“OMG, the stock market is going to collapse and the world come to an end! And then what are you going to do, wise guy? Go back to work? Ha! Get real. You haven’t worked in forever. Nobody wants your out of date skills. And in a big downturn EVERYONE is looking for a job, and you will be last on every employer’s list. Loser.”
I love 2018. Internet people are so friendly these days. But as much as I am unlikely to invite this guy over for dinner, he does have a point.
“Going back to work” is a fall back plan for a lot of aspiring retirees. If you are dealt a poor sequence of returns in the early years, just call your old boss. But woe is me, this is no longer an option.
But not because my skillz have been back shelved. And not because I am far too busy. The truth is, as far as employment is concerned, retirement has completely ruined me.
What Are Employers Looking For?
I had no idea, so I had to Google it.
Work Ethic… be at work on time… you mean you want me to commute during peak traffic hours? And you want me to go to the grocery store at the same time as 90% of the population? And I need to enjoy recreational activities on weekends with the hoards of humanity?
Sorry, no.
Honesty… this meeting is a complete waste of time, just email me.
Oh, you meant a different kind of honesty.
Loyalty… will you be loyal to The Company? “Yeah, sure, of course, whatever it takes.”
As loyal as you are to me (or for a year until I build my savings back up.) What is the 401k vesting schedule again?
Flexibility… Exciting news! We are reorganizing again. And the project was cancelled, but we have a great new project.
You are still paying me, right? No worries then. I don’t even need to come into the office, I can do this job from home.
Positive Attitude
I am positive that I am cynical. That counts, right?
Dependability
I’ll get you that Deliverable and complete the Action Item just as soon as I get back from a bike ride and take a nap. M’kay?
Retirement Life
We are fast approaching our 6 year (me) and 9 year (Winnie) anniversaries of non-traditional living.
In that time we’ve become accustomed to certain things.
The bike trail I ride regularly is a very different experience at 10 am on a Tuesday than at noon on a Saturday.
The gym, the library, the grocery store, the coffee shop…. are my own personal oasis 5 days a week.
Flying at 2 PM on a Wednesday costs much less than flying at 7 PM on a Friday.
Midday naps are amazing.
The museum is free the first Monday of every month.
I sometimes do some “work.” But if it feels like work, it gets moved to the bottom of my To Do list. If I had a To Do list… Case in point: I still haven’t filed out 2017 taxes, even though they are technically done.
And yesterday I meant to finish this blog post, but instead we had pretty much the whole lake to ourselves.
Tubing with the fam
Sorry, these things aren’t perks. They are life.
Back to Work?
Nah…
Instead, we did a few simple things:
- Spend next to nothing in the early years, so we were still adding to our nest egg
- Minimize future taxes – cap gain harvesting and Roth IRA conversions mean no taxes today and tomorrow. That is the same as earning thousands of extra dollars
- Travel hacking – why spend $7,000 on flights around the world when you could spend $200?
- Geographic arbitrage – if the market crapped the bed, we wouldn’t go to Europe next year. Thailand and Vietnam are equally awesome and a fraction of the price
- invest some minimal effort into a side hustle – Even income of $100 a month increases the Median terminal value for a 75/25 portfolio by $150k, per Trinity Study. One option is a blog.
- We’ll still get Social Security in 20 years or so. Bonus!
I suppose this is why it is odd for Internet trolls to project their fear of getting their old job back onto us. This was always the nuclear option, the solution of last resort.
Besides… nobody would hire me anyway.
Retirement has completely ruined me.
ps: It’s called F U money for a reason
Yeah, about that guest post you asked me to do… Early retirement has completely ruined me ;) I’m still thinking about it and may get it done, but perhaps it will fit in better with your summer 2019 editorial calendar.
Also, we’re going to be in SE Asia the whole summer of 2019 in case you happen to be in that part of the world. Probably won’t make it to Taipei though.
Oh yeah, I get it.
Summer in Asia is hard for me. Too hot. I’ll waive at your plane as your fly over though.
I was looking at a few job listing sites yesterday and all the jobs sound completely horrid. Early retirement has ruined me too. At this point, I wouldn’t work for someone else unless there is no other choice. The job descriptions are terrible. Try it sometime and you’ll be even more happy you’re not working anymore.
Why am I looking at job listing sites? No, I’m not looking for a job. Mrs. RB40 is thinking about changing job… She probably should just pull the cord and retire early instead. We’ll see how it goes.
Yeah, it’s amazing how fast the account balance in the Give-A-Fux bank dwindles when you’ve FIREd. I’m practically on overdraft…
This is hilarious. Your list of what an employer wants also makes it seem like I’m partially “ruined” as well :) . I work from home, which I love the flexibility of. I do not have a positive attitude and while I am dependable I told our HR person to her face that I only stay in a company as long as they keep treating me right (too honest?) Yep – definitely partially ruined. Thanks for pausing your lake time to make us laugh.
I worked remotely for awhile. Productivity and job satisfaction went way down when I had to return to the mothership and attend meetings again.
Though incompatible with living abroad, I have found managing my own rental real estate an effective way to generate living expenses to avoid touching my war chest. I sort of wished I would have bought more houses and retired 10 years earlier
I see many people with real estate holdings living remotely and/or abroad. See Coach Carson as one example.
https://www.gocurrycracker.com/never-pay-taxes-again-rental-properties-guest-post/
i need to know more about Roth IRA conversions…can you refer me to some of your posts about it?
This post might be an OK start
https://www.gocurrycracker.com/gcc-vs-rmd/
The Mad Fientist wrote a great post about it https://www.madfientist.com/how-to-access-retirement-funds-early/
When the wife retired at 56 eight years, and I followed her at 60 four years ago, I began to spiral downhill as well. For example:
1. Work Ethic – as my Italian-American wife says regarding whether I should take on all those chores around the house today, there is always Domani. Maybe that will work in corporate America? Probably not.
2. Honesty – to be frank, I honestly don’t feel like doing shyte today except play on the Internet and read other peoples blogs.
3. Loyalty – I worked for large corporations for almost 40 years as both a manager and individual contributor. My reply to how much “loyalty” American businesses have to employees is not fit for print on this family-oriented website.
4. Flexibility – I have found that stretching about ten minutes before I run in the morning is just about right. Does that count?
5. Positive Attitude – I am positive that corporate America would not take to my current attitude of “i’m in it for myself”. That might make me a candidate for upper management, though.
6. Dependability – the wife and I travel 4-5 months out of the year now, and hope to increase that schedule even more. That critical task will wait until I get back, right?
I guess we were fortunate to have lived under our means while our noses were to the grindstone, and only need 1-2% of our assets now to be all in on our expenses per year, including all vacation, eating out often, and so on. Life without work may be difficult for naysayers to comprehend, but it can be utterly amazing. And on that you can be assured I was expressing my view Honestly (oh, shoot, now employers will be after me).
Ha! This was a way better read than my own thoughts on these employer friendly qualities. Thanks Chuck!
First heard you on a podcast a few months ago as we were in the midst of selling our house, our cars and most of everything else in preparation for the trip we started about two weeks ago now. I, my wife, and our four boys decided to press the big PAUSE button on “normal” life to travel around the world for a year or two (or three . . . ?). Hearing your story was validating and inspirational – thanks! I haven’t been working for a few months now (there was a lot of prep to be done!), but already I’m having a hard time imagining going back the insanity I thought was normal. It’s so obvious to me now, but the most important job now with young kids in tow is to be a good dad. Combine that with dose of fun and a pinch of adventure, I’m looking for every strategy possible to not go back to “normal”.
Sounds like a wonderful change of pace.
Best of luck in being abnormal
Don’t be so hard on yourself, Jeremy. I’m sure you were ruined well before you retired ;-)
Correlation between networth and degree of ruint is high
I love it! I can’t wait to be ruined! Although, I “work” for the state so I guess you could say that I’m already ruined…
Haha, I love this post, especially the line “Oh, you meant a different kind of honesty.”
This is great because it really speaks the truth. I’m around the corner and about to FIRE at the end of this year and I’m counting down the minutes. The corporate world will not be missed at all!
— Jim
Love this. The greatest thing I found being partially retired is the timeshifting aspect. The traffic on the bike trail and in the grocery store is downright dangerous on Saturdays. I once did the math and figured out that I picked up 20 weeks a year by getting rid of my commute, meetings, calls, and random interruptions. That’s all I’m off to the pool. It will be empty because it’s 2PM on a Tuesday.
I took Jr to the pool in Taipei at 2 pm on a Tuesday and it was glorious. Accidentally tried it on a weekend and there were 3 classes of kid swimming lessons going on with lots of yelling and screaming, and every lane was at or above capacity.
Right on point! I can relate to your former corporate life since I am still inside the corp, working towards our FIRE trigger.
I can’t wait for early retirement to ruin me.
Ha! I’m right there with ya. I was out in front of the house watering some plants at about 8pm last Sunday. Suddenly my neighbor comes running out of his house and hops in the car and takes off in a blaze of glory. I asked him later what was up? He said some servers at the office went down and so he got to enjoy 5 late night hours on a Sunday getting everything back up and running – before returning bright and early at 8am on Monday morning. Yeah, no thanks….I think being “unemployable” has it’s perks. :)
I FIREd a month ago.
Last night I had a nightmare that I went back to work and spent the entire time patiently explaining to my boss that I didn’t have to actually show up to the office, and probably wouldn’t respond to his emails for long stretches of time.
It took my at least 6 months to stop having those dreams
Me too. I mean I do work some consulting and it isn’t totally different from what I used to do but going back to a 9 to 5 every day? I know it isn’t very appealing because when someone floated a seven figure job offer to me last year I didn’t even have to think about it before saying “no thanks!” and that was about three times as much as I ever made in my old career.
Yeah, I’m also not really interested in ever going back to working a regular full time job again. When markets tank, we’ll just spend less. I actually love doing meaningful work. Just don’t want to *have* to do it 40, 50, 60 hours a week, on somebody else’s schedule. We could easily live a good life in Vietnam on dividends alone. The food’s great there, people are nice, and it’s warm all year around.
I’m with you on this. Meaningful work is great, but I only like to do it when I feel inspired. Which means doing way less and less often, after rewarding recreational activities.
Sounds great! I hope I can have the same opportunity soon :)
I sent this link on to my friend who retired just over a year ago. She’ll love it.
Me? I’m sitting at my desk in the staff room, an hour before I have to start inspiring and changing the lives of the hormonally-challenged.
Yes, I’m a secondary school teacher.
Don’t worry too much. A week’s empty belly would see a remarkable improvement in Work Ethic, Honesty, Loyalty, Flexibility and Dependability. Moderately low blood sugar concentrations are Attitude Positive.
Employers can smell desperation
I see this all the time in tech. Those with some level of fu money are reasonable, those without have some level of desperation and they are owned by their company. No thanks!
I keep “thinking” about returning to work because I actually liked taking care of patients…but then I go for a hike and the feeling passes quite quickly. :)
part time? My mom and sister both worked as travel nurses for a time… they got surges of income and then healthy amounts of time off in between gigs.
Lol and then a ::sigh::. FIRE still feels so far away… give writing these articles to keep us going.
Question: should I just take crap jobs that pays more or do semi- creative work that makes me a tad bit happier but pays way less?
Pros and cons to both approaches. Sometimes the answer is both: main crap job and semi-creative side hustles.
It’s all temporary anyway.
Jeremy acting all “disengaged”, and, look, for the most part he is, in all the right ways, but when I worked with him I always found him hard working, honest, reliable, dependable, and of integrity. So that ain’t the issue. I’d work with him again in a second. I’d just have to keep waking him up from his midday naps between his bike rides.
stop messing with my street cred, Andrew! ;)
One of your funniest posts in awhile …. probably because it’s so damn true!
After several years of early retirement, going back to work sounds like hell. “You mean I have to work for 60 hours a week and sometimes on the weekends with no naps, only minimal breaks, and I’ll probably earn less than what my portfolio does in an average year? Oh and the health plan sucks too?”
Yeah, no thanks!
Two years in and I’m totally ruined. Once you become accustomed to being able to do everything at off-peak hours, it’s hard to ever go back. I’m told that people actually still wait in line at the grocery store on Saturdays around here. Torture.
Thanks for the honest post :)
We agree that a “job” isn’t the real issue. However, I would be curious to know your thoughts about the unexpected but possible/foreseeable events:
1. Decades-long bear market, e.g. Japan’s NIKKEI after 1989. It has still not recovered as of 2018, almost thirty years later…
2. One of the spouse’s parents health degrading – which will happen one day: How would you manage this? Move long-term to Taiwan? What if you need to pay exceptional medical bills?
3. Your son’s education: You mention moving to low-cost areas in case of a market downturn, but how about the impact on your son’s schooling? How about the change in languages/school systems/environment etc.? Moving around may be very challenging in the teenage years… He might have a character of his own.
Thanks again for sharing.
If these things are important to you, plan for them before you cut the pay check.
The worst time to retire in recorded history was 1965. If you think the future includes an economic period that is worse than the worst we have ever seen, then save more.
https://www.gocurrycracker.com/the-worst-retirement-ever/
Thank you for the link, great analysis.
Once I reach FIRE I will never look for a regular day job again. There’s so many things you can do to maintain your living standards, once you’re in a decent economic position. Just learning about the concept makes me feel ruined already.
One of my favorite posts, thanks! Everything rings so true! I learned a few years ago to have as much loyalty to my employer as they have to me. At that time it was zero – just another cog in the machine. :-) Changed careers and am now working my way towards FIRE!
It definitely is hard to go back when you get acclimated to something. When I cut down to 4 day work weeks, a 5 day work week is very painful to go through when I have to. Also things I could do in medical residency in terms of hours put in would be impossible to attempt now. I can see how retirement would make anyone feel that way to having to work again. I think the FIRE community is pretty conservative (to the point of “One More Year Syndrome” being a real problem. I hope that means that there really is an ultra low chance of going back to workforce when you do finally pull the cord.
It’s not for trolling, please read the short story “The Lotus Eater” by W. Somerset Maugham?
It’s really impressed me, all young retires must read it… ;-)
http://facultyweb.wcjc.edu/users/jonl/documents/LotusEater.pdf
Moral of the story: annuities are terrible. Had Wilson invested in a diversified portfolio of individual stocks, he would have captured all of the upside instead of passing it to the insurance company.
I always try to tell people that you can set up an annuity just like an insurance company, yet still retain 100% control of your $ and without high fees being paid. Buy a good index fund like the S&P 500 with part of the money (say 70% for grins) and put the remainder in a ladder of one year CDs. Voila, you have done pretty much what the insurance companies have done for years now. That will only be 4% to cover my wisdom, thank you :)
Consider the economic environment of 1898 [= 1913 – 15]:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Depression
The actual failure was an insufficient annuity term.
The certainty of an annuity relative to the uncertainty in individual longevity contrasting with uncertainty in portfolio performance combined with the uncertainty in individual longevity.
Had Wilson saved a little more and invested that little for growth to be consumed after the term of the annuity he might have had a more comfortable old age; but equally he might not.
The vast majority of Australians intend to rely on government welfare for their lotus fruits and flowers in their old age.
Yes, the world is full of uncertainties…
And the vast majority of Russians rely on government welfare too… ;-)
Hi! Just wanted to say that you are such an inspirational role model to me! I am just starting the transition out of a full time employment. I am actually quite concerned as I couldn´t plan it as accurately as I would have liked to. It was kind of forced from the fact that my wife got a job in NY (we are italians) so I am leaving my job in Europe to allow her achieve her dream job. I am not sure if you can help me, but my question is: I will be on a H4 dependent visa, so I won´t be able to open a bank account here, nor to invest directly in the US. What if I invest in Europe or any other international market and then I report my taxes here? Would this model work for the early retirement approach? thanks in advance, I would really appreciate if you could help me!
Couldn´t agree more! :)
I have a fundamental question here: if we follow the 4% rule after retiring, we should not panic if for a given year our net worth goes down a bit, since in the long run, and according to past statistics, it will go back up if we stick to same annual expenses (plus inflation). Question is: how soon we need to press the ALARM button after a series of bad economy years? At what point we need to start applying those contingency actions (side hustle, geo-arbitrage, reduce expenses, etc)??? Is there any general rules about it?
Love this. We are not retired but self-employed, and I have worked 100% from home since 2002. I can’t imagine EVER schlepping to some office again, dealing with commutes, office politics, meetings, 30 minute lunches. No thanks. Not when I regularly get up when I want to which is around 8:00 or 9:00 am and if I’m not feeling good, I can work from bed. No debt and a house that if the worse happens can still be paid on a part time income until I pay that sucker off in less than 5 years. Yeah, self-employment has ruined me, lol.
Hi Jeremy, 4% withdraw rule, do you include the 401K and IRA/Roth IRA, or ONLY the taxable investment account? Thanks
All of it.
thank you
Ok, so I missed having your weekly post up on Monday! My Mondays are better because of your informative and funny posts that make the day go a little faster since I am still working at an office. Those posts also challenge me to look at something from a different POV. But! I love how you used that action (not posting on Monday) to make your point that your post this week was about.
I early retired in the SF Bay Area 11 years ago, and one thing I’ve unfortunately noticed is that coffee shops, gyms, swimming pools, Costco, library, restaurants are crowded any day and time of the week, not just the weekend… I think there must be a ton of early retired people here, or people who don’t need to go into the office.
On the other hand, on Google, Facebook, and other campuses, they provide childcare, gourmet food, ice cream parlors, bowling alleys, laundry services, game arcades, gyms, dentist appts, and other perks that aren’t crowded…
The no-crowds aspect in early retirement is one that I missed experiencing around here, but it sounds appealing.T
Of all the bloggers I read, I enjoy yours and maybe one other the most. I love the tooth in cheek humor. Keep it going. Love the tax reviews the most. Working the code is amazing.
Thank you, it’s an honor.