The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: Dreamer on January 13, 2014, 02:53:30 PM
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Has anyone quit their job before having enough to retire on? If so, how did it work out?
I have really been contemplating doing this lately due to some unforeseen personal circumstances, although I'm also thinking it could turn out to be a big mistake.
Factoring in all temporary sources of funds I receive to support my son, I would still be short about $700/month. Selling my car and getting a roommate would put me at the break even point, but both of these would be difficult adjustments for me. I'd be withdrawing about $850/month from my RRSP on top of the other sources of funds. I have $200k saved, so I'd be withdrawing about 5% annually, so there is a risk of slowly depleting my RRSP at that rate.
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Would you be able to generate any income? Either part time job or freelance?
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I have quit jobs that I didn't like, and then gotten other ones.
Depending on your age and your monthly expenditures, it doesn't seem to me that $200,000 would be enough to retire on for the rest of your life. Although, only you can know that after doing the numbers.
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short answer: yes.
Long answer: I had no intention of quitting for FIRE. But ... like you, I had personal circumstances and the job was sucking my soul. I quit and called it "pretiring" ... meaning I planned on not looking for a job for 6months to a year.
Result: well, I'd say it mostly worked out ok. I moved from large city to small city... which made tech jobs difficult to find. It took me 3 years to find a reasonable job and my initial pay was at about 60% of my original pay. But it seems like that's "how it is" in the smaller market. The 3 years off were, quite possibly, some of the most memorable years of my life. I had a really good time with wife and family and spent time with 2 aging relatives that are both essentially gone now. (1 passed away, 1 no longer can identify family due to dementia.)
Had I stayed: I'd be well beyond FIRE now and retired. But... I'm still very close and the time I got with family was irreplaceable.
That said: I was relatively close to FIRE and had *significant* FU money. When we jumped, we moved to a tiny, tiny place we owned free and clear and we hunkered down into very low spending mode.* I think I could have made 10-15 years easily at the rate we were going, and probably much longer.
*well, for the most part we did. We did make a few exceptions.
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I would have some free time to potentially generate some income, but I really don't know what I would do! I've always had regular jobs and have no experience with freelance work. I'm not sure I could find anything in my field that is part-time, and I am 99% certain that my current employer would deny my request to drop to part-time hours. If I knew I could easily generate $500 or $1000 every month, I'd be more inclined to take the leap. The other possibility would be updating my skills and then looking for a new job in a year or two, if i absolutely had to. I am a software developer but really don't use my (outdated) development skills in my current role.