Money, Man!: Part XII

Welcome, Dear Reader, to . . . wwwaaait for it . . . THE LAST post in my series on how my job experiences and my relationship with money brought me to wanting to FIRE. Wow. Twelve (or should I say, XII) posts! Three months of rambling installments! 

If you’ve read all of the posts what the heck is wrong with you?! thank you, thank you, thank you! If you haven’t, but for some inexplicable reason would like to, here are links to Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII, Part IX, Part X, and Part XI. 

Employer #6, cont’

Boss #13, cont’

I think of myself as an accidental business owner. I mean, I certainly had no intent of becoming self-employed when I decided to move states. And although my dad was self-employed for the bulk of his career, he was in a business far removed from my industry. And he imparted all but zero education or wisdom to me as to what it was like to start or run a business. 

Notwithstanding that, and the additional fact that most new businesses fail, mine did OK. I chalk that up to two factors. First, I was inexplicably able to pull the wool over did at-least-halfway-decent work for my clients. 

But far more important was that I had a steady and loyal client from the moment I started the business. Sure, there were the bumps that I encountered and detailed in Part XI. But as Boss #12 all along wanted me to work for her full-time (as an employee or, once that plan was quashed, as an independent contractor), she resolved them for me. Or at least mitigated their most adverse effects. 

There likely was one time when that great good fortune I enjoyed could have come to a screeching halt: when the ‘rona shut down much of the U.S. economy in March 2020. Like many businesses, Employer #5 instituted a raft of major fiscal austerity measures to address these unchartered waters. Cutting down on—or outright eliminating—contractors would have been completely understandable. I thought about all this at the time. But I stayed schtum, figuring that whatever would be would be. 

In the end, I felt no adverse effects from Employer #5’s mitigating efforts. Although I’ve never asked Boss #12, I have to assume that Employer #5 either told her to cut me loose or to lower the budget for me. Maybe one day I’ll call Boss #12 and ask. Until then, I’m content enjoying my blissful ignorance. 

I mentioned that I felt no adverse effects to my gig with Boss #12. Well, that’s not entirely true. As I’ve mentioned, although the financial aspects of the gig had been improved since its initial iteration, my hourly rate with Boss #12 was a significant amount below my market rate. I resolved at the end of 2019 that I’d ask for a rate increase in 2020. For various reasons, I decided to wait until a few months into 2020 to do the ask. But by the time I’d resolved to ask, the ‘rona had upended the economy. So, I put the ask on ice. 

On the one hand, I may have lost out on a fair amount of income. On the other hand, I don’t think I’d have gotten the increase had I asked for it. And if I had, I suspect it’d have raised red flags with Employer #5 that might’ve resulted in Boss #12 being commanded to drop me. Looking back, I don’t regret my decision. After all, a bird in the nest . . . 

Informing all of my thoughts, and comforting me, during this time was our strong financial position and knowledge that the date when I could FIRE was fast approaching. Now, of course, nobody predicts the Spanish Inquisition a global pandemic that knocks the world off its axis. So, when markets began falling in early 2020 and then plunged, I admit to feeling queasy. I knew we were in infinitely stronger shape than the vast majority of humanity because of our financial position. But, man, oh man, it did not feel good seeing our finances crater. 

Several times I considered doing “something” vis-a-vis our investments. What, exactly, I didn’t know. Just “something.” Maybe rebalancing. Maybe pausing our automated retirement account contributions. Maybe having taxable account dividends deposited into our bank account rather than reinvested. 

In the end, I heeded the advice I’d long thought most sound: I changed nothing. 

As we now know, the market crash was steep, but relatively short. And a spectacular rebound swiftly followed. Doing nothing served us pretty well. 

While there were plenty of times during the crash that I thought my FIRE date might be postponed by a year or perhaps even far more, once the rebound gained momentum, I began thinking the opposite: that the date might come even sooner than I’d previously contemplated. 

As 2020 drew to a close, and the rebound was in full force, I concluded that by the end of 2021 we had a great chance of hitting our FIRE number. But, crucially, even if the rebound halted, or even went into reverse. I resolved to FIRE at the close of 2021. 

As the ‘rona raged, business and the world at large learned to adapt. My industry found its footing and did/continues to do well during and because of the pandemic, thank you very much. As a result, any fear I once had about getting cut loose from my gig all but vanished. As I was enjoying my part-time arrangement and had set a FIRE date, I neither sought out another gig nor seriously looked for other clients. 

The most I did was to continue with an ongoing side gig that had brought in a bit of money for the previous few years. And to begin another side gig that all of a sudden came alive and provided a modest amount of additional income in the second half of 2021. This money was more fun to earn than that from my main gig.

Once I decided to FIRE, I thought that 2021 would be no more stressful than any preceding year—and very likely less so—because I’d set an end date, which put a spring in my step and, I assumed would lead to me being more willing and able to let things that could have caused me to tense up to, well, just not. 

Were that it was so. The first half of the year was relatively normal, which is to say that I felt the latent stress I’d long grown accustomed to. That was a bit disappointing. But as it had been my “normal” for so long, I mostly just shrugged. 

As the second half of the year unfolded, however, my workload increased and comprised intensive projects of a type that I’d rarely handled. I had the skills to handle those projects. But those skills had been seldom used, and never were my strong suit. As a result, I ended up struggling a bit as I felt my way around the work, and tried mightily to produce good work product.

The result was a stressful series of months. Worse was that it was a period as stressful as any in my whole career. I did not like that, Sam I am. So, I didn’t in any way coast to the end of the year. Just the opposite. Around the middle of December, things finally eased up. But by that point, I had to get busy cleaning things up for the person who’d be taking on my work, and training that person as well. 

The one bright spot during the latter half of the year was when I told Boss #12 about my plan to stop working at the end of the year. I didn’t say I was retiring. Nor that I was financially independent. Rather, I explained that I was taking a sabbatical. I detailed my reasoning in a prior post. Boss #12 was a little surprised. But curiously, she asked few questions. The die was cast. Ever the pragmatic realist, Boss #12 began the process of determining who’d handle the work I’d been doing, and how it’d be handled. 

Once things let up the last few weeks of the year, I at last had the mental space to become a little reflective. What a journey it’d been, I thought! 

Now, I don’t permit myself for a moment to think my story was extraordinary. Or that I had to overcome objectively massive, or seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Or even that I was deserving of the good fortune I’ve enjoyed. The stories of scores of others are far more inspiring than mine because of the long odds stacked against the protagonists. But as I’ve detailed in far, far, . . . far too much detail in this series, the arc of my life and career had some bend in it. 

I thought about my scarcity mindset and deep-rooted fear that financial disaster could strike me and The Family at any time and result from circumstances outside my control, which could have paralyzed me from the very outset from making good decisions or even forward progress. 

I thought about the massive amount of student loan debt that I took on. And how for many years it seemed an amount I might never pay off. And how it actually did, for many years, weigh me down financially like an albatross. And how I eventually did pay off those loans. 

I thought about adulting things I’d done and the financial implications of them. Like buying a condo, and then selling it and buying a more expensive one. Like having kids. Like adjusting our spending—up and down—as our fortunes ebbed and flowed over time. 

I thought about the prudent and relatively fiscally conservative path we’d taken all along. And the mostly great good luck of fast rising markets we benefited from. And the consequent rising value of our investments.

I thought about the ups and downs of my career. And all the people I had the good (and, sometimes bad) fortune to work with. And the evolution of the work that I did between the time I started my career until the end of 2021. And the bosses I had. And the unexpected twist I encountered that forced me to have to start my own business.

And I thought a lot about the mostly dumb luck that I discovered FIRE. And the life-transforming consequences of that. Like upending—in a good way—the way we spent, saved, and invested. And breaking the mental dam in my head that held me back from acting on my longtime desire to move states. And completely changing my mindset as to jobs and my career, and as to money and finances altogether. And resulting in me getting to the point where I, like so many I’d read about and admired, could FIRE, too.

It was a journey that made me wince and smile in almost equal measure. And decide that it might be worth writing about. 

The final days of the year passed slowly but surely. As they do. And finally, I reached my last workday. 

And as I logged off my work network for the final time, and (I hoped that) the thoughts of those I worked with were upon me, it occured to me that those people had no clue what they were seeing.

It was my final escape.*

And in the end . . . 

Dear Reader, thanks for sticking with me (or for reading even just some of these posts)! It’s been a long slog story, I know. But now my story’s told.  And that’s all I have to say about that.

Except . . . maybe not. Here’s an extra post that no one asked for a coda post.

* Hat tip and much respect to LAF (Living a FI). These lines are adapted from his final words in this post, the last in an epic series that he penned and inspired this series of posts by me. They’re my favorite lines in any blog post, by anyone, that I’ve ever read.