I think some people are still a bit stuck on retirement being focused entirely on productivity dropping to 0.
Well, yes, people are stuck on that definition of reirement, because that's the definition of retirement. The other is a career change.
Thanks James. I fully intend to retire early without depending on an income-producing hobby or part-time job, otherwise I would be considering it as a career change. If I wanted a career change, I could have done that years ago when I was semi-FI. My main plan is to pursue volunteering and charity work, domestic, and international travel, exercise and read, and possibly pursue courses in Economics. I do not plan on buying RE or keeping up a regular job, I would prefer to work just as long as it takes to hit whatever magical number my lifespan requires to provide an inflation adjusted 40,000 a year lifestyle. I could just as easily work 5-10 more years and save up a second million (assuming the markets cooperate over that time). I'm going to be disappointed if I retire, hit a bear market 5 years in, not have an appreciable income from bonds, and end up living off of 20,000 a year for 5 years waiting for my portfolio to recover. I'll also be disappointed if I'm 70 years old, have millions of extra dollars that I'll never spend, and have essentially 'wasted' that 5-10 extra years working. As they say, no-one is on their deathbed bragging they had worked a few more years than they needed to.
I am at a point where I have all of the pieces in place to make a decision, and suddenly realize how difficult it is. I'm blogging about it as I work through if I am retiring too early, but also justifying to myself that early retirement can be an optimal and efficient decision (because of RMD's, taxes, ACA, etc. which become inefficient if you didn't need a huge portfolio to meet your spending).
When people say, meh, this 4% rule is as good as it gets and I'll just go back to work if the market tanks, I wonder what those people would do if they met their net worth goals and were deciding today if they should retire early. I'm guessing they just plan to worry about this later. Will we all have 'one more year syndrome'? With all of the research I'm doing, early retirement is a growing but still fairly new trend. It turns out that most people still have retirement happen to them, there's a clear moment (death in the family, health issue, IPO windfall, etc.). Most people don't have a good job and are waltzing along, but decide they have 'enough' and make the decision themself to retire... I do think that professionals in the generations ahead will have more and more opportunities to pursue early retirement if they choose, and that this 4% rule will be very important to understand. For now, I think we're in a bridge period where 30 and 40 year old early retirees have just about a workable 4% SWR, but do a career change downshift (to landlord, blogging, etc.). That's cool too, but it isn't my plan.