We do the kind of work where you’re expected to be online essentially 24/7 and trade your soul and all your free time and all your free brain space to work, and so they pay you a little more in exchange for that. our individual visions differ in the where, but not much in the what, the how or the why. all that salt means that swimmers in the lake float easily. (Bonus: lots of geek-worthy charts and graphs!). Our Next Life series: Part 1 - Quitting! Rather than trying to follow advice to the letter — or give it out in a prescriptive way — let’s focus on the formula instead, a formula with three key ingredients that can get anyone in nearly any life circumstances to achieve big goals. Read on! 'See you in our next life my love': Eddie Van Halen mourned by Valerie Bertinelli Charles Trepany, USA TODAY 10/7/2020. Here’s what we learned. How we learned to tell whether that reasonable-sounding advice is actually good or not. Ms. ONL: Yeah, absolutely. But of course before we can quit, we have to give notice. It’s not just about not working, although that’s a lovely thought all on its own – it’s about getting to do the things that most people only dream of, that can’t be done with three weeks of vacation a year, that can’t be done as just a side hustle. Mad Fientist: Yeah! To Care or Not To Care // The Work Mindset As Retirement Nears I had only learned of ONL just recently then proceeded to read every post they had. And something that keeps coming up a lot is anxiety about what it will be like when we quit — not our post-work life, but the actual act of quitting itself. We feel super lucky about that. Ms. ONL: Maybe. Most people envision that they’re going to work until 65 or later. But now we’re filled with Roth remorse. Which makes us wonder: for those special few who are seriously incredible at their jobs, would early retirement even enter their minds? Mad Fientist: That would be awesome. What do you do with the doom and gloom news stories, besides throw your hands in the air and declare it hopeless? It’s starting to feel downright magical around here! Can’t wait to listen it all in my quiet room! We like the total market fund. Questions welcome! But does that mean we can’t achieve financial independence and thrive in early retirement? The last year of work was super stressful for us, and we’ve been mulling the question of whether we should or even can care less at work — and whether that would solve the problem. Add to that our ongoing work stress, and it all has us wondering what would happen if we retired today. #adoptdontshop, Attention all social media managers: If you want someone to post about you, surprise them with a bobblehead of themself that they can pose with their plant starts for the garden. when aspiring early retirees are telling people in their lives about their plans to retire early, they’re getting negative responses. This is truly inspriring. Also, we don’t see early retirement as not working. We feel like we have the world’s best tenant. Was it a pretty drastic change from those spending years to the “saving tons of money” years? Mobster! They’re about wants vs. wants, or need-wants vs. want-needs. while we for sure could have still saved for retirement in the expensive city we came from, it would have taken longer, and we wouldn’t have had the lifestyle we wanted. We’ve noticed something surprising. If you’d told me at the beginning of our early retirement journey that we’d be on the verge of retiring only six years later, and that we wouldn’t be miserable or feel like we’d lived a life of sacrifice to make it possible, I wouldn’t have believed you. Come see the results. And the fact that ‘inclusive’ mountain towns do exist somewhere – they are tough to find around here in the (Austrian) Alps. Don’t Stop at One Audacious Goal // After FI, What’s Your Next One? And given my gold star-seeking tendencies, how can I redefine my self worth post-career without falling into the digital stats trap? But there are some important times when we should instead think like a rich person, since any aspiring FIer eventually becomes one! Today we get into why it’s worth countering that magical thinking, and how to do it. Here are some things you should be thinking about, especially if you’re planning to retire soon. Most of you will recognize Tanja first and foremost from the website Our Next Life, where she’s been sharing her and Mark’s story for the better part of three years. Of course we can’t know how long we have, but if we could, would we prefer to spend our assets down before we die, or to be able to leave a big legacy behind? So I’m digging into boredom with a two-part series, first looking at how your answer to one question in particular tells you if you’re ready to pull the plug on work and retire early. Our FI life is still life, with all the usual ups and downs. (Plus, enter to win Mrs. Frugalwoods’ new book!). But I think the big difference in our strategy is we’re thinking of our retirement in two phases: So, in the first phase, we’re really just going to live off of taxable. And we created what we call the “high school rule.” Here’s what that is. Another great episode of the podcast! And while that’s still true — we haven’t expedited our plan by forcing ourselves to earn income in the future — we now expect to get a much more diversified set of income streams in early retirement. But otherwise, everyone is into all the same stuff. !” And you might assume that people who’ve made the big leap and given up the big paychecks would say, “Nope!” But that’s not true. You don’t have to hide away from the world by going away on a retreat for a month to sort out your life. How We’ve Upped Our Savings Game Without Budgeting, Of Boosts and Bootstraps // One Story, Two Ways, A Life of Yes // Our Early Retirement Aspiration, The Evolution of Our Early Retirement Vision // Summer 2016 Edition. What is “work” anyway? And so, while you’re waiting, you might as well do some of that work to think about: “What do I want to do next? One of the ideas that’s having a major moment these days is the notion that we should all be pushing outside of our comfort zones. The average house price is $700,000CDN which does not work. ), Recognizing the Difference Between Burnout and a Dead End, Asking for More and Getting It // 2016 Goals Review + 2017 Goal Setting, The Great Flip-Flop // How We’ve Reversed Roles on Our Retirement Timing. Thanks, PoF! Vicki Robin’s book Your Money or Your Life had a huge impact on how I view money, asking us to equate money we might spend with the life force it represents, in other words, the time it took to earn it. Who knows? but what would that get us? Yeah, and I completely respect that. but we can’t predict everything. But after talking to many early retirees, I’ve had to accept: Time will always be limited. That’s so awesome, Mark! But here, we’re more likely to see people almost every weekend. last week we wrote about what we’ll lose when we stop working, which in our case includes a lot of perks. We retired early! We like the SMP fund. Of course, savings is important. If we get labeled difficult or squeaky wheels, it doesn’t matter, because we’re on our way out. Did it help? Let’s look at the science. We have an opinion on this (always do! That pile will also serve us in retirement. ;-) I’m writing a book, you guys! Great chat, you two! Ms. ONL: They can go to our blog which is OurNextLife.com. The good financial news keeps rolling in over here at the Our Next Life house. Ms. ONL: The one that I’ve been saying the most often recently is for folks who feel like I’m getting too late a start. What Does It REALLY Take to Retire Early? that is all well and good for now, but things will definitely have to change once we quit our jobs at the end of 2017. today we’re continuing the about series started by think save retire. What? We have. You may not have necessarily the greatest intellectual connection with someone, but you can at least find people to go on a hike together or to go out paddling with you or do whatever you’re into. You may remember a few years ago, I wrote a web application to help travel hackers find the best credit card sign-up bonuses. For a long time, we were big fans of dollar cost averaging, the notion that you hedge against market losses by not buying a whole bunch of shares at one time, but rather in smaller increments over time. What do we know? but we also feel something that not many people talk about: the ways in which we’re letting ourselves down by retiring early. She put herself in this position with her husband before hitting financial independence. It was actually the Our Next Life Instagram feed that prompted me and Jill to start talking about making that mountain dream a reality within the next ~5 years. Here’s how — and why! It’s easy to make symbols of things like buying lattes or paying for cable, but those behaviors aren’t objectively a problem. So, we’ve been at this a while. In Our Next Life [Park Chaeyoung x Fem!Reader] 1.3K Reads 118 Votes 9 Part Story. Mad Fientist: Nice! But, we’ve come to a different conclusion about the root of the problem, and it’s giving us a new directive for this year. We love the Our Next Life blog and Mrs. ONL’s deep discussions of the non-financial aspects of FIRE. In any calendar year in which affiliate income fully covers the cost of web hosting, photo editing and email list maintenance (currently $150/month+), I will donate all earnings above and beyond expenses to charity directly or to our donor advised fund for charitable giving, for the remainder of that year. But that all ends now! This is amazing! And then, once we can get to the 401k, then based on our current projections, at even pretty low returns on the market, we should be able to double or possibly triple our annual spend by the time we hit 60. If the job you are doing doesn’t stimulate you then find your passion and build an execute an exit strategy. \. // + a Very Full Bucket, Then January Happened // The Joy of Fluid Goals, Mapping Out Our First Year of Early Retirement, The Moral Ambiguity of Obamacare Subsidies for Early Retirees. Especially right now, with so much uncertainty in the world, there has never been a better time to pursue FI. I never felt I was doing without and I never felt we were chasing a pile or retirement. Back in 2015, with about two years of work to go, we decided to take a fairly radical step and ban all complaints about work. // A Look Back, A Look Forward, and So Many Questions, Want Adventure AND Security? But what have you found? (Trust me, living in a mountain town has disavowed us of any past prejudices we may have had! And congratulations on paying off your mortgage. I’m still working about half time online, but can ski/fish/hike whenever I want, and my wife will probably stop working next year, so we’re doing it in stages–I call it semi-retirement. We realized that we both have the exact same dreams of building a ski lodge—not a lodge, it probably makes it sounds a lot bigger than we’re thinking, but a little energy efficient ski house somewhere on a mountain. but it hasn’t always been easy. Today: When loyalists contemplate quitting. But the stuff that we did cut out, we actually are happier now that we don’t have that stuff in our lives because a lot of that stuff just adds stress and complexity. It’s Ms. ONL from Our Next Life. Who we were in a past life means nothing in comparison to what we are doing in this life. If spending more wouldn’t derail our plans? The Problem with the HSA (Health Savings Account) Isn’t the HSA, Our Roth Regrets // The Roth IRA Strategy We Wish We’d Built, What Early Retirement Has and Hasn’t “Fixed”, Thoughts On Early Retirement and Post-FIRE Life From the Non-Blogging Partner // Q&A With Mark, Part 1, Don’t Let the Impossibility of Achieving Perfection Hold You Back. Stealing 10 years back is a HUGE win, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. ), Don’t Let Life Pass You By While Saving for the Future, What Reactions to the FIRE Movement Tell Us About Our Messed Up Relationship With Work, Structure Your Life to Avoid Overspending, My Childhood in a Multilevel Marketing Scam, Hard Lessons On the Difference Between Price and Quality, Stop and Spot the Space Invaders // Slowing Down on the Journey, You Might Be Underbudgeting for Early Retirement, Learning Not to Let the Markets Affect You, Free and Cheap Ways to Give Back in Early Retirement, One Year of Early Retirement, Part 3: What We’re Changing, One Year of Early Retirement, Part 2: The Adventures, One Year of Early Retirement, Part 1: Biggest Lessons, Ambition Doesn’t (Have to) End at Retirement, There Is No Financial “Truth” (But Why That’s a Good Thing), Early Retirement Health Care Costs for 2019 and Beyond, Don’t Just Travel Off-Peak, Be Opportunistic on Location, Building Climate Change Into Your Early Retirement Plans, Don’t Immediately Dismiss Early Retirement Naysayers, The Importance of “Chapter Overlap” // Boredom in Early Retirement, Part 2, Even in Early Retirement, You Have to Make Time // Q&A with John Zeratsky + Book Giveaway, The Most Important Early Retirement Indicator // Boredom in Early Retirement, Part 1, The False, Persistent Myth About FIRE and Tech Bros, What Everyone Should Know About Early Retirement // An ONL Clip Show, Adapting to New Baselines in Early Retirement, A Million Mile Flyer’s Tips for Carry-On Travel, Including For Business (Part 2), A Million Mile Flyer’s Tips for Maximum Efficiency Travel (Part 1), Science Confirms Why a Low-Information Diet Is Bad for You, How to Blog Anonymously Like a Secret Agent, Let the Feelings of Future You Be Your Guide, My Other Motivation for Retiring Early // What Many Get Wrong About Those Who Can’t Work, Accounting for Aging Parents in Your Early Retirement Plans, Early Retirement Year 1: Six-Month Check-In. I guess there are quite a lot of people that do live there. I’ve gotten halfway decent at cutting my own hair in the intervening months (and even shockingly non-terrible at cutting Mark’s short hair), but I will happily pay cash money again in the future to get those crisp lines. We’re about to go through a life and financial transition as big as graduating from college or getting married — and that’s switching from earning plenty while working to earning very little in early retirement. we feel the sunday blues in a big way. We have all the services we want. We’ve bought our house which we just paid off in 2011 when it was pretty much the bottom of the housing market. Why that’s both false and bonkers, and why it matters. Podcast Episode Summary A financial independence discussion with Ms. […] What other sort of investment strategies have you used over the years to get to within a few months of FI. We’re going to be retiring at 38 and 41, so not late at all! — today’s post is a full compendium of the technical and content directives you’ve want to follow, from someone who successfully stayed anonymous for years en route to early retirement. we frequently read blog posts outlining people’s grocery spending and practically have to pick our jaws up off the floor afterward. In the city, it took us several years to feel like we had a good group of friends, especially after we were both working remotely and didn’t have that kind of built-in social structure at work. last week on an early morning flight, i flew over a line of cars on a major commuting artery, already in bumper-to-bumper traffic before the sun was up. Most of the choices we make aren’t about needs vs. wants. It really laid out the math. That must have been a big change from East Coast big city living to West Coast mountain town living. We’ve been married for, my gosh, almost nine years. Tanja explores both the financial and emotional issues around financial independence (FIRE) and support others on their journeys on their blog, Our Next Life. We get the question a lot: “How do you stay patient en route to early retirement?” But we’ve realized that’s the wrong question we should all be asking. And ideally, we’d love to follow it down to South America and ski there through the summer and do that for a whole year. Our early retirement plan has gone through a lot of iterations, but one thing has remained constant: our insistence that we never want to have to work again. We should try to get out of debt as quickly as possible, but also paying off a mortgage early is missing out on potential market gains. Here’s how we learned to separate the things that only add cachet from the things that add actual value to our lives. it sure wouldn’t make us retirees at this moment! Our Next Life By the Numbers // Our 100th Post! we’re stoked about this shift, and hope it sticks in future years. I actually think it has been super easy. And so just being able to retire on our own terms, to do some of these thinking ahead of time of “What are we going to do? When you get together with friends in the city, you’re easily in for $100 a person if you’re going to a restaurant.