Half Arsed Retirement?

[NorthernMonkey]

Does anyone here have any experience of going half arsed with retirement?

I'm in England, aged 39, (with slightly different retirement rules) and now have sufficient funds for a normal (aged 65ish) retirement. I've paid off the mortgage, drive a £500 car, and have 4 years expenses in my back pocket, outside of retirement funds.

A couple of years ago, my company went through a rocky patch, and a few people were laid off. I wasn't but set myself up for a little bit of consultancy work on the side. Work on this has been limited, as I squeeze it in around my full time job, but it pulls in around half my expenses. With a tiny bit more focus, say 2 days a week, it would cover my expenses, with a tiny bit of excess.

I have a couple of options. Keep working, keep saving ~70% of my income, and properly FIRE, or 2, sack it off now, and spend 2 days a week consulting, keeping the 4 years spend as a safety buffer in case it all goes brown.

What would you do?
 

[lexde]

This seems a lot like CoastFIRE and/or BaristaFIRE. How much do you hate your current job? If you don’t hate it, I’d say keep going, but make sure you utilize all of your vacation time.

Without knowing what you most enjoy and/or what your end goals are, it’s harder to tell you to pick one option over the other. But that’s the thing. You have options. So congratulations!