One Year Report

[risky4me]

  Just celebrated one year since I stopped working full time and it has been an amazing experience. I have done minor consulting, woodworking, and limited construction work when and if I felt like it. As my avatar implies, we are on the lower end of what most feel is a comfortable nest egg but we made the decision that it was the right time in life and we were not going to fall into the OMY trap. Going from DINKs(kids grown) to minimal income has been interesting and I find I enjoy living more frugally- it seems to add value to the more important things in life.
  Since 'Refocusing' I have spent wonderful time in my wood shop making whatever I want and having the freedom to spend enormous amounts of time on trying new and complicated methods of work. Example: Wife wanted a curved top door for cabin so I spent two weeks on something I would not have done if I needed to be at work on Monday! I have built a cabin, given care to aging parents, helped friends, taken classes- all of this has been a dream of mine since I started the 'grind' so many years ago.
  Our decision might not be right for everyone, but I would not trade this last year for anything, if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, I will go out smiling about getting a chance to do exactly what I wanted in life- I suspect many never get that chance.

[flyingaway]

Wonderful!

[Roots&Wings]

This is such a great update, thanks for sharing! Curious how you're handling portfolio withdrawals if you might be willing to share more detail.

[risky4me]

This is such a great update, thanks for sharing! Curious how you're handling portfolio withdrawals if you might be willing to share more detail.

   The plan is to use cash in savings for the first few years and not touch the retirement accounts. We have been working hard to make them grow for so long we will have a difficult time reversing that trend.  A small pension provides 25% of budget, I do occasional consulting and side woodworking jobs for fun money and trips.
Sorry, not much help on withdrawal details...yet!

[Roots&Wings]

Actually this is quite helpful. I'm tentatively planning similar with 2-3 year initial cash buffer, definitely wouldn't be able to sleep at night with 100% VTSAX like many here seem to be planning! You're very lucky to have the guarteed pension for 25%.

Hearing from those who are actually living the FIRE dream is so inspiring. The freedom to to do what you want, I mean, you built a cabin!?! That's pretty incredible. And getting to spend more time with family/friends and all the other things that have taken a backburner to work. Thanks again for taking the time to share and look forward to future updates :)

[mathjak107]

august 1st was our first full year in retirement . i only worked 4 days a week for the year prior to that .

we set a side two years cash going in to retirement .  living in nyc our  budget does exceed 6 figures with about 1/2 allocated to discretionary spending . a big chunk is health insurance costs . i am on cobra and my wife medicare and a supplement . we can easily hit 10k in costs .

i been doing technical training 2 days a month at my old company and really enjoy the change up of going in and interfacing with others . that covers my cobra payments .

with photography a passion for my wife and i and 4 grand children our days are spent going all over to take pictures or with the kids .

my other love is drumming and i spent my early years as a pro drummer so i picked up the sticks again in retirement and spend at least two hours a day if we are home playing .

so the plan as we worked it out is a little complex because we want to reduce our dependency on markets and rates as much as we can by increasing our social security as much as we can .

by delaying social security we can actually spend more up front since social security has no sequence risk . we do not have to keep as much dry powder for worst case scenario's as we would if we were more defendant on our own investing and smaller ss checks earlier on .

so here is our plan i  will be 64 and wife was just 66 .

she took social security early at 62 but she is now suspending it as of next month , so her check will start growing by about 6% a year from 66 to 70 .

at 70 she will file , i will be 66-10 month's .  i will then file restricted application and take 1/2 hers .

at 70 i will file for my own .  at that point because 1/2 mine is more then her full she will get another 4200.00 added to her benefit plus cola's .

that should give us almost 60k in social security ,  we get a  20k pension which in the scheme of our budget is relatively small  and a  bit of rental income .

that will drop our draw from our own accounts to about 2% from the 3.50% now .

with 2 horses in the race as a couple the odds of one of us  going on well past break even is pretty good . so we rather have longevity risk than more market risk .

i can talk all day about retirement planning as it has always been a big interest of mine but i will leave it at this .

[arebelspy]

  Just celebrated one year since I stopped working full time and it has been an amazing experience. I have done minor consulting, woodworking, and limited construction work when and if I felt like it. As my avatar implies, we are on the lower end of what most feel is a comfortable nest egg but we made the decision that it was the right time in life and we were not going to fall into the OMY trap. Going from DINKs(kids grown) to minimal income has been interesting and I find I enjoy living more frugally- it seems to add value to the more important things in life.
  Since 'Refocusing' I have spent wonderful time in my wood shop making whatever I want and having the freedom to spend enormous amounts of time on trying new and complicated methods of work. Example: Wife wanted a curved top door for cabin so I spent two weeks on something I would not have done if I needed to be at work on Monday! I have built a cabin, given care to aging parents, helped friends, taken classes- all of this has been a dream of mine since I started the 'grind' so many years ago.
  Our decision might not be right for everyone, but I would not trade this last year for anything, if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, I will go out smiling about getting a chance to do exactly what I wanted in life- I suspect many never get that chance.

Thanks for sharing, risky!  Glad to hear it's going so well.  :)

We hit a year ER'd this summer as well, and are loving it.  We boggle all the time at how amazing it is, not having to sell our time for money anymore, and getting to do whatever we want, all the time.  We've spent a year traveling the world, had a kid halfway through, and are now getting to spend all our time with her, and exploring the world more.  We spent a significant portion of today wandering the beach in the tropical weather (74 F today).  Can't ask for anything more.