The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Post-FIRE => Topic started by: thriftyc on June 06, 2018, 12:23:47 AM
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ER'd Mustachnians: Do any of you have any regrets, or 2nd guessed your decision to fire? Haunted by what if thoughts etc?
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There are numerous regrets about my career. Mostly stuff I wish I’d done better and occasionally people I wish I’d shot. But mostly I wish I could’ve FIRE’d earlier.
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ER'd Mustachnians: Do any of you have any regrets, or 2nd guessed your decision to fire? Haunted by what if thoughts etc?
The only regret I've heard from those I've known who ER'ed (granted, with pensions) is that they didn't do it sooner.
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ER'd Mustachnians: Do any of you have any regrets, or 2nd guessed your decision to fire? Haunted by what if thoughts etc?
The only regret I've heard from those I've known who ER'ed (granted, with pensions) is that they didn't do it sooner.
Add me to that count, should have ER'd (with my pension) sooner, before the kids got older and moved out/into high school and reduced the "value" of being a SAHD.
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I had cancer in my early twenties. I knew then that I wanted to retire early. My dad retired at 50, but he did so with a government pension. It took until I was 54 to actually make it happen, for a number of reasons, primarily health insurance. If the internet and personal finance blogs had come along sooner, it wouldn't have taken me so long.
So no real regrets, just that I would have loved to hit FIRE sooner.
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My only regret is that I wasn't smart enough about things to have done sooner. I made it and spent it but had some good times and still was able to fire by 50 so the word regret might be a little strong.
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Two years into it, I don't regret doing it, but I regret letting my family know. I had no clue the extent to which they would view me as their personal on call servant/home care health worker, like if work doesn't own me, everyone's free to claim my time except myself.
My sibling who didn't manage her finances as well and is still working, I guess my parents' plan is to reward her with total freedom and to saddle me with permanent responsibility for watching my mom with dementia while dad's in the hospital and then residential rehab or hospice depending how this goes. And then I'm under orders to move my mom to my state against her will to live near me so my golden years can be spent caring for her.
I'm so angry and filled with resentment, especially since when their parents (my grandparents) were all dealing with lingering deaths from cancer or dementia that lasted decades, my parents didn't lift a finger to help with day to day care, they traveled the world enjoying their own early retirement and dumped the responsibility on their siblings (who were all still working full time jobs).
My husband Fire'd in April, I'm about a thousand miles away from him right now living in a freaking retirement community with my mother at the moment with no specific end date. It's the third time in the two years I've been retired I've been told "get a one way plane ticket tomorrow to come down here, you might be here a few weeks".
I would have been happier just working in a lot of ways - and it's not like they can't afford to hire full time care for my mom, she just refuses to acknowledge she needs it so this is their easy way out. I feel like I'm gonna punch out a window though every time they tell someone I'm down here on a vacation.
IF YOU DO IT, DON'T TELL YOUR FAMILY UNLESS YOU REALLY WANT TO BE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF.
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Two years into it, I don't regret doing it, but I regret letting my family know. I had no clue the extent to which they would view me as their personal on call servant/home care health worker, like if work doesn't own me, everyone's free to claim my time except myself.
My sibling who didn't manage her finances as well and is still working, I guess my parents' plan is to reward her with total freedom and to saddle me with permanent responsibility for watching my mom with dementia while dad's in the hospital and then residential rehab or hospice depending how this goes. And then I'm under orders to move my mom to my state against her will to live near me so my golden years can be spent caring for her.
I'm so angry and filled with resentment, especially since when their parents (my grandparents) were all dealing with lingering deaths from cancer or dementia that lasted decades, my parents didn't lift a finger to help with day to day care, they traveled the world enjoying their own early retirement and dumped the responsibility on their siblings (who were all still working full time jobs).
My husband Fire'd in April, I'm about a thousand miles away from him right now living in a freaking retirement community with my mother at the moment with no specific end date. It's the third time in the two years I've been retired I've been told "get a one way plane ticket tomorrow to come down here, you might be here a few weeks".
I would have been happier just working in a lot of ways - and it's not like they can't afford to hire full time care for my mom, she just refuses to acknowledge she needs it so this is their easy way out. I feel like I'm gonna punch out a window though every time they tell someone I'm down here on a vacation.
IF YOU DO IT, DON'T TELL YOUR FAMILY UNLESS YOU REALLY WANT TO BE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF.
@Jakejake, oh wow! I'm a caregiver for my MIL who has ALZ and lives with us. I had literally met her once before DH and I eloped. Three weeks later, DH's dad died and we realized there was a problem. That was over 5 years ago.
This makes me perhaps more qualified than most here to do this: Sorry, but you're desperately in need of a face punch. As kind and gentle a face punch as possible, but still a face punch. No one can take advantage of you unless you let them! You need to dig deep and figure out why you are allowing them to manipulate you. This hair shirt you are wearing needs to be shed. You might want to consider a little bit of counselling to figure out why you are letting your parents literally shit on you. This is NOT okay, and it's clearly not good for your health or your marriage. This is serious "Put on your air mask first time."
Shocking as this sounds, this problem is NOT about being FIRE. The dynamics that allow them to play you like this exist whether you are working or not. You must learn how to defend yourself. Otherwise, the danger of losing yourself down their rabbit hole is real.
YOU CAN DO THIS!
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Dealing with family relations can be an eye opener. I had a cousin who would maybe speak to me once every blue moon. Then she starts being super nice and friendly. I am thinking this is weird. Then she needs money. I tell her not in the budget for her. Now she refuses to speak to me. Her phone has no voice mail, so I mailed her a letter. Nothing. So I am cut off I guess.
Same with a brother. So these people could care less, they only want money.
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and it's not like they can't afford to hire full time care for my mom
That's really awesome. Help them set that up and go home. A good kid makes sure their parent is not placed in a dangerous situation. A good kid does not ruin their own life.
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Two years into it, I don't regret doing it, but I regret letting my family know. I had no clue the extent to which they would view me as their personal on call servant/home care health worker, like if work doesn't own me, everyone's free to claim my time except myself.
My sibling who didn't manage her finances as well and is still working, I guess my parents' plan is to reward her with total freedom and to saddle me with permanent responsibility for watching my mom with dementia while dad's in the hospital and then residential rehab or hospice depending how this goes. And then I'm under orders to move my mom to my state against her will to live near me so my golden years can be spent caring for her.
I'm so angry and filled with resentment, especially since when their parents (my grandparents) were all dealing with lingering deaths from cancer or dementia that lasted decades, my parents didn't lift a finger to help with day to day care, they traveled the world enjoying their own early retirement and dumped the responsibility on their siblings (who were all still working full time jobs).
My husband Fire'd in April, I'm about a thousand miles away from him right now living in a freaking retirement community with my mother at the moment with no specific end date. It's the third time in the two years I've been retired I've been told "get a one way plane ticket tomorrow to come down here, you might be here a few weeks".
I would have been happier just working in a lot of ways - and it's not like they can't afford to hire full time care for my mom, she just refuses to acknowledge she needs it so this is their easy way out. I feel like I'm gonna punch out a window though every time they tell someone I'm down here on a vacation.
IF YOU DO IT, DON'T TELL YOUR FAMILY UNLESS YOU REALLY WANT TO BE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF.
Is there any way you could tell them you have to go back to work? (Without saying, “for myself, doing what I want to do.”?).
This is really insightful advice not to tell family because I could see my extended family absolutely doing this to me like they have with non-FIRE retired members of the family. It sucks, and it’s unfair. I’m sorry you got saddled with everything, because in a lot of ways that kind of caregiving is much worse than a 9-5.
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Dealing with family relations can be an eye opener. I had a cousin who would maybe speak to me once every blue moon. Then she starts being super nice and friendly. I am thinking this is weird. Then she needs money. I tell her not in the budget for her. Now she refuses to speak to me. Her phone has no voice mail, so I mailed her a letter. Nothing. So I am cut off I guess.
Same with a brother. So these people could care less, they only want money.
Yikes. That’s rough. How much did you tell them about your finances/situation?
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Dealing with family relations can be an eye opener. I had a cousin who would maybe speak to me once every blue moon. Then she starts being super nice and friendly. I am thinking this is weird. Then she needs money. I tell her not in the budget for her. Now she refuses to speak to me. Her phone has no voice mail, so I mailed her a letter. Nothing. So I am cut off I guess.
Same with a brother. So these people could care less, they only want money.
Yikes. That’s rough. How much did you tell them about your finances/situation?
I told them I retired. Nothing else.
Kinda regretting telling them the truth.
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Dealing with family relations can be an eye opener. I had a cousin who would maybe speak to me once every blue moon. Then she starts being super nice and friendly. I am thinking this is weird. Then she needs money. I tell her not in the budget for her. Now she refuses to speak to me. Her phone has no voice mail, so I mailed her a letter. Nothing. So I am cut off I guess.
Same with a brother. So these people could care less, they only want money.
Yikes. That’s rough. How much did you tell them about your finances/situation?
I told them I retired. Nothing else.
Kinda regretting telling them the truth.
That’s rough, especially when true colors are shown with people you should feel close to. I don’t know what I’d tell people, but I’m a long way off from FIRE. If you could have done it differently, what would you have told them?
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That’s rough, especially when true colors are shown with people you should feel close to. I don’t know what I’d tell people, but I’m a long way off from FIRE. If you could have done it differently, what would you have told them?
Probably I work from home now.
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Two years into it, I don't regret doing it, but I regret letting my family know. I had no clue the extent to which they would view me as their personal on call servant/home care health worker, like if work doesn't own me, everyone's free to claim my time except myself.
My sibling who didn't manage her finances as well and is still working, I guess my parents' plan is to reward her with total freedom and to saddle me with permanent responsibility for watching my mom with dementia while dad's in the hospital and then residential rehab or hospice depending how this goes. And then I'm under orders to move my mom to my state against her will to live near me so my golden years can be spent caring for her.
I'm so angry and filled with resentment, especially since when their parents (my grandparents) were all dealing with lingering deaths from cancer or dementia that lasted decades, my parents didn't lift a finger to help with day to day care, they traveled the world enjoying their own early retirement and dumped the responsibility on their siblings (who were all still working full time jobs).
My husband Fire'd in April, I'm about a thousand miles away from him right now living in a freaking retirement community with my mother at the moment with no specific end date. It's the third time in the two years I've been retired I've been told "get a one way plane ticket tomorrow to come down here, you might be here a few weeks".
I would have been happier just working in a lot of ways - and it's not like they can't afford to hire full time care for my mom, she just refuses to acknowledge she needs it so this is their easy way out. I feel like I'm gonna punch out a window though every time they tell someone I'm down here on a vacation.
IF YOU DO IT, DON'T TELL YOUR FAMILY UNLESS YOU REALLY WANT TO BE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF.
@Jakejake, oh wow! I'm a caregiver for my MIL who has ALZ and lives with us. I had literally met her once before DH and I eloped. Three weeks later, DH's dad died and we realized there was a problem. That was over 5 years ago.
This makes me perhaps more qualified than most here to do this: Sorry, but you're desperately in need of a face punch. As kind and gentle a face punch as possible, but still a face punch. No one can take advantage of you unless you let them! You need to dig deep and figure out why you are allowing them to manipulate you. This hair shirt you are wearing needs to be shed. You might want to consider a little bit of counselling to figure out why you are letting your parents literally shit on you. This is NOT okay, and it's clearly not good for your health or your marriage. This is serious "Put on your air mask first time."
Shocking as this sounds, this problem is NOT about being FIRE. The dynamics that allow them to play you like this exist whether you are working or not. You must learn how to defend yourself. Otherwise, the danger of losing yourself down their rabbit hole is real.
YOU CAN DO THIS!
Wow, what Dicey said -- you gotta draw a line in the sand and shrug off that guilt.
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I would have been happier just working in a lot of ways - and it's not like they can't afford to hire full time care for my mom, she just refuses to acknowledge she needs it so this is their easy way out. ...
Is there any way you could tell them you have to go back to work? (Without saying, “for myself, doing what I want to do.”?).
If they can hire care for your mother and if you can set that up, that would be good.
Could you maybe find a very part-time job? For example, if you had to work on Wednesdays (only), you would still have 6-day weekends, but you would not be free to leave for weeks on end. You could just say that you're working part-time because retirement wasn't quite working out for you and you thought the extra income would be nice. You'd still be able to go see your parents and help out a bit but not indefinitely.
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I'm a caregiver for my MIL who has ALZ and lives with us. I had literally met her once before DH and I eloped. Three weeks later, DH's dad died and we realized there was a problem. That was over 5 years ago.
This makes me perhaps more qualified than most here to do this: Sorry, but you're desperately in need of a face punch. As kind and gentle a face punch as possible, but still a face punch. No one can take advantage of you unless you let them! You need to dig deep and figure out why you are allowing them to manipulate you. This hair shirt you are wearing needs to be shed. You might want to consider a little bit of counselling to figure out why you are letting your parents literally shit on you. This is NOT okay, and it's clearly not good for your health or your marriage. This is serious "Put on your air mask first time."
Shocking as this sounds, this problem is NOT about being FIRE. The dynamics that allow them to play you like this exist whether you are working or not. You must learn how to defend yourself. Otherwise, the danger of losing yourself down their rabbit hole is real.
I was reading all this on my phone in the hospital room today, but it's a pain to type lengthy posts on the cell phone - sorry for the lack of response.
I'm not sure whether to defend myself or thank you for the face punch. In my defense - after round two of this I tried not to be a doormat. I bullied them into selling their house and moving to this retirement community which has independent living, where they are, and assisted living and memory care, so they'd have progressing levels of support. They refused to move near me or my sister because dad has hayfever. I thought this would work, there are meals provided and housekeeping and a doctor on site, and options to upgrade care when needed. I thought I had taken care of it til this all happened again. So yeah, now I see my mom without dad's daily supervision needs assisted living but I can't move their entire household without knowing dad's prognosis.
But reading your post did light a new fire under my butt. I snuck out to the nurse's desk after reading it and they found a hospital social worker for me, who printed out a list of home assistance providers, and for $3k a month, they can give my mom assistance for 4 hours a day. $3k is nothing for them, they FI/RED at 47 and their net worth has been going up, not down since then. We have an appointment set for tomorrow noon with one of the companies who might be able to start as soon as tomorrow to give me a day of overlap before the weekend so I can give them the lay of the land, and then I can fly home this weekend. So --- THANK YOU for the facial bruises!
But you. How are you doing? You've been doing caretaking for a MIL you had just met for 5 years now??? Do you need face punches? Do you have enough support?
Is there any way you could tell them you have to go back to work? (Without saying, “for myself, doing what I want to do.”?).
I'm going to talk through this with my husband when I get home, it's a good idea and one I hadn't considered. For all the rest of you - yeah, at least do this. I could have said "I'm cutting back my hours" and not mentioned I was cutting them back to zero and saved myself a lot of grief.
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Oh Jakejake, that's a great update! Despite the face punch [albeit gentle] I passed out, your original post made me so sad. This news is much better. I hope things continue to improve. 《HUGS》
My MIL is crazy healthy, so I have it much easier. Plus DH and his son are here to help, so we manage as a team. I did take MIL to check out a Senior Day Care Center this week. We've been prepping her by telling her she was going to be going to Summer Camp. We toured the place and it was fine, but I could tell she was pissed. Couldn't figure out why until I realized she thought it was "sleep away camp", not "day camp". Now that we've got that figured out, I have hope. Lots of tests to do and mountains of paperwork to complete, plus three assessments, including a home visit, to get through. Fingers crossed.
Speaking of facial bruises, I saw a friend at a luncheon today. Her 95 lb. dog pulled her off her feel and she face planted
straight into the street. It's been nine days and she still looks a fright. My first thought on seeing her colorful mug was, "Wow, some facepunch." At least she didn't break any bones.
Have a safe flight home!
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Thanks for the thread! This is also a facepunch for me to remember for two reasons:
- I have the one area code rule with my family, we must be at least one area code away. A couple hour drive, not a problem. 15 minutes away, you're at their every calling.
- I'm going to have to think carefully about what I say publicly given the amount of fiscal irresponsibility in my family. Early retiree will be viewed as too obnoxious for them.
Congrats on the hospital social worker conversation, good work @Jakejake
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- I have the one area code rule with my family, we must be at least one area code away. A couple hour drive, not a problem. 15 minutes away, you're at their every calling.
Hahah, I love that rule. My wife and I live at least an 8 hour drive from the closest family, and it's a double edged sword. While I regret that our kids don't see their grandparents or cousins very often, at least we're not sucked into the endless family drama. I know that if we lived in the same town we'd constantly be expected to bail out family members from self-inflicted problems -- financial and otherwise. This probably sounds a bit callous, but every time we get off the phone with one of our parents or siblings after hearing the latest drama, my wife and I talk about how thankful we are that we live so far from it all.
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Nope. The bull market helps significantly though. I'd probably think a bit differently if the market had moved the other direction.
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My only regret was thinking we could change everything when we FIRE'd. We moved to another state, planned to build a house, and attempted to start a family. I ended up having panic attacks and in therapy. That's not a grip against FIRE, though, merely my emotionless engineer mind that thought doing all that at once would be no problem. I've gotten over my issues though and FIRE is great. My wife joins me in 3 weeks and the real fun begins.
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Only two regrets:
1) I didn't know about these concepts at age 30 so I could have FIRED 10 to 15 years ago.
2) OMY wasn't really needed, but we did it.
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My six months of FIRE hasn't been easy for me (see this thread for more info: https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/post-fire/difficult-fire-decompressiontransition-anyone/), but even with all that, I have no regrets at all.
I'd be dealing with detoxing/decompressing whenever I did finally retire; there's no avoiding paying that piper. Now I get to get that out of the way ASAP, and then settle down to enjoying life more.
It is lovely being able to grocery shop whenever, not being in a hurry when we hit traffic slowdowns and roadwork, and generally enjoying binge watching whatever the hell I want. My world is expanding and becoming gentler, slowing down, getting more peaceful. It was a really hard transition to make, leaving a job I'd mostly enjoyed -- change is hard -- but I am very glad now that I did it.
I wouldn't be surprised if I take on more paid work of some sort at some point. But I wouldn't be surprised if I don't. Life is quiet. I like quiet.
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I reckon most of us here are used to being super productive work machines, that is one main reason why we are able to fire in the first place. To switch that off is sometimes not easy. Combine that with the expectations of North American work culture of retire at 65 or beyond. This is something I have been working through and trying to prepare for myself.
That said, part of my fire plan is to do work I enjoy, whether its a fun part time job, or start an online business of sorts. Just to stay sharp, while having much more bandwidth in life to do things I enjoy, and spend time with people I care about.
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I reckon most of us here are used to being super productive work machines,
Work machines, most who spend multiple hours per day at work doing non-work activities:
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/how-much-time-do-you-actually-spend-working-at-work/
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I reckon most of us here are used to being super productive work machines,
Work machines, most who spend multiple hours per day at work doing non-work activities:
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/how-much-time-do-you-actually-spend-working-at-work/
Yep most of us are posting here
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This thread is super useful. Both the family aspect and I wish it was sooner. I'ma at a crossroads. We've hit over 750k invested and it's gonna snow ball doesn't really matter how much more we make or save at this point it'll hit 2MM fire goal easily. Going to be doing some thought studies this year on how to downshift sooner.
I'd be interested to see how many people may have been able to accomplish doing solely the areas of their job they love bc I love parts of my job and hate others. And I can add value to both my clients and my company by only billing and doing work in the areas I actually enjoy.
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This thread is super useful. Both the family aspect and I wish it was sooner. I'ma at a crossroads. We've hit over 750k invested and it's gonna snow ball doesn't really matter how much more we make or save at this point it'll hit 2MM fire goal easily. Going to be doing some thought studies this year on how to downshift sooner.
I'd be interested to see how many people may have been able to accomplish doing solely the areas of their job they love bc I love parts of my job and hate others. And I can add value to both my clients and my company by only billing and doing work in the areas I actually enjoy.
I'd say make sure you have at least $100,000 of the net worth in regular taxable investments then do it. Life is too short to do the miserable stuff at work once you don't have to.
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I'd be interested to see how many people may have been able to accomplish doing solely the areas of their job they love bc I love parts of my job and hate others. And I can add value to both my clients and my company by only billing and doing work in the areas I actually enjoy.
Most people think the backlash will be a lot more than it will be for doing this sort of thing.
Very few jobs have crappy work that you have to do or face imminent termination. Many jobs have the opposite, focusing on the things you like result in doing more meaningful things, meaning your employer finds more value in your work.
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My only regret was thinking we could change everything when we FIRE'd. We moved to another state, planned to build a house, and attempted to start a family. I ended up having panic attacks and in therapy. That's not a grip against FIRE, though, merely my emotionless engineer mind that thought doing all that at once would be no problem. I've gotten over my issues though and FIRE is great. My wife joins me in 3 weeks and the real fun begins.
SO MUCH THIS. It's only been very recently that I've grown some mammaries and set down some boundaries, and things have gotten a lot better as a result.
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SO MUCH THIS. It's only been very recently that I've grown some mammaries and set down some boundaries, and things have gotten a lot better as a result.
Nice turn of phrase there. :)
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This thread is super useful. Both the family aspect and I wish it was sooner. I'ma at a crossroads. We've hit over 750k invested and it's gonna snow ball doesn't really matter how much more we make or save at this point it'll hit 2MM fire goal easily. Going to be doing some thought studies this year on how to downshift sooner.
I'd be interested to see how many people may have been able to accomplish doing solely the areas of their job they love bc I love parts of my job and hate others. And I can add value to both my clients and my company by only billing and doing work in the areas I actually enjoy.
I can’t get rid of everything in my day job that I dislike, but over 2 years, I’ve steadily eliminated ~90% of it, and within a year, I expect to get rid of even more. It’s taken time to get the staff that I need to work the way I want to, but we just added a major puzzle piece, so I’m expecting the last big drop in non-preferred tasks, which will be awesome.
In my side hustles, I’ve simply just refused to incorporate any business aspects that I don’t want to do. I thought this would slow down growth because it means passing up on obvious growth opportunities, but it’s had the opposite effect. Because I’ve rejected several obvious routes for growth, it’s made me and my partner have to think far more creatively and as a result, we keep generating less obvious models, which are paying off significantly in differentiating us from the competition and putting us ahead of the curve in a rapidly changing market.
Surprisingly, I’ve actually found that the more I stick to my guns of refusing to do what I don’t want to do, the more productive and valuable I’ve become. I thought that putting my personal well being first would put a drag on my career, but instead it’s boosted it because I no longer waste time and energy doing garbage work, which leaves me with a lot more time and energy to play to my strengths.
I used to think my value as an employee was that I could handle anything and would always do the jobs that no one else wanted to do, and I would do it with a smile on my face...and yes, that made me very valuable in my position and employers would want me to stay in that exact position, forever, doing that shit work with a smile on my face because no one else would ever be willing to replace me and my smiling shit work. I made myself irreplaceable but also completely stuck in a role doing shit forever. I prided myself on my unfailing loyalty and the value that gave me.
Now, the more I only do what I enjoy, the more I get exceptional results, the more valuable I become to employers/clients, and the more negotiating power I have to not do work I don’t want to do. I make my employers/clients astutely aware that I will bail on them in a hot second if I find myself unhappy working with them and that my loyalty is 100% contingent on my needs being met.
I kind of fell into this by accident when an injury forced me to refuse to do a lot of unpleasant work and I had to establish my value despite what I couldn’t do. I thought I was fucked.
I switched from doing what others didn’t want to, to prioritizing what I could excel at, and I was shocked to find that it worked out SO MUCH BETTER for me.
Hopefully shedding the unpleasantness of your work will have similar results for you.
I've started doing that as well. I now prioritize my work by what *I* want to achieve, not what I think the business needs. If I don't want to do it, it goes to the bottom of the priority list. I'm enjoying my work much more now.
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I did a simple exercise at work this year when a counterpart gave me some advice:
Take one sheet of paper, write down on the left side what you don't enjoy and on the right side what you do enjoy.
Just attempt to do as much of the right side as possible and ignore the left when available.
Repeat until the boss tells you to stop
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Two years into it, I don't regret doing it, but I regret letting my family know. I had no clue the extent to which they would view me as their personal on call servant/home care health worker, like if work doesn't own me, everyone's free to claim my time except myself.
My sibling who didn't manage her finances as well and is still working, I guess my parents' plan is to reward her with total freedom and to saddle me with permanent responsibility for watching my mom with dementia while dad's in the hospital and then residential rehab or hospice depending how this goes. And then I'm under orders to move my mom to my state against her will to live near me so my golden years can be spent caring for her.
I'm so angry and filled with resentment, especially since when their parents (my grandparents) were all dealing with lingering deaths from cancer or dementia that lasted decades, my parents didn't lift a finger to help with day to day care, they traveled the world enjoying their own early retirement and dumped the responsibility on their siblings (who were all still working full time jobs).
My husband Fire'd in April, I'm about a thousand miles away from him right now living in a freaking retirement community with my mother at the moment with no specific end date. It's the third time in the two years I've been retired I've been told "get a one way plane ticket tomorrow to come down here, you might be here a few weeks".
I would have been happier just working in a lot of ways - and it's not like they can't afford to hire full time care for my mom, she just refuses to acknowledge she needs it so this is their easy way out. I feel like I'm gonna punch out a window though every time they tell someone I'm down here on a vacation.
IF YOU DO IT, DON'T TELL YOUR FAMILY UNLESS YOU REALLY WANT TO BE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF.
I'm in your position now to, except it's care for my 71 yr old toddler father in law. DH has 4 other siblings and they all threw this on us, with one literally saying, well I can't have him lay around all day in MY house, he'd aggravate me. As in it's TOTALLY OK for him to do that here because "we don't have children" and I'm not working (DH has a few years until his pension kicks in). He lost his shit this past week and called us every name in the book because we sat him down to do a budget. After a year of this DH told him to get the fuck out of our house two days ago. We learned a lot about DHs family this year. Largely that they are all fucking assholes who care about no one but themselves.
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I'm in your position now to, except it's care for my 71 yr old toddler father in law. DH has 4 other siblings and they all threw this on us, with one literally saying, well I can't have him lay around all day in MY house, he'd aggravate me. As in it's TOTALLY OK for him to do that here because "we don't have children" and I'm not working (DH has a few years until his pension kicks in). He lost his shit this past week and called us every name in the book because we sat him down to do a budget. After a year of this DH told him to get the fuck out of our house two days ago. We learned a lot about DHs family this year. Largely that they are all fucking assholes who care about no one but themselves.
If I could give you a big bear hug right now I would. At least my issue was my own parents ... I'm wondering what's up with all the husbands volundrafting their spouses to become home health care/day care workers.
Can you take the advice I got here, to suddenly get yourself employed so that looking after him isn't an option? And once he's out, you can promptly quit the job but not tell your family? If you take a job, then you could possibly call social services (211 in many areas) and get guidance on where to place him if he's not competent or healthy enough to live on his own anymore. Or if his finances are the only problem, they can help with low income housing. And if that pisses him off, so be it. He can ask the other siblings to chip in for an upgrade to his living quarters.
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If I could give you a big bear hug right now I would. At least my issue was my own parents ... I'm wondering what's up with all the husbands volundrafting their spouses to become home health care/day care workers.
Wait, is this a thing? I didn't notice that in MishMash's post -- the only thing she said about her husband is that his siblings are awful and he kicked his father out of the house for bad behavior. I didn't notice it in Dicey's post either. She said she and her husband and son take care of MIL as a team. Did your husband 'volundraft' you to take care of your parents?
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Wait, is this a thing? I didn't notice that in MishMash's post -- the only thing she said about her husband is that his siblings are awful and he kicked his father out of the house for bad behavior. I didn't notice it in Dicey's post either. She said she and her husband and son take care of MIL as a team.
What I meant was that they both somehow got stuck as a long term stay-at-home care taker for their husband's parent. Maybe they both on their own each said "Hey, this is a thing I would really like to do - this is the life I want to have." I was reading between the lines that they both got shoved into that role, but maybe I made some bad assumptions.
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What I meant was that they both somehow got stuck as a long term stay-at-home care taker for their husband's parent. Maybe they both on their own each said "Hey, this is a thing I would really like to do - this is the life I want to have."
Well no, I don't imagine they did say that. And I don't imagine their husbands did either.
I was reading between the lines that they both got shoved into that role, but maybe I made some bad assumptions.
I don't think anyone is ever thrilled about the prospect of taking care of someone with alzheimer's and/or dementia. It can be a miserable thing to go through. I'm not sure I'd make the leap that anyone helping to take care of a spouse's parent must have been forced into it though. In times of need we sometimes have to make sacrifices to support our spouses or others we love. For better or for worse and all that.
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After more contemplation about my situation, and this thread - I had a talk with my daughter today. She's in her 30's, I'm in my early 50's, so we're old enough that we should be talking these things through. I made it clear that we have enough money that she can hire care for me, put me in independent or assisted living with whatever services I need, and she needs to do that completely guilt free rather than feeling obligated to move me into her home when the time comes. We had a good talk about how there are sometimes cultural expectations that family will take care of its own, but also sometimes I think family isn't the best equipped to handle that stuff. We don't have the medical training, the training to know how to lift people properly after a fall, and there is all that baggage of parental/child role reversals. A neutral third party in a professional role has a lot of advantages if you can find one you trust.
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Dicey here. I actually did volunteer, kinda. DH's sister is schizophrenic and not on her meds. She is conniving and smart. She knows how to work the system and is a total mooch. She is not welcome to visit (she actually doesn't know where we live), which is fucking sad, but a must for our sanity and her mother's safety. DH's brother is retired, but he wouldn't have the first clue how to manage his mom's care. He does handle her finances. All I can do is cross my fingers and hope that everything is fine on that front. He will pitch in and help if we are desperate. Average? 3-5 days per year. And yes, he does live nearby and he's her favorite, which MIL makes blatantly clear.
I hated my job, and really was ready to pull the trigger. One little old lady who can't remember If she's had breakfast is a lot easier than dealing with 100 customers in a cutthroat business with a mill that had no clue how to treat their customers decently, so there's that.
What I didn't expect is to be five years in, with no end in sight. She hasn't had so much as a sniffle in all this time. She's getting worse, but it is so gradual, it's pretty hard to tell. I am grateful for the resources I have, but honestly, I am getting tired of this shit, which is totally not her fault.
We are working on getting her into a daycare program - correction, I am working on getting her into a program, which hopefully will save my sanity.
That's probably TMI and I don't know if any actual questions were answered, but it always feels helpful to vent here, so thanks!
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Good for you, Dicey! Daycare for MIL sounds like a great idea.
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If I could give you a big bear hug right now I would. At least my issue was my own parents ... I'm wondering what's up with all the husbands volundrafting their spouses to become home health care/day care workers.
Wait, is this a thing? I didn't notice that in MishMash's post -- the only thing she said about her husband is that his siblings are awful and he kicked his father out of the house for bad behavior. I didn't notice it in Dicey's post either. She said she and her husband and son take care of MIL as a team. Did your husband 'volundraft' you to take care of your parents?
Oh yea I got volundrafted. I quit my job, it was supposed to be for a couple of months, but I ended up getting badly injured and needing spinal surgery last year. So when he moved out here I was supposed to take care of him. Which fine, I get it, I wasn't working. What we DIDN'T know at the time is yea he had a back injury like mine but his was MUCH better. That he had 100k in debt, is quite possibly the laziest human being I've ever met, and despite the rest of his family saying he might have dementia and that he "needs to be rescued" He's TOTALLY with it (per doctors). To top it all off he's sexist as they come.
We thought when he came that he WANTED to change. That he realized living in his own feces and his dogs (literally) was not the way to be. We thought he had come to the realization that he wasn't going to be earning 300k a year anymore and that his income was now 10% and he wanted help adjusting. Nope. Over the past year it has become evident he was just looking for someone to take care of his life for him while he spent outside his means. Like we literally gave him thousands for a debt settlement because he didn't have the cash. What did he do a month later, rack up that SAME amount on a new credit card for one of these pay for investment websites.
The GTFO moment came when we overheard him bitching to someone on the phone about how dare we try to make him live on a budget and how dare we try to do one for him. He doesn't need a budget, he lives day by day. Tossed in that my husband was weak because he doesn't stand up to me in his dads defense (because he agrees with me) and that we've "abused the privilege of having him in our household for long enough". That was the final straw, we bought him a plane ticket and he leaves to go back to living in an extended stay hotel in CA that he can't afford. We've essentially written off DHs entire family for this one.
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Wow. I guess overhearing that conversation was kind of a gift.
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Surprisingly, I’ve actually found that the more I stick to my guns of refusing to do what I don’t want to do, the more productive and valuable I’ve become. I thought that putting my personal well being first would put a drag on my career, but instead it’s boosted it because I no longer waste time and energy doing garbage work, which leaves me with a lot more time and energy to play to my strengths.
...
Now, the more I only do what I enjoy, the more I get exceptional results, the more valuable I become to employers/clients, and the more negotiating power I have to not do work I don’t want to do.
so much this. i was tagged as not being a team player because i prioritized what i wanted to do and learn professionally over sucking up shit and sucking up to shits. all the beyotches (men and women) who carped and carped about how i'm only interested in myself...outlasted, outperformed and out-accomplished every single one of them. that was a happy byproduct of building my strengths to be exceptional rather than working on my weakness to barely make it to mediocre.
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I'm not retired yet but just have moved my folks near is in a CCRC. They are where they need to be for services, etc. My 94yo Dad still insists on driving and my 88yo Mom has beginnings of dementia.
I don't mind putting off retirement a few more years for several reasons:
1. we are the sandwich generation. Our youngest is 21yo and the kids are still boomeranging occasionally, due to life and financial events. I want to keep my earned income awhile longer until they stabilize
2. If I retire, my Mom will expect me to be visiting everyday for every little thing, even though it's a 45min drive each way. It would drive me nuts
My parents have become my biggest source of stress in my life. My Mom is constantly calling during the day spiralling over minor stuff, even though she knows I'm at work. Paranoia has set in also. She is convinced people are stealing things, even though she constantly. Lately, she is missing a coat and is convinced my wife took it and gave it to her Mom. The regular calls about my wife "stealing" is getting old.
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2. If I retire, my Mom will expect me to be visiting everyday for every little thing, even though it's a 45min drive each way.
Some of the best advice I think in this thread is the idea that you can retire and not tell them - so don't let that be the reason you keep working, once you are ready and want to retire. I also think it might be time to let her know management has talked to you about taking personal calls at work, and you have to let her calls go to voicemail during work hours.
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I'm not retired yet but just have moved my folks near is in a CCRC. They are where they need to be for services, etc. My 94yo Dad still insists on driving and my 88yo Mom has beginnings of dementia.
I don't mind putting off retirement a few more years for several reasons:
1. we are the sandwich generation. Our youngest is 21yo and the kids are still boomeranging occasionally, due to life and financial events. I want to keep my earned income awhile longer until they stabilize
2. If I retire, my Mom will expect me to be visiting everyday for every little thing, even though it's a 45min drive each way. It would drive me nuts
My parents have become my biggest source of stress in my life. My Mom is constantly calling during the day spiralling over minor stuff, even though she knows I'm at work. Paranoia has set in also. She is convinced people are stealing things, even though she constantly. Lately, she is missing a coat and is convinced my wife took it and gave it to her Mom. The regular calls about my wife "stealing" is getting old.
This is such a hallmark of this fucking disease! It's just a way of compensating for losing things. Just keep translating "someone stole X" into "Mom can't find X". When my MIL doesn't want to do something - typically grooming related, she always says "I just had it done when I was visiting my sister in [sister's town]." No, you have never visited your sister in [sister's town]. How the hell does she remember where her sister lives? Further, Sister resents MIL because when their own mother had ALZ, MIL shipped her off to Sister, and apparently never once visited. For ten years!
The only comfort when this shit happens is knowing that It's not her, it's the disease. Please, please make sure your wife understands this. In my MIL's case, I think she might have some guilt over how she treated her Mom and Sister. Perhaps your MIL knows in her gut she wasn't as nice to your wife as she could have been.
I was going to add another thing, but I see Jakejake has that point covered.
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Yeah, you can’t be truthful all the time with someone with dementia. Try to get her on antidepressants. It makes all the difference.
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Yeah, you can’t be truthful all the time with someone with dementia. Try to get her on antidepressants. It makes all the difference.
What makes all the difference for my MIL is Seroquel/Quetiapine:
"Antipsychotic
It can treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression"
She takes half of the lowest dose they make, just once a day. She was combative (hitting and biting) and a flight risk. She would not still be in our home without it. Better living through chemistry, indeed, for her and for us. She's not a drugged out zombie, and still hits once in a while, but the burning anger and urge to flee have abated.
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Reading about how many families have taken advantage of persons who FIRE serves as an extremely good lesson for those who aren't FIRE yet.
I had a warning bell go off when I told my parents my savings rate and my dad later brought it up with bitterness and sarcasm. You forget that your parents are human and have the same emotions of jealousy and insecurity to deal with. Seeing as they are horrible with money and have already asked for a loan within 3 months of me starting full-time work, I'm seeing a lot of dark clouds ahead.
I don't plan on telling my family about any of my financial goals and milestones, and have stopped talking about my finances. I have since started downplaying my savings and dropping comments to indicate that my spending has gone up.
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@Jakejake
My MIL (closely followed by her Son) is one of the biggest emotionally abusive narcissists I have ever met!
The problem (for MIL that is) is I don't do bullies.. In fact I have had to help my darling Wife to set some pretty strong boundaries, which after having learned to be a doormat to her overbearing Mother meant a lot of Un-learning.
Now my beloved (AKA HRH.. Hot RedHead) manages her family with aplomb.. I just quietly remain in the background with the metaphorical baseball bat should a toe cross the boundary.
I know this sounds extreme, but the stories I could tell are of the toe curling variety and my BIL has also learned the family tradition, but is much less intelligent so is easy to deal with.
So yeah I have to side with Dicey on this one. Growing a substantial backbone and letting the Parental units fund their own caregiving (either from savings or Medicaid) is definitely the way to go. Of course you can help set it up.. But then you back away rapidly lest you get sucked into the vortex.
HRH has just set up Medicaid for her own Mom.. She doesn't like the plan she has (of course) but it was made clear that if MIL wants to do something different then HRH will do nothing to help her. She has done way more than she should have already.
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Two years into it, I don't regret doing it, but I regret letting my family know. I had no clue the extent to which they would view me as their personal on call servant/home care health worker, like if work doesn't own me, everyone's free to claim my time except myself.
My sibling who didn't manage her finances as well and is still working, I guess my parents' plan is to reward her with total freedom and to saddle me with permanent responsibility for watching my mom with dementia while dad's in the hospital and then residential rehab or hospice depending how this goes. And then I'm under orders to move my mom to my state against her will to live near me so my golden years can be spent caring for her.
I'm so angry and filled with resentment, especially since when their parents (my grandparents) were all dealing with lingering deaths from cancer or dementia that lasted decades, my parents didn't lift a finger to help with day to day care, they traveled the world enjoying their own early retirement and dumped the responsibility on their siblings (who were all still working full time jobs).
My husband Fire'd in April, I'm about a thousand miles away from him right now living in a freaking retirement community with my mother at the moment with no specific end date. It's the third time in the two years I've been retired I've been told "get a one way plane ticket tomorrow to come down here, you might be here a few weeks".
I would have been happier just working in a lot of ways - and it's not like they can't afford to hire full time care for my mom, she just refuses to acknowledge she needs it so this is their easy way out. I feel like I'm gonna punch out a window though every time they tell someone I'm down here on a vacation.
IF YOU DO IT, DON'T TELL YOUR FAMILY UNLESS YOU REALLY WANT TO BE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF.
This is an interesting point. I can definitely imagine that when someone retires early, people in general (family included) start thinking "well have him/her do it because he/she is not doing anything anyway." Kind of sounds like it might be best to keep advantages (like early retirement) to yourself and keep a stealth wealth low profile. Thanks for the share.
Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk
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Two years into it, I don't regret doing it, but I regret letting my family know. I had no clue the extent to which they would view me as their personal on call servant/home care health worker, like if work doesn't own me, everyone's free to claim my time except myself.
My sibling who didn't manage her finances as well and is still working, I guess my parents' plan is to reward her with total freedom and to saddle me with permanent responsibility for watching my mom with dementia while dad's in the hospital and then residential rehab or hospice depending how this goes. And then I'm under orders to move my mom to my state against her will to live near me so my golden years can be spent caring for her.
I'm so angry and filled with resentment, especially since when their parents (my grandparents) were all dealing with lingering deaths from cancer or dementia that lasted decades, my parents didn't lift a finger to help with day to day care, they traveled the world enjoying their own early retirement and dumped the responsibility on their siblings (who were all still working full time jobs).
My husband Fire'd in April, I'm about a thousand miles away from him right now living in a freaking retirement community with my mother at the moment with no specific end date. It's the third time in the two years I've been retired I've been told "get a one way plane ticket tomorrow to come down here, you might be here a few weeks".
I would have been happier just working in a lot of ways - and it's not like they can't afford to hire full time care for my mom, she just refuses to acknowledge she needs it so this is their easy way out. I feel like I'm gonna punch out a window though every time they tell someone I'm down here on a vacation.
IF YOU DO IT, DON'T TELL YOUR FAMILY UNLESS YOU REALLY WANT TO BE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF.
This is an interesting point. I can definitely imagine that when someone retires early, people in general (family included) start thinking "well have him/her do it because he/she is not doing anything anyway." Kind of sounds like it might be best to keep advantages (like early retirement) to yourself and keep a stealth wealth low profile. Thanks for the share.
Some years ago I was working on a contract in Ethiopia, far from my wife and kids back here in the states. I came home for Christmas and we all went to visit my parents. My dad needed cataract surgery so he couldn't see very well and my mom needed some other surgery - I forget what for, but nothing life threatening. They would both be recovering at the same time.
They expected me to drop what I was doing and hang around with them for several weeks to take care of them.
I told them that if I didn't go back to work in Ethiopia after Christmas, then the company wouldn't get paid and other folks would not be able to pay their mortgages. I told them they had plenty of money, they could hire someone to help with the chores and such while they recovered.
They did not like that answer.
If they hadn't had other options, of course I would have found a way to help them. But they were perfectly capable of helping themselves so I expected them to do so.
Sometimes tough love is the answer.
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They expected me to drop what I was doing and hang around with them for several weeks to take care of them.
I told them that if I didn't go back to work in Ethiopia after Christmas, then the company wouldn't get paid and other folks would not be able to pay their mortgages. I told them they had plenty of money, they could hire someone to help with the chores and such while they recovered.
They did not like that answer.
Wow. That's unbelievable that you weren't even retired, and they tried to pull that on you! Especially since cataract surgery can be staggered doing one eye, then the other, and it sounds like the two surgeries with your parents didn't have to be scheduled at the same time anyway if they weren't life threatening.
An update from me - I flew back home the second week in June. My mom threatened some violence against the woman we hired to help her out and we ended up letting her go for her own safety. I think mom believed that would magically cause me to fly back down there. Nope.
I got a revealing glimpse into her mind, though. My sister reported that mom complained I hadn't even been down to visit since dad got sick. My sister corrected her. Mom got huffy saying "well, yes, for one week. But not permanently."
Ha. Confirming what I suspected - the expectation is for me to leave my husband to move in with her for the rest of her life. That makes it a thousand times easier now to just keep saying no, understanding that whenever I go it doesn't result in gratitude, just resentment because I eventually return home.
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@Jakejake .. Now you're getting it!
Your Mother is a narcissist and you are expected to be a doormat.. There in only one way to break the cycle and that is .. "Hell NO!"
Good for you!
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Two years into it, I don't regret doing it, but I regret letting my family know. I had no clue the extent to which they would view me as their personal on call servant/home care health worker, like if work doesn't own me, everyone's free to claim my time except myself.
My sibling who didn't manage her finances as well and is still working, I guess my parents' plan is to reward her with total freedom and to saddle me with permanent responsibility for watching my mom with dementia while dad's in the hospital and then residential rehab or hospice depending how this goes. And then I'm under orders to move my mom to my state against her will to live near me so my golden years can be spent caring for her.
I'm so angry and filled with resentment, especially since when their parents (my grandparents) were all dealing with lingering deaths from cancer or dementia that lasted decades, my parents didn't lift a finger to help with day to day care, they traveled the world enjoying their own early retirement and dumped the responsibility on their siblings (who were all still working full time jobs).
My husband Fire'd in April, I'm about a thousand miles away from him right now living in a freaking retirement community with my mother at the moment with no specific end date. It's the third time in the two years I've been retired I've been told "get a one way plane ticket tomorrow to come down here, you might be here a few weeks".
I would have been happier just working in a lot of ways - and it's not like they can't afford to hire full time care for my mom, she just refuses to acknowledge she needs it so this is their easy way out. I feel like I'm gonna punch out a window though every time they tell someone I'm down here on a vacation.
IF YOU DO IT, DON'T TELL YOUR FAMILY UNLESS YOU REALLY WANT TO BE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF.
@Jakejake, oh wow! I'm a caregiver for my MIL who has ALZ and lives with us. I had literally met her once before DH and I eloped. Three weeks later, DH's dad died and we realized there was a problem. That was over 5 years ago.
This makes me perhaps more qualified than most here to do this: Sorry, but you're desperately in need of a face punch. As kind and gentle a face punch as possible, but still a face punch. No one can take advantage of you unless you let them! You need to dig deep and figure out why you are allowing them to manipulate you. This hair shirt you are wearing needs to be shed. You might want to consider a little bit of counselling to figure out why you are letting your parents literally shit on you. This is NOT okay, and it's clearly not good for your health or your marriage. This is serious "Put on your air mask first time."
Shocking as this sounds, this problem is NOT about being FIRE. The dynamics that allow them to play you like this exist whether you are working or not. You must learn how to defend yourself. Otherwise, the danger of losing yourself down their rabbit hole is real.
YOU CAN DO THIS!
This!
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ER'd Mustachnians: Do any of you have any regrets, or 2nd guessed your decision to fire? Haunted by what if thoughts etc?
Bringing up an old thread...
My main regret is retiring before my DH. At the time I was not happy at my career and wanted to be done with it. I thought he would follow me to retirement within 12 months but that was 7 years ago and he's still working. I seriously underestimated how happy he is at his work.
Writing this I realize my main regret is actually something more like "I regret believing my DH would be my companion in retirement. I regret believing that we would do activities together and travel together." Retirement has been much more home tethered than I thought it would be because I still want to be with him evenings and weekends.
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I have no regrets. I think I REd at exactly the right time for me. I actually said one day at work shortly before I quit, "I think I am going to need to start abusing substances to deal with all of this crap" and I meant it. I am convinced that FIRE saved my life and sanity.
Someone else posted about engaging in too much change right after FIRE being a bad idea. I never really thought about that before, but I can see it.
Selling the house and moving half-way across the country was what we wanted, but it was really quite stressful. It took me a short while after RE to decompress. That decompression was necessary before making the big decision like a big move.
Life is really good. The cost for each person living in my duplex is about $200 a month (utilities, internet, insurance, property tax), although, of course, upkeep is a bit more than that. So, our expenses are low. My investments have done reasonably well and I'm actually working a bit again. I actually love it. I have found the job that has all of the things I loved about my former job, without the bullshit. I'm substitute teaching. I love it. I work when I want and where I want and I'm not worried at all if two weeks go by without a call. I don't have to mark or do report cards or deal with difficult parents, or brutal internal politics. I just get to hang out with and teach kids, and I always loved that part.
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I'm only recently FIREd but no regrets at all. :) happy camper.
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I have no regrets. I think I REd at exactly the right time for me. I actually said one day at work shortly before I quit, "I think I am going to need to start abusing substances to deal with all of this crap" and I meant it. I am convinced that FIRE saved my life and sanity.
Someone else posted about engaging in too much change right after FIRE being a bad idea. I never really thought about that before, but I can see it.
Selling the house and moving half-way across the country was what we wanted, but it was really quite stressful. It took me a short while after RE to decompress. That decompression was necessary before making the big decision like a big move.
Life is really good. The cost for each person living in my duplex is about $200 a month (utilities, internet, insurance, property tax), although, of course, upkeep is a bit more than that. So, our expenses are low. My investments have done reasonably well and I'm actually working a bit again. I actually love it. I have found the job that has all of the things I loved about my former job, without the bullshit. I'm substitute teaching. I love it. I work when I want and where I want and I'm not worried at all if two weeks go by without a call. I don't have to mark or do report cards or deal with difficult parents, or brutal internal politics. I just get to hang out with and teach kids, and I always loved that part.
Glad to hear the move has panned out well for you!
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I have no regrets. I think I REd at exactly the right time for me. I actually said one day at work shortly before I quit, "I think I am going to need to start abusing substances to deal with all of this crap" and I meant it. I am convinced that FIRE saved my life and sanity.
Someone else posted about engaging in too much change right after FIRE being a bad idea. I never really thought about that before, but I can see it.
Selling the house and moving half-way across the country was what we wanted, but it was really quite stressful. It took me a short while after RE to decompress. That decompression was necessary before making the big decision like a big move.
Life is really good. The cost for each person living in my duplex is about $200 a month (utilities, internet, insurance, property tax), although, of course, upkeep is a bit more than that. So, our expenses are low. My investments have done reasonably well and I'm actually working a bit again. I actually love it. I have found the job that has all of the things I loved about my former job, without the bullshit. I'm substitute teaching. I love it. I work when I want and where I want and I'm not worried at all if two weeks go by without a call. I don't have to mark or do report cards or deal with difficult parents, or brutal internal politics. I just get to hang out with and teach kids, and I always loved that part.
I appreciate hearing this. I am slowly coming around to the idea of keeping our current house and traveling a bunch in the first six to twelve months. I don't *want* to stay here long term, but we don't know where we want to go and selling a house, buying another house, and moving 1,000 miles would be a complete pain in the rear.
I also have a once in a lifetime kind of consulting/flexible work potential later in 2019 that might be worth playing around with part time.
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I have no regrets. I think I REd at exactly the right time for me. I actually said one day at work shortly before I quit, "I think I am going to need to start abusing substances to deal with all of this crap" and I meant it. I am convinced that FIRE saved my life and sanity.
Someone else posted about engaging in too much change right after FIRE being a bad idea. I never really thought about that before, but I can see it.
Selling the house and moving half-way across the country was what we wanted, but it was really quite stressful. It took me a short while after RE to decompress. That decompression was necessary before making the big decision like a big move.
Life is really good. The cost for each person living in my duplex is about $200 a month (utilities, internet, insurance, property tax), although, of course, upkeep is a bit more than that. So, our expenses are low. My investments have done reasonably well and I'm actually working a bit again. I actually love it. I have found the job that has all of the things I loved about my former job, without the bullshit. I'm substitute teaching. I love it. I work when I want and where I want and I'm not worried at all if two weeks go by without a call. I don't have to mark or do report cards or deal with difficult parents, or brutal internal politics. I just get to hang out with and teach kids, and I always loved that part.
I appreciate hearing this. I am slowly coming around to the idea of keeping our current house and traveling a bunch in the first six to twelve months. I don't *want* to stay here long term, but we don't know where we want to go and selling a house, buying another house, and moving 1,000 miles would be a complete pain in the rear.
I also have a once in a lifetime kind of consulting/flexible work potential later in 2019 that might be worth playing around with part time.
We made the move two years after I FIREd. We've been here almost a year now and love it.
And yeah...my old job was killing me. This new job which is just the best parts of my old job is amazing. I'm working two days this week that I know of so far: tomorrow and Wednesday. I might work Friday too if a job comes up, but I think I'll take Thursday off since two days in a row is enough for me. lol So, I say go for the part-time consulting and flexible work schedule. As I say to myself, if I start hating what I'm doing now I can just quit. I love the freedom and flexibility of not needing to work.
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I have no regrets. I think I REd at exactly the right time for me. I actually said one day at work shortly before I quit, "I think I am going to need to start abusing substances to deal with all of this crap" and I meant it. I am convinced that FIRE saved my life and sanity.
Someone else posted about engaging in too much change right after FIRE being a bad idea. I never really thought about that before, but I can see it.
Selling the house and moving half-way across the country was what we wanted, but it was really quite stressful. It took me a short while after RE to decompress. That decompression was necessary before making the big decision like a big move.
Life is really good. The cost for each person living in my duplex is about $200 a month (utilities, internet, insurance, property tax), although, of course, upkeep is a bit more than that. So, our expenses are low. My investments have done reasonably well and I'm actually working a bit again. I actually love it. I have found the job that has all of the things I loved about my former job, without the bullshit. I'm substitute teaching. I love it. I work when I want and where I want and I'm not worried at all if two weeks go by without a call. I don't have to mark or do report cards or deal with difficult parents, or brutal internal politics. I just get to hang out with and teach kids, and I always loved that part.
I appreciate hearing this. I am slowly coming around to the idea of keeping our current house and traveling a bunch in the first six to twelve months. I don't *want* to stay here long term, but we don't know where we want to go and selling a house, buying another house, and moving 1,000 miles would be a complete pain in the rear.
I also have a once in a lifetime kind of consulting/flexible work potential later in 2019 that might be worth playing around with part time.
I also hear this. Most of our stash is in our clown house, so we need to sell to be able to FIRE. If I could guarantee that the house wouldn't lose it's value in the next years, we could keep living there a bit until after we have decompressed. But I know what can happen to house prices, they can easily go down 50% in a bad year and then take years to recover. That would blow FIRE for us.
I think I am therefore in the situation that we need to start the process of selling the house while we still work, in the string 2019. Find our what we can sell it for and then decide if it is high enough to FIRE. And we still need to earn enough in 2019 to finance the year 2019, so the plan is to work until October. The house might be difficult to sell and take months to find the right buyer. It also pays off to wait until we get a really good price, because we are talking about tax free money that will be our FIRE budget.
So our plan is:
During this winter: paint some of the wood indoors to make the house look fresh for sale. Also finishing some lists that are missing. Putting the house for sale in May or whenever the snow is gone and the steep road is easy to drive. It will be full stress/high blood pressure to get everything in good order. We are now both working 80%, to reduce stress levels, so I hope we have more energy to do it now than last time we moved, which was mega-stressful.
I hope we find a buyer somewhere before the summer, but in worst case much later. When finding a buyer, we need to agree on a date to move out, preferably in the beginning of October.
We should use the summer vacation to find out where we really want to move to, as we don't have a very solid plan yet, just some loose ideas. We need to find a rental and hire it from a certain date, preferably without too much overlap.
We need to quit are jobs with a 3 calendar month! notice period. So maybe per first of July. Then we must have sold, to know the price.
Then we need to move to another part of the country, which is not something you drive back and forth in a day, it is more like 1,5 -2 days driving. How to move? We probably need to sell/ditch most of our current furniture and buy other second hand stuff over there. Or rent a furnished rental. We will need to move our personal items/hobby stuff. I am stiff thinking of what we be a low cost option. Driving ourselves twice? Renting a van and keep our furniture? My job has a hanger I could rent as long as I'm still working there, but I probably won't. Hiring a moving company? Hiring container transport overseas? I am also worried that the need to get replacement furniture will be something we lose money on in the process. But moving it will be costly.
Do you see the stress coming?? I am almost sleeping badly because of all this already now.
I think I will ask DH if we can prepare for that I start the indoors painting. That is at least something I could start on. I have also found one possible estate broker, but I am not convinced about her follow up.
Edit: the broker just called. They have now a new office in our local village, which I guess is good. She will visit us again next week and give us her price. I will put some pressure on DH to get this thing going as planned.
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@Linda_Norway Good luck with everything.
Moving across the country is stressful. We moved a twenty hour drive away from our old location, so similar to your situation. Selling a house is stressful. The good thing is that you have a plan.
And I think that selling most of your stuff is a good idea. We moved too much of our stuff. And honestly, quite a few things got broken or damaged.
I hear you about worrying about the housing market. I had an $80k mortgage on my old house and about one third of my net worth was the equity in my house. As it turns out, I got lucky. Part of the timing of selling and buying elsewhere was smart, but a lot of it was luck. My old house had a nice run up in value from just before I REd and continue right up until I sold it. The Canadian government introduced new policies to try to prevent a housing bubble with a "stress test" for new mortgages. That came into being on January 1, 2018, and I sold on December 6, 2017. The woman, who bought my house sight unseen, said she was eager to get into our neighbourhood before the new stress test. I had been hoping some people would think that way. It also helped that my house was the lowest priced non-condo on the market in our area. So, I was able to sell in a day and a half.
I bought a house in a different province for almost one third less than what I got for my place in Ontario. It's way nicer and has an apartment which is what I wanted for my son. I'm in a very small city but I'm central and can walk to everything I need.
I will say that it was such a relief to finally move in here and be done with it all. We had to fly with five pets which was its own challenge. Why do they make you take cats out of their carriers at security? I wonder if anyone has ever actually smuggled something on board via a cat. Luckily we managed it with few scratches.
I'll have to check to see if you have a journal so that I can follow your story. Best of luck.
tl;dr
Good luck. You have a good plan!
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This thread has been a great read, and started with a great question.
Being young, dumb and naive, I announced that I would like to retire before I'm 40 to my parents. Yeah, they laughed, but after explaining to them how one might go about doing that, they realised that I'm taking it seriously and that it is actually possible (even if they don't fully understand compounded interested etc.) I regret this somewhat. I have close family members that hate their jobs. One of them asked me a question. I can't remember the phrasing, but they were basically asking if I could(/why I couldn't) also bail them out of having to work anymore. When they asked that, I was in stunned silence. I couldn't believe it. Before I could formulate some words, they started laying it on thick, 'oh you can't help your own poor [family member] out?'.
Do you even know how this works? Do you not realise just how much it's going to take for me to do this for myself alone? Do you realise exactly what you're asking from me?
To be honest, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. It was out of character for them, they were possibly tired or a little drunk idk, and they only brought it up like that ONCE. They either realised their mistake and resolved not to ask again, or they think I'm a selfish pig. Frankly, I don't care as long as it isn't brought up ever again or used against me.
I want to spend the time in between now and achieving FI doing my best to not mention it again, and to hope that nobody else does. So far so not good. It's brought up now and again how I'm tucking money away - but at the moment, it's to save for a mortgage, so once that's all done, I think more opportunity will present itself to slip away. I do not want to be emotionally blackmailed for the selfish act of only spending enough time to save up for one person to retire rather than the whole family, as though that's all collectively my responsibility...
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@Linda_Norway and @BPA different countries but exact same problems on housing!
One twist happened for me this week that I'm exploring, they updated our company's leave of absence policy. I'm probably going to request a one year leave of absence (with zero intention of coming back). If I could actually get that approved, I pickup an extra low six-figure payout in 2020 but would need to keep an address here. That would be a windfall that solves a lot of issues with the house.
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@Linda_Norway and @BPA different countries but exact same problems on housing!
One twist happened for me this week that I'm exploring, they updated our company's leave of absence policy. I'm probably going to request a one year leave of absence (with zero intention of coming back). If I could actually get that approved, I pickup an extra low six-figure payout in 2020 but would need to keep an address here. That would be a windfall that solves a lot of issues with the house.
Seems like a good solution. And a six figure payout for not working??? I want that too, but I'm afraid it is not going to work. But in case your FIRE becomes more expensive than you planned, you can always go back to your job after a year and work a bit longer.
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@Linda_Norway Good luck with everything.
Moving across the country is stressful. We moved a twenty hour drive away from our old location, so similar to your situation. Selling a house is stressful. The good thing is that you have a plan.
And I think that selling most of your stuff is a good idea. We moved too much of our stuff. And honestly, quite a few things got broken or damaged.
I hear you about worrying about the housing market. I had an $80k mortgage on my old house and about one third of my net worth was the equity in my house. As it turns out, I got lucky. Part of the timing of selling and buying elsewhere was smart, but a lot of it was luck. My old house had a nice run up in value from just before I REd and continue right up until I sold it. The Canadian government introduced new policies to try to prevent a housing bubble with a "stress test" for new mortgages. That came into being on January 1, 2018, and I sold on December 6, 2017. The woman, who bought my house sight unseen, said she was eager to get into our neighbourhood before the new stress test. I had been hoping some people would think that way. It also helped that my house was the lowest priced non-condo on the market in our area. So, I was able to sell in a day and a half.
I bought a house in a different province for almost one third less than what I got for my place in Ontario. It's way nicer and has an apartment which is what I wanted for my son. I'm in a very small city but I'm central and can walk to everything I need.
I will say that it was such a relief to finally move in here and be done with it all. We had to fly with five pets which was its own challenge. Why do they make you take cats out of their carriers at security? I wonder if anyone has ever actually smuggled something on board via a cat. Luckily we managed it with few scratches.
I'll have to check to see if you have a journal so that I can follow your story. Best of luck.
tl;dr
Good luck. You have a good plan!
I don't have a journal (yet). But maybe I should make one for the final stage, as I sort of feel the need to write about it and do now in several threads.
Flying with so many cats sounds like a real challenge. Yes, I suppose people have tried to smuggle stuff in every way possible.
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@Linda_Norway Good luck with everything.
Moving across the country is stressful. We moved a twenty hour drive away from our old location, so similar to your situation. Selling a house is stressful. The good thing is that you have a plan.
And I think that selling most of your stuff is a good idea. We moved too much of our stuff. And honestly, quite a few things got broken or damaged.
I hear you about worrying about the housing market. I had an $80k mortgage on my old house and about one third of my net worth was the equity in my house. As it turns out, I got lucky. Part of the timing of selling and buying elsewhere was smart, but a lot of it was luck. My old house had a nice run up in value from just before I REd and continue right up until I sold it. The Canadian government introduced new policies to try to prevent a housing bubble with a "stress test" for new mortgages. That came into being on January 1, 2018, and I sold on December 6, 2017. The woman, who bought my house sight unseen, said she was eager to get into our neighbourhood before the new stress test. I had been hoping some people would think that way. It also helped that my house was the lowest priced non-condo on the market in our area. So, I was able to sell in a day and a half.
I bought a house in a different province for almost one third less than what I got for my place in Ontario. It's way nicer and has an apartment which is what I wanted for my son. I'm in a very small city but I'm central and can walk to everything I need.
I will say that it was such a relief to finally move in here and be done with it all. We had to fly with five pets which was its own challenge. Why do they make you take cats out of their carriers at security? I wonder if anyone has ever actually smuggled something on board via a cat. Luckily we managed it with few scratches.
I'll have to check to see if you have a journal so that I can follow your story. Best of luck.
tl;dr
Good luck. You have a good plan!
I don't have a journal (yet). But maybe I should make one for the final stage, as I sort of feel the need to write about it and do now in several threads.
Flying with so many cats sounds like a real challenge. Yes, I suppose people have tried to smuggle stuff in every way possible.
I started my journal within three months of leaving my job. I found it really helpful because I was sure I was going to chicken out. But I didn't. I really appreciated all the support I got. My journal and the Class of 2015 thread helped me a lot.
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@Linda_Norway and @BPA different countries but exact same problems on housing!
One twist happened for me this week that I'm exploring, they updated our company's leave of absence policy. I'm probably going to request a one year leave of absence (with zero intention of coming back). If I could actually get that approved, I pickup an extra low six-figure payout in 2020 but would need to keep an address here. That would be a windfall that solves a lot of issues with the house.
Seems like a good solution. And a six figure payout for not working??? I want that too, but I'm afraid it is not going to work. But in case your FIRE becomes more expensive than you planned, you can always go back to your job after a year and work a bit longer.
I agree that it sounds like a great solution @chasesfish .
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This thread has been a great read, and started with a great question.
Being young, dumb and naive, I announced that I would like to retire before I'm 40 to my parents. Yeah, they laughed, but after explaining to them how one might go about doing that, they realised that I'm taking it seriously and that it is actually possible (even if they don't fully understand compounded interested etc.) I regret this somewhat. I have close family members that hate their jobs. One of them asked me a question. I can't remember the phrasing, but they were basically asking if I could(/why I couldn't) also bail them out of having to work anymore. When they asked that, I was in stunned silence. I couldn't believe it. Before I could formulate some words, they started laying it on thick, 'oh you can't help your own poor [family member] out?'.
Do you even know how this works? Do you not realise just how much it's going to take for me to do this for myself alone? Do you realise exactly what you're asking from me?
To be honest, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. It was out of character for them, they were possibly tired or a little drunk idk, and they only brought it up like that ONCE. They either realised their mistake and resolved not to ask again, or they think I'm a selfish pig. Frankly, I don't care as long as it isn't brought up ever again or used against me.
I want to spend the time in between now and achieving FI doing my best to not mention it again, and to hope that nobody else does. So far so not good. It's brought up now and again how I'm tucking money away - but at the moment, it's to save for a mortgage, so once that's all done, I think more opportunity will present itself to slip away. I do not want to be emotionally blackmailed for the selfish act of only spending enough time to save up for one person to retire rather than the whole family, as though that's all collectively my responsibility...
Ugh. Something sort of similar happened to me with my mother.
My mother drives me crazy. She was the one who taught me to be frugal, and for that I'm grateful. But she was also the one who taught other people in my family that my sister and I should take care of them (including her if necessary) because we make (or in my case, made) professional salaries.
I found a compromise that works for me. I love my brother a lot. He is one of my best friends and we survived the same shitty, traumatic childhood. I'm sure he has PTSD from it. A few years ago he moved in with me, and my goal is not to make money from him, but to provide him with an "at cost" home. So he pays for his share of the utilities and a little bit more that I figure goes to property tax and insurance. So, although I lose the opportunity cost for being able to rent out that bedroom for a profit, I realistically know that I wouldn't bother with that anyway. He's costing me nothing, but I'm helping him out. He works, but part-time only in order to help with his significant anxiety.
I don't want to suggest that you should do the same thing. Everyone's family dynamic is different. But I understand how you feel. My FIRE is a very frugal fire ($15k-$18k a year) and I resent when my mother acts like I can pay for everything for everyone because I must be rich. For example, she told my brother that I should be the one to pay for him to fly back to Ontario to visit her. And I won't even get started about my sister who is completely toxic and feels as entitled to my money as I am.
The good thing about this community is that we have an outlet for discussing these sorts of issues. I'm sorry your parents weren't more supportive, and it's totally understandable that you don't feel you can share your FIRE dream with them.
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Ugh. Something sort of similar happened to me with my mother.
My mother drives me crazy. She was the one who taught me to be frugal, and for that I'm grateful. But she was also the one who taught other people in my family that my sister and I should take care of them (including her if necessary) because we make (or in my case, made) professional salaries.
I found a compromise that works for me. I love my brother a lot. He is one of my best friends and we survived the same shitty, traumatic childhood. I'm sure he has PTSD from it. A few years ago he moved in with me, and my goal is not to make money from him, but to provide him with an "at cost" home. So he pays for his share of the utilities and a little bit more that I figure goes to property tax and insurance. So, although I lose the opportunity cost for being able to rent out that bedroom for a profit, I realistically know that I wouldn't bother with that anyway. He's costing me nothing, but I'm helping him out. He works, but part-time only in order to help with his significant anxiety.
I don't want to suggest that you should do the same thing. Everyone's family dynamic is different. But I understand how you feel. My FIRE is a very frugal fire ($15k-$18k a year) and I resent when my mother acts like I can pay for everything for everyone because I must be rich. For example, she told my brother that I should be the one to pay for him to fly back to Ontario to visit her. And I won't even get started about my sister who is completely toxic and feels as entitled to my money as I am.
The good thing about this community is that we have an outlet for discussing these sorts of issues. I'm sorry your parents weren't more supportive, and it's totally understandable that you don't feel you can share your FIRE dream with them.
I'm sorry to hear that, and thanks for sharing. My biggest fear and the worst case scenario is that that little outburst was a sign of things to come. Best case scenario was like I said - it was an out-of-character moment that won't be repeated. I was just shocked by the gall of it - to ask a person to save up for your retirement for you while you continue to spend rather than save your own money. Don't get me wrong - this person does contribute to a pension, but they're no FIRE-er. I love my family to bits, and that's probably why this hit harder than it might have otherwise.
I'm glad that you were able to provide a shelter for your brother from what sounds like an awful situation. I'll bet he's really grateful, and I'll bet that the aforementioned childhood is what has caused his anxiety. Hoping for the best for both of you.
As an aside, damn, you're living off of less than my small UK salary! If that's not inspiring, then I don't know what is!
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This thread has been a great read, and started with a great question.
Being young, dumb and naive, I announced that I would like to retire before I'm 40 to my parents. Yeah, they laughed, but after explaining to them how one might go about doing that, they realised that I'm taking it seriously and that it is actually possible (even if they don't fully understand compounded interested etc.) I regret this somewhat. I have close family members that hate their jobs. One of them asked me a question. I can't remember the phrasing, but they were basically asking if I could(/why I couldn't) also bail them out of having to work anymore. When they asked that, I was in stunned silence. I couldn't believe it. Before I could formulate some words, they started laying it on thick, 'oh you can't help your own poor [family member] out?'.
Do you even know how this works? Do you not realise just how much it's going to take for me to do this for myself alone? Do you realise exactly what you're asking from me?
To be honest, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. It was out of character for them, they were possibly tired or a little drunk idk, and they only brought it up like that ONCE. They either realised their mistake and resolved not to ask again, or they think I'm a selfish pig. Frankly, I don't care as long as it isn't brought up ever again or used against me.
I want to spend the time in between now and achieving FI doing my best to not mention it again, and to hope that nobody else does. So far so not good. It's brought up now and again how I'm tucking money away - but at the moment, it's to save for a mortgage, so once that's all done, I think more opportunity will present itself to slip away. I do not want to be emotionally blackmailed for the selfish act of only spending enough time to save up for one person to retire rather than the whole family, as though that's all collectively my responsibility...
That's when you send him the link to MMM or any of half a dozen other FIRE websites and tell him, sure, here's how you too can retire at 40.
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@MrOnyx : I hope it was a one-off and no doubt they are just really worried about the family member they suggested you help out. I can understand that, but do think it's unfair to you. I like @Pigeon 's suggestion.
My other sister, the non-toxic one, was so stressed out by her job, that she asked me the particulars of how I managed to FIRE. I told her about ERE and MMM and YMOYL. It gave her a lot of peace of mind since she took a look at her total net worth and realizes that she could FIRE or at the very least have a hefty FU sum if she needed it.
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Sorry, BPA, for clarity, they were asking me to help them out, not someone else. They were requesting me to FIRE them and me at the same time.
Oh cool! I can only imagine her elation at finding that out. It seems astounding to me - that someone can accidentally save for FIRE without even knowing what FIRE is - it seems like such a deliberate thing to do and set out for, but it happens, I guess! Congrats to her :)
Thanks for the suggestion, Pigeon, but this person is already over 40, and by the time I FIRE, they'll be approaching regular retirement age anyway - if I wanted to facilitate their early retirement too, it'd take a bit longer - possibly until way after they hit state pension age! I'd happily help them out, but it would be physically impossible to do as they ask, sadly. I could point them in MMM's way anyway. As long as they don't start poking holes in it and leaving me rolling my eyes.
I shan't derail this thread any further, though. Thanks for the suggestions and words, guys :)
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@Linda_Norway and @BPA different countries but exact same problems on housing!
One twist happened for me this week that I'm exploring, they updated our company's leave of absence policy. I'm probably going to request a one year leave of absence (with zero intention of coming back). If I could actually get that approved, I pickup an extra low six-figure payout in 2020 but would need to keep an address here. That would be a windfall that solves a lot of issues with the house.
Seems like a good solution. And a six figure payout for not working??? I want that too, but I'm afraid it is not going to work. But in case your FIRE becomes more expensive than you planned, you can always go back to your job after a year and work a bit longer.
I've been declined when I tried before, but it was on the basis of policy not allowing it. I only give it a 25% chance, but worth a shot. The great thing about the power dynamic of walk-away money, if I'm told no and then resign, I at least tried
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I have many friends who were able to retire early and it has not gone well. They become bored, spent more money than they should have, got divorced, became depressed, and experienced many other ills. The biggest one in my opinion is the waste of potential. The stress of work gets us out of bed in the morning, provides a purpose, community, and method of inclusion to the moving world around us.
Others who kept working in spite of accomplishing FI seem much happier to me. FI converts work into a choice and that can make all the diffrence.
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I have many friends who were able to retire early and it has not gone well. They become bored, spent more money than they should have, got divorced, became depressed, and experienced many other ills. The biggest one in my opinion is the waste of potential. The stress of work gets us out of bed in the morning, provides a purpose, community, and method of inclusion to the moving world around us.
Others who kept working in spite of accomplishing FI seem much happier to me. FI converts work into a choice and that can make all the diffrence.
That is quit shocking to hear.
Still, I think working a normal, stressful job 5 days a week is not the final answer to a meaning of life and getting up in the morning. Stress is bad for your health and fulltime work doesnot give your many options to do your own stuff. But maybe some parttime, low stress but meaningful work could be nice. This could also be achieved by volunteering somewhere.
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I have many friends who were able to retire early and it has not gone well. They become bored, spent more money than they should have, got divorced, became depressed, and experienced many other ills. The biggest one in my opinion is the waste of potential. The stress of work gets us out of bed in the morning, provides a purpose, community, and method of inclusion to the moving world around us.
Others who kept working in spite of accomplishing FI seem much happier to me. FI converts work into a choice and that can make all the diffrence.
That is quit shocking to hear.
Still, I think working a normal, stressful job 5 days a week is not the final answer to a meaning of life and getting up in the morning. Stress is bad for your health and fulltime work doesnot give your many options to do your own stuff. But maybe some parttime, low stress but meaningful work could be nice. This could also be achieved by volunteering somewhere.
Agreed. A job, particularly a stressful one, is not a requirement for a happy life. No wonder those people were depressed if they thought that work could be their only sense of purpose. I would think that the solution would be to find something else to do, not stay in a stressful career.
That attitude makes me feel so sad for those people.
I'm glad to see that most of the FIRE crowd here has more imagination and greater optimism.
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I have many friends who were able to retire early and it has not gone well. They become bored, spent more money than they should have, got divorced, became depressed, and experienced many other ills. The biggest one in my opinion is the waste of potential. The stress of work gets us out of bed in the morning, provides a purpose, community, and method of inclusion to the moving world around us.
Others who kept working in spite of accomplishing FI seem much happier to me. FI converts work into a choice and that can make all the diffrence.
Aye, we humans are intelligent and require a steady stream of intellectual stimulation in order to remain satisfied. The curveballs and drama of a full time working career is one way to facilitate that, but as others have said, it is not the only way.
I believe that when you FIRE, it is important to not stop. I read it somewhere - was it in a MMM article or somewhere else? - that one way to achieve this is to play the "And then?" game. Ask yourself what you're going to do when you retire. Once you have your answer, respond with "And then?" You keep doing this until you have some solid long-term goals lined up, then you work towards them. This will provide that stimuli that we crave. Retiring early gives you the chance to do that thing you thought you never had time for while you were working. Write that novel. Learn that skill. Accomplish that task. Don't squander it - the idea is that you retire early enough to still have the energy for all that stuff!
Sure, decompress in the few weeks that immediately follow retirement - especially from a toxic workplace - but you have to have something lined up eventually. Whether it's a side hustle, a creative project, or even some easy part-time work - it has to be something other than spending all day sitting indoors watching TV or playing video games for eternity.
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My stay-at-home mother was able to create a real estate portfolio that made it so that my father could retire at 45. He worked as an aerospace engineer and his contribution helped to put men on the moon. After retirement, he did not do so well. I don't think he wanted to retire but was laid off during a slowdown. The resources that my mother created made it so that he did not have to work anymore. It took away much of his drive to get up at 4AM to fight the traffic. When his industry recovered he was asked to return but did not. Working is a major portion of one's identity. My mother was happy to spend her time gossiping, visiting with relatives, and volunteering for the church. My father, however, was cut adrift by FIRE. He wanted to go back to work but the allure of staying home won. His health and life's progression began a steady decline soon after.
In the winter of my 28th year I discovered to great horror that I had gotten myself into a position where I did not have to work anymore if I didn't wish and my net worth would continue to grow. I spent my days seasonally employed and my off time mountain biking, walking to the library, attending cross-country ski classes and other self-indulgent pursuits. I lived an a unit of a four-plex that I owned and enjoyed a minimalist lifestyle. When I did the math and realized that I could burn the remainder of my existence on frivolous pursuits I was struck with fear. The whole time I thought I was stretching my expenses until my chosen career got underway. What I had done was to create a FIRE lifestyle instead. It seemed that I just knew how to do it by watching my mother all those years.
After school, while the other kids were at baseball practice my brother and I would ride our bikes to a job site of some kind, that was being orchestrated by my mother, and we would work. We did not have to but liked the money she paid us and passively observed as she navigated the perils of property management, real estate development, and investment. Without even really trying I followed in a similar path and found myself effectively retired before I ever had a chance at living. In short order, I destroyed the sanctuary that I had created for myself and was tossed back into the stream of life. Still, over time I found my way back to the peaceful shore of financial independence. These days I am married with a lot of children. Never again will I find peace and an easy life. My wife is very capable of finding new obstacles, wants, and challenges that I must meet. I would be lying if I did not disclose that most of the time I long to return to a minimalist life. I face horrors of a different variety now; consumption, uncertainty, loss of control, and the constant need to increase production.
As a result, I work a lot. I have built a portfolio of investment real estate and a realty business that manages it all. I do not feel that FIRE is always such a good thing to one's overall life progression. Most of us need the drive that comes from the requirement to provide for one's self in order to keep growing, learning, striving, and achieving. Working full time makes the weekends special. It creates an urgency to take maximum advantage of the short time we have with others. Working puts us in sync with the rest of the world. Though I am tired, stressed, and sick of learning new things, I don't ever wish to retire again.
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My stay-at-home mother was able to create a real estate portfolio that made it so that my father could retire at 45. He worked as an aerospace engineer and his contribution helped to put men on the moon. After retirement, he did not do so well. I don't think he wanted to retire but was laid off during a slowdown. The resources that my mother created made it so that he did not have to work anymore. It took away much of his drive to get up at 4AM to fight the traffic. When his industry recovered he was asked to return but did not. Working is a major portion of one's identity. My mother was happy to spend her time gossiping, visiting with relatives, and volunteering for the church. My father, however, was cut adrift by FIRE. He wanted to go back to work but the allure of staying home won. His health and life's progression began a steady decline soon after.
In the winter of my 28th year I discovered to great horror that I had gotten myself into a position where I did not have to work anymore if I didn't wish and my net worth would continue to grow. I spent my days seasonally employed and my off time mountain biking, walking to the library, attending cross-country ski classes and other self-indulgent pursuits. I lived an a unit of a four-plex that I owned and enjoyed a minimalist lifestyle. When I did the math and realized that I could burn the remainder of my existence on frivolous pursuits I was struck with fear. The whole time I thought I was stretching my expenses until my chosen career got underway. What I had done was to create a FIRE lifestyle instead. It seemed that I just knew how to do it by watching my mother all those years.
After school, while the other kids were at baseball practice my brother and I would ride our bikes to a job site of some kind, that was being orchestrated by my mother, and we would work. We did not have to but liked the money she paid us and passively observed as she navigated the perils of property management, real estate development, and investment. Without even really trying I followed in a similar path and found myself effectively retired before I ever had a chance at living. In short order, I destroyed the sanctuary that I had created for myself and was tossed back into the stream of life. Still, over time I found my way back to the peaceful shore of financial independence. These days I am married with a lot of children. Never again will I find peace and an easy life. My wife is very capable of finding new obstacles, wants, and challenges that I must meet. I would be lying if I did not disclose that most of the time I long to return to a minimalist life. I face horrors of a different variety now; consumption, uncertainty, loss of control, and the constant need to increase production.
As a result, I work a lot. I have built a portfolio of investment real estate and a realty business that manages it all. I do not feel that FIRE is always such a good thing to one's overall life progression. Most of us need the drive that comes from the requirement to provide for one's self in order to keep growing, learning, striving, and achieving. Working full time makes the weekends special. It creates an urgency to take maximum advantage of the short time we have with others. Working puts us in sync with the rest of the world. Though I am tired, stressed, and sick of learning new things, I don't ever wish to retire again.
One thing I feel very strongly about is that every person is different. I think what you said is very true for some people, some people not. As you said your mother was perfectly fine not having that structure or that definition of her identity. I think some people are stifled by a never ending routine. Other people need some space and time to find a different routine that fits them better. It really comes down to getting to know yourself and being honest with yourself about what really gives you purpose.
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I have many friends who were able to retire early and it has not gone well. They become bored, spent more money than they should have, got divorced, became depressed, and experienced many other ills. The biggest one in my opinion is the waste of potential. The stress of work gets us out of bed in the morning, provides a purpose, community, and method of inclusion to the moving world around us.
Others who kept working in spite of accomplishing FI seem much happier to me. FI converts work into a choice and that can make all the diffrence.
Aye, we humans are intelligent and require a steady stream of intellectual stimulation in order to remain satisfied. The curveballs and drama of a full time working career is one way to facilitate that, but as others have said, it is not the only way.
I believe that when you FIRE, it is important to not stop. I read it somewhere - was it in a MMM article or somewhere else? - that one way to achieve this is to play the "And then?" game. Ask yourself what you're going to do when you retire. Once you have your answer, respond with "And then?" You keep doing this until you have some solid long-term goals lined up, then you work towards them. This will provide that stimuli that we crave. Retiring early gives you the chance to do that thing you thought you never had time for while you were working. Write that novel. Learn that skill. Accomplish that task. Don't squander it - the idea is that you retire early enough to still have the energy for all that stuff!
Sure, decompress in the few weeks that immediately follow retirement - especially from a toxic workplace - but you have to have something lined up eventually. Whether it's a side hustle, a creative project, or even some easy part-time work - it has to be something other than spending all day sitting indoors watching TV or playing video games for eternity.
Why couldn't they just go back to work?
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I have many friends who were able to retire early and it has not gone well. They become bored, spent more money than they should have, got divorced, became depressed, and experienced many other ills. The biggest one in my opinion is the waste of potential. The stress of work gets us out of bed in the morning, provides a purpose, community, and method of inclusion to the moving world around us.
Others who kept working in spite of accomplishing FI seem much happier to me. FI converts work into a choice and that can make all the diffrence.
Aye, we humans are intelligent and require a steady stream of intellectual stimulation in order to remain satisfied. The curveballs and drama of a full time working career is one way to facilitate that, but as others have said, it is not the only way.
I believe that when you FIRE, it is important to not stop. I read it somewhere - was it in a MMM article or somewhere else? - that one way to achieve this is to play the "And then?" game. Ask yourself what you're going to do when you retire. Once you have your answer, respond with "And then?" You keep doing this until you have some solid long-term goals lined up, then you work towards them. This will provide that stimuli that we crave. Retiring early gives you the chance to do that thing you thought you never had time for while you were working. Write that novel. Learn that skill. Accomplish that task. Don't squander it - the idea is that you retire early enough to still have the energy for all that stuff!
Sure, decompress in the few weeks that immediately follow retirement - especially from a toxic workplace - but you have to have something lined up eventually. Whether it's a side hustle, a creative project, or even some easy part-time work - it has to be something other than spending all day sitting indoors watching TV or playing video games for eternity.
Why couldn't they just go back to work?
I suppose if one worked in a box store they could just go back to work, however, satisfying career positions are more fragile.
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I have many friends who were able to retire early and it has not gone well. They become bored, spent more money than they should have, got divorced, became depressed, and experienced many other ills. The biggest one in my opinion is the waste of potential. The stress of work gets us out of bed in the morning, provides a purpose, community, and method of inclusion to the moving world around us.
Others who kept working in spite of accomplishing FI seem much happier to me. FI converts work into a choice and that can make all the diffrence.
Aye, we humans are intelligent and require a steady stream of intellectual stimulation in order to remain satisfied. The curveballs and drama of a full time working career is one way to facilitate that, but as others have said, it is not the only way.
I believe that when you FIRE, it is important to not stop. I read it somewhere - was it in a MMM article or somewhere else? - that one way to achieve this is to play the "And then?" game. Ask yourself what you're going to do when you retire. Once you have your answer, respond with "And then?" You keep doing this until you have some solid long-term goals lined up, then you work towards them. This will provide that stimuli that we crave. Retiring early gives you the chance to do that thing you thought you never had time for while you were working. Write that novel. Learn that skill. Accomplish that task. Don't squander it - the idea is that you retire early enough to still have the energy for all that stuff!
Sure, decompress in the few weeks that immediately follow retirement - especially from a toxic workplace - but you have to have something lined up eventually. Whether it's a side hustle, a creative project, or even some easy part-time work - it has to be something other than spending all day sitting indoors watching TV or playing video games for eternity.
Why couldn't they just go back to work?
Having gaps in your employment does not look good on the CV. You could try to play it off as having gone freelance, or working for yourself in some other manner, but unless you can prove that with a portfolio of work, you could end up stuck where you are. This is because things change and new technology emerges. Back at uni, one of my lecturers even struggled to get a job in the field he was teaching - because he'd been "out of the industry" for too long (even though these companies would happily take on the graduates he trained!) I suppose he was considered a 'has-been', or 'out-of-touch' in some regard. These are the things you have to be careful about.
As Skyhigh said, you could take on unskilled/semi-skilled work if pay wasn't too much of an issue - and indeed these jobs may be less stressful - but you might be hard pushed to get back onto the front line of professional work.
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I have regrets, but not about FIRE.
I regret not discovering frugality and MMMness stuff earlier.
I would have retired about the same time (enjoyed my career mostly) but would have been in a better position financially (I still have a ridiculously good income stream from pension/VA disability) than I am. We wasted so much money on stupid stuff and I'd love to go back and have a conversation with college-age me about it.
The FIRE-side of things is great! I'm still finding my way in what to do with my time. This thread has been an eye opener for the caring for parents stuff. We moved to be close to my MIL and she is at an age where she needs help, but we've been adamant that she needs in home care to help her, not just DW and I.
My parents are in generally good health, but half-way across the country. I know the time is coming where I may need to help them more as well.
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My stay-at-home mother was able to create a real estate portfolio that made it so that my father could retire at 45. He worked as an aerospace engineer and his contribution helped to put men on the moon. After retirement, he did not do so well. I don't think he wanted to retire but was laid off during a slowdown. The resources that my mother created made it so that he did not have to work anymore. It took away much of his drive to get up at 4AM to fight the traffic. When his industry recovered he was asked to return but did not. Working is a major portion of one's identity. My mother was happy to spend her time gossiping, visiting with relatives, and volunteering for the church. My father, however, was cut adrift by FIRE. He wanted to go back to work but the allure of staying home won. His health and life's progression began a steady decline soon after.
In the winter of my 28th year I discovered to great horror that I had gotten myself into a position where I did not have to work anymore if I didn't wish and my net worth would continue to grow. I spent my days seasonally employed and my off time mountain biking, walking to the library, attending cross-country ski classes and other self-indulgent pursuits. I lived an a unit of a four-plex that I owned and enjoyed a minimalist lifestyle. When I did the math and realized that I could burn the remainder of my existence on frivolous pursuits I was struck with fear. The whole time I thought I was stretching my expenses until my chosen career got underway. What I had done was to create a FIRE lifestyle instead. It seemed that I just knew how to do it by watching my mother all those years.
After school, while the other kids were at baseball practice my brother and I would ride our bikes to a job site of some kind, that was being orchestrated by my mother, and we would work. We did not have to but liked the money she paid us and passively observed as she navigated the perils of property management, real estate development, and investment. Without even really trying I followed in a similar path and found myself effectively retired before I ever had a chance at living. In short order, I destroyed the sanctuary that I had created for myself and was tossed back into the stream of life. Still, over time I found my way back to the peaceful shore of financial independence. These days I am married with a lot of children. Never again will I find peace and an easy life. My wife is very capable of finding new obstacles, wants, and challenges that I must meet. I would be lying if I did not disclose that most of the time I long to return to a minimalist life. I face horrors of a different variety now; consumption, uncertainty, loss of control, and the constant need to increase production.
As a result, I work a lot. I have built a portfolio of investment real estate and a realty business that manages it all. I do not feel that FIRE is always such a good thing to one's overall life progression. Most of us need the drive that comes from the requirement to provide for one's self in order to keep growing, learning, striving, and achieving. Working full time makes the weekends special. It creates an urgency to take maximum advantage of the short time we have with others. Working puts us in sync with the rest of the world. Though I am tired, stressed, and sick of learning new things, I don't ever wish to retire again.
Or, you know, you could put all of that energy into all of these kids you have. Just saying.
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Adding some comments, not as someone fully FIRE'd but sort of half-way. Basically along the lines of Dr. Doom's post on post-fire. The money part is the straightforward part - just keep saving. The hard part is what to do with the time to replace the challenges that work provided.
We sold ('cashed out') of a very high COL area and moved to medium COL with more space and breathing room (less traffic, hassles, stress, etc.) We were both working high-stress jobs (her in finance, me high tech) almost 12 hours a day with mine having 24 hour emails (200 per day average). I left tech and am helping her with finance (home-based work) so that we both have more time off to relax and enjoy life. Again not FIRE'd fully, but close to FI enough so that there's no need for both of us to work like crazy (retirement stashes saved, mortgage gone, education for kid saved, no debt).
Points I have noticed in 6 months after leaving tech (after a nice summer off of relaxing too):
- as MMM stated in one of his posts, on top of staying fit physically and mentally, you need a daily or weekly stress- something to challenge/push you to learn something new or build something new. From our hunter-gatherer side that's the stress that keeps us going and provides a sense of 'I now deserve a reward' of some sort. (see Sebastion Junger youtube clip with Joe Rogan discussing cell phones - good points in there).
- for people from STEM and/or INTJ type personalities - a huge aspect of job satisfaction for me has come from problem-solving. Debugging, fixing, troubleshooting etc. Something similar is needed to replace that to feel challenged. At my previous work this kept me going for 25 years, until the last company took over and outsourced all of it (hence me watching from sidelines dealing with 200 emails and not actually doing the problem-solving).
- keep up routines - especially exercise. Not a regret but a comment again. Equal parts exercise, mental exercise, some work/problem-solving and relaxing seems to fill a good day - approx. 2 hours each. My regeret would be not having the third component provided for (yet). Without fixing/problem-solving or providing something concrete in the form of helping the wife's business (i.e. allowing her to have time off), I feel I won't deserve any breaks. Doesn't take much - only 2 hours per day or so.
So I guess my main regret or comment repeats the 'you need to retire to something' point. Again Dr. Doom has a great post on this for planning better for this. May take time to create a plan after quitting - it's not always feasible to plan while working due to time constraints.
GB
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I genuinely feel bad for anyone who needs a job to have a reason to get up and seize the day in the morning.
This thread is very insightful though. The responses are unsurprising in some aspects, and surprising in others.
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I am thankful for all that I have accomplished, however, it is sad to have left that major personal goal unfulfilled. It was my dream to spend my days in the seat until I reached the maximum age. Due to my poor career, I was lead into a FIRE lifestyle. Now that the industry has recovered it is sad to be left behind.
It seems to me that my uselessness to other careers is what helped to remove all doubt and reservations into my path towards FIRE. If I could have gotten a job instead I would have.
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My stay-at-home mother was able to create a real estate portfolio that made it so that my father could retire at 45. He worked as an aerospace engineer and his contribution helped to put men on the moon. After retirement, he did not do so well. I don't think he wanted to retire but was laid off during a slowdown. The resources that my mother created made it so that he did not have to work anymore. It took away much of his drive to get up at 4AM to fight the traffic. When his industry recovered he was asked to return but did not. Working is a major portion of one's identity. My mother was happy to spend her time gossiping, visiting with relatives, and volunteering for the church. My father, however, was cut adrift by FIRE. He wanted to go back to work but the allure of staying home won. His health and life's progression began a steady decline soon after.
In the winter of my 28th year I discovered to great horror that I had gotten myself into a position where I did not have to work anymore if I didn't wish and my net worth would continue to grow. I spent my days seasonally employed and my off time mountain biking, walking to the library, attending cross-country ski classes and other self-indulgent pursuits. I lived an a unit of a four-plex that I owned and enjoyed a minimalist lifestyle. When I did the math and realized that I could burn the remainder of my existence on frivolous pursuits I was struck with fear. The whole time I thought I was stretching my expenses until my chosen career got underway. What I had done was to create a FIRE lifestyle instead. It seemed that I just knew how to do it by watching my mother all those years.
After school, while the other kids were at baseball practice my brother and I would ride our bikes to a job site of some kind, that was being orchestrated by my mother, and we would work. We did not have to but liked the money she paid us and passively observed as she navigated the perils of property management, real estate development, and investment. Without even really trying I followed in a similar path and found myself effectively retired before I ever had a chance at living. In short order, I destroyed the sanctuary that I had created for myself and was tossed back into the stream of life. Still, over time I found my way back to the peaceful shore of financial independence. These days I am married with a lot of children. Never again will I find peace and an easy life. My wife is very capable of finding new obstacles, wants, and challenges that I must meet. I would be lying if I did not disclose that most of the time I long to return to a minimalist life. I face horrors of a different variety now; consumption, uncertainty, loss of control, and the constant need to increase production.
As a result, I work a lot. I have built a portfolio of investment real estate and a realty business that manages it all. I do not feel that FIRE is always such a good thing to one's overall life progression. Most of us need the drive that comes from the requirement to provide for one's self in order to keep growing, learning, striving, and achieving. Working full time makes the weekends special. It creates an urgency to take maximum advantage of the short time we have with others. Working puts us in sync with the rest of the world. Though I am tired, stressed, and sick of learning new things, I don't ever wish to retire again.
Or, you know, you could put all of that energy into all of these kids you have. Just saying.
We spend a lot of time with the kids. As a result of FIRE I am available for many different kid activities. It is a blessing but does not help with my aspirations.
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Interesting thread. I really like the idea of saying that we are starting out own consulting business, or something along those lines. Don't know if DH would be on board with lying to his family, but it truly seems like the best plan. And if there is *any* aspect of consulting, it would also be the truth, even if it's still a bit misleading.
Sure, we could also just set a boundary and tell anyone who approached it to pound sand, but that can be very difficult, especially for certain personality types and especially with family. And it can also damage family relationships. I have no moral qualms at all about fibbing to someone for the sake of peace, my own comfort, and fending off the very likely possibility that they will try to take advantage and intentionally put us in uncomfortable situations and use guilt to manipulate. YMMV.
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I continue to work p.t. at 64 because I really enjoy it and can do it from anywhere with internet so it doesn’t stop me from traveling.