Coast FIRE gig ideas and experiences

[utaca]

Long time lurker, modest poster with a decent 'stache but too much stress in my life - virtually all work-related!

Accordingly, I'm curious about shifting to Coast FIRE in the near to medium term and am wondering about people's experiences doing so. How close were you to fire when you made the shift? What kind of gig are you doing while coasting to FI? Do you enjoy it? Any regrets? Has anyone gone back to the grind? If so, why?

For those who shifted from a high stress job to a lower stress job, what are the major differences? Are you actually able to turn off at the end of the day? And do your former colleagues all now think you're a worthless, subhuman fool who just couldn't hack it (this is a little bit satirical but I've heard these types of comments recently about a colleague who retired in his mid-50s)?

[ejmyrow]

I am not retired, but am a SAHM. Thought I'd give some ideas in case it helps:
- AirBnB host
- BaristaFI (seems like folks like to do the part time cafe gig)
- I've met some uber drivers who are semi retired - they like to have people to chat with

About other people being judgy - if your colleagues would be judgy like that, maybe new friends are on the horizon, people with more open minds, people who are already in on FIRE, people who are having more fun in their lives. The judgy ones might just be jealous.

[rockstache]

+1 to the judgy coworkers...life is too short for that BS.

We are very very bare bones FI if the stars aligned and our spending never went up (which I’m not at all comfortable retiring at). We have one kid and one on the way and we are both working from home. After the birth of kid two DH might become a SAHD. The plan would be for me to continue my low stress remote job, and him to take care of the kiddos (with some help because I’m home all day), and just live off my income while the stash grows in the background. My job has offered me part time hours if I want them, so probably at some point I will take them up on it and we’ll glide into retirement that way. I assume DH will want a part time job in the future, maybe working at a gym or similar, and that will just be icing on the cake.

Big huge caveat: health insurance is not a concern.

[blingwrx]

I didn't intentionally start coast FI, but I was laid off from my job 2 years ago and I was already dabbling in Freelance coding/web design work nights and weekends. I decided to take it easy for a year and try out the Freelance thing part time, I was about 33% to FI so I had plenty of cushion to do it. It turns out demand for my skills were off the charts and I have more work than I wanted to do. Once my clients knew I had more availability they ended up using me as an almost full time contractor. I use Upwork to find clients BTW, if you have any technical skills you may be able to market yourself there or through other channels. Right now I'm able to make the same full time salary working less hours, the flexibility is great. The big negative is no health benefits or paid vacations. Healthcare is real expensive even with some ACA subsidies if you make a good amount of money so definitely calculate that into your plans before you start coasting. My stache has more than doubled since then thanks to the great market run up, so I think I can slow down soon and it's easy enough to just quit some contracts. Unlike a full time job where you would need to quit completely as most places are unlikely to allow you to work part time. Then finding a part time only job most likely pays very little, thus the reason I have not considered Barista FI.

[utaca]

I didn't intentionally start coast FI, but I was laid off from my job 2 years ago and I was already dabbling in Freelance coding/web design work nights and weekends. I decided to take it easy for a year and try out the Freelance thing part time

Thanks for your reply. Did you learn coding from scratch or was this part of your job beforehand? I guess my question is could I, with zero experience in coding but a general facility with learning, be able to learn coding in a reasonable amount of time?

[utaca]

+1 to the judgy coworkers...life is to short for that BS.

Ha yeah no doubt. I work in a status obsessed profession but fortunately stay grounded with a great spouse and wonderful friends who don't care what I do when I put it monkey suit on!

[Freedomin5]

How close were you to fire when you made the shift?

Not very close. I shifted as soon as we had saved our retirement nest egg. This was an amount that was not enough to immediately retire on, but it would be enough for us to retire at 65 if left untouched for the next 30+ years.

 What kind of gig are you doing while coasting to FI?

Similar work as before, but in a lower stress environment with better working hours. It’s in the same field but less intense.

Do you enjoy it? Any regrets?

Yes, I love it. No regrets at all. It’s very interesting work with lots of opportunities to branch into related areas in which I have little experience.

Has anyone gone back to the grind? If so, why?

Nope. Never going back to the grind. God willing, I’m staying at my coasting job until we are fully FI.

For those who shifted from a high stress job to a lower stress job, what are the major differences?

The lower stress. Better working hours. Only working 40 hours per week. Not working evenings and weekends. Coworkers who think I’m awesome because I’m a bit overqualified for this job and this job is easy for me. Lots more vacation.  Pay is a bit lower but not much lower. Better family life — I have more time to spend with my daughter and husband. I also like the corporate culture. I do sometimes wonder if I’ll lose my edge as I don’t need to be at the cutting edge to be successful at this job, but I suppose that’s internally driven. I can always do more PD to keep myself sharp.

Are you actually able to turn off at the end of the day?

Yup.

And do your former colleagues all now think you're a worthless, subhuman fool who just couldn't hack it?

Nope. I left when I was at the top of my game. I was a top performer in my previous company, so people knew that I was capable. Everyone thought I was brilliant to leave. Mind you, I didn’t become a Walmart greeter. I stayed in my field and simply moved from the provider side to the client side. And my old company told me that I was welcome to come back to my old job anytime I wanted. I didn’t focus on the burnout when I told people why I was leaving. I focused on all the perks and talked about work-life balance and shifting priorities to things that are more important than work. I also talked about being in a financial position to do so through savings and investments. To a great extent, you can control the narrative.

[utaca]

For those who shifted from a high stress job to a lower stress job, what are the major differences?

The lower stress. Better working hours. Only working 40 hours per week. Not working evenings and weekends. Coworkers who think I’m awesome because I’m a bit overqualified for this job and this job is easy for me. Lots more vacation.  Pay is a bit lower but not much lower. Better family life — I have more time to spend with my daughter and husband. I also like the corporate culture. I do sometimes wonder if I’ll lose my edge as I don’t need to be at the cutting edge to be successful at this job, but I suppose that’s internally driven. I can always do more PD to keep myself sharp.

Thanks for all your responses - this one in particular is good to hear. Better family life is super important for me too - I don't get enough quality time with my two favorite people (spouse and child) at present! 

[FIRE 20/20]

I've posted about this before, so I'll just quote from my response to a CoastFI thread on another part of the forum.  I think the link will take you to the other thread if you click on the quoted section.

My last year I did kind of a lightweight CoastFIRE by transitioning from a high-stress position that would have set me up for significant career growth to a low-stress dead-end position within the same company.  My pay and benefits stayed the same, but in addition to the reduced responsibility and stress, I was able to use a few hundred PTO hours that year as well.  The PTO would have been paid out afterwards so I did lose that money, but instead of working 50 hours / week I worked 32-36 hours a week for the same bi-weekly pay.  My partner transitioned to an official 32 hour week (instead of what I did by using PTO) and did take a 20% pay cut, but with the lower taxes and keeping the same benefits the reduction in pay was less than 20%.  She made the transition about 2 years before FIRE, and the reduced stress was worth far more than the reduction in pay.  We probably had to work an extra 2-4 months or so, but that last 1-2 years were the best of my working life.  We both left work at work for the first time in our careers, we took plenty of vacations, and either one or both of us was off work almost every Friday.

How close were you to fire when you made the shift?

I had hit 25x planned FIRE expenses, and was in my planned OMY.  Knowing what I know now, I wish I had made the transition somewhere between 10-15x planned FIRE expenses.  It would have extended my working career for a bit, but for me the slower pace and reduced stress would have been worth it, I think. 

What kind of gig are you doing while coasting to FI?

Same company, different role (from project manager to internal research and development)

Do you enjoy it? Any regrets?

It was probably the best year of my life to that point.  I regret not doing it sooner. 

Has anyone gone back to the grind? If so, why?

Nope - happily FIREd.

For those who shifted from a high stress job to a lower stress job, what are the major differences?

For me, everything was better.  I felt better starting my day getting ready for work.  I did a better job at work because the work was well within my existing skillset.  I was able to do 95% of the new job in my sleep, so I was better able to focus on helping my employees develop, planning strategically, building support for my R&D work, and all the other things that fall by the wayside if you're buried just getting the main job finished.  I felt better leaving work because nothing was left undone at the end of the day.  I felt better in my off time.  I used years of accrued PTO to work fewer hours so I had longer weekends.  I traveled to see family.  I made the same amount of money (aside from burning PTO that I could have cashed out).  My partner did the same thing except she formally went to 32 hours a week, but the drop in her pay was less than 20% while the drop in hours was probably from 45-50 to 32.  So she probably had a 35% in hours worked for a roughly 15% drop in pay and a huge reduction in stress. 

Are you actually able to turn off at the end of the day?

Yes. 

And do your former colleagues all now think you're a worthless, subhuman fool who just couldn't hack it?

I suspect one or two of the people who were really mission focused thought I wasn't giving as much as I could.  But I was open about my FIRE plans with my peers so they weren't surprised. 

[/quote]

[Metalcat]

How close were you to fire when you made the shift?

I wasn't at all close to FI, but I'm also in no rush to get there.

What kind of gig are you doing while coasting to FI?

Right now, nothing. I was doing part time work of my main profession, and some consulting. I just took on a massive project that blew up on me a bit, so I'm taking a sabbatical. I'll figure out my next project later when I feel like getting back at it. For now, I'm taking a real break, which is well timed with covid.

Do you enjoy it? Any regrets?

I was not enjoying working full time under high pressure, so no, no regrets. I always have a lot of things going on outside of work, so dedicating 40+ hours of each week to one day job just doesn't really fit with my lifestyle.

Has anyone gone back to the grind? If so, why?

Yes, as I mentioned, I just did very briefly.
It seemed worth it for the level of work I was going to be able to do, but also, very quickly I remembered why I dislike spending that much time at a day job. On top of that, a lot of it wasn't what it seemed. It sucks that such an amazing opportunity turned out disappointing, but now that I'm settled back into having free and flexible time, I'm pretty okay with it.

After that, I think I'm pretty certain that I'll never accept another full time day job, at least not one that involves working with other people. I could feasibly see putting in full time hours on a writing project, or something where I work independently, but to give my usual 110% that I give in a team environment, it's just not sustainable to work that way without significant downtime.

For those who shifted from a high stress job to a lower stress job, what are the major differences?

I've never done a low stress job, all of my jobs have been insanely high stress. However, there's a huge difference between productive stress and unproductive stress. I have a hard time maintaining the kind of balance that can keep stress productive when I spend too much time on one job, or if I'm working in a toxic environment.

I really don't mind the weight of the world being on my shoulders if I have a great team and plenty of time off between those intense bursts of high stress work. When it's productive and intense, it's psychologically beneficial like a really good workout. The problem for me comes when there's not enough recovery time, when it's a constant onslaught and two little weekend days, which are usually filled with chores, aren't enough to reset the system and deal with it all over again.

If I have a good balance, then productive stress is like a high for me, I absolutely love it. I'm the person you want in a crisis, but you want me well rested and coming off a day of hiking or something, not distracted by useless office politics I had to deal with yesterday.

Are you actually able to turn off at the end of the day?

Yes, 100%. I establish excellent boundaries, and as I said above, it's a lot easier to compartmentalize work stress as a work thing when you don't spend the majority of your life marinating in it. 

And do your former colleagues all now think you're a worthless, subhuman fool who just couldn't hack it?

Ha! Hell no.
I'm practically famous in my professional circles for saying "fuck it" to the normal way my colleagues work. I'm very well known for my mellow happiness and extremely healthy lifestyle among a bunch of burnt out angry folks in a profession well known for alcoholism, drug addiction and suicide. Most of the 8 figure NW colleagues in my area are good friends of mine, and they often say they wish they had thought more like I do when they were younger.

So no, absolutely not, no one I know of has ever judged me for this, and if they have, their opinion would not find much support.

A word about judgement though, the only people who will judge you for choosing to coast are people who are already judging you for something else. Their judgement is a function of who they are, not what you choose to do with your life. You simply cannot avoid the judgement of those who want to judge you, so don't ever base your very important life decisions on trying to avoid judgement, because it's literally impossible.

[blingwrx]

I didn't intentionally start coast FI, but I was laid off from my job 2 years ago and I was already dabbling in Freelance coding/web design work nights and weekends. I decided to take it easy for a year and try out the Freelance thing part time

Thanks for your reply. Did you learn coding from scratch or was this part of your job beforehand? I guess my question is could I, with zero experience in coding but a general facility with learning, be able to learn coding in a reasonable amount of time?

I was previously working full time doing the same thing so it was a lot easier to expand into freelancing with my skill set.

The “can I learn programming easily” question has been asked a lot around here. Programming is great for high pay and can offer flexibility if you are skilled but as we all know nothing comes easy in life. Like any job there’s good and bad. For me the jobs can be highly stressful, you’ll be using your brain a lot and may sometimes be up against tight deadlines. The flexibility and high pay is great though and some projects can be fun it really depends one the company and type of work you are doing. For me my brain is just tired as I’ve been doing it for over a decade so I’d choose to FIRE sooner rather than later. The quickest path is probably to take some bootcamp course where you might be able to learn a lot in 3 months and possibly land a job, but there’s also no promises you will be good at it or even like it. It would be good to just look up some free online learning stuff and see if that’s something you think you can handle or enjoy before investing thousands and months of your life into a course that may or may not pay off.