Retire Early or Retire Rich

[EscapeVelocity2020]

I haven't seen this explicitly show up here yet (although we talk about it all the time) - 'Retire Early Or Retire Rich?' — Man Asks Whether It's Better To Retire At 40 With $125,000 A Year Or At 60 With $300,000 Annually

It's a fun discussion to have.  For me personally, my experience has been more like - Retire at 40 with $125,000/year, retire at 50 with $250,000/year, or retire at 60 with $500,000/year.  Once I hit the FIRE number at 40, I relaxed quite a bit at work.  Now at 50, I'm only continuing to work because it makes my life easier than ER would - I'm cashflowing my final child's college expenses, still covering the family with my health/dental insurance, and tossing post-tax money in retirement accounts to give more spending flexibility to optimize taxes.  'Optimization' is a bit of misnomer, even suboptimal asset allocating and tax mistakes result in me comfortably below 3% SWR since I have no debt and don't imagine spending more than $100k/year on average, but it's nice not having to worry much about stock markets misbehaving or our indebted Uncle Sam asking for more - both of which are very likely at some point in my retirement.

[Blackeagle]

As if enough assets to provide $125,000 a year of income don't already make them rich.

[Ron Scott]

As if enough assets to provide $125,000 a year of income don't already make them rich.

Only the gifted and lucky get to make that choice…

[curious_george]

$500,000 dollars per year....

If you need someone to serve as a crew member on your luxury yacht, I'm available. :p

[reeshau]

As long as you don't feel you have missed out on anything, then doing what makes you feel comfortable is fine.

For me, I am of the mindset that the one thing no amount of money can buy me is more time; particularly, time with my (still a kid) son.

I was happy to leave when I did.  And the money has not just taken care of itself, but gushed to overflowing, even without me saving.  There comes a point where your investment gains mean much more than your contributions.  It becomes a perpetual motion machine.

Could I have gotten out even earlier, and shot for "dying with zero?"  Maybe.  But I wasn't comfortable with that.

[Laura33]

Yeah, their math is very conservative.  If you can retire at 40 with $125K/yr, by 60 you should have more like $500K/yr.

Me, I'd split the baby and go around 50 at around $250K/yr.  In my 40s I was still very go-go achievement-oriented and felt like I had something to prove, had to be the smartest, be seen and valued as the best at my job, etc.  Took me until my 50s to realize I didn't give a shit about any of that any more. 

[dandarc]

Fun game to be had here for us - assuming ~7% CAGR, and without adding anything to the pile and following the 4% rule (which if waiting until 70, would you really be that conservative?)

Retire right now at 41: $52K / year
Retire at 50: $100K / year
Retire at 60: $200K / year
Retire at 70: $400K / year

I believe there was a post long ago by sol "one more year hits the rich the hardest . . ."

[wageslave23]

Fun game to be had here for us - assuming ~7% CAGR, and without adding anything to the pile and following the 4% rule (which if waiting until 70, would you really be that conservative?)

Retire right now at 41: $52K / year
Retire at 50: $100K / year
Retire at 60: $200K / year
Retire at 70: $400K / year

I believe there was a post long ago by sol "one more year hits the rich the hardest . . ."

This about where we are. We are going to choose early 40s and about 55k a year.  I just don't see how more money would make me happier.  And isn't that the point of being on the mmm forums? It's people that choose the retire in 40s or early 50s with less money than retire 60 or later with more money.  Working until 60 to retire with a bunch of money is just called retiring.

[Retire-Canada]

Given how conservative the typical 4% Rule based retirement is you can very well retire early and keep getting richer while retired. Using the default settings over at cFIREsim the median ending value of a $1M portfolio is ~$1.7M after 30 years of withdrawals and that doesn't include SS or RE or inheritances or any other boosts to your wealth.

[Tasse]

Somehow they made a new article out of a two year old reddit thread... https://www.reddit.com/r/Fire/comments/wacdzi/retire_early_or_retire_rich/

[dandarc]

Fun game to be had here for us - assuming ~7% CAGR, and without adding anything to the pile and following the 4% rule (which if waiting until 70, would you really be that conservative?)

Retire right now at 41: $52K / year
Retire at 50: $100K / year
Retire at 60: $200K / year
Retire at 70: $400K / year

I believe there was a post long ago by sol "one more year hits the rich the hardest . . ."

This about where we are. We are going to choose early 40s and about 55k a year.  I just don't see how more money would make me happier.  And isn't that the point of being on the mmm forums? It's people that choose the retire in 40s or early 50s with less money than retire 60 or later with more money.  Working until 60 to retire with a bunch of money is just called retiring.

Agree with this - right now I'm part time in a way that sort of feels sustainable as long as I want it to be - I think part of that feeling of "well I can keep doing this for a while" is actually the knowledge that I really don't have to. We do kind of need to hit that "retire at 50" number to support the current lifestyle if I were to fully quit, but there's so much bloat in the budget, we probably could cut back pretty darn close to the "right now" number if we decided we no longer want to do these expensive things that we do (travel and donations are our top 2 spending categories combining for over 40% of the budget at the moment).

But I think I'm gonna keep going at current pace until it starts to seem like a net-negative for me again. May even tick up closer to full time for a couple of years to financially recover a bit from upcoming relocation to wife's hometown. I really hope this is last move before we head to some flavor of retirement / senior living in probably 25+ years.

[achvfi]

@EscapeVelocity2020 your username is question of this thread. Choice is whether to fly high or reach escape velocity. Both are great choices.

In my definition after we reach FI if we can hold on to one more doubling of assets (Typically 3-7 years) we are at escape velocity. If you enjoy what you do why not keep doubling. As for me one double is enough.

[use2betrix]

As if enough assets to provide $125,000 a year of income don't already make them rich.

Only the gifted and lucky get to make that choice…

I’m dyslexic and don’t have a 4 year degree, and managed to save $1mm by the time I turned 33. I still managed to have $50k in student loans/cc debt when I was 21. My wife and I delayed having children until we could have a strong savings. We moved 15-20 times in 8 States over 10 years to keep moving up in my career. We lived full time in a travel trailer for 5 years.  I started as a welder and slowly moved into management. I typically worked 700-900 hrs of OT every year. Generally no paid vacations and never more than 2 weeks vacation. 2022 was my last year as a contractor and I “only” worked 850 hrs of OT.

Crazy what gifted and lucky looks like for some people to get into a position of fortune.

[FINate]

I sometimes think about this question. I retired in my late 30s from Big Tech. That was ~9 years ago. If I had continued working the software mines our NW would be at least 2x right now, probably more.

Would it be nice to have twice as much wealth? I suppose, though quite honestly I'm not sure what I would do with it. We love our community, neighborhood, city, house, etc. and want for nothing. The only thing I can think remotely interesting with that type of money is a lake house, but having to take care of a vacation home and feeling locked in to going there instead of other places... meh, I'd rather VRBO or hotel. At this point in life it feels like 'more' would end up being 'less' as our lives are already very fulfilled and we don't have enough time to do everything we want to do. If we suddenly came into more money I think we'd just throw it on the pile, or maybe give a bunch away.

But it could be that I'm a simpleton. I'm very happy just spending time with family and friends, skiing, mountain biking, fishing, camping, doing stuff at church, cooking a good meal, gardening... simple every day stuff that doesn't cost a lot.

As I've mentioned on these forums before, I had a major health scare 2 years ago, nearly died several times and was told at one point I only had a few months. Thankfully currently in remission and doing well. Just today went for a 16 mile mountain bike ride with 2300' of climbing and felt great -- not bad for not even being able to walk across the room for a long time. The future is still very uncertain, no good treatment options if recurrence happens. This has certainly colored my outlook on life. Very thankful I didn't spend past ~9 years working just to increase our NW, and you don't fully appreciate how amazing the little things in life are until you go through something like this.

So I guess you could say I'm very much in the Retire Early camp, because you can't buy more time and you never know what's gonna happen.

[wageslave23]

As if enough assets to provide $125,000 a year of income don't already make them rich.

Only the gifted and lucky get to make that choice…

I’m dyslexic and don’t have a 4 year degree, and managed to save $1mm by the time I turned 33. I still managed to have $50k in student loans/cc debt when I was 21. My wife and I delayed having children until we could have a strong savings. We moved 15-20 times in 8 States over 10 years to keep moving up in my career. We lived full time in a travel trailer for 5 years.  I started as a welder and slowly moved into management. I typically worked 700-900 hrs of OT every year. Generally no paid vacations and never more than 2 weeks vacation. 2022 was my last year as a contractor and I “only” worked 850 hrs of OT.

Crazy what gifted and lucky looks like for some people to get into a position of fortune.

From my experience, it's very few who become wealthy because they inherited a bunch of money or were given a lucrative job by their rich daddy. You can usually see why people are in the position they are in when you observe their drive and work ethic. I have a lot of clients who are millionaires and none are lazy.  Kudos for being part of self made success stories.

[NorthernIkigai]

As if enough assets to provide $125,000 a year of income don't already make them rich.

Only the gifted and lucky get to make that choice…

I’m dyslexic and don’t have a 4 year degree, and managed to save $1mm by the time I turned 33. I still managed to have $50k in student loans/cc debt when I was 21. My wife and I delayed having children until we could have a strong savings. We moved 15-20 times in 8 States over 10 years to keep moving up in my career. We lived full time in a travel trailer for 5 years.  I started as a welder and slowly moved into management. I typically worked 700-900 hrs of OT every year. Generally no paid vacations and never more than 2 weeks vacation. 2022 was my last year as a contractor and I “only” worked 850 hrs of OT.

Crazy what gifted and lucky looks like for some people to get into a position of fortune.

From my experience, it's very few who become wealthy because they inherited a bunch of money or were given a lucrative job by their rich daddy. You can usually see why people are in the position they are in when you observe their drive and work ethic. I have a lot of clients who are millionaires and none are lazy.  Kudos for being part of self made success stories.

It's also not a binary variable: Most of us humans are somewhere on a sliding scale between "gifted and lucky" and "neither at all".

What annoys me is people who refuse to see the benefits and privileges they have had, and only focus on those they missed out on but someone else got. (Those same people tend to be pretty racist...)

[vand]

Depending on your saving rate, there comes a point where ongoing contributions don't add all that much to future value of the pot, and for most of us the difference between 4% FI and stinking rich FI for can be as short as working an extra 5-10yrs. 

I go over this tradeoff in my head all the time and knocked up this googlesheet to help me visualise it all:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fRCoB5hkRzsFBWAIEHSnK6MQxruOccpSlhsNoHYBIpQ/edit?usp=sharing
(make a copy if you want to put in your own numbers)

I think that if you're naturally frugal and are happy living on a certain amount, to aim to massively increasing that just for the sake of being rich in reitrement is anathema to what we actually want

[2sk22]

I did not even consider early retirement because I was a late bloomer. My career really took off only in my late 40s - until then my salary was good but unexceptional by tech standards. After 2010, not only was I finally able to get back into my preferred line of work (machine learning), I also started getting paid a lot more. If I had retired early, I would have missed out on being able to participate in some fascinating research. The papers I published after I got back into ML, have been cited a fair number of times and this gives me more satisfaction than money (I still check ResearchGate for new citations once a month 😀)

[mizzourah2006]

I did not even consider early retirement because I was a late bloomer. My career really took off only in my late 40s - until then my salary was good but unexceptional by tech standards. After 2010, not only was I finally able to get back into my preferred line of work (machine learning), I also started getting paid a lot more. If I had retired early, I would have missed out on being able to participate in some fascinating research. The papers I published after I got back into ML, have been cited a fair number of times and this gives me more satisfaction than money (I still check ResearchGate for new citations once a month 😀)

Very cool. I got into ML a little late too and started publishing in my mid 30s. Google scholar will automatically send you emails when a new citation is found along with a link to the paper. I too enjoy those emails.

For me I think we're just at a time early retirement wouldn't leave me with enough stuff I enjoy doing. Kids are in school and are young so traveling more is out. I love mountain biking and definitely want to do more of it than I do, but 1-2 days a week would scratch that itch and I enjoy my work. I also have flexibility to get the kids from the bus stop 2 days a week and I'm usually home by 4 anyway so I wouldn't even get a ton more time with the kids. So, I guess I'll be more on the retiring "richer" at around 50 train. But we are at the stage where we are starting to enjoy our money more and be less frugal because we are already pretty much at FI.

[MMMarbleheader]

I sometimes think about this question. I retired in my late 30s from Big Tech. That was ~9 years ago. If I had continued working the software mines our NW would be at least 2x right now, probably more.

Would it be nice to have twice as much wealth? I suppose, though quite honestly I'm not sure what I would do with it. We love our community, neighborhood, city, house, etc. and want for nothing. The only thing I can think remotely interesting with that type of money is a lake house, but having to take care of a vacation home and feeling locked in to going there instead of other places... meh, I'd rather VRBO or hotel. At this point in life it feels like 'more' would end up being 'less' as our lives are already very fulfilled and we don't have enough time to do everything we want to do. If we suddenly came into more money I think we'd just throw it on the pile, or maybe give a bunch away.

But it could be that I'm a simpleton. I'm very happy just spending time with family and friends, skiing, mountain biking, fishing, camping, doing stuff at church, cooking a good meal, gardening... simple every day stuff that doesn't cost a lot.

As I've mentioned on these forums before, I had a major health scare 2 years ago, nearly died several times and was told at one point I only had a few months. Thankfully currently in remission and doing well. Just today went for a 16 mile mountain bike ride with 2300' of climbing and felt great -- not bad for not even being able to walk across the room for a long time. The future is still very uncertain, no good treatment options if recurrence happens. This has certainly colored my outlook on life. Very thankful I didn't spend past ~9 years working just to increase our NW, and you don't fully appreciate how amazing the little things in life are until you go through something like this.

So I guess you could say I'm very much in the Retire Early camp, because you can't buy more time and you never know what's gonna happen.

Well said

Personally, I have set myself up with a great life that I could be happy staying in my general area and be happy. Aside from some vacations and more eating out, I dont see what else I would spend $$ on to justify my NW doubling.

Heck, it might make things more complicated because my kids are smart and a crazy high NW might compel me to full pay for an elite college, which would push them into another level of expectations/wealth due to their new peers that probably would not be at UVM>

[Fomerly known as something]

I could have retired at 40ish, but my IBL would have been stressed and unhappy.  I’m going to retire from my career at 47 (14 months from now) at a spot that has the IBL happy.  I had a coworker get a fantastic job last year which doubled his salary.  It made me think what if, and the answer is yeah no. 

As far as adding to the pot by OMY, it’s more that it is one more year to compound vs any additions at this point.

[EscapeVelocity2020]

Loving the discussions.  It's too bad we don't get two runs through this life (or maybe one multiverse alternative).  I'm following the path of retiring 'rich' later in life and sometimes secretly hope I'll get laid off so I can get my long term incentives and a severance package.  I had a colleague retire early, only to have a round of layoffs come through the following year.  He could've easily requested a package and been $200k better off.  He's FI either way though, divorced and bumming around Florida in his 40's...  If I had retired right when I hit my first million, I'd have missed out on two enriching expat assignments and had to ride out the GFC without income, but I also would've been blogging around the time MMM started, so who knows what would've been down that path...  Glad it has turned out OK following the safe path (no health scares or crappy job assignments), but what would've been on those other paths?

[FireLane]

Yeah, it seems like a weird premise to say that retiring on $125,000 a year isn't "rich". That's double the average American salary! Whoever wrote that has a skewed and/or privileged perspective. If you make that much money, you're rich, no question about it.

I did retire at 40 (well, at 39), I spend something like half that, and I lead what I consider an extravagant life. I can't imagine what I would spend double my current cash flow on, let alone $250,000 or $500,000.

For me, the bigger limitation is time. There aren't enough hours in the day or weeks in the year to do everything I want to do with my life. Given the choice, I'd much rather take an extra ten years of retirement to whittle away at my bucket list, rather than work longer for a bigger pile of cash I doubt I'd ever manage to spend.

[LoanShark]

Really enjoy the discussion thus far. We recently hit our FI # and now we’re thinking that I’ll continue working until our children are ready to go to college. Long way to go until then but having financial freedom definitely buys optionality.

[Gone Fishing]

At 300k, I’d be giving a lot away.  Might be fun, but not so much I’d want to work another 20 years at megacorp to do it.

[Much Fishing to Do]

I did not even consider early retirement because I was a late bloomer. My career really took off only in my late 40s - until then my salary was good but unexceptional by tech standards. After 2010, not only was I finally able to get back into my preferred line of work (machine learning), I also started getting paid a lot more. If I had retired early, I would have missed out on being able to participate in some fascinating research. The papers I published after I got back into ML, have been cited a fair number of times and this gives me more satisfaction than money (I still check ResearchGate for new citations once a month 😀)

I grew my income a ton thru the years and blew thru my FI number at a time I couldn't get out (business)...so though I have no 'need' to work now my 15 hr/wk job that pays me about what we spend a year feels kinda like my pension... and I kinda like it.  Its also just somehow easier to work a job you know you can leave any day you want to...And unlike many on here, though I certainly have 'enough' I also have no problem spending more....

[EliteZags]

I sometimes think about this question. I retired in my late 30s from Big Tech. That was ~9 years ago. If I had continued working the software mines our NW would be at least 2x right now, probably more.

agree with your decision but just for accuracy of the story purposes with the market and tech salaries it'd actually be likely closer to 4x

[FINate]

I sometimes think about this question. I retired in my late 30s from Big Tech. That was ~9 years ago. If I had continued working the software mines our NW would be at least 2x right now, probably more.

agree with your decision but just for accuracy of the story purposes with the market and tech salaries it'd actually be likely closer to 4x

I think 2-3x is more likely. My early equity was worth a lot more, so NW increased rapidly at first then slowed in later years. This was somewhat offset by increasing salary+bonus, yet this was still small compared to the equity component.

[MrGreen]

No contest for me. I'm out at 40. We're the more rare FIRE bird though in that we quit and then had a kid. I wouldn't take $1 million a year to go back to work right now and miss out on that time with my kid. It's been quite the surprise, just how much I enjoy being a parent and there's nothing more I aspire to right now. My kid will be a minor until I'm almost 60.

[2sk22]

I grew my income a ton thru the years and blew thru my FI number at a time I couldn't get out (business)...so though I have no 'need' to work now my 15 hr/wk job that pays me about what we spend a year feels kinda like my pension... and I kinda like it.  Its also just somehow easier to work a job you know you can leave any day you want to...And unlike many on here, though I certainly have 'enough' I also have no problem spending more....

I have a very good friend who is in a similar situation - he is extremely well off and could retire anytime he wants but is sort of chained to his business. He feels a sense of obligation to his employees and doesn't want to leave them in the lurch. So he keeps at it a few hours a week and has left a lot of the day-to-day operations to managers.

[2Birds1Stone]

Retire early......money is like water after a certain point, when your thirst is quenched more isn't necessarily better.

We chose to retire mid 30's @ ~$50k/yr even though another 10 years at our earnings could have tripled that spending. Absolutely 0 regrets.

For those of you mathing........remember that a 70 year old doesn't need to follow the 4% rule, so an extra decade or two of earnings not only ups the portfolio but gives you way less time to spend/enjoy the money before your hooked up to a catheter or someone's changing your bedpan. 

[rocketpj]

I grew my income a ton thru the years and blew thru my FI number at a time I couldn't get out (business)...so though I have no 'need' to work now my 15 hr/wk job that pays me about what we spend a year feels kinda like my pension... and I kinda like it.  Its also just somehow easier to work a job you know you can leave any day you want to...And unlike many on here, though I certainly have 'enough' I also have no problem spending more....

I have a very good friend who is in a similar situation - he is extremely well off and could retire anytime he wants but is sort of chained to his business. He feels a sense of obligation to his employees and doesn't want to leave them in the lurch. So he keeps at it a few hours a week and has left a lot of the day-to-day operations to managers.

I have a friend who is stupidly wealthy because of his business but just can't seem to imagine himself without it. 

[MrGreen]

Also worth noting that a 40 year old American male has a 20.4% chance of being dead before age 65. A 40 year old female has a 12.8% chance of being dead before 65.

So I'm gonna have my family line my casket with my extra millions? Fuck that.

[spartana]

Also worth noting that a 40 year old American male has a 20.4% chance of being dead before age 65. A 40 year old female has a 12.8% chance of being dead before 65.

So I'm gonna have my family line my casket with my extra millions? Fuck that.

And don't forget about illness, infirmity, disability, cognitive problems, etc which happen as we age. Money and even death is often the least thing to worry about for a good quality if life! For most of us who retired in our 30s or 40s, we're going to have a good (fit and healthy illness-free) 30 years in our prime BEFORE hitting traditional retirement age. Much better then sitting in a chair and doing a commute 8 or more hours a day for 30 years just to become wealthy. Obviously I'm in camp "retire early".

[Omy]

We retired at least 5 years later than we should have. Hindsight suggests that "retire earlier" would have been the better option.

[406MtnFire]

Hard call. I think there's a balance. Have enough to live a comfortable life. I'm probably FI but have a truck with 290k miles. I'll work until I can buy a new truck to last another decade plus and a camper (just bought). The higher I get in my career, the more flexibility I also have. So it's fairly easy money and flexible. Going to work a few more years to have a couple years of living expenses in cash then make a call. 

[Purple_Crayon]

Each person should likely consider optimizing all resources valuable to them. For me, past simple comfort, time is MUCH more valuable a resource than money.

[EscapeVelocity2020]

I agree with all the people landing on 'retire early', but one small counterpoint was my DW who 'retired' to be a SAHP at 35 and is now back at work.  After about 10 years at home (which she cherished), she was ready to get back out there as a teacher.  Started out subbing and now she's full time.  The kids are off at college and she wanted something of her own.  She also likes paying others to do a deep clean of the house once in a while!  So it's not black and white, you can make it up as you go if things change.  Loads of ER folks find themselves back at work in one form or another after some time 'retired'.

[Davnasty]

I agree with all the people landing on 'retire early', but one small counterpoint was my DW who 'retired' to be a SAHP at 35 and is now back at work.  After about 10 years at home (which she cherished), she was ready to get back out there as a teacher.  Started out subbing and now she's full time.  The kids are off at college and she wanted something of her own.  She also likes paying others to do a deep clean of the house once in a while!  So it's not black and white, you can make it up as you go if things change.  Loads of ER folks find themselves back at work in one form or another after some time 'retired'.

I view this as more of an endorsement than a counterpoint. Many people stress over the idea that having to go back to a lower paying job after they've FIRE'd would be terrible but in my feeble attempts to predict the future, I see myself as wanting to do some sort of paid work in the 30 or so years I hope to be "retired" before retirement age. Maybe others don't feel that way but 10, 20, 30 years later... who really knows what they'll want. I think the safest thing to do is to set yourself up with enough money that you're never going to be homeless and from there just do what makes you happy right now.

[mizzourah2006]

Just curious what all the people endorsing retiring early with young kids do while their kids are in school every day. I could probably kill 2-3 hours a day 2-3 days a week with hobbies, but outside of that I'd be bored and I actually enjoy my work and doing work that's cognitively stimulating. I'm working with some friends on a startup that's already received some VC funding on nights and weekends because it's also cognitively stimulating.

[MrGreen]

Just curious what all the people endorsing retiring early with young kids do while their kids are in school every day. I could probably kill 2-3 hours a day 2-3 days a week with hobbies, but outside of that I'd be bored and I actually enjoy my work and doing work that's cognitively stimulating. I'm working with some friends on a startup that's already received some VC funding on nights and weekends because it's also cognitively stimulating.

We don't have that dilemma yet but home school is the plan early on. This allows us to continue traveling and compress our daughter's learning into only the amount of time she needs vs. teaching a whole class, and we get to tailor lessons to the environment we're in, incorporating much more stimulating lessons than a classroom can produce. Who knows how long that will last. If we're lucky, until we reach the point where we're no longer comfortable in our ability to teach the content.

[mizzourah2006]

Just curious what all the people endorsing retiring early with young kids do while their kids are in school every day. I could probably kill 2-3 hours a day 2-3 days a week with hobbies, but outside of that I'd be bored and I actually enjoy my work and doing work that's cognitively stimulating. I'm working with some friends on a startup that's already received some VC funding on nights and weekends because it's also cognitively stimulating.

We don't have that dilemma yet but home school is the plan early on. This allows us to continue traveling and compress our daughter's learning into only the amount of time she needs vs. teaching a whole class, and we get to tailor lessons to the environment we're in, incorporating much more stimulating lessons than a classroom can produce. Who knows how long that will last. If we're lucky, until we reach the point where we're no longer comfortable in our ability to teach the content.

Yeah, the other big draw of early retirement for me is slow travel and traveling around the US to MTB destinations and spending days there. I follow BKXC on Youtube to live through him vicariously for now :) That's obviously something we can't do with young kids in school even without jobs. Ours are 6 & 8, so getting to the age where school and socialization is very important to them.

[FireLane]

Just curious what all the people endorsing retiring early with young kids do while their kids are in school every day. I could probably kill 2-3 hours a day 2-3 days a week with hobbies, but outside of that I'd be bored and I actually enjoy my work and doing work that's cognitively stimulating. I'm working with some friends on a startup that's already received some VC funding on nights and weekends because it's also cognitively stimulating.

I'm in that situation. My son is in second grade. I walk him to school in the morning, and then I have six hours to myself before dismissal.

Different strokes for different folks, but I haven't had any trouble filling the time. I do a home workout with weights or yoga; I go for a leisurely walk while listening to music or a podcast; I read a book from my constantly-growing TBR pile; I put on a TV show or a movie; I clean whatever needs cleaning around the house; I go food shopping and pick interesting recipes to cook for the coming week. In warm months, I work outside in my garden. In colder months, I work on decluttering and home projects.

My wife is in the office two days a week (I haven't convinced her to retire yet!), but if she's working from home, we sometimes go out for a coffee date or a restaurant lunch, or watch an educational lecture series from the Great Courses together.

I haven't gotten bored so far. And if I did, I'd pick up more hobbies! Some other stuff on my bucket list that I haven't gotten around to: learn a foreign language, learn to play a musical instrument, level up my photography skills, or learn Photoshop or some other editing software. I could also fill tons of time volunteering with the PTA at my son's school or some other non-profit in the community.

[mizzourah2006]

Oh I know I could find ways to fill my time, but it would probably be things I shouldn't be doing like playing video games or watching movies or surfing the web. I could also most definitely volunteer or something similar, but I'd rather work and/or do research. Like you said different strokes. I don't have any problems with getting enough exercise even with kids and working. I go to the gym 3-4 days a week to lift, usually run 6-10 miles, play Ice hockey and coach my kids ice hockey team. The only thing I wish I did more of was biking, but honestly part of that's on me. I could bike to work more than I do and I could go mountain biking more on Saturday and Sunday mornings if I really wanted to.

[Missy B]

As if enough assets to provide $125,000 a year of income don't already make them rich.

This.

[Much Fishing to Do]

Just curious what all the people endorsing retiring early with young kids do while their kids are in school every day. I could probably kill 2-3 hours a day 2-3 days a week with hobbies, but outside of that I'd be bored and I actually enjoy my work and doing work that's cognitively stimulating. I'm working with some friends on a startup that's already received some VC funding on nights and weekends because it's also cognitively stimulating.

THis is actually another reason why my 15 hr/wk job vs complete FIRE is a pretty simple choice, I'm tied to the town during the school year and the 15 hrs happens 3/days week in the hours between when I drop them off and when I pick them up.  I only have a few years left until empty nest so that is one natural point I'll rethink my job if I'm still at it, but right now its just not really in the way of many other things I'd be doing anyway.

[FINate]

Just curious what all the people endorsing retiring early with young kids do while their kids are in school every day. I could probably kill 2-3 hours a day 2-3 days a week with hobbies, but outside of that I'd be bored and I actually enjoy my work and doing work that's cognitively stimulating. I'm working with some friends on a startup that's already received some VC funding on nights and weekends because it's also cognitively stimulating.

This hasn't been an issue for us. We get the kids out the door to school (they walk/bike), then we have more than enough to fill the day. During winter, DW and I often go on ski dates followed by a nice lunch. Or we go to a museum or gallery or shopping or a walk. DW both do volunteer work during the week. We have 200 miles of hiking/biking trails in our backyard, so during warmer months we do a lot of hiking and mountain biking. I often bike to the river to fly fish. We can do all these things and be home in time to greet the kids. Then we help with homework, go to a park, play a game, or whatever we feel like to spend time with them. Oh, and school sports. We eat dinner together, then the kids make their lunch for the next day, and then it's pretty much bed time.

Summer break is different. Lots of travel, backpacking, swimming, rivers, hot springs, biking, exploring... we make the most of it.

[mizzourah2006]

Just curious what all the people endorsing retiring early with young kids do while their kids are in school every day. I could probably kill 2-3 hours a day 2-3 days a week with hobbies, but outside of that I'd be bored and I actually enjoy my work and doing work that's cognitively stimulating. I'm working with some friends on a startup that's already received some VC funding on nights and weekends because it's also cognitively stimulating.

This hasn't been an issue for us. We get the kids out the door to school (they walk/bike), then we have more than enough to fill the day. During winter, DW and I often go on ski dates followed by a nice lunch. Or we go to a museum or gallery or shopping or a walk. DW both do volunteer work during the week. We have 200 miles of hiking/biking trails in our backyard, so during warmer months we do a lot of hiking and mountain biking. I often bike to the river to fly fish. We can do all these things and be home in time to greet the kids. Then we help with homework, go to a park, play a game, or whatever we feel like to spend time with them. Oh, and school sports. We eat dinner together, then the kids make their lunch for the next day, and then it's pretty much bed time.

Summer break is different. Lots of travel, backpacking, swimming, rivers, hot springs, biking, exploring... we make the most of it.

Yeah, that aligns with what I'd mostly do and does sound great. We also have several hundred miles of mountain biking/hiking trails within 25 minutes of our house. Maybe we are in a unique position for most employed people, but we are at home by the time the kids get off the bus every day while still working. I'm home by 2:30 on Monday and Friday's to get the kids from the bus stop and my wife is home by 2:30 TU-TH. We honestly both have a ton of flexibility to where we never really miss any of the kids activities unless I'm out of town for a conference. Summers would be great for travel, but we already pack a ton of travel into the summers because of that anyway. But honestly my career has been pretty "easy" to this point and I'd say at no point besides my first 2-3 years of working have I really worked more than ~30 hours a week most of the year. I take the dogs for a mile long walk every morning (weather permitting),I work from home on Monday's unless there are very important meetings and I live 15 minutes from the office. Tuesday's I'll usually go in around 9-9:30 and be home by 3:30, Wednesday's I go to the gym in the morning and get to the office around 9:30 am home by 4 most weeks, Thursday's is a repeat of Wednesday's, but I usually get home by 3:30, Friday's I go to the gym in the morning and then go into the office because recently we've had important meetings with an exec team in Canada, but I'm heading home by 1 to finish the day and then I get the kids from the bus stop at 2:45. Weekends are free to spend time with family and friends.

I mean I guess it doesn't really matter for us yet as we are still about 125k short of our FI # and about 625k short of where I'd really want to be, but that will almost certainly come up in the next ~24 months so I am starting to think about whether or not RE is something I want right now in my life, thus the reason for my question. I know many on here don't have kids and going RE and traveling the world or just up and moving is a very easy thing to do. So, I was looking for these types of responses from parents of 6-18 year olds that are in school.

[Jack0Life]

Not even an interesting debate because most of us would happily retire @40 with $125k annually.
A more interesting debate would be retire @40 with $60k, @50 with $80k or @60 with $100k.
These numbers would provide a more diverse range of people wanting to retire.
-I would retire @50 with $80k.

[spartana]

Not even an interesting debate because most of us would happily retire @40 with $125k annually.
A more interesting debate would be retire @40 with $60k, @50 with $80k or @60 with $100k.
These numbers would provide a more diverse range of people wanting to retire.
-I would retire @50 with $80k.

Or, ya know, retire at 30 on $25k/year like some internet blogger dude claims he's done  ;-).

FWIW the numbers really depend on too many indiviual variables like housing costs, kids, elderly parent care, medical needs,  lifestyle,  etc to be of any real comparison value. But it's still fun to see what everyone else plans.