Post up

In my last post, I tortured regaled you, Dear Readers, with updates of whats I been up to since having FIREd a few years ago. Specifically, as to things I’d, pre-FIRE, hoped to accomplish or experience after FIREing. Surely you were bored to tears enthralled by my report, in which I related a mixed bag of success and . . . not so much success. Just as surely, you’ve since been on the edge of your seat waiting for my next missive, which I teased up in that post, in which I threatened promised to cover my thoughts on how things actually have unfolded on a macro scale since FIREing.

Well, Dear Reader, you can pull yourself back from the edge of your seat. For here I deliver on my threat promise. 

Lemme first say that this blog post isn’t intended to be read as me beating my chest in triumph. Nor is it at all intended to provoke any jealousy for those Dear Readers still on the journey to FIRE. If either of these things come across, I sincerely apologize. I know that I wouldn’t want to read such a post written by a clown like me.

What this post is intended to do is to relate my actual experience since FIREing and my honest, current assessment about where things stand for me on a more global scale. You can take all of it as you will.

Here’s the tl;dr version: Things have taken some unexpected turns. But boy oh boy, do I love FIRE life.  

Reality check

First, let’s have a looksee as to how I thought things would unfold. . . . And how they actually did. 

When I FIREd at the end of 2021, things looked at least decently rosy for our investments. Notwithstanding market wobbliness in the waning months of 2021, the general consensus (mine included) was that the forecast was good. Maybe even rosy. I figured we’d pad our nut for some time before being swatted by a bear market, whenever it came. And that said padding would cushion (maybe even entirely) the blow.

Whelp, things kinda sorta didn’t go according to plan. 

Well before the year was up, our nut dipped below our FIRE number. Then it slid more. And then more. 

Now, because I’m a so, so very old man and have been around the block a few times, I didn’t panic at this unsettling turn of events. In part because I know that what goes down (historically) comes back up when it comes to our investment components. But also, because our FIRE plan wasn’t even remotely based solely on the nut staying above our FIRE number. Put another way, our FIRE number wasn’t a true FIRE number in the strictest sense of things. That’s because of other existing and future revenue sources we’ll have and/or are likely to have. Put even more simply, I was very conservative when it came to what I felt comfortable FIREing with. 

All this notwithstanding, if I didn’t panic, I sure did get a little anxious. Even if that largely—or even entirely—was an irrational reaction  . . . because, see FIRE plan. 

So, after a few months of not working (except for my fun side gig (the aggregate hours of which were pretty limited)) and decompressing from my full-time career, I decided to get a part-time job to generate some income over and above what I was generating from the gig work. I’ve had the job I secured ever since. I’ve also twice taken a contract gig doing the work I did in my full-time career, which generated a healthy chunk of income. 

But I also hunkered down as to our spending, which was something I most definitely hadn’t intended to do. 

Now, these steps were taken consciously of course, and with a purpose. Namely to mitigate damage to our investments. But each step was taken at a time I’d not preferred. That rankled. 

Step up

But here’s the thing, Dear Reader. Each step had the intended effect. The measures I took did mitigate the damage. Not even close to entirely. But, in the aggregate, materially. 

And while the timing of my efforts rankled, the steps taken mostly were ones I all along figured I’d take at some point. I did figure I’d take a part-time job at some unknown date. If for no other reason than to get out of the house and maybe do something fun and meet new people. And I did figure I might test the waters as to limited contract work in the area in which I’d worked full time. And as for spending less than our FIRE number allowed, knowing myself and my hardcore scarcity mindset, I did figure that there might come a day when I’d feel compelled to do so for some unknowable amount of time. 

So, the major way in which life unfolded differently than as predicted was that adverse events wholly within the realm of possibility happened far sooner than expected. And the knock-on effect was that because of the timing and severity of those events, they became (at least as I perceived them) not just a trial by fire (if not by FIRE), but a major trial by FIRE. As it may turn out, maybe even the trial by fire. And the trial by fire that, having survived it quite well, we all but completely eliminates every remote possibility that our FIRE plan can fail.

Crisis averted?

So, the silver linings are many. And wholly welcome. For example, I like my part-time job. In fact, I don’t intend to quit it until I can get The Missus to stop working or go part-time for the foreseeable future. What’s more, I get to play a kinda sorta mentor role to some people, which is fun. 

And taking the full-time career contract gigs that I took enabled me to definitively conclude that I don’t wanna do that work anymore. If offered this work in the future (even if wholly on my terms, and for a limited number of hours per week), there’s scant chance I’ll take it. Regardless, I concluded as much far, far sooner than I likely otherwise would’ve. As I like to say, there’s just as much value in knowing what you don’t like/want to do as knowing what you do like/want to do.

As for the depressed spending, I’ll admit, that hasn’t been fun. But the silver lining has been that any doubt I might’ve harbored as to whether I could follow through on such a highly undesirable step after having FIREd has been vanquished. 

What’s more, because we’ve played both sides of our financial ledger (income and spending) over the last two years, our chances of reaching fat FIRE are far higher. Having long desired to slay my scarcity mindset and concluded that fat FIRE is the most effective weapon with which to do so, I welcome that development.

Great stuff

But there’s so much more as to why I’m so loving life since FIREing. First, there’s the ironclad knowledge that we can do this. This so bananas, unconventional thing that just eight years ago I would’ve thought both fanciful and delusional. 

Next, that my life is, if not wholly directed by my whims and desires (after all, The Missus and Thing One (The Elder) and Thing Two (The Younger) have needs that can at any time override what I might want to do), it sure has heck isn’t directed by an employer or anyone else I don’t want limiting my schedule. If I want to take a trip out of town next week, I can. And will. If I want to jet off for a month-long trip abroad, I can. And will. And did. The value of this for me is incalculably yyyuuuge.

I’m also getting a lot more exercise and outdoor time and am oodles less stressed than at any time probably since the Stone Ages I was in high school. Not as much as I’d like. Or want. But a lot. I dunno if I’ve extended my lifespan by all this. But I’m pretty sure I didn’t lower it. Yet another benefit of incalculable value.

I’ve also read more books in the last two years than I collectively read over the last several decades. Good books. Not-so-great books. Fiction. Nonfiction. Ditto for movies and a few TV shows. It’s all been a joy. Am I smarter as a result? Prob’ly not Maybe. But am I dumber for it? Maybe Prob’ly not.

And in the end . . . 

Something I often thought about on the way to FIREing was whether it’d be all that. My conclusion is that while the sacrifices were significant, often tough, and occasionally undesirable (mostly due to me making choices that no one was holding a mallet over my head to make in the way I ultimately did), is that FIRE kinda sorta is all that. While I’m not yet somewhere over the rainbow, it wouldn’t be inaccurate to say that I think I’m on the rainbow. Emotionally. Physically. And mentally. I guess you could say that, for now, there’s a rainbow connection.