- You are getting some great insight from some very knowledgeable folks and varied folks. I thought I'd throw in my opinions too.
Hey guys,
- Hello :).
For those of you who are Post-FIRE: what, if any, are the concerns you have as far as things going majorly wrong (to the point that your expenses end up being higher than what was anticipated)?
-As others have started or hinted at above, having things go wrong in FIRE doesn't make them harder to pay for than if one was working, it actually gives you more flexibility than if you only had a job that paid x for y number of hours. Bad financial things will always happen, having a higher control and understanding over ones finances doesn't make this worse. So our concerns are lessened, not increased, and we FIREd pretty lean.
One example I'm thinking of for some reason is ACA and, if in the future at any point, it all goes away or changes to be "not so affordable" - I presume a majority of you going Post-FIRE are leveraging ACA to subsidize on healthcare no?
-DH and I are using the ACA for healthcare and work to keep our income low for subsidies. Last year the market granted us a great boon, and our income shot up and overshot all of the subsidy limits. Oops. Out of our control. We will have to pay back a LOT of money, kind of like if we had bought insurance without subsidies. Oh well. Again, relating this back to working, when DH had a job his insurance was pretty terrible and expensive, and the only option was for him to buy it since it was through work. Now that we are FIRE we can go with ACA or do something else if we want to. Being FIRE has given us more choices not less. They might be expensive choices, but they are there. Not everyone can do this, but we can, and it works for us. We can't going to live our lives working worrying about something that might happen that isn't likely too. DH and I have also both had jobs that didn't provide insurance and I have bought private insurance Pre-ACA. Life did happen pre-ACA, people FIREd back then too :).
Along a similar train of thought - what if you get into a bad accident and or are sued and are now dealing with legal fees and long term care/medical bills, etc?
- Same thing one would do if one was working, I would assume. Though I will say, the chances of getting into a real bad car accident has gone down drastically now that neither of us commute anymore nor have work stress. What if you were working and got injured and couldn't work? Or were sued? Working doesn't make either of those better. Some jobs offer insurance for injuries and lost wages, but can you live happily forever on that percent (I think it is 60%, but I could be wrong), especially without a FIRE-style nest egg growing in the background? That would be far far worse.
I was told back in high school I have a good likelihood of going blind at some point and there isn't really anything I can do about it. I'd much rather be FIREd and enjoy my sight doing ALL THE FUN THINGS than sitting in a lab doing someone else's work. I also like to know my stache doesn't require me to be able to see to grow and support my family.
Other questions:
Although this seems like an oxymoron, do any of you have mortgage payments during FIRE? Or able to get a mortgage while FIREd? Do you go to Barista FIRE or working again in that case?
- I totally have a mortgage and a student loan I am still paying off! My working career was about 13 years, so that wasn't enough time for those to things to age off. Since they are both low interest we will complete in their own time, though DH likes to bring up the mortgage every time we have cash on hand. The payments are merely baked into our monthly budget, just like our other bills. Once they age out in a few years the money will either get reallocated, or simply not get pulled out each year.
I also saw the question come up in another thread about finding a place to rent when you have no job. I'm assuming this isn't as big of a deal if you Barista FIRE (which is probably what I'd want to do if I actually take the leap to FIRE).
-there have been a few threads on this. Seems to vary quite a lot on how landlords deal with it.
One last one:
Any of you actually go back to working again (whether full time or part time) after being FIREd because you were bored, wanted/needed the extra money, or other reasons?
-That might depend on what you mean by working. I don't think DH or I will ever have another boss or do a traditional job again. DH currently welds trash into art and sometimes people walking by hand him money and take some of the art away. That seems to make room for more art. Most of the art he wont sell since he likes it in the yard though. We don't need the money, but he likes to make crazy things (eleven foot tall man riding a t-rex, sure) so eh.
In general, we are both far to busy to be bored. If my day had more hours, I might be able to fit in more things I want to do, but for right now, I can't squeeze it all in.