Am I Crazy? (aka Unlock the Golden Handcuffs?)

[RainyDay]

I had originally planned to leave my government job last December, but the downturn in the markets waylaid me, as we weren't quite at 25x annual spend.  Plus, I had no idea what to do instead.

My passion lies in animal rescue, but that's generally a volunteer job, and while we foster cats and dogs regularly, the rescues & shelters themselves are a hefty drive through DC suburb traffic (ugh!).  I now have an opportunity to take a job working with animals. Not in rescue, but at least it's with animals. The job is ~15 min drive from me and is 24 hrs a week (yay!).  I will be taking care of animals, working with other animal-lovers, and learning some stuff about running a facility. There may eventually be opportunities to start a foster network, and maybe some other stuff. The catch is that it pays $17/hr and has no benefits. Hourly wage only.   

My current job is very well paid, with government benefits.  I don't hate it, but it doesn't inspire me.  It does allow me to work from home 4 days a week, and I love being at home.  My boss is great, and I have no complaints about my co-workers.  I consider myself very lucky.

Our current savings are now at ~26x our annual spend, not including SS, equity in the house, and a pension that starts at age 60.  (I am 50.)

Why am I hesitating to make the jump?  I do worry about the lack of benefits, although I can use COBRA for 18 months, I believe.  I guess it's just nice to have a generous income and not worry at all about spending money. For example, I decided that it was high time to replace our patio doors, which will cost around $4000... and I can do it without even blinking about the cost. 

Someone give me a push, or else tell me I'm crazy to leave such a cushy job!

[GhostSaver]

I had originally planned to leave my government job last December, but the downturn in the markets waylaid me, as we weren't quite at 25x annual spend.  Plus, I had no idea what to do instead.

My passion lies in animal rescue, but that's generally a volunteer job, and while we foster cats and dogs regularly, the rescues & shelters themselves are a hefty drive through DC suburb traffic (ugh!).  I now have an opportunity to take a job working with animals. Not in rescue, but at least it's with animals. The job is ~15 min drive from me and is 24 hrs a week (yay!).  I will be taking care of animals, working with other animal-lovers, and learning some stuff about running a facility. There may eventually be opportunities to start a foster network, and maybe some other stuff. The catch is that it pays $17/hr and has no benefits. Hourly wage only.   

My current job is very well paid, with government benefits.  I don't hate it, but it doesn't inspire me.  It does allow me to work from home 4 days a week, and I love being at home.  My boss is great, and I have no complaints about my co-workers.  I consider myself very lucky.

Our current savings are now at ~26x our annual spend, not including SS, equity in the house, and a pension that starts at age 60.  (I am 50.)

Why am I hesitating to make the jump?  I do worry about the lack of benefits, although I can use COBRA for 18 months, I believe.  I guess it's just nice to have a generous income and not worry at all about spending money. For example, I decided that it was high time to replace our patio doors, which will cost around $4000... and I can do it without even blinking about the cost. 

Someone give me a push, or else tell me I'm crazy to leave such a cushy job!

How much longer do you have to wait to retire with the ability to get federal health insurance? I know it's possible under FERS, but it's been a while since I've been a fed.

That's an enormously valuable benefit.

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[RainyDay]

How much longer do you have to wait to retire with the ability to get federal health insurance? I know it's possible under FERS, but it's been a while since I've been a fed.

That's an enormously valuable benefit.

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About 6 1/2 more years. Yeah, I know it's a valuable benefit...another consideration, to be sure. 

[GhostSaver]

How much longer do you have to wait to retire with the ability to get federal health insurance? I know it's possible under FERS, but it's been a while since I've been a fed.

That's an enormously valuable benefit.

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About 6 1/2 more years. Yeah, I know it's a valuable benefit...another consideration, to be sure.

That is quite a bit of time to OMY it.

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[LifeHappens]

Why am I hesitating to make the jump?  I do worry about the lack of benefits, although I can use COBRA for 18 months, I believe.

You can take COBRA for 18 months, but leaving employment also makes you eligible for an ACA plan. It might help your research to check your state exchange or Healthcare.gov to see what a plan would cost.

[Cassie]

I would stay for the retirement health insurance. That’s a valuable benefit and you will be young still.

[Sandi_k]

I would stay for the retirement health insurance. That’s a valuable benefit and you will be young still.

Me too. With my agency - 20 years gives you full healthcare after age 50. (It's less generous for new hires).

Just 27 more months. ;)

[oneday]

Our current savings are now at ~26x our annual spend, not including SS, equity in the house, and a pension that starts at age 60.  (I am 50.)

You have 26x plus SS plus pension plus a house (at least partially paid off and if not, payments are included in the 26x number, right?) plus you'll be earning money, so not drawing down at the anticipated rate?

Does the 26x include health care expenses? if not, won't the SS and/or pension and/or animal job at least partly cover the gap? Maybe run some numbers.

Probably I'm just fiesty tonight, but what are you waiting for, an engraved invitation? Go follow your passion!!!

[RainyDay]

I would stay for the retirement health insurance. That’s a valuable benefit and you will be young still.

That means staying another 6+ years!

You have 26x plus SS plus pension plus a house (at least partially paid off and if not, payments are included in the 26x number, right?) plus you'll be earning money, so not drawing down at the anticipated rate? Does the 26x include health care expenses?

Correct.  House payments are included, and so is (estimated) health insurance.

[TreeLeaf]

I would stay for the retirement health insurance. That’s a valuable benefit and you will be young still.

Me too. With my agency - 20 years gives you full healthcare after age 50. (It's less generous for new hires).

Just 27 more months. ;)

I would also stay. It's an easy job, you mostly work from home, get paid well.

Sometimes things are much more fun in our imagination than they are in real life.

When/if you are ready to fully retire then I would take your dream job, imo.

[Omy]

I OMYed for multiple years for no good reason (other than extra financial security.) In retrospect, I don't recommend it. I planned for every contingency imaginable (except worldwide pandemic which turned out to save us tons of money).

I was planning for all the worst cases financially (market crash, future health care expenses, long term care, caring for parents in the future) and wasn't paying attention to the risk of not enjoying my life for my remaining years. We don't know if we have days or decades left, but your health is probably as good as it's going to get right now.

Without knowing more details it's hard to give really targeted advice, but if you aren't counting your future pension and SS and animal job in your 26x numbers, you've probably already over saved by a lot.

One tool that really helped me put everything in perspective was the Rich, Broke, Dead calculator. When I input our numbers, I had zero chance of ending up broke and 100% chance of ending up dead. That visual was a huge wake up call.

[Davnasty]

How long have you been at your current job? Is there potential for your role to change? Do you have a lot of variety in your work?

I ask because in my experience, the longer I've been doing the same old thing every day the faster time seems to move. Having to worry about insurance, and patio doors, and what you're going to do tomorrow will be uncomfortable but I don't think you'll regret it 6 years from now. What you might regret is 6 more years of something you've already done and mastered just to increase your security.

That said, I think it does matter what your current spend is. If you want to share your annual spend I think it would get you better responses. The higher your current spend is, the more likely it is you can weather a market downturn or expensive healthcare by being flexible. If you're already lean, OMY could make sense. Six more years on the other hand, sounds like torture if you already feel uninspired by your work.

[RainyDay]

How long have you been at your current job? Is there potential for your role to change? Do you have a lot of variety in your work?

I've been there 6 years.  There is not a lot of variety, but occasionally something interesting comes along that allows me to use my brain.  Mostly it's a lot of downtime, but I need to be available so I'm largely tied to the keyboard.

Estimated yearly spend is $63,000/year, after tracking month by month for 2.5 years. Then I added in estimated taxes ($5,000) and estimated health insurance/health care ($15,000/yr) to get $83,000 per year.  We have a little over $2.1M saved, not including equity in the house.  I imagine the estimated costs are a bit high, but I'd rather err on the side of caution.

[Davnasty]

How long have you been at your current job? Is there potential for your role to change? Do you have a lot of variety in your work?

I've been there 6 years.  There is not a lot of variety, but occasionally something interesting comes along that allows me to use my brain.  Mostly it's a lot of downtime, but I need to be available so I'm largely tied to the keyboard.

Estimated yearly spend is $63,000/year, after tracking month by month for 2.5 years. Then I added in estimated taxes ($5,000) and estimated health insurance/health care ($15,000/yr) to get $83,000 per year.  We have a little over $2.1M saved, not including equity in the house.  I imagine the estimated costs are a bit high, but I'd rather err on the side of caution.

I recommend retiring yesterday :)

Unless you're really making use of and enjoying the downtime, but even then you should feel confident that your savings will see you through. A more detailed discussion would include what you spend money on and whether you can reduce spending if needed but at $2.1M I wouldn't even worry about it.

For context, I probably lean toward RE more aggressively than most. I'd feel pretty good about leaving full time work at $600k(individual) with expectations of small incomes here and there.

[mcneally]

Based on your implied full pension age and that you live in DC, I'm going to assume that you are a federal employee. I don't know how many years of service you have, but if 57 is your MRA, I'm going to guess you'd have 30 at that time.

I'm also a fed (though only 37). I made a spreadsheet estimating my net present value of my pension if retiring at each age between now and 57. You have to make assumptions about investment returns and SWR to do this calculation, but I estimate that if you compare leaving the feds at 50 vs 57, the value of the pension alone is equivalent to having $70k per year put in your TSP for each of those 7 years. The marginal value of the pension increases so much in the later years (but only if you stay until MRA) that I decided I will either retire by 45 or stay until 57.

You probably have enough to leave and take the low paying job. It does leave a lot of money on the table. Up to you to decide whether that's worth it. If you stay the extra 6.5 years, you'd have upwards of an extra million you could donate to an animal rescue.   

[Dee18]

Go! Quit now!  I had enough to retire but thought I might as well work a few more years to have that "extra." My plan when I did retire was to do a lot of international travel. By the time I retired 4 years later I had lost the hearing in one ear, been injured in a car accident (with some residual problems), and Covid was upon us. Yes, I wound up with more money...but most of that increase was due to the stock market increase and would have occurred even without my working.  And, most important, I now have way more money than when I retired three years ago, thanks to the market and an inheritance. I have the modest tastes developed during years as a Mustachian and my pension (though private, without a COLA) covers all my expenses.   Before retiring I imagined many things that could go wrong....but never a plague or major hearing loss.  We cannot know the future.  And I failed to imagine positive things that might happen, such as an unexpected inheritance from a distant relative who had no children.  But you know your now...and your now is that you want to do this job.  Go for it!

[TreeLeaf]

How long have you been at your current job? Is there potential for your role to change? Do you have a lot of variety in your work?

I've been there 6 years.  There is not a lot of variety, but occasionally something interesting comes along that allows me to use my brain.  Mostly it's a lot of downtime, but I need to be available so I'm largely tied to the keyboard.

Estimated yearly spend is $63,000/year, after tracking month by month for 2.5 years. Then I added in estimated taxes ($5,000) and estimated health insurance/health care ($15,000/yr) to get $83,000 per year.  We have a little over $2.1M saved, not including equity in the house.  I imagine the estimated costs are a bit high, but I'd rather err on the side of caution.

Ok I think I am going to change my answer to quit now and go on cruise to Hawaii.

[Villanelle]

You mention "our savings". Is there a spouse our partner involved?  Do they have paid employment?  How do they feel about this potential shift?

[oneday]

You have 26x plus SS plus pension plus a house (at least partially paid off and if not, payments are included in the 26x number, right?) plus you'll be earning money, so not drawing down at the anticipated rate? Does the 26x include health care expenses?

Correct.  House payments are included, and so is (estimated) health insurance.

You seem like a sharp cookie (sharper than I was last night when I made the post and didn't point this out), so you of course realize that at some point your house will be paid off and that will free up even more cash flow to fund your lifestyle?  I think you are probably ironclad. Try [urlhttps://engaging-data.com/will-money-last-retire-early/]Rich, Broke or Dead?[/url] as suggested by @Omy

[RainyDay]

You mention "our savings". Is there a spouse our partner involved?  Do they have paid employment?  How do they feel about this potential shift?

Yep!  DH is fully on board with whatever I want to do.  He is still working and wants to keep working.  Our finances are separate, so his income doesn't affect the numbers.

[GhostSaver]

You mention "our savings". Is there a spouse our partner involved?  Do they have paid employment?  How do they feel about this potential shift?

Yep!  DH is fully on board with whatever I want to do.  He is still working and wants to keep working.  Our finances are separate, so his income doesn't affect the numbers.

Oh, so you can probably get health insurance through dh's employer? It sounds like you're ready to hang up the spurs.

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[Cassie]

With the additional information I change my answer to retire now.

[Laura33]

1.  Do the research on your health insurance options if you leave now (ACA, your DH's plan, etc.).

2.  Quit.  Regardless of the answer on 1.  You have more than enough to cover whatever you need.