End of year update!
It was a great year on all fronts in this house (knock on wood). Almost enough to forget about the pain that was last year!
Stache: Looking solid -- sitting at 17.6x the FIRE budget that we're shooting for, after starting the year at 12x. Projections have us now hitting our number mid-2025, but staying in this cohort, as anything could happen between now and then.
Spending: We were trying to keep it under $29k, but with the level of travel this year, we didn't quite hit our goal. We came it at $29,512.56. Super close, and still down 5.83% YoY, which is still pretty cool considering the inflationary environment. Cutting out a few restaurants went a long way.
Life: 2023 was a big year for travel and fun. We spent a week on the coast in Oregon in March, a week in Alaska in May, a week and a half in southern Utah in September, and a week in Hawaii earlier this month. In addition, we did smaller trips to visit friends and family in Dallas, Nashville, Arizona, and Seattle. Everything stayed relatively great on the health front. DW's dad moved back to our state after being away for 15 years, and she was able to spend the holidays with him.
I've spent some more time thinking about downshifting recently. Long story short -- our FatFire goals are not very motivating. We hit LeanFire in 2019 and have been on the ~6-year path from one toward the other ever since. However, whenever dealing with a stressful project at work, my go to psychological instinct has become to think "I don't need to put myself through this anymore." Not sure if I'll actually pull the trigger on anything just yet, but I've begun to put feelers out there. I have meetings with a group from the college DW works at for a 3-day per week, $35/hr gig that would be far less stress, but still valuable and fun (for my nerdy tendencies). So, CoastFire is becoming more of an option for me, when I was scared to consider it just a year ago. We'll see what happens.
How was 2023 for the rest of y'all's plans?
Is that 30k just your discretionary spending? I'd be very impressed if that included housing, taxes, and health insurance. Or is that number your half of the expenses in your relationship?
That 30k is everything our household spent. It's very average for us. Our small house is paid off (purchased in 2014), so we spend about $8k consistently on housing between insurance, taxes, and utilities. Health insurance is covered by Megacorp. No kids. Haven't had a car payment since 2012. The trips to Alaska and Oregon were put on the credit card in 2022.
Impressive,
@Purple_Crayon, way to keep it real and your spending restrained!
Thank you @grantmeaname @farmecologist and @Turtle for the feedback, (especially the righteously angry feedback).
My boss isn't a bad guy, but his work/life balance and views on work/life balance are pretty terrible. I've known that for as long as I've known him, but was still surprised. I'm one of the top people in the entire organization and I figured they would just give me what I asked for. Having him be the one who shut it down because of his terrible work ethic is disappointing, to say the least.
Anyway, that conversation happened in early December and I have had a lot of time to process and consider it. I knew in that exact moment that it was time to leave my current job. There really isn't anything they can do to keep me at this point. I've been in this situation before, where a boss let me know I'd hit the highest I was ever going to go paywise and opportunity wise. In that instance, I had a new job within a few weeks. This time, I'm taking it a bit slower. My job situation isn't bad per say, and the next few months should be relatively light for me.
It's funny, I talked to my boss yesterday and he is pretty aggressively fishing to see if I am planning on quitting. I pretty much just avoid those questions, I see what he is doing but he doesn't need to know where I stand. In all honesty, he doesn't deserve that answer even if he asked directly I would just dodge the question.
Building up to a pretty solid FU story when this is all done, haha. I am fully expecting multiple executives to call me once I finally turn in my notice. I'll keep y'all updated.
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One side note, on the Medical FMLA thing, I don't have any sort of mental health diagnosis. I don't have clinical depression or need in patient care or have severe anxiety. I am definitely depressed, but not "sever" depression (I don't think?) and I don't really feel like I need to go to a professional at this point and get diagnosed. That may be a next step if the sabbatical doesn't clear things up for me. Anyway, Medical FMLA for mental health is out because of that.
@alcon835 I'm sorry that your current job isn't working out for you, and I look forward to reading about your epic FU money story after you've collected your incentives. Given your burnout I hope you take a significant sabbatical, even if other execs start calling once they realize you're available.
Great way to handle it, I'd do the same. Give them NO indication of your plans whatsoever. If it were me, I'd even keep a cheery disposition saying I'm going to stay for a long time...haha. And that is exactly what I am doing with my job.
With my job, it isn't my immediate boss, whom I like, but the corporate "culture". You see, they are trying to push a "high performance culture". However, there is no "culture" whatsoever at my megacorp. And I'm in "quite quitting" mode right now anyway...so that obviously doesn't mesh with what upper management is trying ( and failing) to do. My immediate team is currently woefully short on resources because of other idiotic HR moves over the last 15 years or so ( they didn't hire anyone at all for over a decade while laying folks off at the same time ). The aftermath of that is...boomer aged folks retiring, a few GenX'ers not far behind, and very few younger folks to pick up the slack...and many of the newer folks end up leaving after a couple years after they see what a S&*T show this place is. The point though is, due to the lack of resources, I may be able to continue on for quite a while without working my ass off. We will see how it goes.
Welcome and well-played,
@farmecologist !
Welp. We officially hit our FI # as of 12/31/23.
Going the SWAMI route for now. We’ll see what comes in 2026.
Congratulations,
@LoanShark ! Do you have other reasons for staying, or are you padding the stash?
About a year ago, I gave my management chain the extended heads up that I'd likely retire by the end of 2027. They seem to have forgotten. Coasting here as well.
In checking the dates for various vesting and other HR benefits, it seems my most optimal time to give notice will be the middle of May 2026. Last day of work being June 5th gives me medical coverage that month and 18 months of COBRA will take me through to the end of 2027.
Have you hit your number already
@Turtle ? It sounds like you have your perks lined up.
Adding myself to this cohort!
My plan is "downshift so significantly that it feels like retirement" rather than straight up no more working. I hope to negotiate a deal with my employer where I essentially pinch-hit when they need extra help, but have off otherwise, and am only paid when working on specific projects.
I'll be 42, which seems like a good number. No dependents except for a dog. I have promised her that we won't ever run out of dog food.
I'm FI now, with about 30x my projected expenses (including ACA premiums) -- so the dog food promise is one I can make in good conscience, and I can also be reasonably sure I won't be eating dog food either. Hoping to have 40x by 2026 for more padding.
The big question mark is spending on health. I have a chronic condition that has already caused me to go part-time at work. Right now, it's not that expensive because the treatments are old, generic drugs. But if a new drug comes along, it would likely be a fancy, uber-expensive biologic. So having extra saved and keeping a hand in the labor market seems like a good idea in case I need to get back on employer-sponsored health insurance.
Welcome
@Shuchong , you seem to have your SWAMI plan lined up as well and your health care risks well-managed.
We've also welcomed the recent spurt in the markets and have watched our NW surpass even the stretch goals we had set. We're following up on the many maintenance issues at our rental to ensure it continues to provide the ROI to which we've become accustomed. I mentioned the new roof a while back, it hasn't been completed yet, but a few other internal systems needed some work. We also have many handyman tasks ready to go, but the PM's handyman ghosted them. We'll keep the pressure on the PM.
Speaking of pressure, since I was just promoted I'm under little pressure to perform in the office for the next two years, and by then I'll have almost reached the finish line. I'm not apt to slack, just describing my fairly SWAMI circumstances.
While the clock ticks, the putative monthly pension amounts keep growing and we'll have valuable FEHB medical insurance.
I've identified a few risks which I'm working on:
- Our traditional retirement vehicles have become very well-funded, implying that we risk paying some very high taxes when we reach RMD at 75. To lower that risk, we did a large Roth conversion this year, but intervening market gains brought our traditional portfolios back up to the pre-conversion level (I know, boo fucking hoo). We'll look to convert more funds to Roth in the next few years before the TJCA expires on 01/01/2026 and then re-evaluate;
- We have some concentration in a few slices of our portfolios in a few securities we selected which have increased tremendously in value. We'll see what room we have to take some capital gains and move funds toward broader indices to diversify away from this concentration risk;
- We don't carry a umbrella liability policy because it has become damn difficult to get anyone to write one whilst we live overseas. I'll need to check around the Foreign Service community to find out how others have found coverage;
- Related to the previous point, we own two vehicles in our names which we're letting our young adult children drive; insurance costs less while we remain the primary insured (our children reimburse us for the insurance cost). We've maxed our liability on both policies here but most umbrella writers want to write your auto as well, and they don't like our unusual agreement with our children;
- Because our pensions are somewhat inflation-proof, we've eschewed bonds in our portfolios and continue plowing more cash into equities. This implies some sequence of return risk upon retirement. I could reduce the risk by buying bonds, which makes no sense while we continue to carry a mortgage and HELOC. I could also consider taking part-time work with the Department of State after my retirement. I'd prefer not to work once the golden handcuffs come off, but it remains a possible solution should we face a large drop in our portfolio value.
- Finally, and I've mentioned this before, I want to cut back on our leverage, some of which has increased in cost with the Fed's recent efforts to tame inflation. To use a common sports analogy, we're in the fourth quarter and are leading by several scores, so it makes more sense to play it conservatively than risk a sudden reversal.
Have others here examined their own risks along these lines?
Finally, we still haven't agreed
where we'd like to retire, and while we've taken a few small forward steps, I'd like to get this resolved before the two-minute warning. We want to downsize upon retirement and set ourselves up in a home base which we enjoy, but then travel while we still have the youth, vigor, and good health to do so. Plenty to do before the clock runs out completely.