Time Post-Fire

[deborah]

Last week I was showing some of the country to a retired friend. We decided not to take the toll road because we had as much time as we wanted. Later, we were sitting in the car talking while everyone around us was in a peak hour traffic jam, and neither of us was at all phased about the jam - we could talk happily because we weren't in any hurry.

Later I was talking about this to my partner, and he said that it was one of the major benefits of retirement that you had been given back time, and it had become far less of a concern than it was before retirement.

Do you also find the time/money balance has changed in your favour since FIRE?

I find I am much more contented because of this. Even some mean skum-bag (probably a kid) dumping a bucket of cement on my car from an overhead walkway towards the end of the trip did not really phase me!

[Rollin]

Last week I was showing some of the country to a retired friend. We decided not to take the toll road because we had as much time as we wanted. Later, we were sitting in the car talking while everyone around us was in a peak hour traffic jam, and neither of us was at all phased about the jam - we could talk happily because we weren't in any hurry.

Later I was talking about this to my partner, and he said that it was one of the major benefits of retirement that you had been given back time, and it had become far less of a concern than it was before retirement.

Do you also find the time/money balance has changed in your favour since FIRE?

I find I am much more contented because of this. Even some mean skum-bag (probably a kid) dumping a bucket of cement on my car from an overhead walkway towards the end of the trip did not really phase me!

Great that you found that time and use it well.  I find some that can get that attitude before FIRE, and some that don't after FIRE, but I would think that after FIRE would be easier.

[Jon_Snow]

I agree with everything deb said.

I would add that even though I have bountiful amounts of time in FIRE, I still feel a bit of pressure to fill my days with as much goodness as I can cram in. There is definitely no coasting or loafing going on. :) I possess a strong desire not to squandor the gift of time that has been suddenly bestowed upon me post-FIRE...and I don't think I have. :)

Also, the days seem to fly by quickly in FIRE - so to get into some lazy rut would seem especially wasteful to me.

[Mrs.LC]

The days certainly do fly by. Mr. LC and I were joking around the other day about how we might have to go back to work just so we could rest!

[Exflyboy]

Retired friend here..:)

I had a lovely relaxing day ( Melbourne has a really great Zoo/sancturary) which is so cool to see if your from the Northern Hemisphere!

Yes I totally agree, and of course I wasn't phased by the jam.. In fact I find myself not being phased by much associated with time pressure. About the only thing is making it to the airport to make a flight.. as this is normally related to my hobby job, even that is not too bad as I normally allow for plenty of time.. and if I miss the flight, well we book another one.. I'm not paying in any case...:)

[bluecollarmusician]

Wow- that is some serious "namaste" going on with regards to the cement... congratulations on finding peace by getting your time back. 

I do appreciate the notion of being able to relax and enjoy the moment.  I am curious if this is just being FIRE, or also part of being a little older and wiser... probably a combination? What do you think?

[Retired To Win]

... I was talking about this to my partner, and he said that it was one of the major benefits of retirement that you had been given back time, and it had become far less of a concern than it was before retirement.

Do you also find the time/money balance has changed in your favour since FIRE?...

Yep.  And being able to live alarm-clock free is absolutely priceless as well.

[bluecollarmusician]

... I was talking about this to my partner, and he said that it was one of the major benefits of retirement that you had been given back time, and it had become far less of a concern than it was before retirement.

Do you also find the time/money balance has changed in your favour since FIRE?...

Yep.  And being able to live alarm-clock free is absolutely priceless as well.

I agree- and even though I am not FIRE, I haven't set and alarm (except for crazy early flights!) since... well, ever... ;)

[JLR]

A bucket of cement! Are you okay?

[deborah]

A bucket of cement! Are you okay?

It was much better than a bucket of rocks! The occasional kid seems to delight in getting on overhead footbridges and chucking rocks at cars - only happens occasionally, but I think cement is better as it didn't dint the car or shatter the windscreen. The cement was wet, so it put polka dots all over the paint work of the car (front, top, sides and a bit on the back), as well as going all over the windscreen. We were lucky that we were in a bit of a traffic jam, so we were moving slowly and the windscreen wipers fixed the vision before I could run into anyone.

Unfortunately, it set really quickly (before we were out of the traffic jam), so I didn't do anything about it until I got home. I really needed to do something because cement is caustic, and could easily completely ruin the paintwork. So even though it was dark by now (remember it's the middle of winter here in Australia), I went to the automatic car wash and used the manual wash to get the cement off. As I have never used these before (when would a mustashian use a car wash?), I asked a bloke who was washing his car how to do it, and started to use the prewash very gently. This dampened the cement. the bloke came over because as he went out of his wash, he saw just how much cement was on the car, and he took over washing the car for me. He was really wonderful, and he got all the polka dots off with the spray and spent at least half an hour doing this for a complete stranger!

The next day I went to a hand wash place, and they said it needed a cut and polish (there was cement in EVERY crack), and there were no cut and polish places at all in the city where my parents live (which I confirmed via google), and it was pointless them just giving it a hand wash, as the cut and polish people would need to do it all again. As I was going home the following day, I decided to get the best place at home to do a cut and polish.

I took it around the day after I came back, and they decided that we had got enough cement off that it could wait until Saturday (but not to leave the car out in the sun in the mean time). So I delivered it on Friday and got it back today, and the car now looks better than when it was new. It is absolutely amazing. Two of them spent the whole day on Saturday getting rid of the cement, and they didn't charge me anything like they should have.

It is amazing how wonderful people are!

[NoNonsenseLandlord]

Even though I am not 100% FIRE'd yet, I am certainly got the FI part down.  I have been FI for almost 3 years, just doing the obligatory 11 months more at the cube farm. 

I was financially independent at the start of 2013, maybe even slightly before, but I didn't realize it.  After going through the numbers, I realized I am saving more than 100% of my cube farm job, like 150% of it.  So I guess that is the definition of it for sure.

I am thinking of small trips to take, and getting mentally prepared for the last day on the job.  Only 344 days until I am out (207 work days, 48 more Monday's)

[Gone Fishing]

Can't wait until my time is "de-valued" a bit!  I'm really looking forward to taking the slow road when it presents itself.  Right now it takes a consious effort to relax and unwind even on a three day weekend.  My wife has been part-time for 5-6 years now and has it figured out pretty well, sometimes to my consternation! 

[soccerluvof4]

In certain things I agree with the OP. But there are always things with  kids I gotta get a move on. I would say around the house I am a lot more relaxed about getting stuff done to site one example.

[arebelspy]

Last week I was showing some of the country to a retired friend. We decided not to take the toll road because we had as much time as we wanted. Later, we were sitting in the car talking while everyone around us was in a peak hour traffic jam, and neither of us was at all phased about the jam - we could talk happily because we weren't in any hurry.

Later I was talking about this to my partner, and he said that it was one of the major benefits of retirement that you had been given back time, and it had become far less of a concern than it was before retirement.

Do you also find the time/money balance has changed in your favour since FIRE?

I find I am much more contented because of this. Even some mean skum-bag (probably a kid) dumping a bucket of cement on my car from an overhead walkway towards the end of the trip did not really phase me!

Absolutely!  This feeling pairs amazing with travel, too, because there's never a need to stress about making your train, or whatever, because you can just always catch the next one.

So much easier to just relax and enjoy the moment, because there's never any rush.

[Miss Prim]

I was at the Dr. office a few days ago and a woman was irate that she had to wait so long to see the Dr. because she was on her lunch hour and the Dr. was at least an hour behind.  I gave her my spot because I had plenty of time and even though I had already waited an hour, I was busy reading magazines that I like that I never read because I don't have any subscriptions. 

It felt great actually!  I felt bad for that woman because she was me up until I retired in April.

                                                                                      Miss Prim

[Jon_Snow]

In the past year I have really come to appreciate what life can be when TIME is no longer a scarce resource. It changes EVERYTHING.

[monarda]

This is interesting. For years, way before FIRE, Time has never been a scarce resource for me. Maybe I'm unusual, but I've never been in any rush, really. Why should being in FIRE change your attitude about time?

[FIRE me]

This is interesting. For years, way before FIRE, Time has never been a scarce resource for me. Maybe I'm unusual, but I've never been in any rush, really. Why should being in FIRE change your attitude about time?

Try working a few months of 80+ hour weeks. I think that your attitude about time would change.

[arebelspy]

This is interesting. For years, way before FIRE, Time has never been a scarce resource for me. Maybe I'm unusual, but I've never been in any rush, really. Why should being in FIRE change your attitude about time?

I would have said the same about myself, and my wife, before FIRE.

We were never in a rush.

I've never been stressed.

Yet it still changed our relationship to time.

Purposefully going slower (even if it never felt that we were going "fast" before) is interesting.

It's hard to describe though.

[monarda]

This is interesting. For years, way before FIRE, Time has never been a scarce resource for me. Maybe I'm unusual, but I've never been in any rush, really. Why should being in FIRE change your attitude about time?

Try working a few months of 80+ hour weeks. I think that your attitude about time would change.

Why would I want to do that? I wouldn't ever want a job with those kinds of demands.
 

[arebelspy]

This is interesting. For years, way before FIRE, Time has never been a scarce resource for me. Maybe I'm unusual, but I've never been in any rush, really. Why should being in FIRE change your attitude about time?

Try working a few months of 80+ hour weeks. I think that your attitude about time would change.

Why would I want to do that? I wouldn't ever want a job with those kinds of demands.

I don't think he was suggesting you do this, but rather giving it as an example to help you understand why people might feel this way.  :)

[FIRE me]

This is interesting. For years, way before FIRE, Time has never been a scarce resource for me. Maybe I'm unusual, but I've never been in any rush, really. Why should being in FIRE change your attitude about time?

Try working a few months of 80+ hour weeks. I think that your attitude about time would change.

Why would I want to do that? I wouldn't ever want a job with those kinds of demands.

You probably wouldn't want to, and that was the point of my answer to your question of “Why should being in FIRE change your attitude about time?”.

More fully answered, FIRE changes people's attitude about time because they are no longer over worked and over stressed.

Sincere congrats to you for retiring early from a job that did not over work you, or (apparently) stress you out. Sucks to be me, I guess. With the forced overtime and the stress. But only for another 14 months!

[monarda]

This is interesting. For years, way before FIRE, Time has never been a scarce resource for me. Maybe I'm unusual, but I've never been in any rush, really. Why should being in FIRE change your attitude about time?

Try working a few months of 80+ hour weeks. I think that your attitude about time would change.

Why would I want to do that? I wouldn't ever want a job with those kinds of demands.

You probably wouldn't want to, and that was the point of my answer to your question of “Why should being in FIRE change your attitude about time?”.

More fully answered, FIRE changes people's attitude about time because they are no longer over worked and over stressed.

Sincere congrats to you for retiring early from a job that did not over work you, or (apparently) stress you out. Sucks to be me, I guess. With the forced overtime and the stress. But only for another 14 months!

Thanks, ARS and FIREme.  Yeah, what I meant by my comment is - why do any people take jobs that involve that much time and stress? That's what's hard for me to understand.  Unless you really LIKED that kind of work and that kind of pressure. <still confused> Do people work really insane amounts of hours doing things they don't love? I find that sad.  [I'm not talking about people working several jobs just trying to make ends meet that's another issue, and those folks won't (sadly) be considering FIRE.] I'm talking to the ones who would choose a world where 80+ hours was required for months at a time.  I might expect that this type of person would be steamrolling through FIRE keeping insanely active doing other things.   I appreciate there are many of kinds of people in the world. I find it interesting that anyone would put themselves through this.  I guess I just don't understand the high stress life.  And how companies can get away with forced overtime and stressing out their human resources.  Are people willing to put up with this treatment just for the money? I don't mean to be insulting or demeaning, I'm just trying to figure out why people do this to themselves.

I've always made my own hours. Alarm-free for years (unless I had an early meeting).

[JrDoctor]

Thanks, ARS and FIREme.  Yeah, what I meant by my comment is - why do any people take jobs that involve that much time and stress? That's what's hard for me to understand. 

My view -I'm in medicine.  I do it for 2-3 reasons

1.)  The perceived cost.  I've spent five - seven years working towards being a doctor and changing course seems like a 'waste'.  Theres also so much Inertia behind me, which means the 'easiest' path is the one which means Ill be doing a 50 hours set of nights this week, for less than my friends were paid in 2010 for graduate consultancy/finance posts. 

2.) My job is genuinely vital.  We need doctors, If I don't go in today, the hospital is utterly fucked.  If I'm not there in 1.5 hours shits going to go bad.  Even if I hand in notice, I'm going to leave a very difficult to fill hole in the rota.  I am needed to support my peers and patients who have placed their trust in me.

3.)  I think I (and most of the medical profession) have a stockholme syndrome type love of medicine.  We convince ourselves the brief magical moments between disaster, death, despair and burnout are worth more than the latter.

I'm four pay checks in and its a really curious time.

[madamwitty]

Thanks, ARS and FIREme.  Yeah, what I meant by my comment is - why do any people take jobs that involve that much time and stress? That's what's hard for me to understand.  Unless you really LIKED that kind of work and that kind of pressure. <still confused> Do people work really insane amounts of hours doing things they don't love? I find that sad.  [I'm not talking about people working several jobs just trying to make ends meet that's another issue, and those folks won't (sadly) be considering FIRE.] I'm talking to the ones who would choose a world where 80+ hours was required for months at a time.  I might expect that this type of person would be steamrolling through FIRE keeping insanely active doing other things.   I appreciate there are many of kinds of people in the world. I find it interesting that anyone would put themselves through this.  I guess I just don't understand the high stress life.  And how companies can get away with forced overtime and stressing out their human resources.  Are people willing to put up with this treatment just for the money? I don't mean to be insulting or demeaning, I'm just trying to figure out why people do this to themselves.

I've always made my own hours. Alarm-free for years (unless I had an early meeting).

You don't have to have an 80+ hour/wk job to feel pressed for time. I work at a job 20 hrs/wk and always feel stressed and short on time. I guess that has to do with having 3 young kids. You could consider that an 80+ hour job :-) Why did I choose it? There are moments that are extremely rewarding and I think it will pay off in the long run. You could probably say the same about a crazy-busy job. It's called, "delayed gratification." Trading time now for time later.

[Exflyboy]

Wow all this talk of busyness.. he says smugly.

Well OK so I was the retired friend that Deb mentioned.. now I am utterly FI, don't have to do another stroke of work in my entire life if I don't want to... But of course, the REASON I was in Melbourne was because I was on a business trip.. Yes I was actually working.

In fact I have been working so much lately that I think I may have actually failed at one thing in my career.. i.e "retirement"..:)

[arebelspy]

Thanks, ARS and FIREme.  Yeah, what I meant by my comment is - why do any people take jobs that involve that much time and stress? That's what's hard for me to understand.  Unless you really LIKED that kind of work and that kind of pressure. <still confused> Do people work really insane amounts of hours doing things they don't love? I find that sad.  [I'm not talking about people working several jobs just trying to make ends meet that's another issue, and those folks won't (sadly) be considering FIRE.] I'm talking to the ones who would choose a world where 80+ hours was required for months at a time.  I might expect that this type of person would be steamrolling through FIRE keeping insanely active doing other things.   I appreciate there are many of kinds of people in the world. I find it interesting that anyone would put themselves through this.  I guess I just don't understand the high stress life.  And how companies can get away with forced overtime and stressing out their human resources.  Are people willing to put up with this treatment just for the money? I don't mean to be insulting or demeaning, I'm just trying to figure out why people do this to themselves.

I've always made my own hours. Alarm-free for years (unless I had an early meeting).

Yeah, so many people do it.

I'm with you--I don't think anyone should do things they hate.

But lots, and lots do, sadly.

[BBub]

Are people willing to put up with this treatment just for the money?

Yes

[redbird]

Whenever I had a stressful job, it was never the job itself that was the problem. It was always caused by the supervisors. Always, always, always. And when you take a new job, it's hit or miss as to whether you get a good or bad supervisor.

Anyway, time feels mostly irrelevant post-FIRE. I do not pay much attention to what time I go to bed or what time I get up. I go to sleep when I'm tired and I get up when I wake up. I only pay attention to the day of the week because when I have to go food or other shopping I like going in the middle of a week day when people are at work so I don't have to deal with lines or crowds. I only pay attention to the calendar date because I am interested in astronomy and try to see any interesting space events going on. But otherwise - things don't really matter.

The funny thing is, the days fly by extremely fast in FIRE, far faster than they ever did while I worked. However, I have plenty of things that interest me, projects to work on, etc to keep me busy.