Serious "one more year" syndrome - advice appreciated

[TomTX]

I was just looking for a “safe”ish place to vent and chose here. Please feel free to ignore me and move on now. This post is pretty pointless,

I am not sure if I have OMY syndrome but my inability to calmly move toward FIRE is an illness of some kind for sure.

Today’s drama.....

It has been on the radar for a month or so, but it came up again at work again today. I am in pole position to get a very big promotion.... and meanwhile I am going to FIRE this year.

I really want to FIRE, but have this nagging feeling that I should take the promotion to crown my career. 🤴 The promotion would take my career to a height I never imagined possible, nor aspired to achieve.

If I landed the job I’d feel good very about what I’d achieved and the extra money in the stash will be used for certain. DW thinks I should take on the challenge of the appointment. She thinks I’d relish with the pressure and challenges that I’ll face.....

On the other hand I want to FIRE and I’ve saved hard to get to the point where I can. I’ve been chipping away for years to get to this point. At 48 I am not so young, and want to make the absolute most of the next 20 years, and sitting in an office isn’t what I spend my nights dreaming about.

There are many pros and cons for either next step which I couldn’t be bothered writing here, but I really really hope I don’t get the job because I really fear that if offered I will accept the job offer and that will be another 5 years of life life consumed...... 😤

Wow - just read this thread and this was exactly my situation 2 years ago.  Hope you chose well.

An update would be great - it's been more than 6 months, so itchyfeet should be promoted and/or FIREd by now ;)

[Life in Balance]

I was just looking for a “safe”ish place to vent and chose here. Please feel free to ignore me and move on now. This post is pretty pointless,

I am not sure if I have OMY syndrome but my inability to calmly move toward FIRE is an illness of some kind for sure.

Today’s drama.....

It has been on the radar for a month or so, but it came up again at work again today. I am in pole position to get a very big promotion.... and meanwhile I am going to FIRE this year.

I really want to FIRE, but have this nagging feeling that I should take the promotion to crown my career. 🤴 The promotion would take my career to a height I never imagined possible, nor aspired to achieve.

If I landed the job I’d feel good very about what I’d achieved and the extra money in the stash will be used for certain. DW thinks I should take on the challenge of the appointment. She thinks I’d relish with the pressure and challenges that I’ll face.....

On the other hand I want to FIRE and I’ve saved hard to get to the point where I can. I’ve been chipping away for years to get to this point. At 48 I am not so young, and want to make the absolute most of the next 20 years, and sitting in an office isn’t what I spend my nights dreaming about.

There are many pros and cons for either next step which I couldn’t be bothered writing here, but I really really hope I don’t get the job because I really fear that if offered I will accept the job offer and that will be another 5 years of life life consumed...... 😤

Wow - just read this thread and this was exactly my situation 2 years ago.  Hope you chose well.

An update would be great - it's been more than 6 months, so itchyfeet should be promoted and/or FIREd by now ;)

On the 2020 cohort thread, itchyfeet is listed as having accepted a new job, so perhaps they took the promotion?

[BikeFanatic]

OP OMY are you still happy with the decision to fire in light of Covid? Like itchyfeet I have a promotion coming also, and am slogging out OMY, have to decide soon. I re read your thread OMY, I do remember this thread from back in the day. I hope I dont keep slogging away at my job out of fear.

[TomTX]

I seriously had excellent timing getting my big promotion a year ago. 20% raise, and fulltime WFH since March (old position would still be going in most of the time) - and the boost to (eventual) pension value will mean I can walk away in ~2 years, presuming the markets are at least flat.

[4tify]

Wow just read this thread. Lots of good info here.

I'm struggling with this as well. My situation is that I'm in a contract until next October, but I'm bored as hell with the job. Before covid19 I had decided to give notice in January and be out by the end of Q1. But now it just seems silly to go through the drama of leaving early when we could easily be on lockdown again. So I'm leaning towards riding out the virus and adding to the stash in the meantime, but boy oh boy am I bored.

Congrats on breaking free Omy. Sounds like you made the right choice :)

[Omy]

I am very happy we FIREd last year. If we had waited until this past March, I have no doubt we would still be working. With the lockdown and the stock market drop we would have slogged it out a bit longer. If we were still working at this point, we'd be telling ourselves we should wait until after we knew the outcome of the election. Then the excuse would be that we should wait until the SCOTUS decision on the ACA. My concerns would have just kept moving the goal post further away every year until we got sick or died.

We finally realized that we had enough money and that we were smart enough to figure out a Plan B if something catastrophic should happen.

[Simpli-Fi]

I am very happy we FIREd last year.

<snip >

We finally realized that we had enough money and that we were smart enough to figure out a Plan B if something catastrophic should happen.

This.

[LightTripper]

Finally found this thread!  A very interesting read.  So glad you managed to avoid your OMY, OMY, and have been enjoying the fruits of your labours! 

[Omy]

Admittedly there were several OMYs before we finally quit (at least 5 "one more years" actually). The plus is that we doubled our net worth in that time which increased our confidence significantly. I regret that we only had about 6 months of goofing off before the pandemic shut us down. We are doing our best to keep our spirits up while significantly limiting our social activities and travel plans.
So far pandemic spending has been WAY less than our projections and we've made good progress in organizing and house maintenance. Looking forward to a post-covid world...but content that we are privileged enough to not have to expose ourselves on a daily basis.

[Much Fishing to Do]

I am very happy we FIREd last year. If we had waited until this past March, I have no doubt we would still be working. With the lockdown and the stock market drop we would have slogged it out a bit longer. If we were still working at this point, we'd be telling ourselves we should wait until after we knew the outcome of the election. Then the excuse would be that we should wait until the SCOTUS decision on the ACA. My concerns would have just kept moving the goal post further away every year until we got sick or died.

We finally realized that we had enough money and that we were smart enough to figure out a Plan B if something catastrophic should happen.

Yeah, I think I finally realized at some point that the list of possible catastrophes out there more often end up with me dead rather than broke....so encourage an earlier FIRE, not a later one.

And I have never seen any reason to base the decision off of current health care/tax/political policies etc, in the US at least every 2 years could bring something totally different (or bring things back) and that is just not a significant period of time in my planned retirement.

[Omy]

Yes...the Rich, Broke, Dead calculator was an eye opener for me. And DH has always said the same thing about US politics. The other conclusion we came to is that if it's so bad that we're hurting, we will still be in a lot better position than 95% of the population.

[Omy]

Happy New Year!

Quick update. We just did our end of year net worth calculations and it was much better than expected. The stock market has been kind to us and our renters have been paying consistently (knock on wood that both continue). We did our first Roth conversion this year since we had so little income that it made sense to get some of our IRA money taxed at the 12% rate.

2021 will be our first year with ACA subsidies (assuming we can keep our MAGI under the cap). Our health insurance costs should be less than a third of what our COBRA costs were. If we have a windfall and MAGI  goes over the cap, our costs will be similar to last year's COBRA...so still manageable.

I'm still bored from being in self-imposed covid jail. Looking forward to getting vaccinated as soon as my turn comes up. Until then I will attempt to be productive at house projects, financial optimization, and health and exercise goals...and lots of binge watching of old tv series.

[2sk22]

@Omy Thanks for this update - this thread was one of the main influences in hastening my retirement!

[chasesfish]

I loved seeing the update OMY.

I end up having similar thoughts on the health insurance, we're married with no kids and either will fill up the 12% tax bracket and pay full price, or let our income be in the range of $65,000 and pickup a tax credit worth around $3,000 towards health insurance.

One neat thing we've figured out is with some self employment income, those premiums become an above the line tax deduction.  We're picking up at least $1,000 in easy gig work to stay active (mainly shopping high dollar Costco orders for Instacart)

[terran]

One neat thing we've figured out is with some self employment income, those premiums become an above the line tax deduction.  We're picking up at least $1,000 in easy gig work to stay active (mainly shopping high dollar Costco orders for Instacart)

Something to keep in mind, the deduction is limited to the amount of the self employment income less the SE tax deduction or the cost of health insurance (whichever is less), so you don't instantly get to deduct the whole cost of health insurance as soon as you have any self employment income.

[Omy]

You can also consider contributing (a lot) to a Solo 401k if it looks like your self employed income is going to break through the ACA subsidy cap. It's crazy how much you can contribute to that to reduce MAGI. We are also planning to do some improvements to the rentals in 2021 to help keep us under the subsidy cap.

@Omy Thanks for this update - this thread was one of the main influences in hastening my retirement!

Starting this thread helped me SO much in my FIRE journey. I'm happy that it has helped others as well.

[Mrs. Healthywealth]

Six months since my last check in. We've been mostly isolating for the past 6 months to keep ourselves out of covid-19's grasp. A bit boring since we aren't traveling or socializing as much as we expected. On the plus side, we haven't spent nearly as much as we budgeted and we've completed several home improvement projects. We have also focused on eating better and exercising a lot more.

Our portfolio mostly recovered - our last calculation indicated that we were a bit down from the high in December but that we had more than when we retired last August. So far both tenants have been paying on time and have jobs that are safe for now.

My biggest concern is what might happen to the ACA with the legendary RBG no longer here to save it. DH or I may get a job with health benefits if things get too wonky, but we're not rushing into that just yet. I'm strongly considering taking a complete break from social media and the daily chaos in the news to improve my mood.

Appreciate you sharing so much about your journey. Think ACA will be ok given the current political climate we are entering. Hope things open up soon so you can enjoy your freedom; not meeting up with friends and traveling is a tough one. Once things open up, that’s when we will most likely FIRE. Look forward to hearing how you’re adjusting a year later.

[Omy]

Almost 2 months since my last update so I'm checking in. We have been FIREd for 18 months. A year ago we had just come home from a road trip to visit family before the world came to a stop. I had a lot of anxiety in March of 2020 about the stock market, whether our tenants would be able to keep their jobs and keep paying rent, and where I was going to find toilet paper and cheese since the shelves were bare for 2 months and our supply was dwindling. A lot has changed in a year. I woke up this morning feeling optimistic that life might return to normal fairly soon with covid cases falling. I can't wait to be eligible for the vaccine so we can feel confident about traveling and socializing again.

While I've been a bit whiny at times about our self-imposed covid jail, I realize how fortunate we are to live in a lovely home with more than enough space to spread out. We have taken lots of walks and worked on our exercise goals. I was forced to become a MUCH better cook because we never eat out - which has made us healthier and wealthier. Since the pandemic started, we've been donating monthly to a local food pantry because we have so much more than we need.

That's all for now. Thanks for all of your support - this forum has definitely fueled my optimism.

[LightTripper]

That's a lovely update!  So glad you can feel the optimism returning.  I can too (though still fundamentally an anxious person).  It's amazing what scientific awesomeness and some sunshine can do!

[Omy]

Just received a lovely letter from the state health exchange. Our subsidy increased by $158 per month and our Gold plan will go down to $229/month for 2 of us. Thank you ACA and The American Rescue Plan!

Also, we received Moderna#1 in mid March (both had sore arms), and we will get Moderna#2 in less than 2 weeks.  We are super excited to start traveling a bit and spending time with family and friends. This past year was not what we had expected from FIRE, but in some ways the isolation has made us appreciate being FIREd even more.