an extra bit of stash insurance, and you can always expand it or ramp up effort if needed. Entrepreneurial ventures are well suited to Mustachians for lots of reasons, e.g. ability to plan ahead and availability of starting capital. And no resume/CV-related issues.
This is a great point. I think I'd like to have at least 2 years of expenses in cash when I FIRE so I can ride out a significant downturn.
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When DH was transitioning from being a science teacher (hated it) to something unknown at the time (eventually biotech) he took random jobs. Some things that helped keep us afloat. Granted this information is from over a decade ago, so might be out of date. Good for thinking on though.
- Substitute teaching. The days/times could be pretty unpredictable. Since he still had a licence and had been a teacher they liked him for long term gigs (teachers on maternity). He was worked at some top notch schools so it wasn't too bad.
- Grading standardized tests. He could grade both the English and Math sections for 8th graders. He preferred English, but since math people were harder to find, he did that. The issue here was the system wasn't very good. The tests were sent from Indiana (where the kids took them) to Arizona to be scanned in, then send electronically back to Indiana for grading. If the people in Arizona fell behind in the scanning, then DH was sent home since there was no work to do. No work = no pay. This work was also mind numbing and very temporary. Required testing to qualify and a bachelors degree.
- Data entry specialist. He did this for a few years while he worked on a new career. Started by going through a temp agency then got hired on full time. Required a bachelors degree (in anything). The work was quota based but easy. They liked him since he met quota with few errors and didn't cause trouble (yes, that was part of his review). One year he was one of the few to get a raise and it was 0.3% (no that is not a type-o). I think it came out to 11 cents a weekly pay check. In general the co-workers were obnoxious and the environment was not good at all, but when DH decided to go back to school they let him work VERY flexible hours part time hours to fit in his class work. So one gold star for them.
Other random options:
-I donated blood plasma to make money in college.
-I recycled cans in high school to pay for a vacation. The "Golden Goat" crushed the cans I collected on the roadside and gave me change. Helped the environment a little too. I'd love to find another one of these recycles near me, but alas.
Some of my neighbors are at subsistence incomes or disability They make ends meet by:
- collecting and recycling scrap metals
- Finding trash items repairing them and selling them
- Buying abandoned storage units and selling the goods
- Bartering (i.e. hunting deer and trading meat for other things)
- Fixing up junk cars and selling them
- Hauling trash or debris.
LV
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- Data entry specialist. He did this for a few years while he worked on a new career. Started by going through a temp agency then got hired on full time. Required a bachelors degree (in anything). The work was quota based but easy. They liked him since he met quota with few errors and didn't cause trouble (yes, that was part of his review). One year he was one of the few to get a raise and it was 0.3% (no that is not a type-o). I think it came out to 11 cents a weekly pay check. In general the co-workers were obnoxious and the environment was not good at all, but when DH decided to go back to school they let him work VERY flexible hours part time hours to fit in his class work. So one gold star for them.
Oh lord. I temped when I first moved to NYC, and one of the jobs was data entry. I had a great experience, aside from the low pay, and I eventually got an analyst job at the company. This was without a bachelor's degree.
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My husband and I both professionals, so we've both considered taking on consulting type work. First and foremost, I will ALWAYS keep my law license up to date and active--never know when that could come in handy! I could see myself writing a blog in my current area of expertise and using that as a platform to land some occasional gig or contract work. My husband is in engineering and our area has a booming industry of engineering temp contractors. In fact, he already knows some guys who do it full time (or full time ish), so he's been pumping them for info.
For us, we're in the fortunate position to like our jobs and have skills that are in demand. The key to being able to capitalize on those in retirement will be staying current.
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I FIREd shortly before the Great Recession and was able to ride it out on a cash cushion fairly easily even though my NW dropped 50%. I didn't need to get a job or even a roommate (lived alone in a 3 bedroom house) and eventually my NW went back up. However as the above poster mentioned, jobs - even minimum wage unskilled jobs like flipping burgers - were in extremely high demand during that time and most people I know who lost their jobs (which was pretty much everyone I knew) couldn't find ANY kind of work at all for a couple of years. So for me low expenses and a cash cushion would be better than counting on a job in a big downturn. I now keep about 3 years basic expenses in cash. Which is about $30k with a paid off house.
I like this approach. And I think you make a valid point about everyone else needing jobs, too, so they won't be that easy to get.
To me, the jobs that are being listed in this thread are perfect reasons to avoid FIREing too soon. If we make sure we have enough money and a good plan for our money, we can hopefully avoid the need to take on work like this. (I suppose the argument could be made that the backup plan is jobs like this, but...no, not for me.)
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I'm baffled that folks would put "teaching" as a job you could jump into in case of FIRE emergency. To teach in public schools, you generally need to be certified, which either means going back to college, pursuing a masters in education, or navigating one of the "teaching as a second career" alternative certification programs which can be VERY intense. And teaching is generally VERY stressful.
And driving a school bus? There's a reason many districts are begging for employees for that job. Can you imagine: 1) driving a huge ass bus, 2) on a timed route, 3) sometimes in pitch black mornings, 4) and being responsible for up to 50-60 kiddos who may or may not be acting like fools the entire time?
Now I can see maybe getting hired as a 'teacher' at a preschool or daycare or something, but will likely be a minimum wage job.
I do appreciate the OP's point that it might not be super easy for a professional to jump back in after several years out of the loop. And I can see the person's professional background actually hurting them, because "middle range" employers might wrongfully assume the person will be gone as soon as they find a higher paying job.
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What about bank teller? For me, I used to work at a couple of local banks in town. So my thought would be to walk in, hand in my resume and make some sort of quick explanation of my intentions so that they don't immediately decide I'm overqualified and disregard the application. For those that are worried about being considered overqualified, it seems that being able to speak directly to someone who influences the hiring might be a benefit, so that your story can be told.
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This is why my FIRE # is so damn high. I can't ever go back to work and do minimum wage. (OK, I can, but I really really really don't want to).
Some things I might do:
Rover (I love dogs and use Rover all the time)
Real estate. It's probably tough to get into (passing the exams, finding a company to work for) but would be perfect for someone with flexible time.
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As a software consultant, even after FIRE I will retain these general skills.
I may not be able to fall back into a $XXX,XXX job but I should be able to pick up a low-bill-rate short contract within a few weeks. With the dust falling off my skills by the end of that.
I think, if I FIREed with my million and all I wanted to do was take my pressure off the account, I wouldn't need to make the big money anymore. After-all today I must LIVE AND SAVE on my income, where-as in that world, I simply must live. It shouln't be too hard to make 30-60k as a software guy, even part-time for the next decade or so after FIRE *After 10 years I assume your skills are now probably too out of date.*
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As former law enforcement, I am basically guaranteed a security job if I want one.
I will likely keep my foot in the door in the world of tech even when FIRE, though (at least for a while).
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I'd shoot for a job in outdoor retail if I needed to earn a bit of $$ in FIRE. It's easy/fun work and not super demanding. I have enough skill/experience in the area that I can out compete other candidates for a job fairly easily. These jobs are seasonal so I can work hard for a bit and then take it easy and get back to fun stuff with repeats as needed until I am happy with my portfolio balance.
Naturally I'd poke around for a short-term consulting/contractor role in my professional areas as that would pay more, but retail jobs are easier/more abundant and pay sufficiently well to reduce my portfolio withdrawals significantly.
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I FIREd shortly before the Great Recession and was able to ride it out on a cash cushion fairly easily even though my NW dropped 50%. I didn't need to get a job or even a roommate (lived alone in a 3 bedroom house) and eventually my NW went back up. However as the above poster mentioned, jobs - even minimum wage unskilled jobs like flipping burgers - were in extremely high demand during that time and most people I know who lost their jobs (which was pretty much everyone I knew) couldn't find ANY kind of work at all for a couple of years. So for me low expenses and a cash cushion would be better than counting on a job in a big downturn. I now keep about 3 years basic expenses in cash. Which is about $30k with a paid off house.
I like this approach. And I think you make a valid point about everyone else needing jobs, too, so they won't be that easy to get.
To me, the jobs that are being listed in this thread are perfect reasons to avoid FIREing too soon. If we make sure we have enough money and a good plan for our money, we can hopefully avoid the need to take on work like this. (I suppose the argument could be made that the backup plan is jobs like this, but...no, not for me.)
Oh, for me it's the other way around. I always liked doing jobs like these. The only reason I'm doing a boring office job is because of the money. The reason I'm going to go for that teaching certificate in the future is because it seems so much more fun. Even though teaching will never be my nr. 1 career choice because of the low pay. Maybe I'll teach part time as a side hustle after FIRE, even when I don't need the money.
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To me, the jobs that are being listed in this thread are perfect reasons to avoid FIREing too soon.
I am far, far, far more worried about working too long than FIREing too soon. You can always make more money, but you can never make more free time.
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If Barnes & Noble or Books-A-Million are still around when I FIRE, then I would consider working there. I have 10 years of bookselling experience. Also REI
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I like the teaching idea, but I know WA state requires certification,
Certifications generally aren't required at the university level. I have a top tier PhD and years of government research experience, and I'm pretty sure any of the local community colleges could find a place for me. They seem to have openings every semester.
The pay is terrible, like 40% of what I make now. Fortunately, I can live quite comfortably on 40% of what I make now.
Also, remember that a 3% SWR on a diversified portfolio has never failed, for any length of time for any economic conditions. So you don't need to earn as much as you will spend in retirement, you only need to earn enough to reduce your withdrawals down (from presumably something near 4%) to 3%. For most people here, you can do that with a part time minimum wage job.
I used to shelve books at the local library, as a high school kid. I got really good at alphabetization, and I'd love to do that again.
One retiree I know got a part time gig at Lowes, since he spent so much time there anyway. He had to quit after about six months because they kept trying to give him more hours and it was cutting into his nap schedule.
And, of course, I'm starting a blog.
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If you have 25X expenses saved, there's going to be absolutely zero reason to worry about ever having to "work your way up" again (even though I don't doubt that it would be easy to). And I'm not sure you'd ever want to go back? There are plenty of ways to make money other than a soul-sucking office job.
The only scenario(s) in which all your savings gets wiped would be due to some catastrophic or cataclysmic event that made money useless anyway.
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If you have 25X expenses saved, there's going to be absolutely zero reason to worry about ever having to "work your way up" again (even though I don't doubt that it would be easy to). And I'm not sure you'd ever want to go back? There are plenty of ways to make money other than a soul-sucking office job.
The only scenario(s) in which all your savings gets wiped would be due to some catastrophic or cataclysmic event that made money useless anyway.
I can imagine that for Americans, serious health issues also have the potential to wipe out savings. I don't know all the details about your health care system, but I know many people pay a lot of costs out of pocket, even if they have some kind of insurance. I'm lucky to live in Europe where my health care costs are covered, but I know how much money my relatively cheap illness actually costs (I see the bills the hospital sends to my insurance). I don't even want to know how much money something like cancer treatment for an extended period of time would cost.
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To me, the jobs that are being listed in this thread are perfect reasons to avoid FIREing too soon.
I am far, far, far more worried about working too long than FIREing too soon. You can always make more money, but you can never make more free time.
I agree wholeheartedly.
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To me, the jobs that are being listed in this thread are perfect reasons to avoid FIREing too soon.
I am far, far, far more worried about working too long than FIREing too soon. You can always make more money, but you can never make more free time.
I agree wholeheartedly.
I love your screen name, MrMoneyMullet.
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And, of course, I'm starting a blog.
LOL. Thats hilarious.
Also, remember that a 3% SWR on a diversified portfolio has never failed, for any length of time for any economic conditions. So you don't need to earn as much as you will spend in retirement, you only need to earn enough to reduce your withdrawals down (from presumably something near 4%) to 3%. For most people here, you can do that with a part time minimum wage job.
This is an extremely important point to this conversation... Of the failures, the biggest factor is early losses in the market. If you take the '73 crash from a 45% correction to a 33.75% correction then we are all looking at a 5% safe withdraw rate. Its that big of a difference.
On $40,000 a year with a 1MM stash, all you need is a 10,000$ a year rate of payment gig to make it very survivable. You don't even need to work for a full year (since many downturns are several months long or so). Reducing the withdraws from 4% to 3% on 40k a year requires that 10k a year part time gig only for the duration of the correction. Given that we don't market time, you could generally just wait until the portfolio hit the number you fire'd at and (historically speaking) it should be fine.
10k a year in that scenario is $192 a week. At an abysmal 8$/hr, thats still only 24 hours. Or 12 hours a week if you could find 16$/hr.
It does seem that many are either "happy-go-lucky just get another job" -or- "you can never work again!!!" when, in reality, it would take very little to make the failure a success.
(Another side note: basically all failures initiate at the beginning of FIRE, as in the first 2 years... Not 30 years down the road. Grandpas not going to flip burgers, but 45 year old retired early Mr. Awesomesauce might have to find a 10$/hr side gig for 20 hours a week for a few months.)
(And Yet Another side note: Recessions end. If a FIRE'ee couldn't get a job due to such a recession, there is no reason they can't do any of the aforementioned jobs a few years later when the economy recovers. Yes they lose some to compounding and pulling out equities for living expenses at the worst time, but they also have the financial flexibility to survive and work in better years, albeit just slightly longer...)
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This thread does bring up a point about FIRE vs semi-retirement. I think that I wouldn't initially completely retire, just transition to part time consulting or teaching and not touch the stache. This is partly due to being cautious with what will support us the rest of our lives, and partially to stay sharp. This part time could go from really part time (20 hours) to less and less over time. 1 week a month, 2 weeks a quarter, etc.
I think this is probably the best answer to those who are able to cut to part time. Unfortunately not every profession has this option. Instead of completely FIRE work part time and allow the stash to grow. Even working 1 week a month or 1-2 days a week is enough to keep skills sharp and show that you are employed on a resume. Even more important is that it allows you to bypass the sequence of return risk because you are not touching your stash. In affect it allows you a lower withdrawal rate than initially anticipated which will ideally allow your stash to grow in retirement and provide for a little lifestyle inflation as well. Lifestyle inflation may be important as we get older and need extra assistance such as lawn care or require taking Uber because your vision is shot and you can't drive anywhere anymore.
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I quit work 1st April 2003 started in the same job in the same industry but for a different firm Nov 2008.
CV gap wasn't an issue and they were really glad i had 12 years experience, i also managed to negotiate 50% more than i was on before .
My mini retirement was great it was just annoying to have to go back to the petty and timewastey stuff modern corporate jobs entail .
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I used to referee wrestling tournaments and matches about 10 years ago. You can only make so much at it since there are only so many tournaments/matches, but the hourly rate can be pretty sweet. I did Saturday morning small kid matches and tourneys that took 2 hours and I got paid $50, for example. One tourney took a total of about 20 hours but I got paid $300. Overall I probably made $1,300 that winter and was going to school full-time, so I wasn't taking every possible job. I loved it. It helped that I was a wrestler in high school so I knew the rules; all I had to do was pass an online test. There is spring wrestling (freestyle/Greco-Roman) as well. The only downside (besides the annoying parents) is that you do it on nights and weekends.
Friends of mine refereed soccer matches (in my area kids play year-round, with indoor soccer in the winter). You could probably do the same with any sport, especially if you played in it (easier to know the rules).
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While there are some of these jobs that anyone can get, a lot of options are going to depend on an individual's experience and skills. This could be what you did before FIRE, but it could also be other things that your life experience has prepared you for. What hobbies could you turn into a paying gig? What jobs have you held in the past that you could still find work doing? What ancillary skills have you picked up in your career?
For instance, I'm a transportation planner, but if I needed a post-FIRE gig I could find work doing tech support for small businesses, working as a firearms instructor or behind the counter at a gun shop, or teach courses at a local college as an adjunct.
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I am a teacher, and one of the reasons why I picked teaching as a career (besides the fact that I'm a spoilt millennial and couldn't see myself sticking with any other job for more than a year) is that it opens up a some post-main career opportunities because people think you've got some skills for managing people and explaining ideas. Apparently, for example, the national parks like to hire former teachers for park ranger positions, which sounds awesome.
Any way, here are some of the side-gigs I'm thinking about trialing once I quit working full-time:
- Substitute teacher
- Before or after school care
- Summer camps
- Day care for littles
- Teaching classes (to grown ups) about native plants, foraging, gardening, cooking, frugality, and other hobbies/interests I have.
- Selling artwork
- Blogging, partially in order to generate interests in the classes I'll be teaching.
- Becoming skilled at plumbing or electrical/becoming a general handyperson.
- Helping people move who just need a second pair of hands, not a whole load.
- Keep renting out rooms in my house/start airbnb-ing.
- Pruning/organic gardening service.
- Teaching online
- Dog walker
I'm keeping my mind open and I actually hope to have several small, flexible income streams when I retire from teaching.
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To me, the jobs that are being listed in this thread are perfect reasons to avoid FIREing too soon.
I am far, far, far more worried about working too long than FIREing too soon. You can always make more money, but you can never make more free time.
I agree wholeheartedly.
I love your screen name, MrMoneyMullet.
Thanks! As soon as I can come up with a pithy saying that riffs on the "Business in the front, party in the back" saying, it'll be going in my signature block. I'll take suggestions as well (not sure if that can go in this thread or would need to go in its own thread...)
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Here are a few ideas I came up with and I'd love to hear from the community:
- Teacher: school districts are always looking for people to take on teaching and, if you're smart enough to FIRE, you're smart enough to at least try out teaching
This one might be a bit iffy because many teaching jobs require a credential. However, private and charter schools do not, so this may be a possible avenue.
Charter schools are public schools, and do require teaching credentials/licenses. Private schools may reauire them, or may not, but many may have religious requirements. Subbing might be more realistic but after a year of working with an emergency certification will likely require something more stringent.
Temp work is good, but your desirability will vary with your skills, age, and general cuteness.
It’s not to hard to pick up something parttime, especially if you are okay with wiping butts, but don’t expect a 5 figure income.
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My FIRE failure plan is the same as my lose my job plan... I'm a lighting designer with a permanent position. It's stable, has good bennies, and I don't have to hustle. BUT. Should I ever lose my job for some reason, I can always jump into full time freelance. Freelance pays much better than resident positions in my field. Hell, I'm doing 4 days freelance next month, and it will cover my living expenses/mortgage easily, even after putting aside the $$ for taxes. Plus, with freelance, I can work as much or as little as I want. I actually intend to do a show or two a month after I FIRE anyway. It's fun. And at 4-5 days a month, I wouldn't really have to touch my stash at all. No... 2-3 days. I intend to just pay off the mortgage when I FIRE, which means around $1000/month living expenses.
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I'm baffled that folks would put "teaching" as a job you could jump into in case of FIRE emergency. To teach in public schools, you generally need to be certified, which either means going back to college, pursuing a masters in education, or navigating one of the "teaching as a second career" alternative certification programs which can be VERY intense. And teaching is generally VERY stressful.
And driving a school bus? There's a reason many districts are begging for employees for that job. Can you imagine: 1) driving a huge ass bus, 2) on a timed route, 3) sometimes in pitch black mornings, 4) and being responsible for up to 50-60 kiddos who may or may not be acting like fools the entire time?
Now I can see maybe getting hired as a 'teacher' at a preschool or daycare or something, but will likely be a minimum wage job.
I do appreciate the OP's point that it might not be super easy for a professional to jump back in after several years out of the loop. And I can see the person's professional background actually hurting them, because "middle range" employers might wrongfully assume the person will be gone as soon as they find a higher paying job.
I am thinking more along the lines of finding a job you find meaningful not necessarily easy. We have plenty of time while FIRE so I would consider a teacher training program. I don't think I could ever completely stop working. I just want to leave the corporate workd and try different things.
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As soon as I can come up with a pithy saying that riffs on the "Business in the front, party in the back" saying, it'll be going in my signature block. I'll take suggestions as well (not sure if that can go in this thread or would need to go in its own thread...)
I see that you've come up with something. Here's another idea:
Spending in the front, savings in the back. I think this works because the spending part is a lot shorter than the savings part.
Take it or leave it. :)
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I'm not sure if you mean in our own particular case or in general. In my particular case since I am an expat in a non-English speaking country and fluent in the local language and have already done this type of work, I could always do translations and English teaching. I actually really enjoyed English teaching back when I did it about 10 years ago but it didn't pay enough and lacked stability (students often cancel last minute) and I wanted to get a job in my profession. But I wouldn't mind going back to it for a few hours a week in a FIRE situation. I don't love translating but I have specialist translation skills and do tons of it in my work so I'd be able to make good money at it and I would be able to do it from anywhere via the internet once I make a few contacts.
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This thread does bring up a point about FIRE vs semi-retirement. I think that I wouldn't initially completely retire, just transition to part time consulting or teaching and not touch the stache. This is partly due to being cautious with what will support us the rest of our lives, and partially to stay sharp. This part time could go from really part time (20 hours) to less and less over time. 1 week a month, 2 weeks a quarter, etc.
I think this is probably the best answer to those who are able to cut to part time. Unfortunately not every profession has this option. Instead of completely FIRE work part time and allow the stash to grow. Even working 1 week a month or 1-2 days a week is enough to keep skills sharp and show that you are employed on a resume. Even more important is that it allows you to bypass the sequence of return risk because you are not touching your stash. In affect it allows you a lower withdrawal rate than initially anticipated which will ideally allow your stash to grow in retirement and provide for a little lifestyle inflation as well. Lifestyle inflation may be important as we get older and need extra assistance such as lawn care or require taking Uber because your vision is shot and you can't drive anywhere anymore.
I'm drawing a blank thinking of one that can't, not that I'm disagreeing. My brain is shut off for the day, haha! Tradesmen, office professionals, police/fire/EMS, doctors, lawyers, teachers.
They might not do exactly the same job as their full time career but with some creativity and help from your professional network (hope you have one!) there is usually something. Like an orthopedic surgeon might not be cutting people open and fixing bones. But they could guest lecture, write a book about their specialty, be an SME for folks doing research, do case review or be an expert witness in legal proceedings, etc.
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I FIREd shortly before the Great Recession and was able to ride it out on a cash cushion fairly easily even though my NW dropped 50%. I didn't need to get a job or even a roommate (lived alone in a 3 bedroom house) and eventually my NW went back up. However as the above poster mentioned, jobs - even minimum wage unskilled jobs like flipping burgers - were in extremely high demand during that time and most people I know who lost their jobs (which was pretty much everyone I knew) couldn't find ANY kind of work at all for a couple of years. So for me low expenses and a cash cushion would be better than counting on a job in a big downturn. I now keep about 3 years basic expenses in cash. Which is about $30k with a paid off house.
This sounds like an excellent story that I'd like to hear more about. How did you manage to keep your head on straight while newly FIREd with half your pre-FIRE net worth? And in an economic panic that at the time looked like the second coming of the Great Depression?
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As we edge closer to FIRE I've been thinking about just transitioning to a part time gig for a bit. I was considering bookkeeping for a small business or tax work. I'm afraid to step out completely because my skills would be considered "stale" rather quickly and I worry about another recession and how to pay for health insurance.
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How did you manage to keep your head on straight while newly FIREd with half your pre-FIRE net worth? And in an economic panic that at the time looked like the second coming of the Great Depression?
What would a rational person realistically do with their money if they were to sell during a recession? The answer would be to put it back in a cheap stock market. Then of course you'd try to withdraw as little as possible which she was able to do due to a cash cushion. If you didn't have that, all you could do is still try to withdraw as little as possible by lowering expenses and finding work.
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I knew a bunch of people who couldn't get a job during the 2008 recession, in all sorts of professions. spartana is right IMO, the ability to get by at minimal cost is really valuable to weather that.
Some recessions are sectoral. I was a new grad in computer science in the dot com bust, could not get a junior job in software for a year. It was an object lesson in how fast a job market could turn around, for me. The year ahead of mine were all snapped up by graduate recruiters before final exams, my year, tumbleweeds.
But the rest of the economy was fine and I picked up temporary admin work consistently until I got a job in my field. Flexibility can pay, there.
Same with architects and quantity surveyors and such after the housing bubble burst, some of them I know didn't work for several years if they weren't willing to take something outside their specialty.
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I had just graduated in the winter of '08 and I had jobs doing yard work and before/after school care. I could totally do that again.
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I retired 6 years ago and shortly after started teaching a class each semester at the college because I have a PhD so no teaching credentials needed. I really love it and don't intend to quit. It is online so it doesn't interfere with going anywhere as long as there is internet. It was something totally new that I had never done before. I have a friend that helps out at her friend's restaurant 3 days/week between 11-2. It is fun and she gets good tips. I think it is important to not retire on too tight of a budget so you have items you can cut if things get tough. Personally we could cut plenty of fat such as travel, etc if we ever needed too.
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My fall back would be truck driver.
Need to keep medical and periodic training up to date.
If I updated everything just before FIRE then I would be set for 5 years which after 5 years of FIRE I think it would be safe to say it would be going ok enough to let it lapse.
However that said I plan to keep at least 12 months basic expenses in cash at all times should such a situation occur. If it was still looking bleak after 6 months I would start looking for work as above to keep the 6 month buffer which is something everyone should have IMHO if you are FIRE or not.
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My fall back would be truck driver.
Need to keep medical and periodic training up to date.
If I updated everything just before FIRE then I would be set for 5 years which after 5 years of FIRE I think it would be safe to say it would be going ok enough to let it lapse.
However that said I plan to keep at least 12 months basic expenses in cash at all times should such a situation occur. If it was still looking bleak after 6 months I would start looking for work as above to keep the 6 month buffer which is something everyone should have IMHO if you are FIRE or not.
Ya, but that is still going to the mentality of "I can't touch the stash" in a downturn. Realistically, you don't need to avoid touching the stash, just keep it to 3% or even a little less withdraw ratio and you'll be fine.
Also, remember that a 3% SWR on a diversified portfolio has never failed, for any length of time for any economic conditions. So you don't need to earn as much as you will spend in retirement, you only need to earn enough to reduce your withdrawals down (from presumably something near 4%) to 3%. For most people here, you can do that with a part time minimum wage job.
This is an extremely important point to this conversation... Of the failures, the biggest factor is early losses in the market. If you take the '73 crash from a 45% correction to a 33.75% correction then we are all looking at a 5% safe withdraw rate. Its that big of a difference.
On $40,000 a year with a 1MM stash, all you need is a 10,000$ a year rate of payment gig to make it very survivable. You don't even need to work for a full year (since many downturns are several months long or so). Reducing the withdraws from 4% to 3% on 40k a year requires that 10k a year part time gig only for the duration of the correction. Given that we don't market time, you could generally just wait until the portfolio hit the number you fire'd at and (historically speaking) it should be fine.
10k a year in that scenario is $192 a week. At an abysmal 8$/hr, thats still only 24 hours. Or 12 hours a week if you could find 16$/hr.
...
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I think it is important to not retire on too tight of a budget so you have items you can cut if things get tough. Personally we could cut plenty of fat such as travel, etc if we ever needed too.
I saw fat that I could cut, so I cut it. I figured if I could cut it in FIRE, I could go without it now. That made my spending much lower, and I was able to quit my job earlier. I still have a financial buffer of extra savings, because I kept working while getting a certification, but I was much more focused on freeing up my time rather than being able to spend more money.
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I remember looking for a job in 2002 and even Pizza Hut wasn't taking applications which is where I had worked in high school. Pretty crazy and it hit me pretty hard. Expecting to find a job when many are out of work might be eye opening.
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I have a teacher’s certification, and experience in teaching in all age groups between 6 and 67. The younger ones (6-10) would only be as a substitute, I don’t have (or want) the certification for those. And I should ideally get second language training if I wanted to do the adult teaching as a permanent thing. But as a part time gig, it shouldn’t take me more than a week to start earning something again from teaching.
I’m also planning to take full advantage of the free higher education here, and get a degree in sign language interpretation. Freelance interpreters have a lot of freedom in when they want to work, and what type of jobs they want. It is horrible for someone who needs a steady income, but sounds very good for someone close to FIRE.
Maybe I’ll even get a PhD in something? I’ve maxed out all the regular state student grants, but the PhD grants might be up for grabs (normally ~50k/year). Sounds like a lot of work, though.
I have also done some online work earlier; interpretation and webpage assessment were the ones who came closest to a normal income. Very boring, and rather stressful at times, but it was money. Microstock photography still makes me some passive income, but I’m not good enough to make more than a few hundred bucks a month.
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As a teacher, I have to say the idea of "jumping into teaching" isn't particularly realistic:
- Yes, even if you already have a bachelor's degree, you probably don't have a teaching certificate. Sure, you can look into private schools, etc., but they pay considerably less than public schools -- and give no benefits.
- Someone said a teaching license is good for life. False. They must be renewed every five years and require CEUs.
- Realistically, if you're looking for a teaching job, you have one "window of time" every year. Teachers don't tend to leave the classroom mid-year (emergencies happen, of course, but they're few in number).
- Teaching has never been easy, and changes in society /expectations are making it harder.
However, while teachers are the most numerous employees in the school system, other jobs exist:
- Substitute teachers. Yes, if you have a degree + have taken one 3-day community college course, you can substitute. Without question, this is your most flexible job choice in the school system.
- Teacher assistant for young elementary kids or special ed classes.
- Bus drivers. It's an awful job: you must get up in the wee hours of the morning, run two loads (probably one for the high school, then one for the elementary school) ... then you have a couple hours of downtime mid-day before you repeat the process in the afternoon. But, yeah, you can walk in and ask for this job any week of the year, and they'll say, "Yes, yes, yes! Our next training session is ___."
- Cafeteria worker.
- Receptionist or office worker. These jobs don't require a teaching credential, yet these staffers enjoy the same hours and benefits as teachers.
- Coaching sports teams. Yeah, coaching jobs go to teachers first, but we have more sports teams than we used to have, and more teachers have second jobs ... meaning we hire outside the teacher pool more and more often. You might not want to take on a big team like football ... but you might be interested in coaching tennis or golf, teams that typically have 5-10 players.
- Referee. The county never has enough referees. Even if you've played the sport for years, you have to go through a short training program and get a certification, but you can work as much as you like, and you'll take home a check that very night.
Jobs you aren't likely to get through the school system -- unless you're a retiring teaching:
- Teaching online. Teachers are lining up to get this gig in retirement. The state writes the curriculum, so all you do is put up the work, communicate with the students, and grade things. The pay is lower than classroom teaching, and you get no benefits, but you can do the job from home. Realistically, so many retiring teachers want this -- a new person isn't going to break into this system.
- Supervising the SAT or ACT. This is a cushy gig. Check credentials for a room of kids, read the instructions from the book. Package the tests and mail them away. I've been trying to get into this deal for about five years, and I haven't been successful yet. And I'm in the school system.
- Tutoring. The easiest way for parents to find tutors is through the school system, and they only promote teachers and retired teachers. Maybe you can go through another door -- Boys and Girls' Club or the YMCA?
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I live in a tourist area and work with several retirees. They also get the benefit of free admission to the attraction and others around the state. I am assuming that the emergency would be minimal if one were disciplined enough to FIRE in the first place, so I can imagine that you’d be able to take any job you feel like doing, as long as you’re making at least minimum wage, and not needing to work full-time, ideally. This would be meant to stretch the stash.
If you determine that you need to actually add to the stash, then that is a different type of problem.. You may just need to get right back into your career soon as possible and eek out a few more good years. Personally if I were already FIRE, I would just see how little I could get away with working, even if that meant working longer. At least it would have to be something I would enjoy, without having the limitations of needing to earn a minimal salary. I would not want to get back into full force.
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The "cashier at REI or trader joe's" responses crack me up.
Y'all do realize that a portfolio failure situation is much more likely to happen in a prolonged economic downturn, right? Not a couple bad years like the latest recession; I'm talking a decade or two of 12% unemployment, and CNBC painting their peacock logo black. A world where pleasant low-skill retail jobs are the first to go and every opening will receive a thousand applications.
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The "cashier at REI or trader joe's" responses crack me up.
Y'all do realize that a portfolio failure situation is much more likely to happen in a prolonged economic downturn, right? Not a couple bad years like the latest recession; I'm talking a decade or two of 12% unemployment, and CNBC painting their peacock logo black. A world where pleasant low-skill retail jobs are the first to go and every opening will receive a thousand applications.
I clicked on this thread half hoping/expecting to see snarky suggestions like "repo man" or "suicide prevention specialist". Not helpful, I know.
That said, I think the second* best option would be a job you are particularly qualified for that will be in demand in an economic downturn.
* I agree with others on this thread that the best option is simply to have the resourcefulness and mental fortitude to make do and be happy with less.
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Its defo a house of cards situation. I think the key is to own a property that is paid for and have low outgoings such as taxes, utils etc.
Be able to grow your own food, perhaps have chickens and the like. Or be able to set something like that up quite quickly. IYSWIM.
After that you can sit it out. Might not be the best lifestyle but honestly its going to be better than living in the back of a car or under a bridge.
The reality is most people on here will fair much much better than your average person due to the 5 Ps.
So long as you have kept your FIRE budget in line with your spending it should be possible to ride out any major issues. I mean we are not just talking financial crash, there could be another disaster which may take years to recover from too.
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Funny, my mind didn’t even go to an economic downturn. I feel that there are so many other reasons why an individual would have a FIRE failure. Things such as needing to take a large chunk of money out that they didn’t anticipate, having higher expenses than anticipated, or wanting to spend more money than anticipated. Or just becoming FIRE too early in the game. I probably also didn’t think too much about it because I plan on being mostly (or at least half) in real estate myself....value and income.
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I just retired last month from a corporate job. It was an early retirement, but not so early by MMM standards. I am thinking about picking up a part-time, local retail gig, because I've never done anything like that and I think it could be fun! Low pay, but no meetings, no 60-hour work weeks, no killer commute and no crushing responsibilities. If I don't like it, I certainly don't need to stay for 39 years like I did with my corporate employer. These jobs are so easy to come by right now, but I agree with others that this will not be the case when there is another economic downturn.
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As a teacher, I have to say the idea of "jumping into teaching" isn't particularly realistic:
- Yes, even if you already have a bachelor's degree, you probably don't have a teaching certificate. Sure, you can look into private schools, etc., but they pay considerably less than public schools -- and give no benefits.
- Someone said a teaching license is good for life. False. They must be renewed every five years and require CEUs.
- Realistically, if you're looking for a teaching job, you have one "window of time" every year. Teachers don't tend to leave the classroom mid-year (emergencies happen, of course, but they're few in number).
- Teaching has never been easy, and changes in society /expectations are making it harder.
False for the US, maybe. True for other parts of the world. My education is good for life (or until the parliament decides otherwise, which for the forseeable future seems very unlikely).
As for the one window a year, that also varies. In the parts of the world that have maternity leave, there are always some 6-12 months openings popping up. These often start out as substitute gigs, but once you've gotten inside the door there is always something to do.
I do agree that teaching is in no way easy. But if you don't need to do it full time, and are able to wait until you find the gigs you like, you can take away a lot of the downsides.
I remember looking for a job in 2002 and even Pizza Hut wasn't taking applications which is where I had worked in high school. Pretty crazy and it hit me pretty hard. Expecting to find a job when many are out of work might be eye opening.
yeah the dot-com crash wasn't as far reaching as the 2007 crash but it was tough on a lot of people. I had a lay-off proof government job so would likely never get laid of in.any kind of downturn but that's not the case for most people. Even teachers were very hard hit in Calif during the recession with mass lay offs and mandatory unpaid furloughs and hiring freezes. So those who plan to go back to teaching may not have that option. Fortunately I can't really see anything happening like the 2007,crash again...hopefully.
Wow. Furloughs in the public sector. Weird.
We have seen a couple of slumps in the market, but nothing like the crisis you experienced on your side of the pond. Our government still believes in Keynes, and will pour money into the public sector when the unemployment rates go up (and cut when the economy goes well). Classic counter-cyclical policies. So in cases of market decline, having skills that are marketable in the public sector is a great security.
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Was in California for the great recession. I can confirm both public sector furloughs (essentially pay cuts without a reduction in work responsibilities) and at one point state employees getting paid with IOUs rather than paychecks. It got pretty bad for a while there, but I was younger then and didn't have the context to realize just how outside of the norm things were actually getting.
I agree with the folks who are pointing out that a lot of the jobs described in this thread may be easy to get now, but would be very difficult to get during a major recession. Planning to get a new job outside your field may be a good source of resilience to a FIRE failure caused by personal circumstances, but for FIRE failures being cause by market events, having a plan to hunker down and cut spending even below what you've budgeted for a few years is what would be the most effective at helping me sleep better at night.
And remember that all the evidence to date suggests that a hypothetical 2007-8 retiree would have been fine carrying on with 4% withdrawals and making no course corrections at all. So in an actual market-driven FIRE failure finding paying work is likely to be substantially harder than it was at the bottom of the great recession.
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The "cashier at REI or trader joe's" responses crack me up.
Y'all do realize that a portfolio failure situation is much more likely to happen in a prolonged economic downturn, right? Not a couple bad years like the latest recession; I'm talking a decade or two of 12% unemployment, and CNBC painting their peacock logo black. A world where pleasant low-skill retail jobs are the first to go and every opening will receive a thousand applications.
I hear you, but I do think that an early retiree with a college degree /years of professional experience (not useful in the retail world, but shows dependability) will get the job ahead of a high schooler looking for a part-time job ... or a full-time worker looking for a second job. An early retiree probably has reliable transportation and a flexible work schedule.
False for the US, maybe. True for other parts of the world. My education is good for life (or until the parliament decides otherwise, which for the forseeable future seems very unlikely).
I'm not sure we're on the same page. Yes, my education is mine for life -- no one can take away my college degree. However, my teaching license must be renewed every five years. Without the license, I still have my degree, but I am not qualified to teach.
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False for the US, maybe. True for other parts of the world. My education is good for life (or until the parliament decides otherwise, which for the forseeable future seems very unlikely).
I'm not sure we're on the same page. Yes, my education is mine for life -- no one can take away my college degree. However, my teaching license must be renewed every five years. Without the license, I still have my degree, but I am not qualified to teach.
Similar pages, different countries. Our “teacher certification” is a one year university course on top of a master, or part of a 5-6 years combined teacher and master degree. As long as you have passed those, you are set. There are no more licenses that need to be renewed, additional certifications that need to be updated, etc. Some members of parliament have suggested it, but few here see the point in implementing more bureaucracy.
I can in theory walk into a school after being FIRE for 20 years, and pick up where I left.
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I just retired last month from a corporate job. It was an early retirement, but not so early by MMM standards. I am thinking about picking up a part-time, local retail gig, because I've never done anything like that and I think it could be fun! Low pay, but no meetings, no 60-hour work weeks, no killer commute and no crushing responsibilities. If I don't like it, I certainly don't need to stay for 39 years like I did with my corporate employer. These jobs are so easy to come by right now, but I agree with others that this will not be the case when there is another economic downturn.
I expect to do something similar. One of my children does hospitality work through an agency to help make ends meet at college, and when she talks about her assignments I find myself thinking, "I'd enjoy doing one of those gigs two or three times a month if I wasn't harnessed to a desk all week." Even if a job sucks, she can walk away at the end of the shift and say, "I won't go back there again."
One worry about taking on local minimum wage jobs would be that people who have known me in my main career might speculate about why I'm now serving tables or doing tours. Which isn't really a barrier, it would just be tedious.
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False for the US, maybe. True for other parts of the world. My education is good for life (or until the parliament decides otherwise, which for the forseeable future seems very unlikely).
I'm not sure we're on the same page. Yes, my education is mine for life -- no one can take away my college degree. However, my teaching license must be renewed every five years. Without the license, I still have my degree, but I am not qualified to teach.
Similar pages, different countries. Our “teacher certification” is a one year university course on top of a master, or part of a 5-6 years combined teacher and master degree. As long as you have passed those, you are set. There are no more licenses that need to be renewed, additional certifications that need to be updated, etc. Some members of parliament have suggested it, but few here see the point in implementing more bureaucracy.
I can in theory walk into a school after being FIRE for 20 years, and pick up where I left.
It's the same in my country. Once I'll have that qualification in a few years, it'll be valid for life. It's als not a hard to find a job in this country as some people describe in this thread: there is a huge shortage of teachers in many fields. And because it's a government job, you're safe in case of an economic downturn. Especially if you have a degree in STEM, you can probably get a job rightaway even if you don't have your teaching qualification yet.
There are many short term teaching jobs for 3 to 6 months (to cover maternity leave / long term illness) . Very often these short term contracts are parttime, which makes them ideal if you're retired.
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Haven't seen sales mentioned much. If you can sell, you can get a job. A commission based gig might be slim pickings in a deep recession, though. Vacuum cleaner, anyone?
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I don't plan on retiring until 2030 when my kid hopefully finishes college. It's really hard to imagine what the economy and employment/side gigs will look like that far in the future. I'm a university administrator/instructor. I plan on adjuncting at least 2 courses per semester (4 per year) in retirement - not for the money, to keep engaged and have something to do. 4 courses per year would allow me to earn at least $12,000 in today's dollars. I don't intend to include that $12,000 in my FIRE budget. I hope to use that $12,000 as a buffer in case of bad return years. If there's a really bad year maybe I'd be able to pick up more courses.
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I'm not sure why anyone would ever want to work for someone else but for those that do.... my buddy made $3000 a few weeks ago announcing ball games. He announces all year long. Friday & Saturday nights at the local dirt track, other days/nights he announces for about any sport that wants him to announce. He does mostly pee wee type stuff but there is a great need for all sports. It's best to have a cheery attitude but his ex-wife used to do it and she was always Debbie -downer and drug the fans down with her sluggish voice and talk. But they need announcers so it's not like they could fire her. Want an 'easy job? Go to your local museum and be a guard. Our nephew was a guard at the local museum where my wife works while he was going to school to be a professional concert clarinet player. He also taught the clarinet to kids.... for the record, he hated teaching young kids.
The only reason I work is because I do not like not working. That is why I always have a business of my own. It feels so good to be the owner. I just couldn't imagine going to work for someone and making $8 an hour or $15 an hour or even $40 an hour. I come... I go... I do what I want when I want to do it. You could do the same with a site like Rover. There is no need to go wipe tables at Burger King when you could go house sit or dog sit for someone. Or better yet.... have 5 people working for you that house sits or dog sits.... $$$$$. Not the Rover type of person? You're bound to have something that you like to do.... so sell your service. Mechanic? Mobile mechanic..... washer & iron clothes? ..... Wood worker? Private & Montessori schools always need nice new furniture. Lots of call for a home decorator. There's all kinds of things you can do yourself that will put YOU in charge of YOUR life and make YOU a ton of MONEY! ......... but it seems most people would rather be a cashier at Walmart and complain about the pay.
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I'm assuming the "FIRE failure" is market downturn/recession so there is a need for more money than planned for.
Well, firstly there is the option to cut expenses for a while.
Secondly there is the option to pick up some part time work: working in a bar or similar for say 2 days a week for a year would not be ideal but would also not be a real hardship, and would earn say $10k or so and therefore cover a lot of core expenses.
Thirdly there is also the option to not do much during that recession, but plan to do more paid work than envisaged (or some instead of zero) once the employment market picks up - might mean a well-paid contract in your area of expertise is available and by deferring the work you work in better employment conditions.
I would probably agree that readily picking up well paid work on your terms after several years out of your profession is for many people unlikely to be realistic. However, as core expenses should be pretty low, I would be confident of picking up some work to cover the majority of core expenses for a while, without that work being a real burden.
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In the 1980s, I worked at a food co-op and we had people with engineering degrees come in looking for part time jobs. It really is hard to predict the labor market in a downturn.
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In the 1980s, I worked at a food co-op and we had people with engineering degrees come in looking for part time jobs. It really is hard to predict the labor market in a downturn.
Were the folks with engineering degrees getting hired?
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In the 1980s, I worked at a food co-op and we had people with engineering degrees come in looking for part time jobs. It really is hard to predict the labor market in a downturn.
Were the folks with engineering degrees getting hired?
No, they weren’t. Because they really weren’t interested in co-op work and didn’t have any skills for it.
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That's what I was afraid of. But useful to hear it from someone who actually saw that the job market was like during a recession firsthand. Thanks, Cranky!
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Substitute teaching is part of our plan. The pay is mediocre, but would be good enough for filling a withdraw gap. We may even set ourselves up to sub occasionally before it is needed to we are established. My mom was a sub for many years and she found that once she was known and could be expected to do a good job, she got requested nearly every day she was available. I like the scalability of subbing. If we've got a vacation planned or have a lecture we want to attend, we simply aren't available that day. And subs are needed in pretty much every US location. If we do the testing and paperwork ahead of time, it would be easy to be up and running quickly if we decided we needed more money.
I've got half a masters in library and info science and may or may not finish it. Library work would be another possibility for me, though that depends on availability of jobs, so it could easily be hit or miss.
DH may or may not move into a teaching position (which would happen with a PhD), so he could potentially adjunct. No idea if this will happen, but one reason it's a strong consideration in the decision. Snagging a class or two at any level of university doesn't seem like it would be super difficult if he's not picky.
Then there are the bartending, wait staffing, retails sales types gigs. I do think sometimes people here grossly overestimate the ease of finding specific jobs. But given that the needs should be relatively minimal, 2-3 shifts a week at a store in the mall should be sufficient. And I suspect snagging one of those jobs for two determined people wouldn't be incredibly difficult. Not ideal, but should we need $5-10k, likely very doable.
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If you just need to wait for your stash to grow, you could always volunteer for the Peace Corps. They are always looking for older qualified candidates (although they prefer that you have at least a Bachelor's degree). They pay for your medical, dental, room, and board while you are in the program. When you get out they give you $8k to get back to "normal" life. There are also educational benefits.
EDIT - I guess that is a very US-centic answer. Sorry about that. Also, if you do successfully volunteer for the Piece Corps you get to be considered for Federal Government jobs with "noncompetitive eligibility."
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Assuming that the economy hasn't totally crashed in this scenario under discussion, there is of course pizza delivery. For a fascinating blow by blow account of how my job as pizza delivery driver has worked out, my journal offers fascinating, can't put this down type drama. All kidding aside, its a very good way to make quick extra cash, normally without too much stress (at least with my restaurant).
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Assuming that the economy hasn't totally crashed in this scenario under discussion, there is of course pizza delivery. For a fascinating blow by blow account of how my job as pizza delivery driver has worked out, my journal offers fascinating, can't put this down type drama. All kidding aside, its a very good way to make quick extra cash, normally without too much stress (at least with my restaurant).
When I last looked at it, delivering pizza means either paying through the nose for a commercial auto insurance, or hoping that nothing happens. Most pizza delivery drivers don't have two pennies to rub together and choose option #2, and that's a different story if you have assets.
Unless there's a third option that I'm not aware of, which one are you?
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Pretty much all drivers that I know of just have regular insurance, and our restaurant has its own insurance (for having drivers) as well. I do know that if I was in an accident while delivering I wouldn't bring up what I was doing (we don't have any signs identifying us, or uniforms), just as I wouldn't ask whoever I got involved in an accident with what they were doing or what job they had. In the one fender bender I had while delivering many years ago what I was doing (and what the other driver was doing as well) didn't come up.
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As soon as I can come up with a pithy saying that riffs on the "Business in the front, party in the back" saying, it'll be going in my signature block. I'll take suggestions as well (not sure if that can go in this thread or would need to go in its own thread...)
I see that you've come up with something. Here's another idea:
Spending in the front, savings in the back. I think this works because the spending part is a lot shorter than the savings part.
Take it or leave it. :)
LOVE IT!! Thanks. I'm using it and will credit you. :)
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If you just need to wait for your stash to grow, you could always volunteer for the Peace Corps.
That's an interesting idea. Thanks.
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That's what I was afraid of. But useful to hear it from someone who actually saw that the job market was like during a recession firsthand. Thanks, Cranky!
In my country we experienced a triple dip recession for several years starting from 2007-2008. I was around 20 then with a university education. I struggled through various short term shitty jobs that I was massively overqualified for, but I did find all kinds of jobs. I can imagine it's harder to find jobs like that when you're older with lots of professional work experience, but at that age it wasn't hard for me to find jobs.
One place I worked for actively looked for retired people or people who'd moved abroad and needed to work in our country for an X amount of days for tax reasons. It was very easy (but physically hard) work, we were basically shelf stacking for a travelling book market, and they preferred older, professional staff over students that they found unreliable. I also did short term work in hospitality and no one ever asked me for my job experience or resume. I worked through a temp agency and they only asked me questions about kitchen/hospitality skills and they'd match available jobs to that. It was minimum wage work, but we'd often get to eat leftover food and we worked very long shifts, so there was the opportunity to earn a lot of money in a short period of time.
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Here are a few ideas I came up with and I'd love to hear from the community:
- Teacher: school districts are always looking for people to take on teaching and, if you're smart enough to FIRE, you're smart enough to at least try out teaching
This one might be a bit iffy because many teaching jobs require a credential. However, private and charter schools do not, so this may be a possible avenue.
Also, in some states having access to a teacher's pension (and having FICA taxes manditorily waived even if you don't participate in the pension) can mess up your access to Social Security. This is a great thread idea - but having explored teaching as a second career and then ending up in a state where teachers can't pay FICA, I thought this was info worth sharing :)
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That's what I was afraid of. But useful to hear it from someone who actually saw that the job market was like during a recession firsthand. Thanks, Cranky!
Thinking about this some more, I’d add that we really only hired from within - when we needed someone to pick up some hours, we looked at the people who were already involved and volunteering, and asked if they wanted to move to a paid position.
I suspect that that’s often the way it works in a high unemployment situation - even small part time jobs can afford to be picky and will hire through word of mouth.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing for someone looking for that kind of work - it just means that you need to use your network. I’ve had a lot of parttime jobs of the years, and everyone of them has been offered to me by someone I know.
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If you just need to wait for your stash to grow, you could always volunteer for the Peace Corps. They are always looking for older qualified candidates (although they prefer that you have at least a Bachelor's degree). They pay for your medical, dental, room, and board while you are in the program. When you get out they give you $8k to get back to "normal" life. There are also educational benefits.
EDIT - I guess that is a very US-centic answer. Sorry about that. Also, if you do successfully volunteer for the Piece Corps you get to be considered for Federal Government jobs with "noncompetitive eligibility."
That's a very clever idea. There's also the possibility of a long-term volunteer position through a charity where your basic living costs would be covered (I believe Doctors Without Borders has such programs and I assume other charities as well).
I've thought through a number of options if I need to economize for a few years due to an early market drop after FI. My top two right now are:
(1) geo-arbitrage - moving overseas to somewhere where cost of living is much cheaper (Chiang Mai, Tahiland?).
(2) Take a master's degree in Germany (taught in English) - many of these programs are in smaller towns where cost of living is reasonable and tuition ranges from free to ~$1,500 per year.
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That's what I was afraid of. But useful to hear it from someone who actually saw that the job market was like during a recession firsthand. Thanks, Cranky!
Thinking about this some more, I’d add that we really only hired from within - when we needed someone to pick up some hours, we looked at the people who were already involved and volunteering, and asked if they wanted to move to a paid position.
I suspect that that’s often the way it works in a high unemployment situation - even small part time jobs can afford to be picky and will hire through word of mouth.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing for someone looking for that kind of work - it just means that you need to use your network. I’ve had a lot of parttime jobs of the years, and everyone of them has been offered to me by someone I know.
These are very good points. It also suggests that making sure that your network includes some people who might have a need for part time workers in the event of a recession is a good precaution to take even in good economic times.
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when you could go house sit or dog sit for someone.
I've considered dog sitting. I could see building a couple little pens and doing it on a very small basis. Of course, people would always want to board their dogs on holidays, but I imagine us traveling at low-priced times after we retire.
No, they weren’t. Because they really weren’t interested in co-op work and didn’t have any skills for it.
And because the co-op people would rather hire someone who actually wants that job and could be expected to stay. A typical engineer would do that job as a stop-gap until he could get the job he really wants.
My mom was a sub for many years and she found that once she was known and could be expected to do a good job, she got requested nearly every day she was available.
Yes, this is absolutely true. When one of us teachers expects to be out (doctor's appointment or whatever), we always try to schedule it as far in advance as possible so we can get one of the GOOD subs.
Realistically, subs don't work much in August /September ... then they're in demand October - late May. They work a lot of Mondays and Fridays, and they see half of a lot of movies.
Another teacher-related job that retirees might consider: In-home daycare ONLY for teachers' kids. I know a number of people who do this, and it's a better deal than just plain babysitting anyone's kids. They get the summers and holidays off. If they babysit small children, the teachers pick up by 3:30 or 4:00 ... if they provide after-school care, they see the kids off the bus, provide a snack, and help the kids with homework before they're picked up. Either way, it's fewer hours than a typical babysitter.
I've considered that I might offer babysitting for school-aged kids on teacher workdays only. You know, make it a themed day-camp type thing.
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Here are a few ideas I came up with and I'd love to hear from the community:
- Teacher: school districts are always looking for people to take on teaching and, if you're smart enough to FIRE, you're smart enough to at least try out teaching
This one might be a bit iffy because many teaching jobs require a credential. However, private and charter schools do not, so this may be a possible avenue.
I grinned at this because teaching was the career I ERed from. I might substitute, but I once saw a post from Spartana where she says she'd take a seasonal job and I think I would do that too.
I am lucky that I live where there is universal health care, so low-paying, part-time work is doable..especially with a paid off house, a roommate, and an apartment I can rent out.
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About the experience during a recession. I moved to a city right as the dot com crash hit. It was extremely hard to find GOOD paying jobs, but I picked up a warehouse/delivery truck driver spot ($8/hr, woohoo!) after some difficulty and a lot of applications/interviews I was overqualified for. I moved from that to blackjack dealer as a friend got me the hookup on a free dealer school in tahoe with a guaranteed job after.
I always tell people that painful experience was one of my greatest life lessons. It taught me that job security is defined by how valuable and specialized your skillset is. If you're competing to do something nearly everyone can do you're gonna have a tough time, regardless of how special or smart you think you are or actually are. :D
When the next recession rolled around I was very ready, I switched jobs twice in the thick of it actually and doubled my income. Lost my ass in real estate, but that's another life lesson, haha!
I think when it comes to this thread, the application is to either keep an in demand skill(s) up to date if you have one.
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retail arbitrage & selling on eBay/Amazon/Craigslist is my fallback plan. Basically find clearance products or combine coupons & sales to get items for a cheap price, then flip it. It's what I did to pay for college & it didn't slow down at all during the 2008 timeframe. It's pretty easy to make just enough to weather a downturn if you combine it with your 4% withdrawal.
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I was approached with an opportunity for a copywriting gig today. I'm not sure if that's going to work out for me right now, but this is the kind of side hustle that would be ideal in case you need to some extra money while FIRE'd. The pay isn't that great, but you can often work from home and set your own schedule. You get paid for your output and not for your time, so the more skilled and efficient you are, the more money you make.
In case of a general economic downturn, these kind of jobs are of course harder to find and less well paid, but I know a few people who got by as fulltime copywriters during the last recession. You need to be able to write a lot in a short time and build your reputation on that.
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I just retired last month from a corporate job. It was an early retirement, but not so early by MMM standards. I am thinking about picking up a part-time, local retail gig, because I've never done anything like that and I think it could be fun! Low pay, but no meetings, no 60-hour work weeks, no killer commute and no crushing responsibilities. If I don't like it, I certainly don't need to stay for 39 years like I did with my corporate employer. These jobs are so easy to come by right now, but I agree with others that this will not be the case when there is another economic downturn.
Trust me, you might think it is fun, but the caliber of people you will work with will be an eye opener. My friend works for Walmart (WM) and she tells me stories you wouldn't believe of some of her coworkers. She formerly worked in banking for 20 years and in HR for around 10 years but during the recession lost her job and couldn't find a decent job. Now she is close to retirement.
One woman who worked at my friends WM was killed by her boyfriend. Another one is divorced with two kids and broke but sending money to some guy in Africa who she thinks is in love with her. Others my friend has had to train that can't be trained. They just don't have the skills to learn. She has done everything but stand on her head to help these people learn but they just don't get it! Then there is the local grocery store that has bottle returns and the machines are always full or malfunctioning. They always send the new guy out to remedy the situation. Gathering up the shopping carts out in the snow or rain. Then the hours usually are horrible. They won't give you enough hours to get benefits. You will work weekends or second or third shift. Don't forget all the holidays. Most stores don't shut down for any holidays. If the store opens on Black Friday at 1 am, you will be scheduled to come in to work the hellish night shift and deal with these customers rampaging thru the store. People do disgusting things in the bathrooms and you might be told to clean it up. They are not very tolerant of absences no matter what the excuse. Don't think you will get overtime. They schedule very tightly and expect you to be there on time and leave on time. To go from a corporate type job to a retail gig is really not easy to swallow. But, good luck if you try this!
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A few people have mentioned working in a library.
Professional librarian jobs will require an MLS. Many non-librarian clerical jobs are civil service. The library job market is pretty competitive, and many clerical positions end up being filled with people who have an MLS. Academic libraries and larger public library systems hire some non-MLS people with strong technical skills, but even for these positions, there is usually a preference for people with some library experience.
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A few jobs that I would like to do, and would consider doing even without a FIRE failure due to the perks include ushering or selling tickets at the local playhouse, selling tickets at the museum, art gallery, or even working in the gift shop.
I would get to hang out in spaces I love, free entry, have backstage access (this is especially attractive to me for the museum), all while doing a relatively low demand job requiring not a lot more than being pleasant and helpful. I have an acquaintance who did the ushering part time thing, got to see all the shows for free, so if you are in to the theatre, this can be a huge perk in saved ticket costs.
Someone who likes to travel could also look into being a gate agent for an airline. I hear that pay sucks, but if you were to get flight perks that you will actually use, it might be worth it. The commute to the airport, and dealing with stressed travellers would put me off this one though.
Again, I think you would have to get yourself established in one of these jobs before any kind of market downturn.
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A few people have mentioned working in a library.
Professional librarian jobs will require an MLS. Many non-librarian clerical jobs are civil service. The library job market is pretty competitive, and many clerical positions end up being filled with people who have an MLS. Academic libraries and larger public library systems hire some non-MLS people with strong technical skills, but even for these positions, there is usually a preference for people with some library experience.
I'm one of those who mentioned libraries. I have half an MLIS completed and may or may not finish it at some point before (or during) retirement.
But mostly I'm responding to bring up another point, which is that FIRE activities can help set you up better for these what-ifs. I've got a lot of time volunteering in libraries, and plan to do that in retirement as well. The volunteer time will look good on a resume, if it ever comes to job searching, and if it is a local library that is eventually hiring, the person they know and trust to be reliable, sane, and competent is going to get more consideration than a person who is a complete unknown. Of course, this only works if you are also otherwise qualified, but I've seen this in action. A library where I volunteer actually asked me and another regular volunteer to apply for positions when they came open. I wasn't interested, but the other volunteer was and she easily got one of the jobs.
So another way to hedge against these possibilities is to be thoughtful with retirement activities, especially volunteering.
Also, I think that if and when the time comes, it is going to be most important to be flexible. This thread is great for ideas, but anyone who says, "I'll get a job doing X", if probably a bit naive. Since this is likely to occur during an economic downturn, the key is going to be applying for anything and everything, in most cases. Yes, having a skill set and connections to tap will give you a leg up, but I would be foolish to only look for library jobs, for example. I'd take a walmart or secretarial or babysitting job if that's what came along. I'd probably keep looking for a more skilled (and more interesting to me) job, and one which would likely pay more, but it would be foolish to limit myself if there was a true need. And while it might suck, working 8 or 10 months at Walmart wouldn't be unbearable since it would be fairly short term, and likely part time.
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Just be aware that Walmart only closes one day a year and that is Christmas day. Unless you get lucky you most likely will be scheduled for holidays. The only good thing is that they have 401k and they match up to a certain amount.
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(And Yet Another side note: Recessions end. If a FIRE'ee couldn't get a job due to such a recession, there is no reason they can't do any of the aforementioned jobs a few years later when the economy recovers. Yes they lose some to compounding and pulling out equities for living expenses at the worst time, but they also have the financial flexibility to survive and work in better years, albeit just slightly longer...)
I particularly appreciate this point. During a recession, you don't have to fight it out with the unemployed who need a job to survive. You can wait until the job market is less competitive and pick up something then. Your urgency is less and you can use the time during the recession to gain training or skills that will make it easier to get the PT job you want.
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(And Yet Another side note: Recessions end. If a FIRE'ee couldn't get a job due to such a recession, there is no reason they can't do any of the aforementioned jobs a few years later when the economy recovers. Yes they lose some to compounding and pulling out equities for living expenses at the worst time, but they also have the financial flexibility to survive and work in better years, albeit just slightly longer...)
I particularly appreciate this point. During a recession, you don't have to fight it out with the unemployed who need a job to survive. You can wait until the job market is less competitive and pick up something then. Your urgency is less and you can use the time during the recession to gain training or skills that will make it easier to get the PT job you want.
I was thinking about this point today and also think it's an excellent one. I decided to move to three years of living expenses into cash thinking about it. (Had a year and a half in cash before that.)
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From late spring to early fall over 1 million cruise ship passengers visit our town. There are lots of hiking/biking guide businesses that are always struggling to find enough workers especially around the shoulder seasons. Figure I could always get some sort of job with them if needed.
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Talking to a friend who retired from the NPS - he says that a college degree is pretty much required and a Master's to be competitive for certain jobs or places. I figured it would come down to being able to use a chainsaw. Guess I was wrong.
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Does anybody know what's involved in getting a job like ski instructor, ski patrol, park ranger, guide, or other outdoors related jobs?
Can only comment on ski patrol - but that is a very hard to get job in popular ski resorts. In smaller ones (meaning ones no one would ever go on a ski vacation to) it is much easier, but is often done on a volunteer basis only
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Does anybody know what's involved in getting a job like ski instructor, ski patrol, park ranger, guide, or other outdoors related jobs?
My co-worker’s son got a job as a ski instructor in Colorado the winter after he graduated from high school. He enjoyed the free skiing, but he lived in his van as housing was way expensive.
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(And Yet Another side note: Recessions end. If a FIRE'ee couldn't get a job due to such a recession, there is no reason they can't do any of the aforementioned jobs a few years later when the economy recovers. Yes they lose some to compounding and pulling out equities for living expenses at the worst time, but they also have the financial flexibility to survive and work in better years, albeit just slightly longer...)
I particularly appreciate this point. During a recession, you don't have to fight it out with the unemployed who need a job to survive. You can wait until the job market is less competitive and pick up something then. Your urgency is less and you can use the time during the recession to gain training or skills that will make it easier to get the PT job you want.
I was thinking about this point today and also think it's an excellent one. I decided to move to three years of living expenses into cash thinking about it. (Had a year and a half in cash before that.)
As long as your investments (excluding cash buffer) still maintain your optimum safe withdraw rate AND you are fine with the drag from the additional 1.5 years money out of the market, then this makes perfect sense. I also may adjust my end-game a bit due to this, but I'm still a ways away.
Glad I could make a good point. :)
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Does anybody know what's involved in getting a job like ski instructor, ski patrol, park ranger, guide, or other outdoors related jobs?
All of my 4 brothers have easily found outdoor jobs in various ski towns with no qualifications or skills.
They just hit the hills often, made friends with staff, got jobs.
Sometimes “smoked pot a bunch with lift operator” is the only qualification you need.
Jobs tend to be hard to come by when you desperately need them, but post-FIRE people aren’t likely to suddenly be under a crunch to find work. If you don’t need a job NOW to cover a mortgage, then it’s not hard to build your network and find something interesting.
Retired people are in the ideal position to network, they have time and valuable skills.
If I needed a retirement job, I would do the exact same thing I have always done for jobs: I would work my network. I would meet people for lunches, get involved in volunteer activities, participate in my community, be highly helpful and productive and eventually someone would offer to pay me.
Even in recessions, companies are ALWAYS on the lookout for useful people with skills and a great attitude.
My mom has been retired since the early 2000s and she was practically bullied into taking on contacts after the cash in 2008 because companies couldn’t afford to maintain staff so they hired contractors for specific projects. She had kept up her professional network by mentoring people and when those contracts came up, they demanded that she do them. She turned down so much work and made so much money. It was insane.
People who are desperate for work don’t have the time to dedicate to networking and being useful for free, that’s why it’s so hard for them to get ahead. However, the more free time you have, the easier it is to make opportunities happen. Before I became a dentist, I had a previous career that I basically fashioned out of nothing by taking an interest in successful people, identifying their problems and trying to help fix them.
I really don’t think anyone who has reached FIRE really needs to stress about it.
Yes, you will likely have to work in retirement if you have saved a lean FIRE, but that’s not a bad thing, nor is it something to be afraid of.
There are no guarantees in life, and not with FIRE either, but you can be damn sure that if you’ve reached FIRE and there’s a major recession, that you will be in a much better position than most and ideally equipped to actually find some of the incredible opportunities that exist in recesssions.
FIRE doesn’t mean you don’t have to fight the battle, it just means that you have the best armour.
This is the most reasonable response yet. Also, you don’t necessarily have to work when jobs are hard to find. It’s not like you would be hurting for cash right away. If you can’t find work immediately due to a down economy, wait until things start to settle down and jobs become more available; then make a commitment to work long enough to replenish the coffers.
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Does anybody know what's involved in getting a job like ski instructor, ski patrol, park ranger, guide, or other outdoors related jobs?
Can only comment on ski patrol - but that is a very hard to get job in popular ski resorts. In smaller ones (meaning ones no one would ever go on a ski vacation to) it is much easier, but is often done on a volunteer basis only
Agreed. The ski patrol at my local ski resort growing up (not a place anyone would vacation to, but still a decent hill) were volunteers - they got free season passes and I believe some other perks (free/discounted food, first choice of equipment left behind after the season, etc.). Instructors were paid, but there was a much more rigorous selection process and little turnover year to year so hard to break into.
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Trust me, you might think it is fun, but the caliber of people you will work with will be an eye opener. My friend works for Walmart (WM) and she tells me stories you wouldn't believe of some of her coworkers. She formerly worked in banking for 20 years and in HR for around 10 years but during the recession lost her job and couldn't find a decent job. Now she is close to retirement.
One woman who worked at my friends WM was killed by her boyfriend. Another one is divorced with two kids and broke but sending money to some guy in Africa who she thinks is in love with her. Others my friend has had to train that can't be trained. They just don't have the skills to learn. She has done everything but stand on her head to help these people learn but they just don't get it! Then there is the local grocery store that has bottle returns and the machines are always full or malfunctioning. They always send the new guy out to remedy the situation. Gathering up the shopping carts out in the snow or rain. Then the hours usually are horrible. They won't give you enough hours to get benefits. You will work weekends or second or third shift. Don't forget all the holidays. Most stores don't shut down for any holidays. If the store opens on Black Friday at 1 am, you will be scheduled to come in to work the hellish night shift and deal with these customers rampaging thru the store. People do disgusting things in the bathrooms and you might be told to clean it up. They are not very tolerant of absences no matter what the excuse. Don't think you will get overtime. They schedule very tightly and expect you to be there on time and leave on time. To go from a corporate type job to a retail gig is really not easy to swallow. But, good luck if you try this!
My youngest child is still in college, so I've heard from them -- and from my high school seniors -- what goes on in retail jobs these days. Some of it's hard to believe. Some people make make, um, "messes" not only in bathrooms ... some people take their kids into a dressing room and allow them to pee /poop in to a bottle or onto a pair of the store's jeans. Customers are rude to retail workers about prices /available merchandise -- as if the minimum wage cashier does the ordering. I've seen it with my children, and I've heard it from my students: Retails workers aren't treated very well; in fact, they're treated like they're disposable. I think it's because it's a low-skill job, and the workers are very easy to replace -- still, people shouldn't be treated like they're disposable.
Things you should expect if you're going to work in retail:
- Awful hours; for example, my daughter worked 'til 2am on Black Friday, and she'll work until 2am again for inventory. She works 'til 11pm on a regular basis. And holidays -- people shop on holidays.
- In some clothing stores, you're required to wear not only the store's clothing, but the current season's clothing. I think I've heard this (from my students) about American Eagle and Abercrombie. For a minimum wage worker, that's a tall order.
- Lack of parking. Yes, seriously! This has been a big problem for my daughter, who works at a busy mall. During the Christmas season, we drove her to work /picked her up (fortunately it's only a 10 minute drive) when she worked 'til closing because in the evening hours you literally can't find a parking space. This is the type of thing you'd never think is a real problem ... 'til you're driving around looking for a place to park.
I'd be willing to work retail on a seasonal basis ... if it were going to be short-term and especially if it'd allow me to get a discount on something I want to buy.
I'm not surprised to hear you say that some workers just aren't trainable. They come through my high school classes: People so dumb they literally can't run a cash register or hold three instructions in their mind at once. These people are small in number, but I really don't know how they make it in the world. Most of my students who do poorly are just lazy, but a few genuinely "cannot do".
Of course, I've also seen a couple students who were genuinely dumb, but they found their way into the right job for them; for example, one of my kids worked at a restaurant for a short time, and one of my old students -- a genuinely bottom-of-the-barrel-student -- was the head waitress. She was an excellent waitress. It was "her thing", and I'm glad she found something she could do.
A few jobs that I would like to do, and would consider doing even without a FIRE failure due to the perks include ushering or selling tickets at the local playhouse, selling tickets at the museum, art gallery, or even working in the gift shop.
One of my retirement possibilities: A playhouse near us takes volunteers as ushers. The majority seem to be senior citizens. It'd be a great way to see concerts and plays ... for free. The negatives, in my case, are that the place is an hour's drive from my house, parking is difficult downtown, and I don't know that I'd enjoy seeing the same thing multiple times.
Does anybody know what's involved in getting a job like ski instructor, ski patrol, park ranger, guide, or other outdoors related jobs?
Years ago we went on a tour at a state park out west -- really great tour; a splurge, but we still talk about it a decade later. It was the first tour of the day, and our family was alone on the tour, so we talked a great deal to the old guy who served as driver /guide. He told us that he lives in Texas, but he can't take the summer heat, so he goes to South Dakota and works as a guide -- he was a really good guide -- full of stories and fun to talk to. As we drove around, he showed us the workers' campground. My husband and I talked about it later and said we'd enjoy doing that as seasonal work.
One last thought: I was talking to an older guy who was running the cash register at the grocery store, and -- I don't remember how this came up -- he told me it's a great part-time job for a retired person. He's retired from the corporate world, and he told me he enjoyed working with the teenagers who mostly staff the store. I asked him if he gets a discount on groceries, and he said no -- but he says he gets first crack at the reduced-for-quick-sale items, and that's worthwhile.
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Those of you that are suggesting teaching are absolutely crazy! I think after I retire I will go and learn to become a computer programmer. ... It has nothing to do with kids or teaching. The bureaucracy will kill you.
On a serious note. If you need money, like kids, and can still move a bit go and become a referee for whatever your favorite sport is. You work from 5-9 PM, Pick your schedule, and can make $80-$150 an evening. Draw backs... Can not drink, Can not be a lard ass, Will get sunburned. You can make 2K a month by officiating youth sports.
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I took my first FIRE job a year ago, doing some basic accounting for a nonprofit. What I’ve found is that while it’s a good gig, my natural desire to rock a professional job has sucked the fun out of this gig. I think my next FIRE gig will be further away from my original profession...like personal trainer or sub.
Posting to follow. Would love to hear about other people’s post FIRE experiences.
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One last thought: I was talking to an older guy who was running the cash register at the grocery store, and -- I don't remember how this came up -- he told me it's a great part-time job for a retired person. He's retired from the corporate world, and he told me he enjoyed working with the teenagers who mostly staff the store. I asked him if he gets a discount on groceries, and he said no -- but he says he gets first crack at the reduced-for-quick-sale items, and that's worthwhile.
My dad took a job full-time as an assistant manager at a grocery store. He's 60 and took the job mainly for healthcare benefits (which are awesome, surprisingly) and to bridge the gap until Social Security.
He loves it. Originally, he was planning on working only until Medicare eligibility, but he likes it so much, I think he's planning to keep working there part-time even once he doesn't need the steady income/health benefits.
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I just retired last month from a corporate job. It was an early retirement, but not so early by MMM standards. I am thinking about picking up a part-time, local retail gig, because I've never done anything like that and I think it could be fun! Low pay, but no meetings, no 60-hour work weeks, no killer commute and no crushing responsibilities. If I don't like it, I certainly don't need to stay for 39 years like I did with my corporate employer. These jobs are so easy to come by right now, but I agree with others that this will not be the case when there is another economic downturn.
Trust me, you might think it is fun, but the caliber of people you will work with will be an eye opener. My friend works for Walmart (WM) and she tells me stories you wouldn't believe of some of her coworkers. She formerly worked in banking for 20 years and in HR for around 10 years but during the recession lost her job and couldn't find a decent job. Now she is close to retirement.
One woman who worked at my friends WM was killed by her boyfriend. Another one is divorced with two kids and broke but sending money to some guy in Africa who she thinks is in love with her. Others my friend has had to train that can't be trained. They just don't have the skills to learn. She has done everything but stand on her head to help these people learn but they just don't get it! Then there is the local grocery store that has bottle returns and the machines are always full or malfunctioning. They always send the new guy out to remedy the situation. Gathering up the shopping carts out in the snow or rain. Then the hours usually are horrible. They won't give you enough hours to get benefits. You will work weekends or second or third shift. Don't forget all the holidays. Most stores don't shut down for any holidays. If the store opens on Black Friday at 1 am, you will be scheduled to come in to work the hellish night shift and deal with these customers rampaging thru the store. People do disgusting things in the bathrooms and you might be told to clean it up. They are not very tolerant of absences no matter what the excuse. Don't think you will get overtime. They schedule very tightly and expect you to be there on time and leave on time. To go from a corporate type job to a retail gig is really not easy to swallow. But, good luck if you try this!
Yeah, I worked a retail job when I was in high school and college, and I don't ever want to do that again. I guess I would do it if I absolutely had to, but it would truly be my option of last resort.
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I think it really depends on the store. Between my s/o and I we have worked in a range of retail positions and some of them were really good. Discount chain stores are awful. There's a reason why everything's so cheap. The biggest grocery chain in our country was ok-ish. The way managers in those stores treat shelf stackers and cashiers isn't how a finance professional like me is treated in an office setting, but it isn't as bad as the discount stores. You get discounted groceries and a small bonus and health care benefits. In more specialist stores, where you need to have a certain product knowledge, you are treated much better because you aren't as replaceable. Chain stores often offer more benefits, but working in an independent store is generally much more enjoyable. I wouldn't mind working part time in retail in retirement, it just really depends on the place.
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In summary:
- Prefer reducing expenses in a recession (needs a buffer in budget).
- Keep a foot in the door and skills sharp in good times (from your old career).
- Keep building network and exploring opportunities in FIRE.
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In more specialist stores, where you need to have a certain product knowledge, you are treated much better because you aren't as replaceable. Chain stores often offer more benefits, but working in an independent store is generally much more enjoyable. I wouldn't mind working part time in retail in retirement, it just really depends on the place.
Yes. I had a break between contract gigs and worked at an outdoor's store for 6 months. It was a lot of fun, all the walking was good exercise and when I went to quit they begged me to stay because having a mature, reliable employee with lots of equipment and activity related experience was such a huge asset. The pro-deals and discounts were nice although you have to be careful you don't spend your whole paycheque! Outdoor retail would be my goto gig in FIRE if I needed to earn a few bucks. I also think that when I am old enough that really strenuous outdoor activities are beyond me I will look for a outdoor retail job a couple days a week to get out of the house and stay connected to that community.
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Some people are geared to work in retail and like working with people, coworkers and customers. I worked for 35 years in jobs that didn't require any interaction with customers. Then I got laid off from a very excellent job and I couldn't find anything like it. So I eventually found a job in a hospital which required checking in patients for one day surgery. This hospital checked in over 100 patients on a normal day. I despised this job so much and despised most of my coworkers. It was such a different world from which I had been in all those years. I thought I was getting into a professional atmosphere similar to where I came from. The nurses treated us clerical workers terribly and would shout and demand. They acted like we were hiding the patients from them. Patients were supposed to have an appointed time but people don't always pay attention and don't come on time. It was a dog eat dog world. Pay was low, OT was an unheard of word. One time on my day off they called me and asked me to come in due to being short handed. Stupid me answered the phone and agreed to go in. When I got there I asked if I would get 'call in time' from time they called me to when I arrived. My boss lady looked at me like I was utterly nuts! Hahaha, she had to check with the head nurse and SURE ENOUGH, I got paid! I have to say, I never knew that working with people (patients) was totally foreign to me and would hate it. So, retail would be the last job on earth I would take if I had to work during retirement. Each of us have our strong points and weak points when it comes to jobs and I am NOT a people person! Working with my coworkers was never a problem in my lifetime, but working with demanding customers/patients is just not for me! I am an introverted person. That job lasted one year and I practically ran out the door screaming on my last day! One of the happiest days of my life!
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One job I thought of to add to the list here is lifeguarding. I worked as a lifeguard all of high school and my first summer in college and overall it's a pretty easy job that I enjoyed. Some points:
- Lifeguarding typically pays more than minimum wage. At least it did when I was one.
- The skillset required is useful outside of work. Being proficient in CPR, first aid, water rescue techniques, etc are all excellent skills to have. Plus in high school I thought it was super cool to get to use medical equipment like AEDs and high-flow oxygen.
- Non-terrible hours. The pool I worked at opened at 5 am and closed at 10 pm. So no overnight walmart shifts. The first shift was the most popular because people were done with work by 1 pm.
- Potentially free access to a gym. The pools I worked at were attached to a community recreation center that we were allowed to use for free. Our yearly bonus was free admission to a class taught at the rec center, I took tennis, kayak, and rock climbing classes.
- Very flexible scheduling and hours. My coworkers were all ages, some worked part time, some full time, and the schedule got filled however was necessary
At the time I was lifeguarding, I would get frustrated with the little annoyances of the job: entitled parents, janitorial-type duties, monthly audits to ensure safety. But looking back on it, I could totally be a lifeguard again in a financial pinch! I sat outside all summer at the pool (where my friends were anyway) and I got PAID for it!
It would have to be a serious pinch though for me to NEED to find a job. My FIRE plan involves making and selling art and other products online as a creative outlet and Airbnb-ing part of my property as a way to meet new people, so those endeavors will provide a modest income as well.
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I would love to work retail in FIRE.
Somewhere really nasty, horrible conditions, abusive boss. That kind of place. It would give me perverted amounts of joy knowing I could quit at any time.
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On a serious note. If you need money, like kids, and can still move a bit go and become a referee for whatever your favorite sport is. You work from 5-9 PM, Pick your schedule, and can make $80-$150 an evening.
You don't necessarily have to move. I officiate a sport where I just sit on my (not fat) ass, and make $35/hr doing it.
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I'm from a ski town/former snowboard bum. You can just about always be a liftie, rental counter or other low paid ski resort worker. Likely minimum wage but you'll get a pass or discounted pass. When the season is over you claim unemployment (you decide if this violates your morals or not) and then pick up a similar job in off season if there is a downhill mountain bike park, shuttle driver, hotel, whatever.
Seasonal work rocks if you need just enough to avoid failing ER.
Does anybody know what's involved in getting a job like ski instructor, ski patrol, park ranger, guide, or other outdoors related jobs?
Can only comment on ski patrol - but that is a very hard to get job in popular ski resorts. In smaller ones (meaning ones no one would ever go on a ski vacation to) it is much easier, but is often done on a volunteer basis only
Agreed. The ski patrol at my local ski resort growing up (not a place anyone would vacation to, but still a decent hill) were volunteers - they got free season passes and I believe some other perks (free/discounted food, first choice of equipment left behind after the season, etc.). Instructors were paid, but there was a much more rigorous selection process and little turnover year to year so hard to break into.
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I read about the first 30-40 comments and no one mentioned a bunch of home service jobs that typically pay way more than minimum wage.
Mowing lawns, house cleaning, dog walking, leaf removal, stringing Christmas lights, handyman work, painting. These all require a fair amount of physical labor and a little time to build up a client base, but they can easily pay in the $15-30/hr range. These would be a great to supplement an early retirement income. My brother does house painting and handyman work as a side gig and makes $1,000+ extra a month.
Real estate agent would be another job with a relatively low barrier to entry. Maybe a couple thousand dollars in startup expenses to get a license and then the time fill your pipeline, but it has great $ per hour potential. It just won't put money in your pocket for a few months.
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I read about the first 30-40 comments and no one mentioned a bunch of home service jobs that typically pay way more than minimum wage.
Mowing lawns, house cleaning, dog walking, leaf removal, stringing Christmas lights, handyman work, painting. These all require a fair amount of physical labor and a little time to build up a client base, but they can easily pay in the $15-30/hr range. These would be a great to supplement an early retirement income. My brother does house painting and handyman work as a side gig and makes $1,000+ extra a month.
Real estate agent would be another job with a relatively low barrier to entry. Maybe a couple thousand dollars in startup expenses to get a license and then the time fill your pipeline, but it has great $ per hour potential. It just won't put money in your pocket for a few months.
Good point. Also home health aid. Just offered a local lady $15 an hour under the table to do laundry, dishes, meal prep and errands for my mom. Seems like an easy job if you get a nice older person and family to work for. It's certainly in demand!
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Pretty much all drivers that I know of just have regular insurance, and our restaurant has its own insurance (for having drivers) as well. I do know that if I was in an accident while delivering I wouldn't bring up what I was doing (we don't have any signs identifying us, or uniforms), just as I wouldn't ask whoever I got involved in an accident with what they were doing or what job they had. In the one fender bender I had while delivering many years ago what I was doing (and what the other driver was doing as well) didn't come up.
Have you looked at the economics of this under Uber Eats? I met with one of my restaurant clients last week, I think they'll end up outsourcing all of the delivery drivers over time.
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Has anyone looked at continuing to work as a non-executive director in a reasonably sized company? It involves a relatively small amount of very high-level work, and I'd have thought the requirements (intelligence, strong educational background, good knowledge of broader market trends) would be a good fit for a certain type of Mustachian. I understand it's something that may require connections, but a financially independent high achiever with plenty of free time and an interest in the market would be a very strong candidate.
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Has anyone looked at continuing to work as a non-executive director in a reasonably sized company? It involves a relatively small amount of very high-level work, and I'd have thought the requirements (intelligence, strong educational background, good knowledge of broader market trends) would be a good fit for a certain type of Mustachian. I understand it's something that may require connections, but a financially independent high achiever with plenty of free time and an interest in the market would be a very strong candidate.
Similarly, if you’re a woman with executive experience, try to get on a board of anything.
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Has anyone looked at continuing to work as a non-executive director in a reasonably sized company? It involves a relatively small amount of very high-level work, and I'd have thought the requirements (intelligence, strong educational background, good knowledge of broader market trends) would be a good fit for a certain type of Mustachian. I understand it's something that may require connections, but a financially independent high achiever with plenty of free time and an interest in the market would be a very strong candidate.
Similarly, if you’re a woman with executive experience, try to get on a board of anything.
I don't have that type of connections, but this is a really brilliant idea. You'd be doing very high-level work, you're generally very well paid for relatively little work + that work is really interesting and making a difference in the world.
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Seasonal tax accountant is my plan. I like getting in the zone and working 12 hours a day or so sometimes. Just not all the time. 4 months on, 8 months off sounds perfect to me.
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Doesn't seem too realistic to expect to get a job as a lifeguard or ski patrol when you are 40 or 50 years old.
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How to land your first corporate board director role:
https://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/how-to/growth-strategies/2017/11/how-to-land-your-first-corporate-board-director.html
Interesting stuff
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Doesn't seem too realistic to expect to get a job as a lifeguard or ski patrol when you are 40 or 50 years old.
I've worked with plenty of lifeguards over the age of 40 and several over the age of 50. Of course, they were excellent swimmers, but that's a requirement regardless of age.
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I just retired last month from a corporate job. It was an early retirement, but not so early by MMM standards. I am thinking about picking up a part-time, local retail gig, because I've never done anything like that and I think it could be fun! Low pay, but no meetings, no 60-hour work weeks, no killer commute and no crushing responsibilities. If I don't like it, I certainly don't need to stay for 39 years like I did with my corporate employer. These jobs are so easy to come by right now, but I agree with others that this will not be the case when there is another economic downturn.
Trust me, you might think it is fun, but the caliber of people you will work with will be an eye opener. My friend works for Walmart (WM) and she tells me stories you wouldn't believe of some of her coworkers. She formerly worked in banking for 20 years and in HR for around 10 years but during the recession lost her job and couldn't find a decent job. Now she is close to retirement.
One woman who worked at my friends WM was killed by her boyfriend. Another one is divorced with two kids and broke but sending money to some guy in Africa who she thinks is in love with her. Others my friend has had to train that can't be trained. They just don't have the skills to learn. She has done everything but stand on her head to help these people learn but they just don't get it! Then there is the local grocery store that has bottle returns and the machines are always full or malfunctioning. They always send the new guy out to remedy the situation. Gathering up the shopping carts out in the snow or rain. Then the hours usually are horrible. They won't give you enough hours to get benefits. You will work weekends or second or third shift. Don't forget all the holidays. Most stores don't shut down for any holidays. If the store opens on Black Friday at 1 am, you will be scheduled to come in to work the hellish night shift and deal with these customers rampaging thru the store. People do disgusting things in the bathrooms and you might be told to clean it up. They are not very tolerant of absences no matter what the excuse. Don't think you will get overtime. They schedule very tightly and expect you to be there on time and leave on time. To go from a corporate type job to a retail gig is really not easy to swallow. But, good luck if you try this!
You’re also citing one of the most notorious cases of a company that is known for not exactly being great to its staff.
Retail doesn’t necessarily mean Walmart.
I worked in retail for several years and had some great chill jobs working in little mom and pop shops and then in menswear in a mall in my early 20s where I actually met my husband when he came in to buy a shirt. I enjoyed my time in retail, I like chatting with people, and I’m a neat freak so I found folding clothes all day to be meditative.
My parents both own(ed) stores and employ only middle aged people looking for a bit of extra income, either stay at home moms, artists, or retired people. They work reasonable hours and no holidays. Mom and pop shops usually close on holidays because the sales volume can’t offset the increased wages on those days.
My dad worked his own retail store until his early 70s and he would have kept at it except that his wife didn’t want to continue and wanted to move (they lived upstairs). He loved it, he loved being part of the community and chatting with locals all day. He misses it now and has gotten really involved in local politics to compensate for the missing connection to the community.
Retail is an enormous category of jobs, I wouldn’t cite a single person’s experience working for Walmart as representative of the entire retail job experience overall.
Yep.
http://fortune.com/2017/11/07/best-workplaces-in-retail/
I worked for Publix for years when I was much younger. It wasn't bad at all.
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My husband jokes about going to work at Home Depot after he retires from the military.
Healthcare has a lot of possibilities. Hospitals and nursing homes employ massive numbers of people, and most of the jobs require no training or experience. Of course many are physically demanding and not exactly prestigious. Janitorial, cafeteria, materials management, transporters, security, administrative assistants, unit clerks, schedulers... Some healthcare jobs require a little training but are in demand - home health aids, phlebotomists, CNAs. Monitor surveillance techs here have a 3 month course, but make around $30K. The nice thing is that healthcare jobs often have great flexibility if you need to work per diem, or opposite shifts from your partner, or weekends only.
As an RN, I plan to keep up my license, certification, and at least enough ongoing work to keep me employable. The consensus seems to be that about 2 years out of work is when you start having trouble getting hired. The nice thing is I can work per diem, just a few shifts/month to stay current. When I'm ready to step out of FT work, I'll probably do Hospice home health.
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Seasonal tax accountant is my plan. I like getting in the zone and working 12 hours a day or so sometimes. Just not all the time. 4 months on, 8 months off sounds perfect to me.
I've thought about this too. Are you a CPA now? I am interested in studying for the Enrolled Agent exam, and then I guess either going to H&R block or finding a CPA who needs some help during the busy season.
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Seasonal tax accountant is my plan. I like getting in the zone and working 12 hours a day or so sometimes. Just not all the time. 4 months on, 8 months off sounds perfect to me.
I've thought about this too. Are you a CPA now? I am interested in studying for the Enrolled Agent exam, and then I guess either going to H&R block or finding a CPA who needs some help during the busy season.
A friend of mine works during tax season and is not an accountant. She works for a small firm doing the administrative side of the return, putting the stuff the accountant prints out back together to be returned to the client etc.
Chalk me up as a National Park bum. I'll work in Yellowstone's gift shop or something.
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School bus driver or substitute teacher. Our school system is begging for drivers and subs every year.
I live in farm country, Ohio, and the schools are the same here.
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One of TheHusbandHalf's best accomplishments:
In 1991 or so, he lost his job at the RR docks. Not one to sit around (with me even!) he applied and took maybe 5 different jobs in the 5 months he was off. His last one, before he got the job he still has now, was delivering alum.
I wish I could tell you what alum is, but it's delivered in a big tanker truck. He had never driven a semi in his life but with what he had done, thought he'd give the test a try. He did all the reading required, mentally went over driving in his brain, and set out for his testing appointment. He got it!!!!! He kept the CDL part of his driver's license for years.
So, he delivered alum, in a tanker, for 7-8 weeks., until the refinery employed him, where he is now.
Sometimes now, we drive down a road, and he says, "I drove my truck on this road" and it's been 25 years! He loved driving that truck.
The refinery parking lot is down the road from the RR docks and for a couple of years he parked out front 'just to show 'em.'
Why the story? You never know what jobs are going to be available, don't limit yourself.
The guy across the road worked at another refinery in the area, and retired. The refinery hired him back as a contracter, doing the same thing. TheHusbandHalf said there is no way he's going to do that.
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Seasonal tax accountant is my plan. I like getting in the zone and working 12 hours a day or so sometimes. Just not all the time. 4 months on, 8 months off sounds perfect to me.
I've thought about this too. Are you a CPA now? I am interested in studying for the Enrolled Agent exam, and then I guess either going to H&R block or finding a CPA who needs some help during the busy season.
I take my first CPA exam in March. Should have it by the end of the summer. I don't need it for my job now, but yeah, I'm doing it for this back up plan. I had the education and experience requirements filled already so the CPA works for me, but the EA is good. You can definitely get a job with an EA or start your own business.
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Doesn't seem too realistic to expect to get a job as a lifeguard or ski patrol when you are 40 or 50 years old.
Every year neighborhoods in our area recruit teachers to "manage" pools -- not to act as lifeguards; rather, to hire staff, manage schedules, sell pool passes, keep the snack bar stocked, be sure the cleaners show up.
I'd assume similar jobs would exist in ski country: ticket seller, gift shop worker, etc.
And I'd assume a 40-50 year old would have a leg-up on the teenagers. Even if one's experience is in a different field, proven dependability counts for something.
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I would love to one day FIRE and then get a job as a park ranger. Or something that involves rescuing animals. Neither really pays well, but at that point I would be in it for the spiritual part of it, and not for the $$$.
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Sorry if this has already been mentioned, but what about the seasonal jobs with Amazon warehouses? I've read some reviews and seems doable even for retirees.
Also, very dependent on your location, but I ran across some listings for jobs for baseball's Spring Training - seems like that would be fun for a month or so to sell tickets or work in concessions. Also, seasonal jobs w/ amusement parks.
I'm not so much worried about a FIRE failure, more so fun stuff to do in 'extra early' retirement.
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Doesn't seem too realistic to expect to get a job as a lifeguard or ski patrol when you are 40 or 50 years old.
I lived at a ski resort and know many people on ski patrol. Most were over 40 or 50 (as is true for many lifeguards on SoCal beaches). Experience, reliability, and skill are just as valuable as physical ability (which most 40/50 people still have if working in those fields).
I stand corrected. And it's good to know.
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Sorry if this has already been mentioned, but what about the seasonal jobs with Amazon warehouses? I've read some reviews and seems doable even for retirees.
Depends on physical condition. I've had a couple friends who worked as regular employees at an Amazon warehouse several years back, and it can be brutal. You're moving fast for the entire 10 hr shift and there's no downtime. Probably manageable for the healthy, fit early retiree, not so much for later ones. That's not to say that my friends disliked their jobs (athletic mid-20s who did adventure races), but they said a lot of people quit in the first week or so because they couldn't physically keep up. If you aren't fast enough, you get fired. However, the pay was decent, they had reasonably flexible schedules, and stayed active at work. They could also pick up almost unlimited overtime.
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The problem I see with FIRE failure is that it's likely to happen during an event that removes a lot of jobs from the market. There simply may not be anything available. I've been watching my wife try to find any kind of work the last few years. Even now when we're supposedly at full employment, she's either turned away as over qualified or shows up to find 60 other people competing for 1 seat. She usually makes it to the final round, but can't seem to break through to a full time position (but has had some short term part time stuff work out). That's with just a small employment gap too. A big employment gap is a killer come interview time.
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Imagine being unemployed for a decade or 2 and then trying to find a job even if (or maybe because of) being fairly young still. HR person: So you're 50 and haven't worked in 20 years and haven't been a SAHP? Umm...yeah...we don't really have any jobs for you.
I refuse to be so ruled by fear.
I believe in my own ability to find work. I have found jobs before, both with and without experience, and I'm confident I could do it again if necessary. I do not think that I am so shitty that nobody would ever hire me again. I have skills and experience working all kinds of jobs, I am dependable and honest and reliable, I show up on time and follow directions well, and I am both physically and mentally able to do a wide variety of tasks. I think the economy will always have a place for me if I want one, somewhere, until I am senile or feeble.
It baffles me that in a forum so full of optimists, we still hear so many people complaining about their fear of the future.
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Imagine being unemployed for a decade or 2 and then trying to find a job even if (or maybe because of) being fairly young still. HR person: So you're 50 and haven't worked in 20 years and haven't been a SAHP? Umm...yeah...we don't really have any jobs for you.
I refuse to be so ruled by fear.
I believe in my own ability to find work. I have found jobs before, both with and without experience, and I'm confident I could do it again if necessary. I do not think that I am so shitty that nobody would ever hire me again. I have skills and experience working all kinds of jobs, I am dependable and honest and reliable, I show up on time and follow directions well, and I am both physically and mentally able to do a wide variety of tasks. I think the economy will always have a place for me if I want one, somewhere, until I am senile or feeble.
It baffles me that in a forum so full of optimists, we still hear so many people complaining about their fear of the future.
I don't give into fear as I don't think I'll ever have to.go.back to work and so FIREd fairly young. And I also feel confident I could get some kind of job if I needed. Just might not be as easy in older age after decades off work then some envision. Even Wallymart will have robot greeters instead of old guys soon I predict ;-).
ETA: also if you've been out of the workforce forv10 or 20 years it might be harder to prove tova perspective employer that you have all those attributes you listed. For all they know you could have been avtrust fund baby in rehab all those years.
I think the key in this situation is to have something, anything, that you can put on your resume to show that you weren't just playing golf or sitting on your ass the whole time you were out of the work force. It doesn't have to be paid work; it could be volunteer work, or even a hobby if it involves effort, skill, and/or interacting with others in a responsible manner. And it would definitely help if your activities develop connections with people who could give a reference to attest to the fact that you do indeed possess the attributes that you list on your resume.
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I volunteered at a nursing home: got offered a job. I volunteered at a winter festival: got offered a job with the city. I volunteered with special needs kids: got offered a job mentoring/tutoring. I volunteered on the planning committee for the MS Society: got offered a job with the society,
To corroborate this, my wife who was a SAHM for 15 years, volunteered with two different charities and was later offered jobs by both, being paid to do things she previously did for free.
What seems to be common in my industry is to cover periods out of work with "consultancy", particularly on LinkedIn. If you think there's a chance you might want to go back to work in a few years, just call yourself a consultant. An interviewer is not going to audit the accounts of some consultancy company to see what revenue it had and whether you actually did anything. Amazing how many of these consultancies seem to have a non-disclosure agreement so that the person can't talk about clients or what work they did. Gets you past the "social proof" problem of "if there's nothing wrong with this guy, why hasn't somebody else already hired them?"
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Doesn't seem too realistic to expect to get a job as a lifeguard or ski patrol when you are 40 or 50 years old.
perhaps MORE likely:
"Ski Patroller Among Worst Paying Jobs in America | SKI-PATROL.NET
SKI-PATROL.NET › wordpress › ski-pat...
Oct 13, 2014 - The average age of ski patrollers in the US is now over 50, indicating that younger candidates are unwilling to accept either the low wages noted above for paid patrollers, or the non-financial remuneration offered by ..."
I lived at a ski resort and know many people on ski patrol. Most were over 40 or 50 (as is true for many lifeguards on SoCal beaches). Experience, reliability, and skill are just as valuable as physical ability (which most 40/50 people still have if working in those fields).
That reminds me of an elderly couple I met many years ago while camping in Alaska. They were camp caretakers at Wonder Lake in Denali National Park, which is only open part of the year. They had an extremely space-efficient mini RV, sort of like the setup that John Steinbeck described in Travels with Charley but with bathroom/shower. Every winter they traveled south to stay with their kids. They did not own a house. No electronics or other gadgets except for a ham radio - this was before the era of smartphones. They told me this delightful story when I knocked on their door with a question, and they invited me in for hot chocolate.
Something like this would be the ultimate FIRE rescue. A "lite" version could be Airbnb'ing your house for a few months and
then taking on a position at a national park - even just as a volunteer. Your expenses are pretty darn low when you're living in a cabin or RV away from civilization.
Long shot but...has anyone else met this couple? You'd have had to be camping at Wonder Lake sometime around 1996.
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It baffles me that in a forum so full of optimists, we still hear so many people complaining about their fear of the future.
I too am surprised at the pessimism and skepticism about the ability to find income producing work, especially when it doesn’t take much to move the needle. A couple who started at a 4% WR of $1.5M only need to earn an inflation-adjusted $15,000 per year to move their withdraw rate temporarily to very safe 3%.
$15-$20K would not be so difficult for a couple in decent health to earn if they are each willing to work more than one part time job. There are plenty of feasible ideas in this thread.
The advantage that the early retiree has is flexibility. Why work at Wal-mart when you can earn enough by combining 2 shifts per week at the cash register of the local golf pro shop, reselling some items on Amazon, and a bit of Uber?
Rather than working part-time for many years, the early retiree can go back to work full-time for a few years to alleviate financial concerns. It’s not easy to find a job when you’ve been retired for 10-years, but again flexibility is the key. If you don’t need to find a job immediately but rather need to move into a job within 2 years, then you can start by doing a little volunteer work at a several places and networking with the people that you meet. A lot of jobs are fulfilled through recommendations, so the retiree would need to actively put themselves out there so they can be recommended.
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Posted by a sad boring volleyball scratcher
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I think it is definitely going to be harder to find employment if you are over 50 and there is a downturn with lots of people competing for jobs. I see a friend of mine struggling with this right now because of her age and unemployment is low.
However, I think innovative people will be able to find something.
I've considered the possibility of cleaning houses or seeing if I can get on at a temp agency if my FIRE plans don't work like I've planned. I shouldn't need a lot of money to get me through.
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I enjoyed reading through this thread. Like a few others, my plan for some side income for at least a few years after FIRE will be seasonal tax work. Some other things that are fun (and lower earning) that I have in mind are working on/owning a fishing charter, refereeing, coaching, and being a whitewater rafting guide. Not sure if I want to combine the "fun" jobs with the non-fun one or not (meaning both in the same year) when the time comes. The busy seasons can be rough, but I am glad that I chose to go down the accounting path. So many options there.
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http://wildfire.alberta.ca/recruitment/lookout-observer.aspx
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And it might actually be A LOT easier after spending a decade+ doing interesting things and meeting interesting people.
I can’t fathom the type of boring sad person who retires early just to do absolutely nothing of value and learn no useful skill and associates with no one of any interest or consequence for 10-20 years.
FIRE + tons of free time and energy = you will probably do some really cool shit and meet some really cool people and have more interesting work available to you than you ever realized was possible.
Do some volunteering, learn a new language or two, develop some useful skills, literally do anything other than spending a decade scratching your balls, and you shouldn’t have a hard time finding work, even in a recession because if you are doing interesting things, you are guantanteed to be networked with interesting people.
I’m the kind of person who is always involved in various projects, I’m always volunteering my time, I’m always meeting new people and taking an interest in what they’re working on and always offering my help or input. Because of this, I have always been offered jobs, often jobs that I’m not even remotely qualified for.
I’ve had over a dozen serious jobs as an adult and I only interviewed for one, and that’s because it was urgent. I had actually spent three years networking and lining up an amazing job for after I graduated, but it fell through at the very last minute, so I was stuck scrambling urgently to find work in a city i hadn’t lived in for four years, where I had no active network.
I hated having to look for work that way, applying online, etc. It was depressing.
Oh, and I used to work in staffing. I interviewed people for a living.
I’m well aware of the employer biases that people are speaking of, but my experience in staffing also taught me that it’s urgency to find a job that makes it a difficult task.
I said this above already: post-FIRE people are ideally positioned to never need jobs urgently. They have time to invest in their networking in order to find work if they need it.
If you are post-FIRE, then you have the luxury of strategically investing time and energy into volunteering and re-upping your skills. Spend a year working on multiple high level volunteer committees and you are guaranteed to be rubbing elbows with a wide variety of important people who are *always* on the lookout for talent. Same thing for local politics, community projects/initiatives, even individual companies.
I volunteered at a nursing home: got offered a job. I volunteered at a winter festival: got offered a job with the city. I volunteered with special needs kids: got offered a job mentoring/tutoring. I volunteered on the planning committee for the MS Society: got offered a job with the society, got offered a job at a bank (a VP was on the committee), got offered a job with a telecom company. I volunteered to help my university department during a staff strike: got offered a job.
And those are all examples from when I was still in undergrad, and barely qualified to do anything other than work hard and have a positive and helpful attitude.
I’m not saying it’s easy, I’m saying that it takes time and effort, both of which should be readily available to early retirees.
I literally have ZERO concern about my ability to generate income at any stage of my life no matter how long I’ve been out of the work force. I think if there’s a global downturn, that it will actually be much MUCH easier for me to find work than for the poor laid off people who desperately need it to pay their mortgages because they don’t have a year to spend networking and skill building. They need to take whatever they can get. I’ll be able to sit back, survey they jobs landscape, position myself strategically, and maybe even sniff out the rich opportunities that hide in downturns.
Lastly “I’ll work for free for a year” is a powerful phrase that can make magic happen.
I agree with the sentiment but this urgency to find a job is mostly psychological, no? I can see some confident people with $10k savings taking it easy and taking the time to form connections, but I can also see a FIREee with $1M in a recession who starts to freak out and feels like they need a job ASAP; this won't necessarily turn out well.
It baffles me that in a forum so full of optimists, we still hear so many people complaining about their fear of the future.
I too am surprised at the pessimism and skepticism about the ability to find income producing work, especially when it doesn’t take much to move the needle. A couple who started at a 4% WR of $1.5M only need to earn an inflation-adjusted $15,000 per year to move their withdraw rate temporarily to very safe 3%.
You're aware that 3% is only "very safe" if you withdraw this from the very beginning until the end, right? Using 3% only in downturns is not enough in most cases. Maybe 2% would work, if you have the room in your budget.
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http://wildfire.alberta.ca/recruitment/lookout-observer.aspx
http://store.steampowered.com/app/383870/Firewatch/ (http://store.steampowered.com/app/383870/Firewatch/)
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http://wildfire.alberta.ca/recruitment/lookout-observer.aspx
http://store.steampowered.com/app/383870/Firewatch/ (http://store.steampowered.com/app/383870/Firewatch/)
lol, there is a game for everything it seems. Sadly in real life, a woman went missing without a trace from her firewatch here in Alberta.
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It's also worth considering doing some research into a vocation that is very in demand that might need some short for pay training and certification. There is an up front cost but again if the field is in demand you have immediate work when you're done. And often when these fields are desperate for employees of ANY type if you come in having your shit together as a mature adult you're an immediate superstar.
Off the top of my head CNA, aesthetician, dental assistant, massage therapist, HVAC tech (my dad did this late in his career!), fitness instructor (my mom is almost 70, retired out of law enforcement and now teaches Zumba classes for fun and profit). All under a year of training.
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Lastly, one of my main points has been that generally people who are post-FIRE aren’t going to need work ASAP. They have giant sums of money, which puts them into the perfect position to take time to hone skills, survey the job market, and network effectively.
I think anyone smart enough to manage to retire early can figure out how to use their ample free time and resources to figure out how to reinforce their retirement if needed.
The FIREd person has time work out a plan and add some income to their lives. As you note there is no panic to get to work the day the market crashes. Plus it doesn't take much additional income to move the needle back towards success. If your FIRE budget is $40K/yr and you earn $10K/yr for a few years that will have a huge impact. You don't need to land a $200K/yr gig.
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I believe in my own ability to find work. I have found jobs before, both with and without experience, and I'm confident I could do it again if necessary.
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It baffles me that in a forum so full of optimists, we still hear so many people complaining about their fear of the future.
I'm quite familiar with that attitude. That's the one I had when I was younger. And indeed that's how it was when I was in my 20's. Then all of a sudden I'm older and being good and reliable isn't as important as being young. Then I've watched my wife struggle even more than I did. It's brutal out there if you're over 30 years old. All they'll hire is kids out of school these days. Forget finding a job if you've got any experience!
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It baffles me that in a forum so full of optimists, we still hear so many people complaining about their fear of the future.
I too am surprised at the pessimism and skepticism about the ability to find income producing work, especially when it doesn’t take much to move the needle. A couple who started at a 4% WR of $1.5M only need to earn an inflation-adjusted $15,000 per year to move their withdraw rate temporarily to very safe 3%.
$15-$20K would not be so difficult for a couple in decent health to earn if they are each willing to work more than one part time job. There are plenty of feasible ideas in this thread.
The advantage that the early retiree has is flexibility. Why work at Wal-mart when you can earn enough by combining 2 shifts per week at the cash register of the local golf pro shop, reselling some items on Amazon, and a bit of Uber?
Rather than working part-time for many years, the early retiree can go back to work full-time for a few years to alleviate financial concerns. It’s not easy to find a job when you’ve been retired for 10-years, but again flexibility is the key. If you don’t need to find a job immediately but rather need to move into a job within 2 years, then you can start by doing a little volunteer work at a several places and networking with the people that you meet. A lot of jobs are fulfilled through recommendations, so the retiree would need to actively put themselves out there so they can be recommended.
To me, the safety net is that any and all of those things are options. If every other unemployed person is doing Uber so it becomes difficult to get many rides booked, I go to the pro shop. If they aren't hiring, I go to the Walmart. And maybe I also substitute teach as I can fit that in around my pro shop or Walmart or Macy's shifts. And/or maybe I ask a couple elderly people on my street if they want me to mow their lawn or pick up grocieries for them once a week or drive them to doctor's appointments, all for $10-20 per job. I can and would do any of those things (and many more) part time for 6-18 months without being miserable. So it's the idea that there are so many possibilities that make me so optimistic I can find *something* to bring in $5-15,000 in a year.
People are correct that any specific job may be very hard to land in retirement, in an awful economy. But any job at all? And with a cushion of many months, if necessary? No problem.
I'm usually a pessimist and a worrier, but this is one thing I worry about not at all.
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You're aware that 3% is only "very safe" if you withdraw this from the very beginning until the end, right? Using 3% only in downturns is not enough in most cases. Maybe 2% would work, if you have the room in your budget.
I’m familiar with the numbers so disagree with your point in the quote. When I play with cFIREsim I’m getting 80% to 90% success rates for a 40 year retirement at 4% WR before I factor in Social Security. In most cases the straight-up 4% rule of thumb works just fine even with economic downturns.
Going to 3% WR for a few years during downturns improves the success rate. I agree that earning more and cutting spending to result in a 2% WR for a few years improves the success rate further, after some time of a 3% or 2% WR the model begins to exceed 95% and then additional work has less significance for 40-year success (other threads address the black swans and global war scenarios that show there is no 100%).
Withdrawing at 2% for a while will improve the likelihood that you can spend more later, but then again so will OMY. My point was simply that it doesn’t take much income for most of us to improve both our odds and our personal comfort level.
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With out relatively low projected FIRE budget ($40-45k/yr), even a $15/hr job at Trader Joes could make a huge impact to the success likelihood.
2 People working 3X a week = $37,440 a year.
If a bad sequence of returns hit, I would do something like that in a heartbeat. Not to mention you would then get employer subsidized health insurance and other perks (free food).
I would consider this, too. I see some older folks working at Trader Joe's. It would be physically demanding yet perhaps fun for a bit. Costco treats its employees well, I hear. Might be another option.
You can also work your network to find projects in your previous field. I started a consulting business and then changed its focus. What I made last year part-time (and working when/if I want) is way more than I would make at a Trader Joe's type of job.
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I'm quite familiar with that attitude. That's the one I had when I was younger. And indeed that's how it was when I was in my 20's. Then all of a sudden I'm older and being good and reliable isn't as important as being young. Then I've watched my wife struggle even more than I did. It's brutal out there if you're over 30 years old. All they'll hire is kids out of school these days. Forget finding a job if you've got any experience!
The funny thing with the labor market (at least the small corner that I know) is that everybody thinks they have it hard.
- Experienced people complaining that companies only hire fresh graduates
- Fresh graduates complaining about experience requirements
- Minorities complaining about racist/sexist hiring
- Majorities complaining about diversity hiring
- Americans complaining about H1Bs
- H1Bs who can't wait to become Americans
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This is what I have been thinking about, but not as much in a fire failure situation as a bridge to age 60 when I start getting my pension to make sure I don't fire failure.
Work has been a real struggle due to daily headaches and back tightness from an auto accident almost a year ago. They are letting me cut back to part time but I am not sure how much they like the arrangement so I assume it won't last too long.
I am 51 with 9 years to go until I start getting my pension I can live off of, but until then I will work try to at least break even with wages to avoid pulling out too much.
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Sure, we all know people who worked themselves into the ground, retired in their senior years and coasted out their days literally sitting on the porch and watching the river flow by and drinking themselves to death. They’re burnt and spent. They worked soulless jobs for so long that they’ve got no energy or personal identity left. Those are the ball scratchers and they are truly sad.
I don’t know you, but I can’t fathom that you are like that if you are here posting.
Malkynn, I think this ball scratching may be some self-depreciating humor. From reading 1000+ posts over the past 4 years, I’d say Spartana is anything but sad, old and boring.
Spartana could find a job within a month just reaching out to people on this forum but quite determined to complete life without anything remotely resembling work ever again. Participating in a thread about the possibility of returning to work is, as best I can tell, just a form of personal entertainment.
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Consulting in whatever field you’re in. If you happen to be an attorney, then hanging a shingle is a good fallback after leaving a firm.
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I'm quite familiar with that attitude. That's the one I had when I was younger. And indeed that's how it was when I was in my 20's. Then all of a sudden I'm older and being good and reliable isn't as important as being young. Then I've watched my wife struggle even more than I did. It's brutal out there if you're over 30 years old. All they'll hire is kids out of school these days. Forget finding a job if you've got any experience!
I think age discrimination is a very real phenomenon, especially if you're looking to jump back into the same level you left. But the levels of income needed to stave off a FIRE failure, if you have low living expenses, should be very attainable based on the types of careers suggested in this thread.
My personal experience: I heard my dad complain about age discrimination for over a decade. He was in his 50s when I was growing. When he was 55ish, he quit his high-paying gig and eventually lost a ton of money in a failed business. He didn't have a college degree, couldn't get back into the job market where he left, and blamed age discrimination (which I think was real). Eventually, however, he found a lot of ways to make money. He sold cars. He finished his degree and became a substitute teacher and eventually a full-time English teacher. When he got laid off from that, he started volunteering at an adult education center. Eventually, they hired him to run the program full time (he was almost 70 at that point). He left that job eventually, and now makes over $30K a year tutoring at age 75.
I realize this is all anecdotal, but the lessons I've drawn from the past 20 years of his life are: 1) age discrimination exists, but 2) there are a ton of ways to make money and reinvent yourself if you're creative. FIREes have the added benefit of tons of time to retool themselves through education, networking, and volunteering before they're out of money.
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If it were truly a depression era like really, really bad time I would probably sell stuff at yard sales/eBay plus would rent out my house and double up with a family member and pay them a reasonable rent
or
get a roommate (or two) - I have a paid for 3 BR house in a suburb of a pretty HCOL area - people will still need a place to live
or
nanny/babysit for the people who have jobs
But (for me) I have built in so many redundancies, margins for error, plus I have good old fashioned common sense so could problem solve whatever crisis presented itself.
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If it were truly a depression era like really, really bad time I would probably sell stuff at yard sales/eBay plus would rent out my house and double up with a family member and pay them a reasonable rent
or
get a roommate (or two) - I have a paid for 3 BR house in a suburb of a pretty HCOL area - people will still need a place to live
or
nanny/babysit for the people who have jobs
But (for me) I have built in so many redundancies, margins for error, plus I have good old fashioned common sense so could problem solve whatever crisis presented itself.
I don't know why I've never really considered a roommate as an additional fail safe. Thanks!! As an extreme introvert (and one who likes to not wear pants around the house!), I would semi-hate the idea of living with a roommate, but sucking it up for a year wouldn't be too awful if the shit was really hitting the fan, especially because presumably I'd have the time and finances to be somewhat picky or maybe even find a friend or at least a friend of a friend.. Also, this brings to mind taking in exchange students (some programs pay, others don't) and/or hosting a foreign college student for a school year. I don't ever see us living in a house with less than 2 baths (and probably three bed, but certainly 2), so it would be very doable.
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I am an extreme introvert too and the idea of a stranger or relative or friend living in my house is just unacceptable to me. I would find some other way to make money like ebay or some part time job even if I hated it at least I could come home to peace and quiet. I personally couldn't share my house with anyone but my Hub and dogs. I was an only child so I guess that is why I do not relish being around gobs of people. Some people I know had lots of brother and sisters and sharing their house wouldn't be an issue.
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Lastly “I’ll work for free for a year” is a powerful phrase that can make magic happen.
Your FIRE life is/would be very different from mine (and probably an introverts version of hell lol) but I agree there are many things one can do in FIRE to improve your likelihood of getting a job someday if you ever need one asap.
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As an introvert, I plan to retire to a homestead-type of situation. I come from a long line of small time farmers and my relatives never needed a lot of actual money, because they had few bills (they owned their farms outright). You can make and grow a lot yourself if you want to, at a cost of next to nothing, and you can scrimp and save and make do. I wouldn't mind at all if that meant I'd never have to step into an office again. If my retirement plan works out and I can own a small farm outright and have reached my target stash, I think I can easily go back to withdrawing 2% for a couple of years.
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I actually just picked up a twice per month housekeeping job for pretty decent money, for someone I know who has a lovely home. I figure this will pay for our occasional concert and theater tickets, stuff like that. Interestingly, I'm hearing of additional opportunities to do housekeeping or landscape design, but working 2 days per month suits me just fine.
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I am an extreme introvert too and the idea of a stranger or relative or friend living in my house is just unacceptable to me. I would find some other way to make money like ebay or some part time job even if I hated it at least I could come home to peace and quiet. I personally couldn't share my house with anyone but my Hub and dogs. I was an only child so I guess that is why I do not relish being around gobs of people. Some people I know had lots of brother and sisters and sharing their house wouldn't be an issue.
You might be surprised how motivational it can be to find out you can't pay the rent or buy food if you don't get a roommate.
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Yes, might be true but for the foreseeable future, with our savings, that will never happen. Worst case, I would seek out senior housing and live in a studio. Living with a stranger would be the last thing on earth I would do. I do understand the there are people who like the company of others, but I don't!
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I always tell DH I can take an office admin job somewhere if needed (as part of my push to ER sooner than later)... which I would be willing to do although as I get older age-ism is something to take into consideration. (This is against his argument to keep pushing out in our cush jobs several more years in order to avoid needing more jobs at all.)
I find temp-ing appealing since you can enjoy some of the perks of office work but still change up your routine (where you work, the people you interact with, etc.)... and likely still have lots of downtime during the week lol.
I used to work as a temp; covering down for women on maternity leave for as long as six months was nice; good chunk of cash to cover down but without the worry of having to kick yourself all the time for being stuck to a desk (the same desk) for eternity.
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I actually just picked up a twice per month housekeeping job for pretty decent money, for someone I know who has a lovely home. I figure this will pay for our occasional concert and theater tickets, stuff like that. Interestingly, I'm hearing of additional opportunities to do housekeeping or landscape design, but working 2 days per month suits me just fine.
Neat... I'll have to keep that in mind, too
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I had this one temp job a bunch of years ago and it was at an okay company however, everyone was walking on eggs due to many layoffs. I was given this job to enter number from one data base to another. At first it seemed confusing but once I got it pretty darn easy. I got so good at it this one day I had done the full weeks work in 2 1/2 days! I went to my boss and asked if there was something else I could do and he said no! OMG! So, I had nothing to do for two and a half days but I needed a paycheck so I dilly dallied for the rest of the week and it was hell! Then the next week I had to stretch my 2 1/2 days of work to 5 days. OMG, it was like a slow death. I was falling asleep and was bored out of my gourd. BUT, I needed a paycheck! I did this gig for 5 1/2 months and called my agency and asked them to find me another job but they didn't. Finally, the big boss over everyone came to tell me I had two weeks left and that was around Thanksgiving. He thanked me profusely for my work and told me he would be a reference for future jobs and gave me his name and phone number. I was floored! What we do for a paycheck! It was a shame for the company because I could have done so much more for them and a shame for me because the work was way too easy and killed me! I think my last day I ran out the door with my hair on fire!
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http://wildfire.alberta.ca/recruitment/lookout-observer.aspx
http://store.steampowered.com/app/383870/Firewatch/ (http://store.steampowered.com/app/383870/Firewatch/)
Our kids LOVE that game.
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I put Hardie board plank siding up on the walls of a house we were renovating to rent out. I had several people stop, get out of their cars, walk up to the house and try to hire me out on the spot.
This is a job I had never done before! How awesome is that?
Back when I was an IT consultant, I mentored those consultants reporting to me about what our job was. Our job wasn't to bring technical knowledge and skills to the customer. It wasn't to design and build software systems. It was to (#1) make management's problems go away and (#2) make our customer contacts look like heroes to their organization.
I've volunteered for several civic functions over the years. I've met a number of well heeled folks who either own their own businesses, or are high up in major businesses in the area, or who have strong social connections to those two groups. If I demonstrate I have the ability to make problems go away and make the folks in the group look like heroes, I'll be able to find some work. It might not have a darn thing to do with IT.
Plus, it makes the community I live in a better place to live. It's a win-win.
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I had this one temp job a bunch of years ago and it was at an okay company however, everyone was walking on eggs due to many layoffs. I was given this job to enter number from one data base to another. At first it seemed confusing but once I got it pretty darn easy. I got so good at it this one day I had done the full weeks work in 2 1/2 days! I went to my boss and asked if there was something else I could do and he said no! OMG! So, I had nothing to do for two and a half days but I needed a paycheck so I dilly dallied for the rest of the week and it was hell! Then the next week I had to stretch my 2 1/2 days of work to 5 days. OMG, it was like a slow death. I was falling asleep and was bored out of my gourd. BUT, I needed a paycheck! I did this gig for 5 1/2 months and called my agency and asked them to find me another job but they didn't. Finally, the big boss over everyone came to tell me I had two weeks left and that was around Thanksgiving. He thanked me profusely for my work and told me he would be a reference for future jobs and gave me his name and phone number. I was floored! What we do for a paycheck! It was a shame for the company because I could have done so much more for them and a shame for me because the work was way too easy and killed me! I think my last day I ran out the door with my hair on fire!
Oh god, I'd completely forgotten about my short stint temping. It was then that I learned that showing up to work on time, and doing what you were supposed to put you ahead of at least 50% of the the other employees. Add efficiency and a good attitude, and you were ahead of 90%.
I got hired into an office that needed 4 weeks of help catching up in their continuing education department. I opened mail, filed papers, and added continuing ed credits to a database. Easy work, but there were boxes full of mail to process. I was efficient, found a ton of mis-filed folders, and worked myself out of a job in just over two weeks. They raved to my temp agency though, which was nice.
Another job was for a company that scanned medical records. After I spent 2 whole days scanning records, the boss told me that I'd picked things up so fast I was being bumped up to QC, where I spent a hellaciously boring 8 hours a day making sure that the records had been scanned properly. The boss kept trying to hire me full time, and was even willing to pay the temp agency's headhunter fee. I was so glad when the summer was over!
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I would worry about the combination of ageism and the blow to my ego if I were forced into a situation where I needed to work a retail or office drone type of job.
Ageism is a real thing. Technology moves so fast. After a few years out of the workforce, I can't imagine trying to get up to speed on office tech. And I highly value autonomy/calling the shots, as many here probably do. I can't help but think how hard it would be to swallow taking instructions from people 20 years younger, people with less education, etc. I would absolutely bristle at that.
I can't imagine all the engineers, nurses, IT folks, other lawyers, etc., on these boards would adapt well to that either.
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Anyone work/volunteer for a local historical society? We have one in town and they are always looking for volunteers. I have developed a new interest in history. Always thought it was BORING but have read a lot of interesting books on historical characters and I am pretty wowed on life back then and how they coped and lived without modern conveniences.
I would be interested in hearing what you did at the historical society and if you enjoyed it.
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I would worry about the combination of ageism and the blow to my ego if I were forced into a situation where I needed to work a retail or office drone type of job.
Ageism is a real thing. Technology moves so fast. After a few years out of the workforce, I can't imagine trying to get up to speed on office tech. And I highly value autonomy/calling the shots, as many here probably do. I can't help but think how hard it would be to swallow taking instructions from people 20 years younger, people with less education, etc. I would absolutely bristle at that.
I can't imagine all the engineers, nurses, IT folks, other lawyers, etc., on these boards would adapt well to that either.
I don't imagine I'd love it, but doing it, likely part time and certainly for a fairly short overall time, doesn't seem like it would be bad. Knowing every day that unlike that 25year old ordering me around, I'm basically there for the a very short while and mostly because I choose to be so that I don't have to give up the year's travel plans or cut back to another night of meatless meals--I think psychologically that would be more than enough to get me through a short stint of working a fairly mindless job for 6-12 months.
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Well I already work for a drone office job so the only difference for me would be the pay
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If you just need to wait for your stash to grow, you could always volunteer for the Peace Corps. They are always looking for older qualified candidates (although they prefer that you have at least a Bachelor's degree). They pay for your medical, dental, room, and board while you are in the program. When you get out they give you $8k to get back to "normal" life. There are also educational benefits.
EDIT - I guess that is a very US-centic answer. Sorry about that. Also, if you do successfully volunteer for the Piece Corps you get to be considered for Federal Government jobs with "noncompetitive eligibility."
That's a very clever idea. There's also the possibility of a long-term volunteer position through a charity where your basic living costs would be covered (I believe Doctors Without Borders has such programs and I assume other charities as well).
I've thought through a number of options if I need to economize for a few years due to an early market drop after FI. My top two right now are:
(1) geo-arbitrage - moving overseas to somewhere where cost of living is much cheaper (Chiang Mai, Tahiland?).
(2) Take a master's degree in Germany (taught in English) - many of these programs are in smaller towns where cost of living is reasonable and tuition ranges from free to ~$1,500 per year.
i once talked a 77 year old women into joing peace corps. and she loved it
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there is a hall of fame basketball player that works as a crossing guard here
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And, of course, I'm starting a blog.
LOL. Thats hilarious.
Also, remember that a 3% SWR on a diversified portfolio has never failed, for any length of time for any economic conditions. So you don't need to earn as much as you will spend in retirement, you only need to earn enough to reduce your withdrawals down (from presumably something near 4%) to 3%. For most people here, you can do that with a part time minimum wage job.
This is an extremely important point to this conversation... Of the failures, the biggest factor is early losses in the market. If you take the '73 crash from a 45% correction to a 33.75% correction then we are all looking at a 5% safe withdraw rate. Its that big of a difference.
On $40,000 a year with a 1MM stash, all you need is a 10,000$ a year rate of payment gig to make it very survivable. You don't even need to work for a full year (since many downturns are several months long or so). Reducing the withdraws from 4% to 3% on 40k a year requires that 10k a year part time gig only for the duration of the correction. Given that we don't market time, you could generally just wait until the portfolio hit the number you fire'd at and (historically speaking) it should be fine.
10k a year in that scenario is $192 a week. At an abysmal 8$/hr, thats still only 24 hours. Or 12 hours a week if you could find 16$/hr.
It does seem that many are either "happy-go-lucky just get another job" -or- "you can never work again!!!" when, in reality, it would take very little to make the failure a success.
(Another side note: basically all failures initiate at the beginning of FIRE, as in the first 2 years... Not 30 years down the road. Grandpas not going to flip burgers, but 45 year old retired early Mr. Awesomesauce might have to find a 10$/hr side gig for 20 hours a week for a few months.)
(And Yet Another side note: Recessions end. If a FIRE'ee couldn't get a job due to such a recession, there is no reason they can't do any of the aforementioned jobs a few years later when the economy recovers. Yes they lose some to compounding and pulling out equities for living expenses at the worst time, but they also have the financial flexibility to survive and work in better years, albeit just slightly longer...)
Very good point.
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If you need more than the 15-20k a lower end part-time job will provide to bridge the gap something has gone horribly wrong with your plan, and I wouldn't have considered it a sound FIRE scenario in the first place.
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If you need more than the 15-20k a lower end part-time job will provide to bridge the gap something has gone horribly wrong with your plan, and I wouldn't have considered it a sound FIRE scenario in the first place.
And keep in mind that it is is $15-$20k for a year, then for all but the most bare bones FIREees, thats probably only $5-15k year in additional income needed as surely cuts can be made to offset from the spending side instead of the earning side. Skip your planned 3 weeks in Europe (replace it with something semi-local and perhaps camping), change your weekly date night to take advantage of free local offerings 3/4 times, add another meatless day to your cooking, and suddenly you've "found" an extra $5k.
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Let's say you decided to get a part time job making maybe $15,000 a year. You only take the job because you are bored and want to get out. What would you do with the money? Would you save it in IRA, if the company had 401k would you dump it there? Would you save it? Would you just take less out of your retirement funds per year? Would you spend it going out to dinners and buying things? Would you do repairs to your home? The money wouldn't be a fortune but helpful.
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Let's say you decided to get a part time job making maybe $15,000 a year. You only take the job because you are bored and want to get out. What would you do with the money? Would you save it in IRA, if the company had 401k would you dump it there? Would you save it? Would you just take less out of your retirement funds per year? Would you spend it going out to dinners and buying things? Would you do repairs to your home? The money wouldn't be a fortune but helpful.
Definitely it goes in a 401k, if that's an option, especially if there is matching money. If that's not an option, max out your own and your spouse's IRA. That way you avoid paying taxes on it now, and it doesn't count toward your MAGI (which is important if you're on an ACA health plan). Whatever you're pulling your living expenses from is likely to generate less in taxes than regular wage income. The 401k/IRA money can be converted to a Roth during years when you don't have any job income, possibly avoiding taxes all together.
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Let's say you decided to get a part time job making maybe $15,000 a year. You only take the job because you are bored and want to get out. What would you do with the money? Would you save it in IRA, if the company had 401k would you dump it there? Would you save it? Would you just take less out of your retirement funds per year? Would you spend it going out to dinners and buying things? Would you do repairs to your home? The money wouldn't be a fortune but helpful.
That's $2,000 more than I spend in a year, so I'd just live off of it and not touch my stash. And save $2,000/year. Though after I retire I expect my living expenses to drop a fair bit more, so I'd probably actually save more than $2,000.
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1. I could make 20k profit in 13 weeks at my current career. The requirements for maintaining my licence is mere bookwork.
2. "sitting" with the elderly. I'd have to go get my NA cert again, but that's cheap enough and usually can be had in a very short time. The cert may be optional if I did Private Work directly for clients. The cert is required if I'd want to go with an agency. The last time I did it, I was bored off my Duff microwaving meals for an elderly lady who just wanted company and help with meds and shower help. Mostly I was just there to keep her from being lonely and run her errands. It was $12/hour and free food over a decade ago, can't imagine it'd pay LESS now.
3. My sister sort of started her own painting/basic repair/cleaning business that I'm sure I could get into. I do 60% of the work renovating my own house, so those skills will still be there ready to be tapped into for cash as needed.
4. I plan on volunteering at places in my FI, and I'm sure that Networking would lead to something rather easy that I can't name
5. I'm already renting rooms to family, I could rent rooms easily in the future to non family
6. Mooch off my two husbands who like to work XD
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6. Mooch off my two husbands who like to work XD
How do their wives feel about that plan?
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6. Mooch off my two husbands who like to work XD
How do their wives feel about that plan?
I'm their only wife. And actually, I'm super anti mooch so I'd hate it. Just other day husband 1 said he'd save my retirement for me and I set him straight on that. I'd hate myself. It'd have to be some serious losses and missed worl opportunities for me to ever reach this point. So, it was a joke to include that. But it's odd that no one else mentioned the fact that they could rely on their spouse in a downturn, I guess everyone thinks they'll reach FI at the same time. My husbands like working and neither of them have an interest in stopping at this time, even if they didn't have to work.
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Oh yeah
7. I've been offered a clientele docket for becoming a dominatrix before. (Turned it down) Wouldn't be tons of money, but I could probably pick up a few $100 a week to spank some bottoms.
I turned it down mostly because I don't think of it as much fun though. But work rarely is :)
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Here are a few ideas I came up with and I'd love to hear from the community:
- Teacher: school districts are always looking for people to take on teaching and, if you're smart enough to FIRE, you're smart enough to at least try out teaching
This one might be a bit iffy because many teaching jobs require a credential. However, private and charter schools do not, so this may be a possible avenue.
This is super region dependent. Certifications, degrees, etc... some areas are so competitive that you’ll never find work there.
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[This is all true, I think nothing short of a Great Depression style market crash should cause a mustachian with a properly planned FIRE to need to work, but unfortunately, if that were to happen, likely even the minimum wage jobs would be in high demand.
This is a really good point: income is likely to drop exactly when you need it the most.
Prices will also drop in that case (big recession, no jobs, investments lose money), so your spending is likely to drop exactly when your income does. If your home is paid off, then it does not seem like you will face a big problem: the food, medical, etc will get cheaper. Rents will also fall. If you just invest all your wealth in volatile assets, then maybe you have a problem in a recession.
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Oh yeah
7. I've been offered a clientele docket for becoming a dominatrix before. (Turned it down) Wouldn't be tons of money, but I could probably pick up a few $100 a week to spank some bottoms.
I turned it down mostly because I don't think of it as much fun though. But work rarely is :)
oh , it's you. i thought your voice sounded familiar
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1. I could make 20k profit in 13 weeks at my current career. The requirements for maintaining my licence is mere bookwork.
2. "sitting" with the elderly. I'd have to go get my NA cert again, but that's cheap enough and usually can be had in a very short time. The cert may be optional if I did Private Work directly for clients. The cert is required if I'd want to go with an agency. The last time I did it, I was bored off my Duff microwaving meals for an elderly lady who just wanted company and help with meds and shower help. Mostly I was just there to keep her from being lonely and run her errands. It was $12/hour and free food over a decade ago, can't imagine it'd pay LESS now.
3. My sister sort of started her own painting/basic repair/cleaning business that I'm sure I could get into. I do 60% of the work renovating my own house, so those skills will still be there ready to be tapped into for cash as needed.
4. I plan on volunteering at places in my FI, and I'm sure that Networking would lead to something rather easy that I can't name
5. I'm already renting rooms to family, I could rent rooms easily in the future to non family
6. Mooch off my two husbands who like to work XD
what is NA lic?
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What I do now I could already easily pick up no problem in a FIRE failure situation. In fact, I plan to cut back to something similar as I near FIRE.
There are a lot of short term construction jobs during plant shut down and turnaround periods that pay well. It’s usually a ton of hours for anywhere from a couple weeks to a few months. Often 70-80 hrs a week. The lowest level unskilled labor position may be a confined space entry watch (hole watch) or a fire watch (make sure fires don’t start while welding). It’s not uncommon to make $25/hr and 100/day per diem if you’re not local. At 80 hrs that’s $2700/wk gross (the per diem is tax free). If you become more skilled, learn trades, etc, the rates sky rocket. For 6 months this winter I worked that type of job and those hours. On an 84 hour week I was making about $7k/wk with full benefits.
I figure once I get closer to FIRE I’ll do jobs like that for 2-4 months a year. I’d rather work 70 hrs/wk for 2 months than work part time for 11 months. Plus, if I ever had major unexpected expenses or wanting something a bit spendier, just pick up a job for a few weeks and pay for it.
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...
2. "sitting" with the elderly. I'd have to go get my NA cert again,
what is NA lic?
Nurse Aide Certification with the state
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DH is a painting contractor. He's always said there was money to be made running a business where you hired the painters, then just interfaced on the jobs to make sure they were doing quality work. I could run the business side, sourcing materials, billing, etc. The great thing about paint is that it wears out at the same rate, no matter what the economy is doing. A good source of clients is Realtors and after that, word of mouth referrals. Oh course, we would only want to work seasonally. But this is mostly imaginary. Hard to imagine our 'stache is going to tank, it's pretty solidly diversified.
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Before I owned my own construction company I worked my way up in the trades and still own all of the necessary tools to work several different trades.
For now, I just use the tools for maintenance and hobby projects, but if worse came to worse, i could make a living with them again.
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This is why my FIRE # is so damn high. I can't ever go back to work and do minimum wage. (OK, I can, but I really really really don't want to).
Some things I might do:
Rover (I love dogs and use Rover all the time)
Real estate. It's probably tough to get into (passing the exams, finding a company to work for) but would be perfect for someone with flexible time.
I'm with you in the high fire number, which could change but at this point If it's between working another year and never working as a temp again I'll prob work longer.
But I temped a ton in my twenties before I finished college.
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Here's another one - freelance editing. My partner started doing it as a side gig in the spring and ended up so busy he needed to quit his real job within two months. He has global clientele across the entire English-speaking world. It's completely remote, and requires nothing except a computer capable of running Word and internet access every few days, so we could literally go anywhere in the world and wait out something like a stock market crash or whatever.
Caveat: Very few people are good enough at this to actually work as an editor. In his case, he learned to read when he was three and has consistently read several novels a week for almost his entire life. He also has a writing degree, worked as a part-time editor while in university, and did a lot of editing in his years of working as an administrative assistant.
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One option is to volunteer as a tax preparer helping low income families get their taxes and refund. It's quite rewarding as the average refund is 1,000 and people need it. Plus you are learning the skills that would help if you needed to prepare taxes for an income during tax season.
At least for me a temporary seasonal job with a start and stop date seems better than a part-time job all year.
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This is why my FIRE # is so damn high. I can't ever go back to work and do minimum wage. (OK, I can, but I really really really don't want to).
Some things I might do:
Rover (I love dogs and use Rover all the time)
Real estate. It's probably tough to get into (passing the exams, finding a company to work for) but would be perfect for someone with flexible time.
I'm with you in the high fire number, which could change but at this point If it's between working another year and never working as a temp again I'll prob work longer.
But I temped a ton in my twenties before I finished college.
These temp jobs don't need to be like your college temp jobs (about which i am admittedly making some assumptions). Walk a dog around your neighbor hood once a day M-F for a few months and make a couple hundred dollars a month. Pick up groceries for the elderly neighbor lady for $100 a month and maybe drive her to and from a monthly doctor's appointment for another $20. (Elderly people in general aren't going to be Uber-savy and are likely to be more comfortable getting a ride from someone they know.) Maybe even cook her dinner once a week. Watch the neighbor kids for an hour to bridge the gap between school getting out and a parent getting home from work. (That one would be torture for me personally, but some people would enjoy it.) There are probably dozens of other similar little tasks someone could do to make some spare cash.
There are ways to make a bit of money doing things you enjoy (walking your neighborhood, dog in tow) or things you would do anyway (grocery shopping). It's not going to make up half of your annual spend or anything, but it could definitely be enough to make a dent during a down market, without taking much time or energy.
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with that?" while the overly optimistic crowd says things like "just get another job" or "become a barista".
There is certainly a middle ground that hasn't really been explored. While a FIRE failure is not going to be able to get a software engineer job at Google, they aren't going to necessarily need to resign themselves to working at McDonald's or Starbucks either. I think most of us tend to focus on big corporate jobs because it's where we've earned our net worth.
How many times did you see a 65 year old barista preparing coffee at Starbucks for you?
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with that?" while the overly optimistic crowd says things like "just get another job" or "become a barista".
There is certainly a middle ground that hasn't really been explored. While a FIRE failure is not going to be able to get a software engineer job at Google, they aren't going to necessarily need to resign themselves to working at McDonald's or Starbucks either. I think most of us tend to focus on big corporate jobs because it's where we've earned our net worth.
How many times did you see a 65 year old barista preparing coffee at Starbucks for you?
Can't answer that one, but I sure notice a graying of the workforce at Trader Joe's lately. I don't shop there much, so maybe it's been going on longer than I realized, but it sure seems sudden. Yay TJ's!
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Back when I was an IT consultant, I mentored those consultants reporting to me about what our job was. Our job wasn't to bring technical knowledge and skills to the customer. It wasn't to design and build software systems. It was to (#1) make management's problems go away and (#2) make our customer contacts look like heroes to their organization.
I work for a consulting company and am AMAZED by all the $150k to $250k consultants that cause drama at the client.
Our plan includes some work after we settle down from being nomads, BUT, it is to enable travel and luxuries. My current plan has enough for a paid off house and 4% WR that is around 35-40% higher than our tracked basic spending for the last number of years. I'd like to think I could consult, but if not, I'm happy walking dogs. I've also thought about substitute teaching and doing research for authors. I have had two opposite experiences with temp work, one in a small town where I knew most of the full time residents and one in a small city where I hadn't lived there very long and didn't know many people.
I lived in a ski resort for over a decade and did numerous small jobs - retail shifts for a friend that needed someone reliable, staffed the front desk of a real estate office for someone on maternity leave, bookkeeping, caretaking for a second homeowner, helped realtors get big mailing projects completed and if they had multiple open houses, etc. It was all word of mouth, but easy in a small town when you are reliable and let people know you are open to work. I saw multiple older people work for the ski area, but rents are a KILLER in ski towns.
I moved to a small beach city and a few years later in 2009 I tried to get seasonal weekend work and put in tons of applications all over. I didn't get a single call so I started mystery shopping. I did tons of grocery store, mattress store and bank shops as well as phone shops and easily made in a month what I would make working two shifts a week minimum wage for less than half the time. Husband's crap job at that time included a storage unit and a work van, he was always bringing home stuff left at the dumpster or that he would find on the curb. We furnished our house with the best, sold the better stuff on craigslist and did 1-2 garage sales per year. We probably made at least 2-3k per year without trying and I'm sure we could have made more if we tried. There is always a way to make money, it just might vary depending on where you live and how long you have lived there.
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Back when I was an IT consultant, I mentored those consultants reporting to me about what our job was. Our job wasn't to bring technical knowledge and skills to the customer. It wasn't to design and build software systems. It was to (#1) make management's problems go away and (#2) make our customer contacts look like heroes to their organization.
I work for a consulting company and am AMAZED by all the $150k to $250k consultants that cause drama at the client.
No kidding! The only drama we allowed was customers singing our praises to the heavens. :)
Seriously, this is a crazy wealthy country chock full of lazy people and/or people with pretensions to status and/or pretensions to being "better than" doing a particular job.
People have so much money they will pay other people to wash and perfume their trash cans.
How crazy is that???
There are a bazillion ways to make money in this country and more are invented every day.
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Big questions that would need answering:
How much money do you need at what frequency to fill the gap between going back to retirement and having to work again?
What did you do over the course of your working life? Dentist? Neurosurgeon? Cab driver? Musician? What other skills do you have?
How old are you when you hit this FIRE failure? I don't care how good you were back in the day at being a consultant earning bucket loads. If you're a aged 60, ageism could well be your number one barrier to finding anything other than the low level jobs you probably don't want.
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I think it depends what your FIRE failure plan is. I have a British friend here who works as a private English teacher at 80 years old. She teaches children and has tons of experience and the parents love here as she's like an English teaching grandma. She says that she still gets plenty of students and has to turn people down.
As I mentioned upthread - that's my plan for FIRE. Even if I have enough money, I really enjoy English teaching so I'll probably do it just to keep busy and socially connected.
That said, ageism is very real. I'm only in my 40s but I feel a lot of options are already closed off to me at this age.
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Hire yourself out to pick up dog poop in people's yards.
Buy some number stencils, some white paint and go to neighborhoods. Charge people to paint their number address at the end of their driveway or curb.
Go to the Goodwill and buy games that have game pieces. You can sell the 'parts' like in monopoly and the game board separately for replacement pieces.
You can buy some small appliances and canabalize the appliance and sell 'parts'. Like for instance if you have a food processor, you can sell the blades, the container, and any other accessories individually. Electric skillets you can sell the electric cord with the heat control. You can sell the lid handles for replacement. Percolators, you can sell the coffee basket, lid and even the coffee maker without the accessories. Keurig coffee makers, sell the water container, the drip catcher and anything else you can yank off it. Washing machines and stoves, you can sell the knobs and the iron grids off of gas stoves. Most new stoves do not sell broiler pans, you can sell those. Before you throw anything out think canibalization. What can you remove from it and sell? Some doorknobs are unique like glass ones.
There are lots of replacement parts people are looking for rather than buying a whole new appliance.
Be a house sitter when people go on vacation.
If you are a handy guy, drive around some rich neighborhoods and find mailboxes that have become eyesores or never installed in the ground correctly. Leave a message in a plastic bag meant to hang of a door knob and tell them you are in the business of installing mailboxes and if they would like to have a new one installed. You could put some examples (pictures) of types of boxes and types of post you would use. Give a "starting at" price like $99. Then if they choose a more expensive type installation price it as necessary. Do you homework and become an expert on boxes, posts and costs.
You could become a personal cook and go to a person's home and cook up a weeks/month worth of dinners. You would have to be a fairly good cook. I would suggest that you put together a monthly menu, 5 days a week. You could buy some freezer recipe books that tell you how to prepare, freeze and cook/reheat the food. You would go to their house and cook up the food, package it up and freeze it. Then have the name of the entree with the instructions. In most states you have to have a licensed kitchen to prepare foods but you can go to a person's house to prepare foods without a license. Another option would be to rent out a licensed kitchen at a place like a church, grange, restaurant. There are books on how to cook for a day, eat for a month.
If you are good at sewing, you could consider alterations like hemming pants, taking in waists, shortening jacket cuffs.
If you can play an instrument, you could teach musical instruction, piano lessons.
Teach an adult education class. You don't necessarily have to be a teacher but if you have a hobby or are an expert in some area, you can charge each student a fee to get instruction. Could be jewelry making, Excel, Word, Powerpoint, learn about Medicare, Social Security, Real Estate, sewing, exercise, dance, horticulture, etc.
You could advertise to scan people's photographs on a thumbdrive so they can downsize. Offer different packages like $99 for 300 photos including thumb drive. $199 for 600 pictures including thumb drive. Include some kind of a decorative box or key chain to keep it from getting lost.
How about a party bus! Rent a luxury bus and plan day events for seniors to go out to lunch, tour a vineyard, a zoo, an aquarium, a museum, dinner theater, lobster fest, casino, culinary school, scenic places. Costs would have to be calculated.
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2. "sitting" with the elderly.<...> The last time I did it, I was bored off my Duff microwaving meals for an elderly lady who just wanted company and help with meds and shower help. Mostly I was just there to keep her from being lonely and run her errands. It was $12/hour and free food over a decade ago, can't imagine it'd pay LESS now.
This ^^^. My FIL hired a "companion lady" to accompany his dement wife half a day a week. This way FIL could take some hours off for himself. The companion lady took MIL out on car trips and let FIL pay for the fuel. She took 10 euro an hour. There must be a market taking care for wealthy elderly.
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One option is to volunteer as a tax preparer helping low income families get their taxes and refund. It's quite rewarding as the average refund is 1,000 and people need it. Plus you are learning the skills that would help if you needed to prepare taxes for an income during tax season.
At least for me a temporary seasonal job with a start and stop date seems better than a part-time job all year.
I’ve thought of this one too. My one reservation would be working for a large tax firm that pushes cash-advances of your tax return for a fee. Those transactions are at effective interest rates similar to pay-day loans. If I worked for a firm where I was forced to sell that “service”, I wouldn’t last a day. Other than that, working 3 to 4 months a year as a tax preparer seems like a good way to help ride out an early dip in asset valuation.
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I am a CPA and will probably try to switch to more seasonal/tax season work over next 5-10 yrs. As long as I still enjoy it, I see no reason to stop.
I am new to fly fishing and I have been thinking about going to a guide school in a few years if I am still into it. Combined I could have a decent income during winter and summer/fall. From some guides I have talked to, even in a downturn the kind of people that spend money of fly fishing guides still have the money to do it.
My wife does graphic/web design and currently works from home with a good schedule. She wants to scale back in few years and expand a side hustle we have messed around with off and on.
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I am a CPA and will probably try to switch to more seasonal/tax season work over next 5-10 yrs. As long as I still enjoy it, I see no reason to stop.
I am new to fly fishing and I have been thinking about going to a guide school in a few years if I am still into it. Combined I could have a decent income during winter and summer/fall. From some guides I have talked to, even in a downturn the kind of people that spend money of fly fishing guides still have the money to do it.
My wife does graphic/web design and currently works from home with a good schedule. She wants to scale back in few years and expand a side hustle we have messed around with off and on.
Good luck on practicing. I have been fly fishing for a number of years, but no way I am getting as skilled at casting as my DH who has done this for decades. But probably, if you put enough hours of practice in it, with some feedback, you might become very good at it.
Some fly fishers (the non Mustachian ones) pay a lot for luxury accomodation along a good river.
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I am a CPA and will probably try to switch to more seasonal/tax season work over next 5-10 yrs. As long as I still enjoy it, I see no reason to stop.
I am new to fly fishing and I have been thinking about going to a guide school in a few years if I am still into it. Combined I could have a decent income during winter and summer/fall. From some guides I have talked to, even in a downturn the kind of people that spend money of fly fishing guides still have the money to do it.
My wife does graphic/web design and currently works from home with a good schedule. She wants to scale back in few years and expand a side hustle we have messed around with off and on.
Good luck on practicing. I have been fly fishing for a number of years, but no way I am getting as skilled at casting as my DH who has done this for decades. But probably, if you put enough hours of practice in it, with some feedback, you might become very good at it.
Some fly fishers (the non Mustachian ones) pay a lot for luxury accomodation along a good river.
Yes, I plan on taking short classes next summer before I get into too many bad habits.
There is a 4 unit motel/apartment for sale in the mountains a couple hours from where I live along along a top river for westslope cutthroat trout. It would need a few upgrades/repairs, I think it would stay rented through summers and the fall. Every couple months I look at it and have to remind myself it would be a bit too much work. I know a couple people that have retired in their late 50s/early 60s and started a business that took up too much time and money.