Thanks again for all the replies. This is really helpful for me. I'll reply to comments sequentially, quoted.
... remote schooling opportunities out there ...
I thought about this and I don't think remote school is for me. However, it is an excellent option so it's not 100% off the table.
I live in Austin, TX and my plan is to do this: attend Community College for the cheaper tuition and the direct pipeline to transfer to UT Austin (a fairly prestigious public research university, esp. in math). In-state tuition at UT Austin is also quite cheap, it's honestly a remarkable deal the more I've thought about it given the quality of the education.
This would accomplish a few things: ACC is cheap and it wouldn't be a big loss for me if I got a semester or two in and decided it was a mistake. Additionally, ACC has many internet-based courses. So even though I think I might not like remote learning, I can still try it there for the courses that implement it. That leaves me with a lot of flexibility (including deciding to go from ACC to some other entirely-online public university).
You sound burned out so I wouldn't do this but I actually put in my two weeks before starting school and to my immense surprise my manager actually fought for me to stay with my current company part time with full benefits....maybe you could work something out?
I'm highly valued and I've been with the same group of people and product for > 8 years now. So there isn't just value in my skillset but also my "institutional knowledge". I believe management would try pretty hard to keep me.
However, the parent company has some pretty unusual ideas about management and process that impede my immediate management chain from really being able to do much other than possibly give me slightly different work, maybe a different schedule, etc.
There's a small chance, at my level (I'm one level below the absolute top of the leveling system), they might try to give me more comp to keep me.
Part of my burnout is also systemic problems in the immediate organization; I can't talk about this part very much (but I'm not the only one - we've lost many high performers because they couldn't stand the problems and the problems continue to not be addressed). Another part is that I really do think I need a break and to reevaluate what work I find meaningful (if I were to keep chugging in my career). Part of meaningful work for me is what I'm exploring a bit with the college fantasy.
Thanks for this comment; one of the people I report to I have a very good relationship with and I could imagine, if I wanted to do it this way, there would be interest in problem solving with me. But I need to be sure I would even want to do that, which is why I'm really liking the idea of asking for a sabbatical in February - to give me some time to settle down with the option of coming back to my job.
I’m pretty sure Netflix and Chill is a euphemism for having sex causally.
Coast FIRE is when you let all of your investments grow untouched while earning just enough to cover your spending without additional savings. Or a 0% savings rate and a 0% withdrawal rate. Coast fire at your very high spend of $75,000/year would mean having a job that paid $75,000/year. Not phoning it in on a $200,000/year job.
Millenials (I'm one) certainly use that term colloquially that way. I just haven't been in the dating scene for close to 15 years. I think for many people I've heard use that phrase, they also mean it in a "set it and forget it" sense.
Okay thanks for stating your understanding of Coast FIRE, it matches my understanding of it. I think the prospect of part-time work or reduced stress at my current job would be reasonable (as the other commenter said they were able to do for themselves). I also think supplemental income from contract or consulting work is also a very sensible idea and it could either completely cover the base SWR (and postpone touching the stache) or just help offset SWR.
I'll see if I can put together a sensible path for that and model additional income via this route. I've done consulting and contract work before, tech job markets are tough right now, but it might be easier to pull off as a contractor.
The nice thing about contractor income is that I could do it seasonally, depending on the project. So it doesn't have the same butts in seats commitment that part-time or full-time work comes with.
How secure is your rental? It might be worth putting some thought into what a backup option would cost if this wasn't an option anymore as qualifying for another rental might involve additional hoops with low income but significant assets.
Very good question. I think it's pretty secure right now. The property owner works for the firestation and I believe this is his retirement home and he's just cashflowing our rent to paying down his mortgage. We have an excellent relationship so I don't see this rental going anywhere on us (unlike other rentals that were owned by people with 100's of properties and churned them during the ATX migratory boom).
However, I should still take a peak at the rental market (which is quite favorable in ATX right now) to have an idea for what it would look like if we lost this place and had to move.
Do you have a college to attend in mind? I think you should consider an "R1" university center with high research activity. You seem like you would be a good candidate for research opportunities working directly with faculty as you likely have a lot of professional skills the typical undergraduate lacks. Google 'hidden curriculum' and make it a point to develop a relationship with the faculty in your interest areas.
The job market in academia is not great but it might actually be a good fit for you in math/physics with some tech transfer opportunities. Labs can be very busy but there are still slow seasons and sabbatical opportunities if you want to travel. I work in healthcare administration/policy and getting a PhD in something like cancer research and being a perpetual grad student/postdoc is one of my potential Coast FIRE plans.
Yes, I plan to attend ACC for cheap tuition to fulfill as many prereqs and first and second year courses as I can. Then transfer to UT Austin.
That's great advice, thank you!
Yeah, I think even outside of academia there are good opportunities for people in private research too but I think my heart is more aligned with anything that goes back to the public. The idea of being a grad student as a Coast FIRE approach is interesting because you get paid for it which can either fund your lifestyle or offset SWR. That's another interesting idea to model what that could look like, thanks.
Go. Execute the plan. Don't look back.
First, at $75K/yr and $2.5M, you could very very likely FIRE permanently. You have enough $$ to get you to SS age even if your investments never earn another dime -- and once SS kicks in, that will cover a significant chunk of your costs, so you will need even less. And you have significant capacity to reduce a bunch of your excess discretionary expenses once the stress of the daily grind goes away (decision fatigue is a real thing; the more demanding my work gets, the more my bad habits take over). Also: college is not going to be nearly as all-encompassing as working at a startup, and at your age you won't be spending that extra free time at frat parties ;-), so you can use that time to exercise that frugality muscle and re-develop all those good habits.
Second, there is no question whatsoever that you have earned the right to a sabbatical. You have busted your ass for over a decade and a half, and OMG what a great job you've done in both getting to a very high salary/stock/etc. level and not inflating your expenses to meet that massive salary. You have done what you need to to set yourself up for a life that does not require sacrificing everything to a job that you're burned out from. You have earned the right to focus on something just because it interests you.
Third, yes, it's great if you have some idea of what you want to do with your degree, once you get it. But FWIW, I don't think that's necessary. I would definitely advise young kids to think about jobs and salaries when they go to college; in fact, I have advised both my kids to do so. But that's not you. You don't have to work another day in your life if you don't want to. You can afford to go to college simply because you are interested in the subject matter, even if you never "use" the degree in any way.
Fourth, from what you've said, that's not really going to happen anyway. You are driven and entrepreneurial, and you have chosen potential degrees that would clearly provide multiple future employment paths (I mean, it's not like you're focusing on 14th C. Russian art, you know?). So instead, I'm going to tell you what I told my son this past weekend at college dropoff: try different stuff, see what interests you the most, and go with that.* One thing that college can do is to expose you to a lot of new ideas and interests that you didn't know about before, and you can use that to develop relationships with professors, get involved in research, get internships, and end up in a career path that you never even thought about before.** Again, the fields you are looking into will offer many potential career opportunities -- assuming you do, in fact, want to go back to work at all -- and so you can afford to pursue whichever of those areas grabs your interest.
Fifth: don't scrimp on therapy, either physical or mental, just to cut costs. You are all you have, and your top priority is to keep all of you healthy. If you find you just can't make ends meet, sure, cut back, but that's a couple of years from now.
Well done, and good luck!
Laura, this is a very encouraging and sweet response. Thank you.
First, at $75K/yr and $2.5M, you could very very likely FIRE permanently.
Yes, I've been modeling things like crazy (and digging into ERN's spreadsheets with my own numbers) and 3% SWR on $2.5MM -> $75k/year has a 0.00% failure rate (backtesting, not montecarlo). My logic behind the 3% SWR is to hedge against Sequence Risk a bit but I believe the portfolio could sustain up-to 3.75% SWR -> $93k.
I've gone further and modeled what a CAPE-based variable withdrawal rate would look like too and it
very closely matches my first instinct to come down to an initial 3% SWR: the worst decades required a SWR of 2.94% and the best decades permitted the ceiling: 12%. I would not go that high but I believe this plan is very solid.
It does require bringing expenses down into alignment. Which, I have a strong motivation to do now over the next six months.
... once SS kicks in, that will cover a significant chunk of your costs ...
Yes, I modeled this using SSA's calculator and stopping earnings in February which gives me a max benefit (today's dollars) of $31k. Lopping some of that off as some things could change in the future (politically or demographically), I modeled with $25k.
That addition took a very safe 3.25% SWR to 3.41%. Which is notable. So I could probably take that adjustment and add it to my initial 3% and still be extremely safe.
And you have significant capacity to reduce a bunch of your excess discretionary expenses once the stress of the daily grind goes away (decision fatigue is a real thing; the more demanding my work gets, the more my bad habits take over). Also: college is not going to be nearly as all-encompassing as working at a startup, and at your age you won't be spending that extra free time at frat parties ;-), so you can use that time to exercise that frugality muscle and re-develop all those good habits.
That's precisely what I was thinking. Decision fatigue and coping through spending really contribute a lot, even despite strong efforts.
Your words about college not being all-encompassing are very encouraging. I asked my math tutor the same question and he basically said the same thing you have, that comment is what kicked off seriously thinking about making the college fantasy real.
Second, there is no question whatsoever that you have earned the right to a sabbatical. You have busted your ass for over a decade and a half, and OMG what a great job you've done in both getting to a very high salary/stock/etc. level and not inflating your expenses to meet that massive salary. You have done what you need to to set yourself up for a life that does not require sacrificing everything to a job that you're burned out from. You have earned the right to focus on something just because it interests you.
Thank you very much for these words. They are landing. I'm going to keep this comment in my motivational quotes document :)
One thing that college can do is to expose you to a lot of new ideas and interests that you didn't know about before, and you can use that to develop relationships with professors, get involved in research, get internships, and end up in a career path that you never even thought about before.
... this is precisely why I think purely remote college isn't for me. I actually want to be in the milieu (not for the "college experience" as-in partying or reliving my twenties but to be surrounded by other people seriously focused on what they are learning and talking about other ideas, research, etc.)
don't scrimp on therapy, either physical or mental, just to cut costs.
Thanks for the encouragement here. I've spent 5 years in weekly therapy and my girlfriend is a therapist herself; I don't think I'll be ending with my therapist but I do feel like I've reached the point where I want to reduce frequency, which is also in alignment with my need to bring consumption rate down.
Mental and physical health and spending on that is one reason why expenses have been elevated but it has been deeply worth it the last four years and I have a strong foundation (I rehabilitated a torn labrum in my left hip, I can now squat heavy without pain; in therapy I've done a lot of very important work, I'm a totally different person emotionally than I was four years ago...)
