Four years ago today, at the tender age of 49, I left the career world behind and started calling myself retired. It seems like a good time to offer some random musings on how things have gone so far.
Despite some modest lifestyle inflation, price inflation, and a couple of big ticket extra purchases, DW and I have a substantially larger stash than we had when we started. Even with the lifestyle inflation, my simulations still show a 100% historical success rate, plus a 15% buffer. Earlier this year, our net worth crossed the million dollar mark for the first time. If you back out home equity, we're still a little under that mark, but not by a lot. Thank you, stock market.
Several milestones are coming up over the horizon that will make monetary failure even less likely than it already is. In about 4 years, I will be eligible to begin a small defined benefit pension. Nowhere near enough to live on, but enough to make a meaningful reduction in the amount we have to pull from the portfolio. In about 6 years, the house will be paid off, and in 9 years I'll be eligible to start social security, which will further reduce the amount we have to pull from the stash. At that point, assuming there's any of the stash left, failure will be very unlikely, barring the collapse of society. Screw you, climate change.
I pulled the plug shortly after the attempt to repeal the ACA failed by the narrowest of margins. So far, I've had great health insurance at a very low cost. Thank you, John McCain.
We went on a family vacation out west in the fall of 2018, and I discovered that I really want to travel and see more things while I'm still relatively young and vigorous. Pre-FIRE I never had much urge to travel. Work travel was a pain in the ass, and leisure travel didn't interest me because of the re-entry stress that I experienced when I got back. Now I actually want to go places (hence some of the lifestyle inflation). We haven't done nearly enough traveling to suit me due to some family health issues and covid, but we're aiming to get back on track with it this year.
Speaking of family health issues, I've discovered that being retired doesn't eliminate all of your sources of stress. Thankfully, we're doing well now, but I definitely do not take our health for granted any more.
Aside from the health stuff, my biggest source of angst so far has been the fact that I still don't really know what I want to be when I grow up. About 6 months into FIRE, I agreed to go on the board of a non-profit that operates in my former career field. Gradually that has come to evoke more and more of the old grumpiness, not so much because of the time commitment (which isn't all that much in the grand scheme of things), but because it keeps me involved in many of the same old arguments that used to burn me out at work. So, I'm looking for a way to bow out of that gracefully, and looking for something else I can get involved in that is fulfilling without being draining (or a big time commitment).
I've always been the outdoor type, and I find that I'm hunting, fishing, camping, and hiking more now. I'd like to do much more, but it seems that there is always some chore around the house that gets in the way. After all, there are 168 hours in a week, and I only got back about 50 of them. It's a cliche, but I really do wonder how I ever had time to work.
Things haven't been all sunshine and roses, but FIRE still beats career up one side and down the other. Although I can't swear that I won't ever need to make any more money in my life, I feel pretty sure I'm not ever going back to full time career work.
