Take yearly breaks and retire in 12 years or nose to grindstone and FIRE in 7yr?

[kenaces]

I am soon to be 48.  I have been targeting FIRE in ~7 years and my savings are on track for this goal.  This would mean retiring with a very modest income.  I am naturally very frugal, and will likely still make some money in "retirement" so I am happy with this plan.

Lately, I have been thinking that I want do some travel and go on a few adventures while I am still healthy and fit.  Crunching some numbers I think I could take summers off(I make my own schedule) and still save enough to retire in ~12 years.  This would have the benefit of allowing me a little more time and money to pursue some interests(take some classes and trips).  It might also be a bit more of a secure retirement as I would be closer to being able to collect social security. 

While I am leaning in the direction of the 12 years until FIRE plan, I am very conflicted about this.  What do you guys think?  What factors should I be considering?  What have other done and why?......?

Thanks in advance :)

[TexasRunner]

What do you guys think?

Any way you can make some passive income during the summers off?  Side gig?  Why not try for the best of both worlds?

[cosine88]

To me, a big part of the frugal path is to save expenses on the things you don't actually care about, so that you can do the things you really want.

I spent my early twenties traveling and going climbing, and am very happy I did. Those trips just aren't the same when you are older.

One way to look at it is that you are just "switching" the years that you work. Instead of working from 48-55 aggressively, you spend those years enjoying life and the following years working.

You can do most desk or academic jobs when you are 60, but if it's some fun physical activity, your window might have passed.

[WalkaboutStache]

You can do most desk or academic jobs when you are 60, but if it's some fun physical activity, your window might have passed.

I don't think your physical activity time has passed.  You are probably past your peak, but there is a fair amount that you can do.  Possibilities change as you go along, as do tastes.  You may not be able to run and climb with 20-some year olds, but in most cases you will be able to find your pack, people who will challenge you or just go along with you at whatever level you want to go.

Having said that, the physical window does tend to narrow down and you never know when your knees or a weird muscle on your butt that you didn't even know existed will give up the ghost, so your 12 year plan makes sense. 

To get a little more abstract, isn’t the idea to carve out the life you want to live and save for it?  I don’t think that deferring that life makes much sense.  You seem to have come up with a balance between saving and enjoying life without breaking the bank, and you have the luxury of being able to take long vacations. 

You will probably do it once, really enjoy it, then do it again, realize you need to adjust things a little bit, and keep playing and tweaking your plan as you go along.

In my deathbed, I want to be thinking “HOLY SHIT!!!!” instead of “what if…”

[kenaces]

What do you guys think?

Any way you can make some passive income during the summers off?  Side gig?  Why not try for the best of both worlds?

Thanks - I guess I was thinking of summers off since my better half has summers off.  I have thought about doing some kind of side hustle but I don't even know where to start, and at least for now I want to just focus on my main job. 

[kenaces]

If I had scheduling flexibility I would probably take SOME time off in summer, but for travel would try to take advantage of the spring and fall "shoulder seasons" when everything is cheaper (and in some places the weather is even better).  For example, RT flights to China will typically be $1000-1500 during peak summer travel season, but only $400-600 in the spring and fall.  Many European destinations will have similar patterns.

Thanks.  I mostly mentioned summers because my girl is a teacher so we could do some things together.  But there might be some hiking/backpacking trips I do without her.  You are right about the problems with "peak season" travel as we often run into this with her work schedule.

[kenaces]

To me, a big part of the frugal path is to save expenses on the things you don't actually care about, so that you can do the things you really want.

I spent my early twenties traveling and going climbing, and am very happy I did. Those trips just aren't the same when you are older.

One way to look at it is that you are just "switching" the years that you work. Instead of working from 48-55 aggressively, you spend those years enjoying life and the following years working.

You can do most desk or academic jobs when you are 60, but if it's some fun physical activity, your window might have passed.

Thanks.  I also spent a lot of my 20s traveling all over the east coast to rock climb:)  Since moving to FL 3 years ago I really miss the mountains, and want to do some hiking/backpacking trips while I still can. 

[kenaces]

I don't think your physical activity time has passed.  You are probably past your peak, but there is a fair amount that you can do.  Possibilities change as you go along, as do tastes.  You may not be able to run and climb with 20-some year olds, but in most cases you will be able to find your pack, people who will challenge you or just go along with you at whatever level you want to go.

Having said that, the physical window does tend to narrow down and you never know when your knees or a weird muscle on your butt that you didn't even know existed will give up the ghost, so your 12 year plan makes sense. 

To get a little more abstract, isn’t the idea to carve out the life you want to live and save for it?  I don’t think that deferring that life makes much sense.  You seem to have come up with a balance between saving and enjoying life without breaking the bank, and you have the luxury of being able to take long vacations. 

Thanks.  Yeah I am already past my "peak" physical window but I am trying to slow the inevitable slowdown.  It it is funny but true that I do have the luxury.  Funny to me as I am the last person to spend money on luxury items :)

[kenaces]

Seems like you guys agree on my leaning towards the 12 year plan.  I do agree with the sentiment of trying to spend on what is important.  That said switching to savings only ~1k/mo from 2k/mo and knowing it will take me a lot longer to reach FIRE feels a little uncomfortable. 

What are some of the risks/problems/challenges I might encounter on this 12 year plan?  Are their other financial factors I should consider?  Have others make this kind of decision and how do they feel about it?

[MrThatsDifferent]

Since you can make your own schedule, I’d say stick with your 7 year plan, just be a bit more clever about how you do things. Give yourself mini vacations during those off peak times, or add days before and after some holidays (especially Easter). Give yourself 3 & 4 day work weeks so you can have extended weekends. I’m reading the 4 hour work week now, check that out for ideas on how to restructure work to do everything you need to in less time. And what I’d you changed your focus? What if you said: I’m going to achieve my financial goals in 5 years, instead of 7? What would you need to do to make that happen? You’re smart and driven, figure out a way. I’m definitely wouldn’t extend until 60. You can’t get time back. Imagine if you could be free at 53-55, that’s 5-7 extra years! Don’t pass that up.

[draco44]

I also side with the 12 yr, summers off folks, or at least giving yourself some length of annual break.  You ask about risks from the 12-year plan, but one risk from the 7-yr plan that I don't see being called out explicitly is burnout. It's all well and good to promise yourself now that you can work for seven years straight, but the shine might wear off that plan part way through. I think of this is a "sharpen the saw" problem, ala The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/the-7-habits-sharpen-the-saw/. It's good to plan for the reality that you aren't a machine, and will need time to refresh yourself occasionally.  That said, if you want to take something less than a full summer off, maybe you could strike a balance towards a 10 year plan, or something similar. Also, you can always reevaluate your plan later on, and push through one summer if you think that would be best.

To address your question of the risks/problems/challenges of the 12 year plan, I think the biggest one is what you've already identified: it will take longer to get where you want to go financially.  And of course there's always the risk that your job may evaporate in year 8 and you'd have to look for something new.  That could also happen in years 1-7, however, so that's a risk that's likely the same either way.

[WalkaboutStache]

I do that, but on a different schedule.  I worked for a year and a half in my present location, then got asked to do a project in Brazil.  It kept getting extended, and when asked if I could do it part time, I negotiated a deal where I could work remotely.  I then came back “home” put in a couple of years and took 6 months off.  I came back, worked for a couple of years, and was planning another 6 months when my boss asked me to wait a year to help him out of a staffing issue.  I am now about 6-8 months away from another 6 month break.

The one things I would say is that I don’t have my spending dialed in for my sabbaticals.  I tend to spend more liberally than I do at home because it feels like a vacation, but I am getting the hang of that.  Moving in and out of rentals is tricky as well, but I think I will solve that problem next time around by planning to have flatmates when I return.  I am about 2-3 years away from when I can pull the plug on work, so living with other people for a little while won’t kill me.

Also, check this thread out.  Lots and lots of good thoughts in there:

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/post-fire/early-retirement-vs-serial-mini-retirements/

Have fun!

[Kepler]

I've just handed in my notice at a job I dislike, for one that pays less and is slightly less "prestigious", but that offers thirteen weeks a year of paid leave...  It's also in a lower cost of living area, which looks like it ought to more or less balance out the lower salary, and it also allows us to live much closer to a whole range of activities that we enjoy, which we have to travel some distance to access where we are now.  We could desperation FIRE now, if we had to, but we would be taking some risks and imposing some austerity on our kids that they haven't chosen - our preference is to have a bit more slack.  In the job I just handed in notice for, I would need to work 2-3 years for a frugally "comfortable" FIRE, and maybe double that for a confidently safe FIRE.  Moving will slow down those timelines, and also likely mess with our optimisation for a while - it takes time to learn the most efficient ways of living in a new place - but I am estimating that this move will mean that the 2-3 path to FIRE is off the table, but that we will likely still be fine for a 4-6 year path.

If the new role is actually pleasant, I might even be open to working for longer - particularly if I could expand that 13 weeks' leave to 26 weeks (at reduced pay of course).  At the job where I just gave notice, by contrast, there was always a non-negligible risk that I would quit on the spot every time I had to go into the office...  For several years, I have been managing that risk by working from home as much as possible, but a restructure and a change of role was going to make that very difficult in the future, and - as gratifying as it would have been to use some of our FU money to... FU some choice individuals - my preference was to exit in a more controlled fashion...  In the end, I had a choice of positions to move into, and this one seemed to offer the greatest opportunity for extended breaks from work, combined with more possible "lines of flight" if the job or the area doesn't work out and we still need the income - lots more work available in this field than in the area I had been working.

Obviously this kind of thing is very individual, but once we cleared debt and got a decent savings buffer, we have consistently opted for lower incomes and more breaks from work - I took maximum possible maternity leave entitlements, for example, which is a bit frowned on in my line of work, but the entitlement is there, so they couldn't stop me from doing it :-)  I have yet to leave a job where they didn't have to hire multiple people to replace me, so I'm not worried about whether they have gotten value for my salary, leave and all.  But at this point I'm happy to be paid much less in exchange for more control over my time.

[patci32]

13 weeks??? Even in France I only get around 7 :) Where are you from?

[Kepler]

I'm moving to New Zealand for this role, and the composition of some of the leave is not totally free-form - I'm an academic, and 8 weeks of each 13 are "study leave", so the time is meant to be dedicated to research (whether this means data collection or formal study or just catching up on reading in your discipline) and writing.  But that's a large part of why I want a lot of leave to begin with - it's one of the things I like doing with my time - so it's just as good as 13 weeks of annual leave to me.  Better, actually: if I go out of town to read and write, rather than hanging out at my house to do the same, I get paid bonus money - if I go overseas to read and write, the bonus is higher...  I also get a substantial research time allocation as part of my normal workload, and I have particularly light teaching responsibilities in the new role, so the work-life balance will likely be better than my current role regardless, but the accrued leave makes the job hugely attractive.

I think the university is self-conscious about being isolated, in global terms, and just assumes that it can't attract staff from overseas unless they can be guaranteed substantial time away - they were actually convinced I wouldn't accept their offer, since they thought it would seem like a backwater compared to where we're currently based.  We are actually very happy to be in New Zealand - we were wanting to retire there anyway, although not in this specific city - so we're not worried about feeling isolated.  But we likely will travel quite a bit more than we currently do, since the leave arrangements mean that it's sort of leaving money on the table not to travel...  I'm always knocking back overseas invitations where I currently work, so there's no shortage of "academic" justifications to travel to other countries - my current job just doesn't value or facilitate this kind of exposure like the new one will...

So: you could argue that I only get 5 weeks leave - less generous than your 7.  But from my point of view, I get 13, plus active encouragement to take leave in extended blocks, and extra pay when I take it... 

[Catbert]

Also remember that there are numbers between 7 and 12.  Take 2 months off instead of 3 and retire in 10 years.  Or decide year by year how much time to take off - sometimes 3 months, sometimes 6 weeks. 

[honeybbq]

Travel and have fun when you are healthy; you never know what the future will bring.
Hopefully you will have your health AND amazing memories in 12 years.

[AnnaGrowsAMustache]

You're making something into an either/or situation when it isn't.

[AnnaGrowsAMustache]

I'm moving to New Zealand for this role, and the composition of some of the leave is not totally free-form - I'm an academic, and 8 weeks of each 13 are "study leave", so the time is meant to be dedicated to research (whether this means data collection or formal study or just catching up on reading in your discipline) and writing.  But that's a large part of why I want a lot of leave to begin with - it's one of the things I like doing with my time - so it's just as good as 13 weeks of annual leave to me.  Better, actually: if I go out of town to read and write, rather than hanging out at my house to do the same, I get paid bonus money - if I go overseas to read and write, the bonus is higher...  I also get a substantial research time allocation as part of my normal workload, and I have particularly light teaching responsibilities in the new role, so the work-life balance will likely be better than my current role regardless, but the accrued leave makes the job hugely attractive.

I think the university is self-conscious about being isolated, in global terms, and just assumes that it can't attract staff from overseas unless they can be guaranteed substantial time away - they were actually convinced I wouldn't accept their offer, since they thought it would seem like a backwater compared to where we're currently based.  We are actually very happy to be in New Zealand - we were wanting to retire there anyway, although not in this specific city - so we're not worried about feeling isolated.  But we likely will travel quite a bit more than we currently do, since the leave arrangements mean that it's sort of leaving money on the table not to travel...  I'm always knocking back overseas invitations where I currently work, so there's no shortage of "academic" justifications to travel to other countries - my current job just doesn't value or facilitate this kind of exposure like the new one will...

So: you could argue that I only get 5 weeks leave - less generous than your 7.  But from my point of view, I get 13, plus active encouragement to take leave in extended blocks, and extra pay when I take it...

You will need to adjust your numbers. NZ is VERY expensive to live in, compared to the US. I say that as a kiwi. We are a teeny tiny market, thousands of miles from anywhere and nothing is cheap, not even our own products.

[Kepler]

You will need to adjust your numbers. NZ is VERY expensive to live in, compared to the US. I say that as a kiwi. We are a teeny tiny market, thousands of miles from anywhere and nothing is cheap, not even our own products.

I'm not coming from the US, but from some place much more expensive to live in :-)  I've done the numbers fairly carefully - housing in particular is massively less expensive in the specific city we're relocating to.  Most other things are very slightly less expensive - more or less a wash. 

[use2betrix]

Watching this thread slowly as I’m in a somewhat similar boat. I do contract work that are usually 6-18 months and can easily take sabbaticals or push the grind straight through. I’ve been working non-stop crazy hours from around 2009-2016, then took 3 months sabbaticals at the end of 2016 and 2017 and my god were they amazing. While I won’t be turning down super high paying projects for sabbaticals, it has certainly made me more comfortable in turning down mediocre jobs to take more time off.

If you can take full advantages of your sabbaticals then I’d say do it. If you won’t make them worthwhile then I’d keep working.

[kenaces]

Since you can make your own schedule, I’d say stick with your 7 year plan, just be a bit more clever about how you do things. Give yourself mini vacations during those off peak times, or add days before and after some holidays (especially Easter). Give yourself 3 & 4 day work weeks so you can have extended weekends. I’m reading the 4 hour work week now, check that out for ideas on how to restructure work to do everything you need to in less time. And what I’d you changed your focus? What if you said: I’m going to achieve my financial goals in 5 years, instead of 7? What would you need to do to make that happen? You’re smart and driven, figure out a way. I’m definitely wouldn’t extend until 60. You can’t get time back. Imagine if you could be free at 53-55, that’s 5-7 extra years! Don’t pass that up.

Thanks - you are explaining why I am conflicted :)

Your post reminds me of another point that I have been thinking about.  As someone who has been a lifelong saver I am a little concerned that when I hit my "modest" FIRE number at say 56 I would have a hard time actually withdrawing money!

[kenaces]

I also side with the 12 yr, summers off folks, or at least giving yourself some length of annual break.  You ask about risks from the 12-year plan, but one risk from the 7-yr plan that I don't see being called out explicitly is burnout. It's all well and good to promise yourself now that you can work for seven years straight, but the shine might wear off that plan part way through. I think of this is a "sharpen the saw" problem, ala The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/the-7-habits-sharpen-the-saw/. It's good to plan for the reality that you aren't a machine, and will need time to refresh yourself occasionally.  That said, if you want to take something less than a full summer off, maybe you could strike a balance towards a 10 year plan, or something similar. Also, you can always reevaluate your plan later on, and push through one summer if you think that would be best.

To address your question of the risks/problems/challenges of the 12 year plan, I think the biggest one is what you've already identified: it will take longer to get where you want to go financially.  And of course there's always the risk that your job may evaporate in year 8 and you'd have to look for something new.  That could also happen in years 1-7, however, so that's a risk that's likely the same either way.

Thanks - You are right that income level can change with "job" risk.  I think this should be fairly stable for at least 5 years but the future is unknowable :)

Managing the "burnout" is a very real factor for me but I have that pretty well managed at the moment with - good sleep, meditation, exercise, and not working too many hours.  For me the ~12 year plan would be more about having extra money to spend on things that interest me now rather than later(maybe some classes, travel, backpacking/hiking...), and a little less about the time off as I really have a pretty light work schedule.

I have been thinking off/on about getting some kind of side hustle on but very unsure what I would want this to be.  As someone else suggested above maybe there is a way increase my income to point where I can hit FIRE sooner.

[kenaces]

I do that, but on a different schedule.  I worked for a year and a half in my present location, then got asked to do a project in Brazil.  It kept getting extended, and when asked if I could do it part time, I negotiated a deal where I could work remotely.  I then came back “home” put in a couple of years and took 6 months off.  I came back, worked for a couple of years, and was planning another 6 months when my boss asked me to wait a year to help him out of a staffing issue.  I am now about 6-8 months away from another 6 month break.

The one things I would say is that I don’t have my spending dialed in for my sabbaticals.  I tend to spend more liberally than I do at home because it feels like a vacation, but I am getting the hang of that.  Moving in and out of rentals is tricky as well, but I think I will solve that problem next time around by planning to have flatmates when I return.  I am about 2-3 years away from when I can pull the plug on work, so living with other people for a little while won’t kill me.

Also, check this thread out.  Lots and lots of good thoughts in there:

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/post-fire/early-retirement-vs-serial-mini-retirements/

Have fun!

Thanks - I will checkout that link :)

[kenaces]

I've just handed in my notice at a job I dislike, for one that pays less and is slightly less "prestigious", but that offers thirteen weeks a year of paid leave...  It's also in a lower cost of living area, which looks like it ought to more or less balance out the lower salary, and it also allows us to live much closer to a whole range of activities that we enjoy, which we have to travel some distance to access where we are now.  We could desperation FIRE now, if we had to, but we would be taking some risks and imposing some austerity on our kids that they haven't chosen - our preference is to have a bit more slack.  In the job I just handed in notice for, I would need to work 2-3 years for a frugally "comfortable" FIRE, and maybe double that for a confidently safe FIRE.  Moving will slow down those timelines, and also likely mess with our optimisation for a while - it takes time to learn the most efficient ways of living in a new place - but I am estimating that this move will mean that the 2-3 path to FIRE is off the table, but that we will likely still be fine for a 4-6 year path.

If the new role is actually pleasant, I might even be open to working for longer - particularly if I could expand that 13 weeks' leave to 26 weeks (at reduced pay of course).  At the job where I just gave notice, by contrast, there was always a non-negligible risk that I would quit on the spot every time I had to go into the office...  For several years, I have been managing that risk by working from home as much as possible, but a restructure and a change of role was going to make that very difficult in the future, and - as gratifying as it would have been to use some of our FU money to... FU some choice individuals - my preference was to exit in a more controlled fashion...  In the end, I had a choice of positions to move into, and this one seemed to offer the greatest opportunity for extended breaks from work, combined with more possible "lines of flight" if the job or the area doesn't work out and we still need the income - lots more work available in this field than in the area I had been working.

Obviously this kind of thing is very individual, but once we cleared debt and got a decent savings buffer, we have consistently opted for lower incomes and more breaks from work - I took maximum possible maternity leave entitlements, for example, which is a bit frowned on in my line of work, but the entitlement is there, so they couldn't stop me from doing it :-)  I have yet to leave a job where they didn't have to hire multiple people to replace me, so I'm not worried about whether they have gotten value for my salary, leave and all.  But at this point I'm happy to be paid much less in exchange for more control over my time.

Thanks - Congrads on your Demotion :)

I like your "desperation FIRE" phrase, and maybe in a small way I am afraid that my 7yr plan might be a little too close to that if I earned zero in retirement(unlikely).

I made the decision to make less for control of my time many years ago.  If I hadn't done this I might be FIRE now but I still don't regret it!

[kenaces]

Also remember that there are numbers between 7 and 12.  Take 2 months off instead of 3 and retire in 10 years.  Or decide year by year how much time to take off - sometimes 3 months, sometimes 6 weeks.

Yes 100% agree.

[kenaces]

Travel and have fun when you are healthy; you never know what the future will bring.
Hopefully you will have your health AND amazing memories in 12 years.

Thanks

[kenaces]

You're making something into an either/or situation when it isn't.

Thanks - Yes this is true.  I just wanted to think about planning/trade-offs, and mine the collective brain of MMM forums.

[kenaces]

Watching this thread slowly as I’m in a somewhat similar boat. I do contract work that are usually 6-18 months and can easily take sabbaticals or push the grind straight through. I’ve been working non-stop crazy hours from around 2009-2016, then took 3 months sabbaticals at the end of 2016 and 2017 and my god were they amazing. While I won’t be turning down super high paying projects for sabbaticals, it has certainly made me more comfortable in turning down mediocre jobs to take more time off.

If you can take full advantages of your sabbaticals then I’d say do it. If you won’t make them worthwhile then I’d keep working.

Thanks - this is a good heuristic.  I will try to keep that in mind.

[Zikoris]

I think I would do something totally different, actually. But I would need to see some hard numbers - net worth and current spending. If you're 48 and have been doing this for awhile, you likely have a pretty hefty net worth already. What about taking a hard look at your expenses and figuring out a way to make that amount work, and retiring now or very soon instead of either of those options? Then you can do the travel and stuff without constraints.

Of course, if you just started the FIRE thing recently and don't have a solid net worth yet, ignore the above. It would definitely help to look at solid numbers though.

[kenaces]

I think I would do something totally different, actually. But I would need to see some hard numbers - net worth and current spending. If you're 48 and have been doing this for awhile, you likely have a pretty hefty net worth already. What about taking a hard look at your expenses and figuring out a way to make that amount work, and retiring now or very soon instead of either of those options? Then you can do the travel and stuff without constraints.

Of course, if you just started the FIRE thing recently and don't have a solid net worth yet, ignore the above. It would definitely help to look at solid numbers though.

Thanks.  I am not sure why but I am always a little squeamish about sharing too much personal $$ stuff online.  But to give you a little frame of reference I really don't make much but I have no complaints as I don't work that many hours either.  So I don't make a big income.  Good news is I don't spend much either(less than $1500 most months).  So while I can(plan to trim a few expenses(cheaper cell phone/or no cell phone), I don't think there is much room on the expense side of the equation(at least that would be acceptable to my wife).

If I really went after FIRE as #1 goal I could likely do it in even less than 7 years.  I am not willing to put in that many hours as I am enjoying my free time too much at the moment :)  But like I mentioned above I am feeling conflicted about all of this so maybe If I know I am taking big junk of time off in summers I will do a better job of putting in the grind, and earning more during the rest of the year?

[Kepler]

Thanks - Congrads on your Demotion :)

I like your "desperation FIRE" phrase, and maybe in a small way I am afraid that my 7yr plan might be a little too close to that if I earned zero in retirement(unlikely).

I made the decision to make less for control of my time many years ago.  If I hadn't done this I might be FIRE now but I still don't regret it!

Yeah, our "desperation FIRE" figure probably wouldn't count as "FIRE" really, for most people - it's just the point at which, if I happened to storm out of the office and never again got another /comparable/ job, and we fell into a worst-case of finding only sporadic part-time minimum wage work between the two of us, we'd still be okay.  We were okay with this as an FU option if it came to it, but it's certainly /easier/ to FIRE properly by shifting to the lower-workload job.

Part of me is worried because I've had an earlier career shift where I went from a dreadful employer - who "kindly" set up a cot for me in a closet so that I wouldn't "have to" go home between overlong shifts - to an even worse one (bullying staff to cover up fraud against the government), where I spent a miserable three months collecting evidence of illegal activity to take to their board, and then handed in the evidence, and my resignation, with nothing actually lined up...  So, although the job I'm about to take seems genuinely much better than my current one, there's part of me that is preparing for this to be a similar mistake :-)  But our calculation is that we are desperation FIRE now, and we will still be at least desperation FIRE if the new employer is catastrophic - but we will be better off by, at least, a paid relocation to the country we were planning to end up in anyway... 

But I do understand the worry about cutting it too close - I am similar in age to you, so there's not as much time to course correct for us as there will be for many on this board.  I've always been frugal, but didn't have the income side of FIRE until relatively late in life, and then had a major setback with a partner secretly blowing my original stash and running up an additional $50K in debt...  To be back where we can desperation FIRE feels pretty good at this point.  I'd like more slack - but I'm also old enough not to want to defer enjoying my time any longer.  So orchestrating some extended breaks without blowing up my income entirely, feels like a good route to explore.

[Fomerly known as something]

I'm moving to New Zealand for this role, and the composition of some of the leave is not totally free-form - I'm an academic, and 8 weeks of each 13 are "study leave", so the time is meant to be dedicated to research (whether this means data collection or formal study or just catching up on reading in your discipline) and writing.  But that's a large part of why I want a lot of leave to begin with - it's one of the things I like doing with my time - so it's just as good as 13 weeks of annual leave to me.  Better, actually: if I go out of town to read and write, rather than hanging out at my house to do the same, I get paid bonus money - if I go overseas to read and write, the bonus is higher...  I also get a substantial research time allocation as part of my normal workload, and I have particularly light teaching responsibilities in the new role, so the work-life balance will likely be better than my current role regardless, but the accrued leave makes the job hugely attractive.

I think the university is self-conscious about being isolated, in global terms, and just assumes that it can't attract staff from overseas unless they can be guaranteed substantial time away - they were actually convinced I wouldn't accept their offer, since they thought it would seem like a backwater compared to where we're currently based.  We are actually very happy to be in New Zealand - we were wanting to retire there anyway, although not in this specific city - so we're not worried about feeling isolated.  But we likely will travel quite a bit more than we currently do, since the leave arrangements mean that it's sort of leaving money on the table not to travel...  I'm always knocking back overseas invitations where I currently work, so there's no shortage of "academic" justifications to travel to other countries - my current job just doesn't value or facilitate this kind of exposure like the new one will...

So: you could argue that I only get 5 weeks leave - less generous than your 7.  But from my point of view, I get 13, plus active encouragement to take leave in extended blocks, and extra pay when I take it...

You will need to adjust your numbers. NZ is VERY expensive to live in, compared to the US. I say that as a kiwi. We are a teeny tiny market, thousands of miles from anywhere and nothing is cheap, not even our own products.

Maybe in your money.  But I actually found NZ to be inexpensive with the currency exchange rate from the US $ in 2017.  I got an automatic 30% off with everything I bought.

[AnnaGrowsAMustache]

You might have got an effective 30% off the ticket price of anything in NZ, but you're still paying 4 times the price for a loaf of bread compared to the USA. The fact is that you can buy NZ butter cheaper in Australia than in NZ.

To be fair, bread in NZ is actual bread, not wheat based sponge with an oddly low nutritional value despite the added corn syrup.