360 Days

With deepest apologies to Carl—of the 1500 Days to Freedom Carls—who committed no sin grave enough to be associated with this blog, the title for this blog post shamelessly steals a bit of the concept behind his blog’s name. That is, similar to Carl setting the goal of FIREing 1,500 days from the launch of his blog, I’m setting a BAHG goal of FIREing on December 31, 2021, 360 days from this blog post’s publication date.

I admit to finding myself a little nervous typing that. The Missus has experienced heart palpitations ever since I told her about my goal a few months ago.

But I’m doing this for two reasons. First, I want to document this so that it serves as a marker that I can later reference. And second, because I actually believe that 360 days from today I will be in a position to safely FIRE.

Magic marker

First, the marker aspect. I’m generally not a person who needs to take some proactive measure to help ensure accountability. I don’t begrudge or judge anyone who does need to do so. Just for me, my default self-discipline is pretty fierce.

But I’m reminded of the income/expenses spreadsheet (I wouldn’t call it a “budget,” per se, as it just more or less documents average monthly and yearly numbers) that I made for myself when my kids were very young. On it, I put as line items (1) diapers and (2) child care (for my kids, not me, Dear Reader, although you’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise). I included those in part because when I no longer had to pay for them, I wanted to put a $0 for each one so that I could later look at those $0 entries with some satisfaction.

This post is really for me to be able to look back at it the same vein, on December 31, 2021, and beyond.

Safety first

Now for the FIREing safely. We planned to fund our FIRE life with investments alone. Those investments reached a Coast-FIRE level a few years back. Later, they reached a lean-FIRE-lifestyle level. Today, our investments are closing in on our full FIRE number.

But as I’ve mentioned before, The Missus doesn’t intend to stop working anytime soon. So in reality, we probably already reached the point where I can safely FIRE.

I write “probably” because with an unlikely—but entirely possible—massive drop in various markets, our numbers might not support my FIREing right now. A prolonged steep downturn would complicate things further. This is precisely why I haven’t FIREd yet. And am not doing so today.

Is this is one-more-year syndrome masquerading as rationalizing. I don’t think so. At least not entirely.

For one thing, it seems perfectly sensible to me to want to be firmly on the right side of our FIRE number—in investments alone—before FIREing. As I see it, the worst thing that happens by waiting another year is that we start nibbling at Fat FIRE. The best thing is we avoid lean(er) FIRE, or sequence of returns risk.

Pot shots

My confidence is bolstered by the fact that our investment draws can, if we so choose, be supplemented by other income sources in less than a decade. And the 5% 4% rule for early retirees doesn’t factor in these pots of money.

You see, Dear Reader, I’m a geezer gentleman-of-a-certain-age. Well before 30 years after my target FIRE date, I’ll be eligible to start receiving Social Security, which—despite the naysayers—I’m confident that I’ll receive in the full amount I’m eligible for. My thinking is that if the federales are gonna screw anyone out of (any) Social Security payments, it’s not gonna be geezers elderly folks like me. I don’t necessarily think that that’s fair. But I alone ain’t gonna change it. Whether I ultimately decide to take Social Security at age 62 is another story. The point is that it’ll be an option well before 30 years after my target FIRE date.

The Missus (who’s only nearing geezer territory a spry, young lass) will be eligible to start receiving Social Security payments a few years after me. She has a pension that she’ll be eligible to start receiving much sooner. As with Social Security, it’ll increase each year she defers receiving it. Whether she ultimately decides to start drawing either or both benefits as soon as she becomes eligible to do so is another story. But they’ll be options on the table.

Once we’ve respectively reached the ages for receiving pension and Social Security benefits, those pots alone should cover 50%—and possibly closer to 75%—of our yearly expenses. And of course, the longer we wait to draw each benefit, the more of our expenses they’d cover when we start drawing them. That would allow our investments to function as a solid (and likely growing) backstop, or shock absorber, or whatever you want to call it.

Somewhat paradoxically, there’s a real likelihood that even if I stop working altogether in 360 days, as time goes on we’ll have the option of living a more and more expensive lifestyle. Possibly one far exceeding what we’ve enjoyed in our fattest income-earning years. In that case, I might regret working for as long as I did. But the peace of mind will have been a worthwhile trade-off.

Also, although we should be firmly FI in 360 days, I don’t think I’ll RE. At least not for a while or permanently. Rather, I’m likely to either: (1) take a mini-retirement of some unknown duration and then find an income-producing gig that appeals to me, even if at a far lower yearly income than I’ve had for several years; or (2) leave the legal industry and work in another field, likely part-time.

Since discovering FIRE, I’ve also found other ways to pick up money here and there. My latest pet project has been bank account sign-up bonuses. My earning rate is about $100/month, and I’ve only just started getting into this. I’ve been inspired by Kevin—of the Financial Panther Kevins—who recently disclosed fat numbers he’s achieved. I don’t anticipate getting even close to that much into this activity. But I think I can fairly easily amp up my numbers to a few hundred dollars a month.

I also likely won’t completely close down my business. Rather I may take on projects here and there, but with a frequency, and on a schedule, all but entirely to my liking. I don’t expect to get a lot of work. But then again, I can only take so much of the law firm lawyers won’t want to.

On a more morbid note, while my and The Missus’ still-living parents are thankfully all in good health, they aren’t getting any younger. And I have reason to believe that their respective financial houses are well in order. We’re certainly not banking on inheriting any money from them. And even if we did, who knows how much and when? Especially given that their medical expenses likely will only increase and may wreck those now-stable financial houses. Regardless, I’d be kidding myself if I didn’t admit that an inheritance at some unknown point is a real possibility.

Considering all these factors, and having run our conservative numbers through tools like cFIREsim and other retirement planner calculators—all of which gave me a virtual thumbs up—I’m confident that we’ll be just fine if I FIRE 360 days from today.

And in the end . . .

So I’m optimistic that I’ll reach my goal of FIREing at the end of 2021. Wish me luck. Hopefully my jump to the other side of FIRE doesn’t end badly.