“Hi Jeremy, you haven’t posted anything for awhile, everything OK? How’s the family?”
We are good! Wow, time flies by… I guess it has been awhile since I have been on the computer. Holy cow it is April!
We have been really busy… because I am Retiring from Retirement.
Retiring from Retirement
I left the traditional world of work over 10 years ago. In that time we had a couple of kids, traveled extensively, and learned a great deal… about ourselves, what we most valued, and (of course) really interesting things like taxes.
I wrote broadly about our adventures and learnings, and as a result we have been fortunate to meet a great number of people, earn a little income, and (for better or worse) have our 5 minutes of fame.
But something has been missing…
My entire life I hated writing, so why was I doing it now? Is it because… I was trying to convince myself that we had made a good decision, by convincing others?
Was selling the dream my way of overcoming my own fears and doubts?
This wasn’t something I thought about (or allowed myself to think about?) until inflation and stock market fears pushed me back into the workforce during the holidays.
And I realized something…
That thing that was missing… was work.
For the first time in years, I actually felt… what is the right word for it… complete? fulfilled?
I woke up each morning knowing what I was going to do. I went to bed each night with a sense of accomplishment.
And each day I was doing something, if not important… at least necessary.
So I have decided I am going to go back to work full time.
Tradeoffs
I’m analytical by nature but I recognize this is an emotional decision. How do you perform a cost benefit analysis on deciding to work when the income is optional?
Still… I wanted to be sure that this wouldn’t be a net loss, providing a psychological boost but resulting in a lower overall quality of life. If I now spend 40+ hours per week doing “work” will other things suffer?
So I discussed this with the rest of the family…
Winnie said she would actually be happy to have me out of the house a bit more, and was willing to shoulder additional household responsibilities and childrearing duties. The kids are at school during the day anyway so this shouldn’t be that difficult, right? Maybe the kids will watch more cartoons or play video games to keep them out of her hair during the after school hours, but that is pretty normal nowadays.
Jr also said he was cool with me not being around as much. I guess he is at that stage where hanging out with your old man isn’t cool anymore. I can still help out with homework after dinner or on weekends. We might have to cut back on some of his extracurricular activities but kids are over-scheduled anyway, he will just have more time for free thinking. I probably won’t be able to take him snowboarding as much, but he has said he doesn’t want to go anymore this season (15+ times is enough?)
Playtime in the snow
More pics and some cool videos on Instagram – Jr has improved tremendously on the snowboard!
I don’t think our toddler understands what it means for Dad to not be around as much, but he has his older brother. And now he will be better able to answer the question from teachers and peers, “what does your Dad do?” Overall it is probably a positive change for him.
Personally I will need to cut back on hobbies, exercise, and probably a bit of sleep. There are only so many hours in the weekend and many of those will be filled with tasks that were put off during the week. Maybe I can even have a bicycle commute.
Our cost of living will likely increase – we might need a 2nd car, for example. Food expenses will certainly go up… who wants to cook with the kids fighting in the background or after the commute home? We may also have to outsource yard work and some home maintenance. And with work income our taxes will certainly increase.
Hopefully all of this is offset by the additional income. *fingers crossed*
Fewer home made desserts = good for the waistline!
Work
I don’t yet know what type of work I will be doing. My career was in hardware development / engineering… I could see myself doing development work on grid storage batteries, EVs, or overall household electrification.
I’m not sure I want the side effects of that type of work though where you think about it even after the work day is done. I’ll let the job-hunting effort decide this for me… if I get job offers in these industries I probably won’t turn them down.
I’m also not opposed to physical work – I could unload some trucks at Costco or Home Depot, and once I gained some seniority maybe I could even drive the fork lift. Beep beep.
Summary
I hate to say it, but all of those people who said I would be back to work in a few years were right. I’m sure they meant for financial reasons, but even so they had the right conclusion. Work is an important part of mental health.
I want to thank my family for supporting me as I try a new path. I also wish them the best as they shoulder additional burdens and responsibilities. Hopefully it makes us all stronger. What’s the worst that could happen?
If you know somebody hiring and willing to take a bet on a middle-aged guy with a huge gap in his resume, please let me know.
There is an exciting world of work out there and I am looking forward to diving into it. Again.
Thank you
PS – we should be returning to our regular blogging schedule in short order. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
April Fools!
Happy April Fool’s Day!
Nice Try!
But the date of posting is wrong. It should be April 1st
I have changed the post date to 4/1 for accuracy
Hi Jeremy, why don’t you write a book? The structure that work gives you is great until you want to spend more than 2 weeks somewhere interesting. Unless you lost this hunger to explore, over the years you built tons of material in this blog for a book.
I always thought that retiring this early might become a challenge, first of all financially and also personally. Take a look at our rich journey couple, they built a business out of FIRE. This is another path forward worth considering.
Good luck and thank you for sharing, it’s brave of you.
It’s April fools day, isn’t it :-) you got me …
All in good fun :)
I definitely should write a book
You really had me, right up to the fourth paragraph :D
Cheers to you and the family!
Same! You had me past the halfway mark of this post. Thanks for the laugh!
Good one brother. 🤣
I’d definitely buy your book! 📚
Oh man, I forgot it’s April Fools day!! Thank goodness this was just a joke…..
… or is it? ;)
Man…you had me till nearly the end there! This was not what I wanted to hear with only a month to go before I retire lol.
You are going to love not working… nothing beats it
I completely agree, even though I am in a field where I can earn decent coin working four days a month. Nothing beats not working. Nothing.
I’m going to wager this goes double or triple for women, POC.
Empowerment is powerful
Ha. You got me and it’s even my birthday.
Your parents’ favorite April Fools of all time
well, you got me, if it weren’t for the comments, I would have been awake all night, I’m 2 years away from pulling the plug on work and I got scared as I read your article, kudos :-)
nah man, you good. Wurk sux, retirement rulez
Happy April Fool’s Day Jeremy! That blog post title was a good one that definitely convinced me to go click that link from your newsletter :-)
Hope you are having an amazing time in California! We will be back in Taiwan for 6 months starting in May and are pretty excited to get back in there. Let us know if you plan to visit during this time as it would be great to catch up!
I think the earliest we would visit Taiwan is around Christmas… not sure yet
Ok totally got me. I was starting to tell my wife “wtf-listen to what Jeremy just wrote!!” And then fortunately got to the comments. Your interview on Choose FI was the light bulb moment for me when I finally listened to it back in 2018. Nicely done sir lol.
That light bulb is hard to turn off
I actually wouldn’t mind some part time work but I don’t really know how I would fit it into my schedule.
You didn’t fool me for one second! 😂 Happy April Fool’s!
Best holiday of the year (for blog posts)
Instead of going back to the workforce, consider other options, such as starting a church, ICO a new crypto coin, or homeownership (that’s an occupation, right?).
I got some chuckles out of the rationalizations in this post. “Work is an important part of mental health.” Lol
All kidding aside, you have a great little collection of April fools posts going on this blog, not to mention all the other great posts. Thanks!
Go Curry Cracker Coin is still one of my best performing investments ;)
Working isn’t that bad, we need people to work or life as we know it would not exist, but allot of jobs are not so good anymore. Work environments can be toxic/hostile, and industrial disease is real. Huge behemoth companies like Amazon trap workers, both immigrant (green card requirement), and people with criminal records (they’ll hire anyone), and then have the worst accident/injury records in the industry. Still, I am amazed at people I know who make three figures and you can tell they are spending allot of it.
There are definitely some benefits to work… but I have no idea how I could fit another 20/40/60 hours into my schedule.
As someone 60days away from joining the retired world, I actually kinda cheered for ya! I’m not opposed to working again, so long as it is a choice… but I don’t see that happening for me… LOL, or you!
Thanks for the blogs I’ve read for years as I got closer & close to retiring early and keep ’em coming!!!
One more April foolster:
https://www.financialsamurai.com/sadly-giving-up-on-retirement-and-going-back-to-work/
“Coming up with $1,500,000 for two kids’ college experience in 12-15 years is daunting.”:
Seems a lot to pay a tutor when all the information is free and easily found online – hunt down a curriculum if not a self starter.