Hi Everyone,
Thanks for all of the great feedback about our plan. I just wanted to clarify our "theory" of Partial Financial Independence (PFI) in hopes of receiving some specific feedback addressing it.
The foundation of PFI (the name is probably silly, but giving it a name makes it easier to talk about) is built on our observations of the relationship between the mind (conscious and subconscious) and cashflow. We have observed in ourselves and in many other people an exponentially increasing level of creativity and imagination as the doors of financial independence BEGIN to open (i.e. PFI). Even just a reduced weekly workload from 40 hours per week to 30 makes a difference. Those extra 10 hours eventually begin to fill with ideas which in turn lead to cashflow. This increasing cashflow motivates a person (like us) to then strive to decrease the weekly workload to 20, then 10, then 5, then 0 or "Financial Independence".
So in other words ... we have seen some people choose to work their butts off for a decade, then be completely FI, only to find that their new found freedom is actually producing quite a bit of NEW cashflow. The "Partial" in our idea of PFI is the key in that this partial independence will translate into fun, organic, natural cashflow rather than having to work your butt off for a decade. And eventually the cashflow from PFI will lead to FI, just in a different kind of way - a way that feels better to us.
One other important side note is that we don't believe in the idea of passing on an inheritance. We want to die broke.
We are looking forward to any feedback, thanks so much for reading!
Cory & Vickie
Even with that theory, I don't understand how you feel secure in the notion that you'll just "somehow" make $15k per year.
To me, it would make sense to work for even one more year, saving very penny, so you can get at least a bit more out of your 4% WR, and so you have a year to build up meaningful side hustles. As teachers, I'd think you could pretty easily establish tutoring businesses. There are even companies that hire people to be online tutors, which means you could travel while still working.
You can also substitute teach, which isn't great money, but it is something and it is extremely flexible.
It seems like there are a lot of possible options for you, but you haven't yet sat down and figured them out and worked to get the ball rolling. If those things aren't creative enough for you, then use that as insensitive to monetize the creativity ASAP. Tell yourself that once you get $5k/yr in reliable income from creativity, you can drop down to doing one less day of subbing per year, and ditch one tutoring client.
You want to walk the wire without a net, and you are prepared to do that before establishing any wire walking skills. Not smart. Practice with the net, so that when you fall, you survive. Once you've proven to yourself that you can reliably make it across without falling, *then* ditch the net.
Why not spend one more school year getting set up to do that, or to do something else, and o explore your options and put plans in motion? Or have at least one of you go back to work for the year, while the other establishes an effective side hustle? If the side hustle is making $16k, or of it is close and seems likely to make $16k when the other partner joins in, great.
After one year, you can decrease to your 30 hours plan, or perhaps even less if you've done a good job with your side hustles. The great thing about most side hustles is that they are scalable. So in 8 years when you want to drop from 30 to 25 hours, you can do so seamlessly. And if, they year after that, we have terrible inflation and you need more money, you can scale back up.
But that takes planning and effort and organization and time, and it doesn't sound like you've put in any of things. "We'll just find a way to make "$16k!" isn't a plan. It's a dream.
And if I understand correctly, your plan is to return home to no jobs and with no income lined up. You'll blow through your "supplemental income" of $4k in about two months. Do you really think you'll have $20k of income for the year (because that year's "supplemental income" will be fully spent) established in 2 months?
Your plan to scale back is great. You just need to put in the prep work before you do the scaling, especially because with numbers as low and tight as yours, there's very little margin for error.
Also, dying broke is a pretty naive goal. If you knew the date of your death, it'd be great. But without that knowledge, it's not really feasible, because there is too much risk out outliving your money. I understand not wanting to get to a point where you have worked so long that your net worth grows even after full retirement, or even that it barely decreases every month/year. But can't have a goal to spend down to zero when you have no idea what the deadline (literally) for that goal will be.