Any early retirement fails out there?

[golden1]

Esummers, your post was really interesting.  In a way it sort of mirrors my experience being a SAHM.  When I left work to be a SAHM I thought I had achieved the dream.  The first few years were fine and filled with purpose when raising small kids, but as they got older and needed me less, I felt restless.  Now that I am back at work, I realize that I do better with some sort of structure to my day where I see people and interact with the world.  I am an introvert and if left to my own devices, I tend to isolate myself too much.  The 5 day a week grind is a bit too much though and doesn't allow me to explore my interests.  Even if I become fully FI, I think I would be the happiest working 3 days a week.  I would love to move to that sort of arrangement as I get older.

[Northwestie]

Esummers - nice summary, thanks.   A friend had a similar reaction to retirement though she is 60.  After moving to a very rural area I think she missed the interactions with friends, most of whom were still working - the local folks are nice enough but don't share her interests.  And then she does want to take some overseas trips that are a bit expensive, so is now looking at working again between 24 and 32 hrs.   And that's fine -- folks have different needs and patterns.   Personally, when I retire in a couple years, I'll look forward to spending more time as a volunteer for a couple organizations I like, but really don't have the time to support right now.  Cheers.

[BFGirl]

I'd love to simply stop working at 40 solid hours of work.  But that's impossible since I'd say in a given week I probably only do about 15 minutes of real, actual work.

LOL, I have the same "problem." I've been thinking of going part time, my boss would fuss, but I'd get the same amount of work done.

ditto

[Cassie]

I think for single older people it can be a big mistake to move in retirement unless you are moving into a retirement community because it gets harder to make friends/meet people as you get older. I think that is one reason these communities are popular is because your friends so to speak come with the house/apt/condo:))

[RosieTR]

Ditto. Everyone's FIRE is going to be different and its always nice to find out what works for you early on. I often tell people to try a modified ER before deciding if its for them or not. Especially if they plan to chuck it all and run off to a tropical island. Lots of people who drastically changed their lives to ER may find it hard to go back to the old life if they want too. For me ER at 42 has been everything and more than I could want but that's not the case for everyone.

Ha ha ha. We want to sail to a tropical island when we ER! And do a big thru-hike. BUT, I personally know these aren't long-term things. I think I'll need some structure/purpose, so more and more as I consider ER, I'm wondering if something PT, seasonal, or flexible might be better than full ER. I wouldn't think of that as a fail at all-I know a few slightly early retirees who've done this, including both my parents (who worked PT or consulted prior to full retirement).

OTOH, my sister's in-laws are rattling around with no purpose in an unhappy retirement. They have a pension but to them it feels a bit pinched, though many here would think it's rather generous. They could do many things, but aren't....so far, a fail.

[exmmmer]

I was enjoying reading this thread about ER failures, right up until Nords included *me* in the mix...

Dixonge and VACollector on Early-Retirement.org made a couple of pretty good runs at ER.  Dixonge blew up on an options trading strategy; he and his spouse ended up converting to a minimalist lifestyle.  They're getting back on track and may be back to ER by now.

*sigh*

Yep, that's me - Exhibit A. But for the sake of accuracy, I'd like to clarify a few things for those who haven't already read the sordid details over on the E-R.org boards...

First, we were attempting a sort of hybrid ER. We were still several years away from our earliest possible pension distribution. If we had 'stayed the course' we were set to retire when the wife hit 60 in 2017. We probably would be looking at $200k in cash on top of around $5k in future monthly pension payments (not including SS). Unfortunately, the more money we saved up the more our jobs began to feel untenable. That's definitely a psychological problem, not a fiscal one. So we calculated whether or not we had enough money to cover the gap between quitting the jobs and the pension date. The fact is, we did like most of the other ER failures and overestimated our potential income (from the oh-so-lucrative online marketing industry) and underestimated our expenditures.

Second, as Nords mentioned I experienced quite the financial meltdown when around 25% of our portfolio disappeared one morning. I went all-cash for around four years after that. We still could have saved back a lot of money though, had we continued working longer. That meltdown happened while we were still in our previous jobs.

Third, we did actually have 4.5 glorious years where we got to visit most of the major national US parks and friends in 20+ states and five other countries. We don't regret that part *at all.*

Fourth, while the wife did have to do a lot of meal prep, I just ended up working all day. First I worked endless hours trying to get niche web sites to rank and earn money. Then I finally stumbled onto actual paying jobs working as a freelance web developer. Unfortunately I was unable to build this business to a high enough level to offset the expenditures. We were slowly bleeding to death.

Fifth, we slowly realized that our backup plans for cutting expenses (housesitting) and making money (being caretakers or managing a B&B) didn't appeal as much when push came to shove.

Sixth, as we began to think about just moving back to the States for work, I started thinking about how I was just about 19 months shy of vesting in my own pension plan. I ran some numbers and came to the conclusion that said 19 months could easily translate to $360,000 of income if I end up living as long as my Dad (now 85) and even more if I make it to 102 like my Dad's aunt did. It's easy to think of a lot of things that I might be able to do with that much money...

So, to recap, our ER plans were a combination of ESR and ER. But the ESR turned into full-time self-employment that paid very badly. To make matters worse, I basically haven't stopped working while my wife hasn't had a j-o-b in five years! I suspect she may have planned it this way. Hmmmm... In the end, I came back to my home state to work for a government entity that participates in the same retirement plan as my previous employer. Vesting is now 11 months away, the wife's retirement is in 17 months.

Any way, we were never in any grave financial danger, but we really did cut it close. Our cash balances are finally rising again, but we got pretty close to $10k in the bank before things turned around. I recently ran some numbers in a few spreadsheets and it looks like we'll be bringing in over $70k/yr in pensions/SS within the decade. In the meantime, we've learned that Latin America is a great place to live and it's much cheaper than most other places. We know from experience what our living expenses are in Mexico, for example. Based on that, we should be able to put back $50k/year into index funds before too long. So yeah, there have been some self-inflicted hard knocks, but hopefully we're learning from our mistakes. If someone *else* learns from them, that's just icing on the cake!

[Nords]

I was enjoying reading this thread about ER failures, right up until Nords included *me* in the mix...

Dixonge and VACollector on Early-Retirement.org made a couple of pretty good runs at ER.  Dixonge blew up on an options trading strategy; he and his spouse ended up converting to a minimalist lifestyle.  They're getting back on track and may be back to ER by now.

*sigh*

Yep, that's me - Exhibit A. But for the sake of accuracy, I'd like to clarify a few things for those who haven't already read the sordid details over on the E-R.org boards...

Thanks for the update-- nothing sordid about it!  Gory in the options market, maybe, but you pulled off an admirable lifestyle pivot and recovery.  I think everyone who's read your posts appreciates your brutally frank analysis and the lessons you've pulled from it.

If it's any consolation, one of my fellow angel investors confessed to me last month that during the last year he lost over a million bucks trading options.  It's probably less than 5% of his net worth, but this is perhaps the first time in his life that he's ever had proof of being anything other than brilliant.  Unfortunately it's unclear that he's learned from the experience.

[exmmmer]

Thanks for the update-- nothing sordid about it!  Gory in the options market, maybe, but you pulled off an admirable lifestyle pivot and recovery.  I think everyone who's read your posts appreciates your brutally frank analysis and the lessons you've pulled from it.

If it's any consolation, one of my fellow angel investors confessed to me last month that during the last year he lost over a million bucks trading options.  It's probably less than 5% of his net worth, but this is perhaps the first time in his life that he's ever had proof of being anything other than brilliant.  Unfortunately it's unclear that he's learned from the experience.

Well I appreciate that :)

Maybe your fellow investor has just learned that he'll be fine because he just needs 'one more good hand'..... :)

[effigy98]

I'd love to simply stop working at 40 solid hours of work.  But that's impossible since I'd say in a given week I probably only do about 15 minutes of real, actual work.

LOL, I have the same "problem." I've been thinking of going part time, my boss would fuss, but I'd get the same amount of work done.

ditto

Same... very frustrating you have to waste time commuting to the office and look busy to keep up perception. If I finish all my work in 10 hours a week but it takes everyone else 40 hours, why does our culture require me to be seen at work all day just because others are slow. I am guessing it is the same reason schools in the US teach to the slowest kid in the room and punish the smart and/or hard working kids by not separating them... One day I hope it becomes less taboo to work from home so I can have more freedom.