I have investment income that is about four times my retirement expenses. Most of that would just keep snowballing and compounding. All I have to do is give the tenants in one of my rental houses notice to vacate and I can spruce it back up, be within walking distance to stores, transit, easy drive to freeway, entertainment all around, etc. all in a paid off house.
Granted it's an older and smaller house, not a show piece like the house I live in now, and it's on a somewhat busy side street with the swoosh of a car every few minutes parts of the day but I did live there for 2.5 years before. With white noise running, it's not so bad. Plenty of yard for garden and chickens, and no HOA. I can ride and bike everywhere. I could rearrange the rooms so the rooms I spend the most time in are facing the back yard.
Or I could sell it and use the money to buy a similar house in a better location in the same area. I like the area largely because if I decide to go back to work after retirement, I can easily do so from a commuting perspective. Alternatively, I can sell the house and use the proceeds to buy a house in a small town on the other side of the mountains a couple hours from Seattle and live the small town country life I love. When I consider the above, I just think to myself, why are you still working?
Well, I have been making six figures for the past few years and am now making 150K a year from salary alone. I'm starting grad school starting tomorrow but feel like I'm loosing motivation to work. The original plan was to keep working for 7 more years while I'm doing good, I mean why give up the money!?! But I don't have as much of an incentive to keep working now that I have all this money already, and my attitude at work has changed as a result. I push back more and don't tolerate as much BS. I've basically checked out to an extent. At this point, I'm just trying to hand in there for 2 more years, which is about how long I expect this job to last. That should give me close to 400K additional assets, between growth and savings for the next two years.
Sure, I'm saving even more money, but part of me wonders, should I even go to grad school at this point? 10-15K for an AACSB accredited public university and in one year I will have my MBA which will come in handy if I want to keep working for now. But will I have the emotional fortitude to keep facing the incompetent people in the office, the liars, the credit thieves, the cheats, and general "a$$ holes"? I don't know.
With all this money I'm able to sock away, I'm starting to think the way to get through it is to just make it work for me instead of against me. Use down time to build myself up. Not get dragged into petty office politics and remember that even if they try to fire me for less effort or output, I'm already "FI" a few times over and I have a ton of experience, credentials and education. I can get another six figure job easily if anything happens to this one, even though I don't have to.
So why do I keep studying for more certs, an MBA, new technologies and such, when at the same time, I keep thinking to myself, "You don't have to do this anymore"? Which urge is the right one? Am I working just to pool more cash just in case? To live a more lavish lifestyle that planned in retirement? Because I can't detach from the system? Conflicted thoughts...
I guess the part of me that wants to keep working is to get as much money as possible before retiring. I definately would rather not deal with the headaches though, and I think it's because I am FI and don't have to I have these conflicting desires.