Did you quit before your number?

[MinouMinou]

Hi Post-FIRE folks,
I would love to hear stories from those who left full time employment before reaching their target number. How did things work out financially, emotionally, logistically? What was your decision making process?
Thank you in advance.

[Dicey]

Posting to support your thread. We didn't have a set number. What we had was a service date DH needed to hit to qualify for his Defined Benefit Pension.

[MinouMinou]

Thank you, @Dicey!
I have a number I have been aiming for, and am not there yet. I know I’ve read past posts from those who said they left early and things turned out fine. I was hoping some people might chime in with those. 😊

[spartana]

I didn't really have a number or plan to never work again.  But once I had what I thought was enough saved to take very long periods of time off work (5 years or so) without touching my old lady retirement accounts I quit to go on a sabbatical. Discovered about 2 years in that I spent much less money than I thought I would so declared myself lean FIRE and never went back to work. Sold my house and downsized to a nice fully paid off place at about 1/3 what I sold for and added the extra to my stash to make me chubby FIRE. That was around 20 year or so ago. Guess Im still onnl a very long sabbatical lol.

[MinouMinou]

Oooh, thank you @spartana ! 🤗

[spartana]

I was single (divorced) and didn't have any kids or debt (and had paid off my house) and inexpensive healthcare so it was much easier for me to live on lower expenses as well as be more free-wheeling with my finances and life plans then many others my age. I knew I had future income sources I could tap earlier than I planned if I needed to. And then there were the sugar daddies (jk! jk!)

[gatortator]

Yes.  Also no number, but at the time I quit, I was the higher earning spouse.  I was burned out.

What finally pushed me over - Monday night 10pm, both kids asleep and my spouse I are both on laptops connected to our workplace terminals.  An email arrives in my inbox from the VP of my division announcing layoffs and asking for voluntary candidates before the involuntary layoffs begin. Voluntary layoffs came with various tiered incentives. 

And the thought of taking those incentives filled me with such relief and release that I knew voluntary layoff was the right decision. Spouse fully supported me and 6 weeks later, I was RE’d. That was 10 years ago.

Two weeks after my last day at that job, I found mmm from a link in the old ynab newsletter.  this forum really helped me with the decompression process.

Still retired.

[Financial.Velociraptor]

I hadn't discovered the FIRE community. I hatched a "retire early" plan in undergrad with a 10 year target.  After 14 years, I pulled the trigger.  I didn't have a number but projected my post employment budget to be a little over a 10% annual withdrawal rate.  I considered that risky and intended to relax for a few months and take part time work.  We now call that "Barista FIRE". 

The markets were v.kind to me in 2012 and 2013.  I got into high yield closed end funds (and levered up!) based on conviction the historically low bond rates would make people 'reach for yield'.  That was incredibly risky but it worked out and I made about 65% over a 14 month or so period before pivoting my strategy.  At the same time, I discovered I spent about 8k less per year that I had projected (I wasn't coming home from work wiped out and settling for fast food was biggest driver). 

That was a little over 11 years ago.  My withdrawal rate is still dangerously high per the academic wisdom of Trinity, Pfau, et.al.  I'm finally looking to take up some part time work but on MY TERMS.  I work the election tomorrow as an Alternate Judge, and I have had some interviews with some non profits I believe in. 

If I could do it again, I'd probably have gone ahead and found 20 hours a week 'fun' job early.  An 11 year resume gap has been problematic. 

I'd say if you are truly miserable and close to your number, take some kind of chance and change some things.  If you are short of FU money level you are at least at "be bold" money.  And fortune favors the bold.

[DutchGirl]

I quit my longterm job, that had grown more toxic over the years, one year ago. I had about 80% of my FI number at that time. I still have about that amount (market went down, market went up), but in the past year I have been supporting myself by doing two very small part time jobs (total work hours: 14/week) that together roughly cover my expenses.

Over the next couple of years I intend to keep working 14-16 hours per week to more or less cover my expenses, so that my stash can continue to grow. (And maybe in some years I can even still add a few bucks to it, and it would also be okay if in a spendy year I'd need to withdraw say 0.5-1% - that will hopefully still allow for some growth).

So I'm doing some kind of coast-FI as it's called. What helps is that I'm in the Netherlands, and that my health insurance is not connected to my employer (it never is, here), and that the premium is about 140 euros/month.

I'm very happy with my choice, as my two new workplaces have a much nicer atmosphere, I needed to learn some new skills (which was refreshing), I can often work from home if I want or need to, and I have way more free time which is a lot of fun.

[the lorax]

Hi
I'm thinking of doing this too. I'm the higher earning spouse; have a manager I've finally decided is being toxic (have been giving them the benefit of the doubt for the last year) and we're at about 67% of our number. We are in NZ so no issues with health insurance and super should kick in for us in 20 years. Our current stash would sustain us for about 10 years and we have separate funds set aside for post 65 and for if our kid wants to go to uni. My partner is happy to carry on working and I would contribute via doing all the housework and shopping. My job is a bureaucratic nightmare at the moment but I'd be able to cope if I had a supportive manager. I don't and the whole organisation is restructuring with a view to a significant reduction in head count so there aren't many jobs going elsewhere with the same organisation. On the other hand, they've announced that they won't restructure my level until at least April next year and I don't think I can hang in there that long. I'm going to do what Spartana said and take a year's sabbatical and cross my fingers that I can either get a much more part-time job, get some online work like tutoring or just be able to coast and let our stash increase so my partner should still be able to retire in 9-10 years. I figure any income I can bring in will mean he has the option to retire earlier if he wants to.

Good luck OP
:)

[NotJen]

I technically quit before hitting my 25x number (I announced I was quitting about 5 months in advance, and was not at my number on my last day of work).  However, I did actually reach my number 2 weeks later after my final paycheck came in (there were some nice market gains the last half of 2019).

On the other hand, though my 25x number was based on a lifetime of actual spending, I really felt like it was a big WAG at future housing and medical expenses.  Most people would probably work longer to have more of a cushion, but I had decided I was done, and quit when one of my projects was winding down.

When I quit my career, I was willing to go back to work at something part-time.  I really thought I was going to have to find something that would get me health insurance, but then I realized that ACA coverage would work quite well, so I dropped the whole idea of looking for work after I quit.

Also, being single and child-free, I don't have to worry about how my decision to quit my job would affect anyone else.

It's been working out great so far!  My spending has been way lower than projected, so that gives me a lot of confidence that I can survive years with lumpy higher expenses (like the year I need to replace my car).  I've also taken on summer seasonal employment for fun, so that reduces the amount of my stash I actually have to spend (not by much, it's not lucrative work, but it still helps).

All the boring financial details are in my journal.

[MinouMinou]

These responses are wonderful, thank you.
I was just at therapy talking about burnout and increasing blood pressure. 🤔
Fortune favors the bold…!

[Dreamer40]

Yes, but I have a spouse who will continue to work until we reach our number and beyond (because he enjoys his work). I support his efforts by taking over most of the cooking and cleaning and household stuff. I still have a ton of free time, and now we both have evenings and weekends mostly free.

[secondcor521]

Hi Post-FIRE folks,
I would love to hear stories from those who left full time employment before reaching their target number. How did things work out financially, emotionally, logistically? What was your decision making process?
Thank you in advance.

I didn't.  I reached my number and then stayed at work for another two years or so.  Since FIRE, the market has been kind to me, so things have worked out financially and logistically.  Emotionally it's weird - I felt like I had a great surplus of money when I FIREd seven years ago; now with twice as much and seven years less I feel like there is less of a surplus.  That's probably mostly due to the more rocky market behavior the last few years as well as inflation.

I think the way you've asked the question, you're mostly going to get replies from people who are coast FIRE-ing right now or have done so successfully.  If you're going to try it, I would just be honest with yourself about what your plan is if the markets or part-time job doesn't work out the way you expect.  Are you going to go back after 10 years and try to rebuild a decimated portfolio?  Count on an inheritance?  Cut your spending by 75% to reflect the new reality?

Yes, most of the time things will work out.  It's good to have at least thought about what happens if they don't.

[deborah]

I have known people who have tried to FIRE before their number, and have not succeeded. One family moved to their dream (remote) location, and couldn’t find similarly paid work. The last time I heard from them, they were both working in the local supermarket and hating it. I don’t know whether they ended up moving back to the city, where higher paying jobs were.

[mspym]

We did but there were a number of factors in there. We had no idea what our expenses were likely to be as we were shifting country to a house I had bought on holiday just after I FIRE-d. I quit about a year before my husband, who got made redundant 6 months before we were planning on moving so we turned a holiday into a permanent move.

I bring some extra money proofreading and both of us have skills that are very employable. We haven’t ruled out work but right now it’s decompression for him and picking up new hobbies and old friends for me.

ETA: I finished at 22x expenses and my husband at 20x where the big asterisk was what even are expenses? All we knew was that they would drop by 50K pa once we moved to our paid-off house and did have to pay rent in one of the world’s most expensive cities anymore. When it got to there was an 8x chance of me dying than going broke, I thought eff it, why am I grinding my teeth down to dust for?

[davisgang90]

We didn't really have a number in mind as we live mostly off my military pension. We just picked the right time for a planned move and ended up retiring at 28 years of service. I could have stayed another 5 years or so with little trouble, but the timing worked out for my youngest to start high school in the new MCOL area and my middle son to have 2 years of job training eligibility with the new school system to prepare him for employment (he has autism).

Plan has worked out well.

[Metalcat]

I retired well before my target goal because I suddenly became too disabled to do my job in my 30s.

That said, my goal was to retire by 50, and DH's is to retire at 60 and he's a decade older, so we were aligned to retire together. Even though I made a lot more money, we have always lived on his income and he has a government pension that once he turns 60 could readily cover our general expenses.

However, if we were to divorce or anything were to happen to him, I would be screwed. So I'm not comfortable with that situation.

I also want to work. Even though I had intended to retire in by 50, that was only because my career was so physically demanding. I already had a lineup of projects I wanted to work on in retirement.

I spent a few years decompressing, getting very unpleasant, very expensive treatments. In that time I lost my ability to walk to a totally separate health problem and had to have my femur broken and rotated. I'm just waiting for that to fully recover so that I can break the other leg.

Once I found out that I needed several years of major orthopedic surgery, I figured I needed something to keep me busy while being largely incapacitated for a few years, so I went back to school for another graduate degree.

That degree will allow me to go back to work very, very part time, but very well paid, working with people with serious health issues and chronic pain, which is similar to the work I did before, but this time it won't be physically demanding.

I'm the meantime, I found out about the surgery during the pandemic in Canada, so it was over a year wait between when I signed my consent and when I actually got the first 2 of 6 surgeries.

In that year I knew I wanted to engage in some epic adventuring. I was sick of feeling like my city condo was a prison. Granted, I was on crutches and pretty disabled, but I'm quite feisty. So I bought an investment property about 11 hours away that needed some work, which I mostly did myself, and impulse bought a little 110 year old cabin in a fishing village on a remote island and fixed that one up mostly myself as well. DH is hopeless at DIY, he's absolutely not allowed to touch power tools. He just looks pretty and carries heavy things when needed. 

We spent half the year exploring new and exciting places we had never been, seeing some of the most exquisite views and nature imaginable. We went back this past summer after my leg healed enough to *kind of* manage stairs, and really entrenched ourselves in the local community, making truly wonderful friendships.

I've been retired for almost 4 years, by nearly 5 years I'll be graduated and taking on as much or as little work as I want to. My income from my work will again go almost entirely to savings so that I can have my own resources and independent financial security.

I don't think I would ever be comfortable not being able to earn. Knowing I was in a career where there was a clear physical end in sight had me always thinking of the next set of skills I would want in order to always be employable.

For me, that's the most important hedge. No matter how much money I have, I just don't feel comfortable not having the ability to earn if push comes to shove.

I probably would not have done a full extra graduate degree were it not for the surgeries, but I really enjoy learning and was taking piles of online courses for fun anyway, so it's been a great use of my time and energy and kept me feeling like I'm moving forward even when I was stuck in bed. It kept me from feeling like my life was on hold.

And now I have a resilient set of professional skills that are useful under any economic conditions in a field where I can work self-employed, as much or as little as I want to, which is immune to ageism or ableism. As long as my brain stays sharp, I will just become *more* employable over time.

It's also very important work that I can do for free, so it covers both paid and volunteer and opens up a ton of opportunities for work travel, which is what we really want to do.

Once DH is retired, we want to take on projects all around the world and spend periods of time in interesting places doing meaningful work. DH will likely do a lot of consulting once he leaves government. Both of us can work in person or remote, so if opportunities come up to do in-person work I'm really cool locations, the other can join and work remotely.

All in all, it's all worked out really well despite my body deciding to very literally fall apart.

It's been simultaneously the most challenging, brutal, painful and fun, awesome, happy years of my life. I've entirely reformulated my relationship to work and now fully conceptualize any work I take on in the future as serving my quality life. If it doesn't improve my overall well being, I simply won't do it.

I've really learned what happiness, wellness, and self care actually mean.

[Life in Balance]

I retired 4 years ago with about 17x my RE number.  I needed to stop work due to health reasons and a toxic workplace. (I was also discussing burnout with my counselor, so I've been in your shoes). I left in December 2019 and we all know what happened in 2020.  I've been fortunate to have passive income that covers about 1/3 of my expenses.  This income will end in the next couple of years.  So, I've been withdrawing from my accounts about 2% these four years because expenses have been lower.  With the market ups and downs, I'm now at about 24x my RE number.  I figure if my money has managed to grow during a global pandemic, multiple wars, an insurrection, and all the other problems, I'm probably going to be okay.  I couldn't have gone back to work during that time, and I still am not at a point where I could consistently work.  But I could manage 10 hours/week doing something now if I had to.  I don't feel like I have to.  ;) 

I think if you have a large enough cushion that you can consider jumping and you're in a toxic situation or nearing burnout, then you should jump.  You need to jump.  Nothing is more important than your mental and physical health.  If you need to pick up a part-time job later, do it.  But give yourself the gift of being happy (and if you're discussing burnout with your counselor, you're not happy). 

[4tify]

I was the high earner and my “number” included the idea of buying a house for 500k elsewhere. A new boss got hired during the pandemic who was grossly under qualified. During that time everyone else got the idea to buy a new house elsewhere too. Now all those properties are a few hundred thousand more.

But I quit anyway. Called it a sabbatical and am now 1.5 years post-job. I’ve considered going back to save more but it would take a few years and I don’t think I have the mojo for it. So now still renting, SO works from home mainly. Maybe not having yard work isn’t the worst thing, but still wish we had a house. I’ve always lived in HCOL areas so never could afford one we’d like without moving.

The money part is working out fine since we didn’t buy a house. As some others have said, if you’re close give it a shot. After a year or two of the good life you can always go back and make more or coast-FI etc.

I think the power of FI really is more about choice along the way and less about hitting some number. If I recall MMM had like 600k and a paid off house when he started all this! Now I read all over how people with 2-3M are scared they’ll never retire.

[MrGreen]

My goal was to quit with $1 million and a paid off house (~$1.1 million net worth). When we got to 800k and some equity in other real estate that approximated a paid off house I quit. Hated my job that much. Figured if we got a bad sequence of returns in the first few years we had enough money to figure something out. I just couldn't keep feeling like trash most days. Fortunately, we got a good sequence of returns in the years following FIRE so I never had to "figure it out."

Part of the original plan was me building our new house in a lower COL area than where we lived when I worked. I got anxiety over the money and that never happened. Instead my wife and I temporarily moved in with friends, which turned into four years (through the first half of the pandemic) since we all got on so well. We finally bought our own house but missed the huge run up in prices. That would have stung if we hadn't had such a good sequence of returns up until now.

Having some experience backpacking (I had planned to hike the Appalachian Trail over 6 months) and understanding just how little we really need to live, I knew there were ways we could reduce our expenses if it came to it. Hell, after now having traveled across the US four times in the last five years, I know we could be comfortable living out of a Dodge Ram Promaster van or something similar. But that's just me. I still have the bug to get on the road and see changing landscapes in all the seasons. I suspect that itch will be with me longer than my body will be capable of scratching it.

[jfer_rose]

I quit before I reached my number. But big disclaimer: my spending is very much in the lean FIRE category and as such, my number was significantly higher than 25x my expenses. I don't own a home and wanted to have a lot of padding for healthcare costs, end of life expenses, or other unplanned expenditures. So I actually had exceeded 25x my expenses when I quit.

I quit to go to school to learn woodworking in 2019, intending to get a job in my new field after completing the program. The pandemic delayed my graduation, so I ended up starting a business. It took me a while to notice that I had reached my full-FIRE number when I had been focused on school/my new business.

I'm no longer focused on trying to grow my business but I find that I still earn income in ways that interest me. Just as one example, I have taken up cat-sitting for my neighbors and really enjoy it as I love cats but don't have one anymore. I'm now four years out from quitting and I'm not yet convinced that sequence of returns will be in my favor. As such, I'm not certain I won't have to work again, but if I did need to, I would have many years of runway to figure it out. I realize there are so many ways I could earn income besides a traditional job. For example, if I had to earn money right now, I might try to start a business caring for and/or styling indoor plants at restaurants and businesses.

[Just_Me]

Yes, I quit before our number, maybe it would have taken us another 6 years to get to the "number" assuming decent market returns which may have ended up being longer than 6 years and very likely would have put me in the dumpster mentally.

Long story short, I realized I didn't want to retire to hobbies but work in something different. When I gave myself the permission to quit (took way too long), we technically had  just about enough for me to not work as long as DW worked. So that took some financial pressure off.

Emotionally and logistically it's brought its own set of problems, like finding a good fit between meaningful work and our lives with young children.

I still put financial pressure on myself to work from time to time, mostly when I make withdrawals it's still hard mentally to swap to spending, but I have good supports in place to deal with that.

Absolutely zero regrets about giving up the well paying but unfulfilling job for the under/unemployment exploration. There's so much out there that's just... Fun. Also bad. But different. I've been able to say yes to so many things that I never thought I'd be able to say yes to, and I've found it incredibly easy to say no to things that I know won't work.

[DutchGirl]

Can I add that a lot of FI people still have some income, certainly during the first decade after they've quit their career/corporate job? This is also true for me.

So don't be too afraid to "jump" when you have >75% of the number that you thought you would need. It is very likely that over the years you'll have some jobs, projects or other income that will cover some of your expenses, so that you'll be okay.
If your mental health is on the line, that's very important to take into account.

[BFGirl]

I didn't really have a number, I had a goal to hit at work for number of years for a small pension and healthcare benefit.  I hit that goal the beginning of 2023.  I worked with great people and a great boss, but had been in a field dealing with social problems for 20+ years and was burned out.  When my financial people ran the numbers and basically said my yearly spend could be approximately what my take-home pay was, I decided to pull the plug.   I'm just a few months in and am devoting time to my fun side gig.  I figure I can always get a low skill part time job if I need extra income.  What I decided was that I might still need to earn money, but I didn't have to earn as much and deal with as much stress.

[Tasse]

PTF. We only have about 50% of our number, but dropping to one income would still leave us with a 25% savings rate, so it's on the table.

[FLBiker]

I appreciate this thread!  We're close to our number, and this is helping stir my confidence.  I like my job (it's quite easy and the people are nice, plus I work from home and am able to do all sorts of other stuff while "at work") but my direct supervisor is leaving at the end of the year, so things are going to change.  My plan is to do nothing proactive, and take time to decompress and figure out what's next when 1) I lose my job or 2) it becomes something I don't want anymore.  My impulse is to start lining stuff up now, but I'm resisting that impulse.

[lost and found]

Hi
I'm thinking of doing this too. I'm the higher earning spouse; have a manager I've finally decided is being toxic (have been giving them the benefit of the doubt for the last year) and we're at about 67% of our number. We are in NZ so no issues with health insurance and super should kick in for us in 20 years. Our current stash would sustain us for about 10 years and we have separate funds set aside for post 65 and for if our kid wants to go to uni. My partner is happy to carry on working and I would contribute via doing all the housework and shopping. My job is a bureaucratic nightmare at the moment but I'd be able to cope if I had a supportive manager. I don't and the whole organisation is restructuring with a view to a significant reduction in head count so there aren't many jobs going elsewhere with the same organisation. On the other hand, they've announced that they won't restructure my level until at least April next year and I don't think I can hang in there that long. I'm going to do what Spartana said and take a year's sabbatical and cross my fingers that I can either get a much more part-time job, get some online work like tutoring or just be able to coast and let our stash increase so my partner should still be able to retire in 9-10 years. I figure any income I can bring in will mean he has the option to retire earlier if he wants to.

Good luck OP
:)

Hello fellow Kiwi :-)  enjoy your sabbatical and hopefully it becomes permanent!

[mspym]

@the lorax I did a few stints of 6-9 months off in between 6-24 month contracts and it was a nice way to a good way to toggle between modes. Highly recommend.

[Trudie]

I quit when we were at about 80% of our number while my spouse still worked. He quit 15 months later. I quit a few months earlier than I thought I would, but the job had really become toxic. I also had a long commute. Toward the end my health was suffering.

Undoubtedly, we were helped by inheritance we received about 6 months after I quit, although this wasn't anticipated when we made the decision. The year after I quit my 78k/yr job I worked part time at a greenhouse. I absolutely loved it, although it wasn't a financial strategy. But the relaxed environment was something I loved. It helped me decompress and do creative things.

We downsized and moved to a condo we bought for cash. We walk and take public transportation and our expenses are lower than anticipated. I don't track them. I just try to keep an eye out for waste but don't spend much time on it.

Alot of people comment on knowing what you're retiring to . I think it's okay to have vague ideas, knowing that plans will change. The thing that helped me most was to inventory ways in which I was flexible, whether with expenses, expectations, what type of work I would do, and so on. No regrets.

[Loren Ver]

DH and I both retired before we hit our numbers when I was 36 and he was 39.  We retired because we felt like it and I liked the idea of forever being a retiree at 36 and I told DH I'd have him out by 40 back when we were in our 20s. 

We also did this without a paid off house and with student loans still on the books.  Though we did make sure we hit our social security 40 quarters, even if some of the quarters are a little lack luster.  That was a good box to get checked.

Overall, we thought we would be okay because the market was already doing the heavy lifting at that point.  Our income was just drops in the bucket, so no loss there.  All we had to do was not pull out more money than the market was making over time and we'd eventually hit our number.  I think it helped that we had been pulling money from investments for years to help cover large purchases (cars, down payments).  So pulling money wasn't foreign to us, it was just another income stream to be used.  So unlike most people that have trouble making that transition, it wasn't an issue for us. 

Anyway, it worked.   We have no plans to go back to paid work.  We do have plans to cut expenses if things go plaid.  Even though our spending isn't high, we still have a lot of flexibility.  We also have spending that has natural end dates (mortgage, student loans), so as we get more expensive (health insurance), some of our costs will also be rolling off.

Loren

[2sk22]

I was so naive that I didn't even know that there was a concept called "the number" until I discovered this forum in 2017!  However, as I have described elsewhere in this forum, we over-saved to such a ridiculous extent that when I started plugging my data into several retirement calculators,  I discovered that we were completely financial independent by any measure. Then, it was only a matter of getting myself mentally ready for retirement which took three years.

[Dicey]

I don't love the admonishment that a person must retire "to something". Hell, I just retired to Be Retired. That was about 12 years ago and it's been awesome!

Current example: We decided on a whim to go to Pismo Beach because we could get a mid-week reservation.* Today we were returning from a long, leisurely loop which included seeing the butterflies at Monarch Grove, strolling out the Pismo Beach Pier, and sharing a sweet treat from Old West Cinnamon Rolls($3). We passed an Elks Lodge that had a sign for Thursday Bingo Night, so we're going to stuff a few twenties in our pockets and go see what it's all about. Never done it before, but why not? (Of course, we will eat yummy homemade food at our campsite beforehand.)

*We can't get a reservation for the weekend because: Veteran's Day, so we found another place in the mountains not far away. Surf and Turf, baby!

[the lorax]

hello @lost and found! nice to have another kiwi here :)

[Metalcat]

I don't love the admonishment that a person must retire "to something". Hell, I just retired to Be Retired. That was about 12 years ago and it's been awesome!

Current example: We decided on a whim to go to Pismo Beach because we could get a mid-week reservation.* Today we were returning from a long, leisurely loop which included seeing the butterflies at Monarch Grove, strolling out the Pismo Beach Pier, and sharing a sweet treat from Old West Cinnamon Rolls($3). We passed an Elks Lodge that had a sign for Thursday Bingo Night, so we're going to stuff a few twenties in our pockets and go see what it's all about. Never done it before, but why not? (Of course, we will eat yummy homemade food at our campsite beforehand.)

*We can't get a reservation for the weekend because: Veteran's Day, so we found another place in the mountains not far away. Surf and Turf, baby!

Same.

This advice is largely for a certain generation of men who typically worked for one company for decades with wives at home running the domestic front. Then these men retired as seniors with no idea what to do with themselves because they had never had a truly autonomous moment in their lives.

That's not FIRE folks.

A lot of folks here actually desperately need to learn to let go of structure, learn to be at ease in their own lives, and figure out how to perceive being healthy and happy as the ultimate productivity.

That doesn't mean we don't do awesome shit in retirement, it just means that it can take some time to get to know yourself as a retired person before you can figure out what that future, freer, less burdened version of yourself really enjoys.

I found I actually had to really let myself get bored in order to find true internal motivation, not an external sense of what I should be doing with my time.

There was a switch that flipped from "I should be doing XYZ" to "hey, why not do ABC? What the fuck else am I going to do with my time??"

[PacificaFog]

What a great post!  Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to reply!  It’s just so encouraging to see real life examples of people who have pulled the plug “early” where everything worked out just fine.  It’s been interesting to realize that how much of the decision to FIRE isn’t just about numbers, but also psychology.  I’m currently in the 2024 cohort and planning on leaving my job in April, but I still have doubts pretty much every day.  Now, when I’m second-guessing myself, I can come back here for a morale boost!

[Metalcat]

What a great post!  Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to reply!  It’s just so encouraging to see real life examples of people who have pulled the plug “early” where everything worked out just fine.  It’s been interesting to realize that how much of the decision to FIRE isn’t just about numbers, but also psychology.  I’m currently in the 2024 cohort and planning on leaving my job in April, but I still have doubts pretty much every day.  Now, when I’m second-guessing myself, I can come back here for a morale boost!

As I said in another thread awhile.back, the best time to retire is simply when the risks of continuing to work outweigh the risks of leaving.

Of course it's about more than the numbers.

What even defines those numbers? What is your budget even based off of? Why do you have to spend X amount and save 25X that amount??

Because that's a amount you've decided, based on feelings, that will make you feel happy with your quality of life.

Once you get past basic subsistence, ALL financial and career decisions are emotional. It's all about trading off your time and energy for security and quality of life. Note that most concepts of security are also primarily emotional, because risk analysis is emotional.

You make plans based on preferences, driven by emotional responses to ideas of what your future might look like. That is about as woo-y and hand-wavy as it gets.

However, if circumstances change and continuing to work threatens your quality of life, then of course the calculus changes as to which trade offs are worthwhile.

You can say "okay, 10 years of work is worth it for the quality of life and risk mitigation that I think I'll be comfortable with." However, say you experience burnout and your health starts being affected and there's tangible risk to your longterm quality of life if you don't quit?? Perhaps then, trading off some perceived security or some luxury becomes very attractive compared to the immediate risk of permanent damage to your health.

You have to always be nimble and ready to adjust to new factors and realities.

"Math" doesn't determine when it's best for you to leave a job. Math is just a marker of conditions that meet your emotional needs.

It's all about feelings. If you fail to account for the feelings that underpin all of this, then you can't respond to them effectively and make optimal decisions.

There's very real math to retirement planning, but it is all based on a foundation of squishy, abstract FEELINGS and the more in touch with those you are, the better you can utilize the math to manage them appropriately.

[spartana]

There are tons of FIRE failure stories out there too - some because of money, some because of lifestyle changes, some because of dissatisfaction of their choosen RE life. I think they are helpful to read just as much as the success stories to get a wider perspective from many different experiences.

[MinouMinou]

What a great post!  Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to reply!  It’s just so encouraging to see real life examples of people who have pulled the plug “early” where everything worked out just fine.  It’s been interesting to realize that how much of the decision to FIRE isn’t just about numbers, but also psychology.  I’m currently in the 2024 cohort and planning on leaving my job in April, but I still have doubts pretty much every day.  Now, when I’m second-guessing myself, I can come back here for a morale boost!

OP here, and agreed with PacificaFog!

Thank you to everyone who posted in response to this question...

Security has been a priority for me. I went through an earlier phase of life being financially dependent on my partner when we had young children and very little money, and it was a factor in a lot of ensuing stress. It is important to me not to be in that position again.  But simplicity, creativity, resilience, connection, and exploration are strong values too. I try to remember that I'm in a more financially secure position now and at midlife, life is short.

My planned date is in June, but I crafted my letter of resignation and have it in my figurative back pocket. Taking things week by week.

[TheMatteus]

Yes, I did.  Then I eventually made more money investing in companies I was passionate about than I did over all of my 18 year career.  I would argue people shouldn't be so concerned about a number.  You don't know what the future holds and any number you choose is just a guess.  Get a decent 'stache saved up and then follow your passions and if you work hard the income will be there.

[secondcor521]

Yes, I did.  Then I eventually made more money investing in companies I was passionate about than I did over all of my 18 year career.  I would argue people shouldn't be so concerned about a number.  You don't know what the future holds and any number you choose is just a guess.  Get a decent 'stache saved up and then follow your passions and if you work hard the income will be there.

Sure, but I thought OP was talking about coasting to FIRE, not switching from work work to passion work.

What a great post!  Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to reply!  It’s just so encouraging to see real life examples of people who have pulled the plug “early” where everything worked out just fine.  It’s been interesting to realize that how much of the decision to FIRE isn’t just about numbers, but also psychology.  I’m currently in the 2024 cohort and planning on leaving my job in April, but I still have doubts pretty much every day.  Now, when I’m second-guessing myself, I can come back here for a morale boost!

This thread might not be a scientific sampling of the population.  It might tend to include those who succeeded at coast-FIRE and exclude those who didn't.

Morale boosts aren't helpful if SORR bites your finances.

...

That all being said, if you're young and resilient, if things go sideways you can probably recover.  If you're middle aged and on the cusp of permanent dispair, recovery might be a lot more challenging.

[Metalcat]

Yes, I did.  Then I eventually made more money investing in companies I was passionate about than I did over all of my 18 year career.  I would argue people shouldn't be so concerned about a number.  You don't know what the future holds and any number you choose is just a guess.  Get a decent 'stache saved up and then follow your passions and if you work hard the income will be there.

Sure, but I thought OP was talking about coasting to FIRE, not switching from work work to passion work.

What a great post!  Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to reply!  It’s just so encouraging to see real life examples of people who have pulled the plug “early” where everything worked out just fine.  It’s been interesting to realize that how much of the decision to FIRE isn’t just about numbers, but also psychology.  I’m currently in the 2024 cohort and planning on leaving my job in April, but I still have doubts pretty much every day.  Now, when I’m second-guessing myself, I can come back here for a morale boost!

This thread might not be a scientific sampling of the population.  It might tend to include those who succeeded at coast-FIRE and exclude those who didn't.

Morale boosts aren't helpful if SORR bites your finances.

...

That all being said, if you're young and resilient, if things go sideways you can probably recover.  If you're middle aged and on the cusp of permanent dispair, recovery might be a lot more challenging.

I'm middle aged, retired because I was suddenly disabled, then got much more disabled after retiring, my expenses have gone up significantly since I retired, and I'm doing just fine.

If you have a big pile of money, a lot is possible.

OP was also asking about people who left work before reaching their full number. Those of us who decided to take on part time work at some point in retirement are relevant to that population.

Let's not forget that Pete himself went directly from full time work to working on all sorts of projects. The more someone has a willingness to do some kind of work in retirement, the less risky it is to walk away from a career with less money.

So yeah, I think it's very relevant to the conversation.

If someone seriously wants to pull the plug with substantially less money than they think they need to be happy, then yeah, they should absolutely get feedback on what it's like to pick up work after leaving a career because they should probably be open to that possibility.

[FIRE 20/20]

I didn't FIRE before hitting my number, but one of the best things I did along my FIRE journey was transition out of my high-stress, ladder-climbing role into an easy role that I was overqualified for.  I don't remember my exact numbers, but I was close to 20x planned spending when I made the transition.  I used accrued PTO to work about 32 hours a week for the last ~2 years in that new role.  When I finally FIREd I was at about 30x planned spending.  My experience isn't applicable to everyone, but if it does apply I highly recommend something like that approach.  I could have kept going in the last role I had for quite a while (great boss, good co-workers, overpaid, only worked the hours I needed to and then left, etc.) but being FIREd is better than even a pretty good job. 

Oh, and I want to +1 the comment about not needing to FIRE to anything.  I didn't have anything in particular to FIRE to, but I'm much happier than I was in my best job. 

[Ron Scott]

I didn't FIRE before hitting my number, but one of the best things I did along my FIRE journey was transition out of my high-stress, ladder-climbing role into an easy role that I was overqualified for. 

I’ve read more than a few similar comments on this board and wonder about this.

I went in the other direction completely and deliberately placed myself into high-pressure environments, ladder-climbing assignments, you name it, simply because I saw that as the fastest road to FI. (I kinda got addicted to it and worked far past FI, but that’s another topic.)

Still, I wonder why people who really have their hearts set on FIRE don’t just push the envelope hard while they’re young, get to FI or maybe FI+Cushion, and retire.

At some point, I managed to just relax into circumstances that I previously found to be “stressful”. That ability multiplied my capacity for achievement and advancement. Stress is not so much about the circumstances you face but how you internalize them, right?

[Metalcat]

I didn't FIRE before hitting my number, but one of the best things I did along my FIRE journey was transition out of my high-stress, ladder-climbing role into an easy role that I was overqualified for. 

I’ve read more than a few similar comments on this board and wonder about this.

I went in the other direction completely and deliberately placed myself into high-pressure environments, ladder-climbing assignments, you name it, simply because I saw that as the fastest road to FI. (I kinda got addicted to it and worked far past FI, but that’s another topic.)

Still, I wonder why people who really have their hearts set on FIRE don’t just push the envelope hard while they’re young, get to FI or maybe FI+Cushion, and retire.

At some point, I managed to just relax into circumstances that I previously found to be “stressful”. That ability multiplied my capacity for achievement and advancement.

Absolutely not. Many circumstances are fundamentally unhealthy. People can't just mind-over-matter their way through all sources of stress.

I've always enjoyed very high stress, high pressure work, but that's because it was eustress, not distress. It was extremely intense stress with massively high stakes, but it was healthy because I had a solid amount of autonomy.

It's not the amount of stress that matters, it's the type of stress that matters.

For example, a lot of people don't develop PTSD from natural disasters, even if they are horrific and kill a ton of people. However, PTSD occurs very easily when there is an element of injustice or moral injury.

Systems with unpredictable and unjust punishment are *extremely* difficult to psychologically tolerate in any kind of persistent way. This is how working for a toxic organization can cause people to burnout so badly that they develop permanent memory problems and physiological symptoms.

Chronic distress is absurdly damaging, chronic eustress can be incredibly empowering.

[eyesonthehorizon]

...I went in the other direction completely and deliberately placed myself into high-pressure environments, ladder-climbing assignments, you name it, simply because I saw that as the fastest road to FI. (I kinda got addicted to it and worked far past FI, but that’s another topic.)

Still, I wonder why people who really have their hearts set on FIRE don’t just push the envelope hard while they’re young, get to FI or maybe FI+Cushion, and retire.

At some point, I managed to just relax into circumstances that I previously found to be “stressful”. That ability multiplied my capacity for achievement and advancement. Stress is not so much about the circumstances you face but how you internalize them, right?

There are two ideas here you cite quite often. One is that young people in FIRE regularly hit 25x & quit the same day, with no additional considerations. This has been extensively discussed & widely concluded not to be how real people generally behave. Secondly, a premise that your prescription for a good FIRE rests upon: that work is empowering, if you merely have the right mindset about it. Every time you bring this up, various posters cite their experiences: abusive bosses, toxic workplaces, unreasonable demands, a sense of either purposelessness or working actively against their own principles on the clock.

If you read any of the many replies you have received in the past for any purpose other than to decide you "aren't sure you completely agree" & reaffirm your existing conclusions, can you at least allow the idea that your experience of employment is not the general one?

What people tend to crave most is autonomy, & a growing majority of positions out there not only explicitly lack much autonomy but upper management are fighting like hell to eliminate what little remains (unsupervised work on flexible hours or from flexible locations in particular, among white collar workers.) Autonomy is expensive - it means the people working for you have a demonstrated ability to exercise good judgement & should be paid accordingly. Cutting their opportunity to prove this, reducing them to cogs, devalues labor, which fattens net profit no matter what the business conditions otherwise allow for revenue. This is just as severe in management, because you are expected to view dedicated, resourceful people as machinery to be decommissioned at the drop of a hat for the sake of one quarter's earnings report, & standing up for them - or just for long-term health & success of the organization - only ensures you get axed too. I don't know how long it has been since you worked below a second-tier managerial level, but the world you experienced sounds utterly unlike the one on offer to young people today.

Either way - I was the young person who pushed the envelope hard with overtime & rapid advancement while I was young to get significantly past my number (that said, I have very lean expenses, so "my number" by the math felt dangerously low.) I knew I was redlining, knew I had burned the candle at both ends for years in a way that was not sustainable, but also that I was capable of just about anything on a limited-time basis. 

OP, I really hope my experience below doesn't resonate for you. I would not have advised a friend to do what I did even while I was doing it, but now, seeing the aftermath, I probably wouldn't wish it on an enemy either. Company culture did not allow boundaries, & every minute of every day was a fresh emergency. My health suffered greatly in the last few years, & once I removed the airless scaffold of all-consuming employment, I spent months so exhausted, I could barely raise myself from the couch. Since I did not have time to relax or an ability to disconnect while working, I have to relearn basic skills around keeping myself mentally present when nothing is going horribly wrong. I am so used to hurdling deadlines each one step after the next that I wake up in panic because there must have been paperwork I failed to file on time, a missed appointment. Silence between alarms meant that the alarm system was broken (another thing to fix!), & so little stresses me out so much as apparent calm. Living under those conditions rewires your nervous system. The mountain of health work I have ahead of me before I get to enjoy my time off or retirement (I am not permanently decided) is seriously daunting.

Different people have very different experiences of work, but there is a reason that so many voices in this thread have centered your physical & your mental health above any actual monetary considerations. If you found purpose & joy in your work, I doubt you would be looking for a risk-benefit analysis to leaving earlier than the math supports. Mainstream talk about work-life balance tends to sound like lip service, because the people delivering it don't have any, but it's not wrong. It's just uncommon common sense. Find a balanced way to live well enough right now that you wouldn't mind if it took an extra ten years to change, & then find ways to save toward getting ahead of schedule.

Just before I submitted this: @Metalcat knows what's what, & briefer too.

[Tasse]

I didn't FIRE before hitting my number, but one of the best things I did along my FIRE journey was transition out of my high-stress, ladder-climbing role into an easy role that I was overqualified for. 

I’ve read more than a few similar comments on this board and wonder about this.

I went in the other direction completely and deliberately placed myself into high-pressure environments, ladder-climbing assignments, you name it, simply because I saw that as the fastest road to FI. (I kinda got addicted to it and worked far past FI, but that’s another topic.)

Still, I wonder why people who really have their hearts set on FIRE don’t just push the envelope hard while they’re young, get to FI or maybe FI+Cushion, and retire.

I have a chill job that I like a lot that pays decently but not amazingly. I've been in it for one year and I feel that I have a happy and balanced life that I can sustain until we hit our number, even if that's 10 more years. Why would I upend that to do something I hate to get to FIRE faster? There are other parts of my life I'd rather put my energy into improving.

OTOH, my husband has had several periods of being miserable at his high paying job. Why should he tolerate 3 years of misery to FIRE faster, when we'll still get there in 10 years of working at a relaxed pace and be happy in the meantime? I would rather work longer married to a happy person than be richer but married to a miserable one.

(Numbers are plausible but not super accurate.)

[spartana]

I didn't FIRE before hitting my number, but one of the best things I did along my FIRE journey was transition out of my high-stress, ladder-climbing role into an easy role that I was overqualified for. 

I’ve read more than a few similar comments on this board and wonder about this.

I went in the other direction completely and deliberately placed myself into high-pressure environments, ladder-climbing assignments, you name it, simply because I saw that as the fastest road to FI. (I kinda got addicted to it and worked far past FI, but that’s another topic.)

Still, I wonder why people who really have their hearts set on FIRE don’t just push the envelope hard while they’re young, get to FI or maybe FI+Cushion, and retire.

At some point, I managed to just relax into circumstances that I previously found to be “stressful”. That ability multiplied my capacity for achievement and advancement.

Absolutely not. Many circumstances are fundamentally unhealthy. People can't just mind-over-matter their way through all sources of stress.

I've always enjoyed very high stress, high pressure work, but that's because it was eustress, not distress. It was extremely intense stress with massively high stakes, but it was healthy because I had a solid amount of autonomy.

It's not the amount of stress that matters, it's the type of stress that matters.

For example, a lot of people don't develop PTSD from natural disasters, even if they are horrific and kill a ton of people. However, PTSD occurs very easily when there is an element of injustice or moral injury.

Systems with unpredictable and unjust punishment are *extremely* difficult to psychologically tolerate in any kind of persistent way. This is how working for a toxic organization can cause people to burnout so badly that they develop permanent memory problems and physiological symptoms.

Chronic distress is absurdly damaging, chronic eustress can be incredibly empowering.

And it's not always about the job. There are often tons of reasons people want to quit their jobs even if they enjoy them and/or aren't overburdened by them. Opportunities may arise at a certain period in ones life that will never be there again and they want to take advantage of it. Continuing to work longer, especially at full throttle,  may mean you'll miss out on those opportunities. I liked my job a lot but there were other things I wanted to do that required a lot of free time and was willing to live leaner (and job free) to do that.

[Metalcat]

I didn't FIRE before hitting my number, but one of the best things I did along my FIRE journey was transition out of my high-stress, ladder-climbing role into an easy role that I was overqualified for. 

I’ve read more than a few similar comments on this board and wonder about this.

I went in the other direction completely and deliberately placed myself into high-pressure environments, ladder-climbing assignments, you name it, simply because I saw that as the fastest road to FI. (I kinda got addicted to it and worked far past FI, but that’s another topic.)

Still, I wonder why people who really have their hearts set on FIRE don’t just push the envelope hard while they’re young, get to FI or maybe FI+Cushion, and retire.

At some point, I managed to just relax into circumstances that I previously found to be “stressful”. That ability multiplied my capacity for achievement and advancement.

Absolutely not. Many circumstances are fundamentally unhealthy. People can't just mind-over-matter their way through all sources of stress.

I've always enjoyed very high stress, high pressure work, but that's because it was eustress, not distress. It was extremely intense stress with massively high stakes, but it was healthy because I had a solid amount of autonomy.

It's not the amount of stress that matters, it's the type of stress that matters.

For example, a lot of people don't develop PTSD from natural disasters, even if they are horrific and kill a ton of people. However, PTSD occurs very easily when there is an element of injustice or moral injury.

Systems with unpredictable and unjust punishment are *extremely* difficult to psychologically tolerate in any kind of persistent way. This is how working for a toxic organization can cause people to burnout so badly that they develop permanent memory problems and physiological symptoms.

Chronic distress is absurdly damaging, chronic eustress can be incredibly empowering.

And it's not always about the job. There are often tons of reasons people want to quit their jobs even if they enjoy them and/or aren't overburdened by them. Opportunities may arise at a certain period in ones life that will never be there again and they want to take advantage of it. Continuing to work longer, especially at full throttle,  may mean you'll miss out on those opportunities. I liked my job a lot but there were other things I wanted to do that required a lot of free time and was willing to live leaner (and job free) to do that.

This is absolutely true and comes back to my very basic point that the best time to leave a career is when the risks of staying outweigh the risks of leaving.

If staying means the risk of missing out on something truly worth doing instead of making money, then it's not worth staying.

For some people that just means adapting to whatever amount of money you can live on, for other people it means taking a break from work.

We used to have a lot more people who took sabbaticals, sometimes serial sabbaticals. I know from personal experience that taking a few years off in my late 30s/early 40s has been great, and allowed me to do so many amazing things I would have never done. I'm also really jazzed to go back to work.

I'm actually really glad I didn't just work all the way through to retirement. My life would look very, very different.

I didn't just "take a break," I completely refabricated the entire structure of my life. I have so much that I wouldn't have had I not take those years off.

[JupiterGreen]

Chronic distress is absurdly damaging, chronic eustress can be incredibly empowering.

And it's not always about the job. There are often tons of reasons people want to quit their jobs even if they enjoy them and/or aren't overburdened by them. Opportunities may arise at a certain period in ones life that will never be there again and they want to take advantage of it. Continuing to work longer, especially at full throttle,  may mean you'll miss out on those opportunities. I liked my job a lot but there were other things I wanted to do that required a lot of free time and was willing to live leaner (and job free) to do that.

@spartana quite right. I love my job, hate where I live. We are leaving either at the end of my contract in 2024 or 2025. We have about 80% of FI number right now. It's a hard decision. @Metalcat I like the way you put it about missing out. I have a teen relative who is going through something right now and I'd like to be physically closer to them so they have a home to crash at should things get rough. That teen is pushing my mind to 2024 even if my sense of safety/conservative way with money tells me to stay another year. So we will see how things progress.

Thank you for this post.