I guess you could call it the pre-FI jitters.
I'm getting laid off at the end of the month and I'm burned out. Like pondered-quitting-on-a-weekly-basis-for-last-3-years burned out. Don't get me wrong, I see the layoff and the accompanying severance as an absolute blessing. Why'd I stick with something like that? Well, the pay had me on an accelerated track to FI and I estimated if I stuck it out another ~2 years from now I'd be free and clear. Now I've spent the last few weeks really crunching numbers trying to convince myself my previous strategy* would have overshot what I truly need to live and that my assumptions were too conservative and I was just too hesitant to leave such a strong safety net. Now that the job decision was made for me, I'd like to take an extended break and focus on home improvement and volunteering, possibly never holding a conventional job again. But I have a lot of anxiety about that.
For starters, I'm not sure my financial assumptions are conservative enough, it'll be my first foray out into healthcare that's not provided/subsidized by an employer, and I have an unshakable concern that spending time unemployed will make future jobs/job interviews less feasible. Add to that, my plan is to live on rental income, which while steady at the moment is not something I have unshakeable confidence in.
I'm sure others here have gone through this and I'd love to hear any insight or recommendations. Whether it's an encouragement just to jump in to retirement or a caution to work a little longer somewhere else, I'd like to hear it. A little bit more detail about my circumstances:
Assets:
Primary residence has rental income that more than pays the note (Multi-family)
2 rental properties that are fully rented
2 very moustachian cars that are fully paid off
$360k in tax-advantaged accounts**
$187k in taxable accounts (includes expected severance)**
Liabilities:
Primary has a mortgage, about $245k principle remaining, 4.2% interest
Both rentals were purchased in last year with 25% down, and 4.6% interest, combined principle is about $240k
No other debt
Income:
Wife is part time at ~$10k/yr
Net rental after all P&I, insurance, city tax, utilities: $22k/yr (includes my primary note, assumes full occupancy w/o repairs)
Expenses:
non-house expenses estimated at $25k/yr, including an estimate of what ACA will cost at the income above
Living expenses are based on tracking in Mint since earl 2014 and are probably my greatest uncertainty. I don't know whether to expect them to go down because I'll have more time to fix things/cook food/etc while not working, or whether our expenses go up (or were underestimated).
To me, this picture looks like I'm on a rather thin margin. At least, to not touch any of my investments at all. But what thinks the community here?
*previous strategy was to stop 401k contributions and funnel every last dollar possible to paying off the two rental property notes. I have since decided to invest the money that was going to target those mortgages, and keep claiming the interest deductions.
**we're both 32, so my hope is to let these accounts grow untouched for decades
