What Did I Do?!

In my last post, I reported on progress (and, in some cases, the lack thereof) I made on post-FIREing goals that I’d set for myself. Tl;dr: I did pretty good. 

But I did much more than just pursue those goals in 2022. What’s that Dear Reader? You are not at all interested want to know about all that, too? Well, then, how about you cozy up to the ol’ monitor and I’ll regale you with details on that, too. 

Mellow yellow

I took the first several months of the year off . . . from working. Context: FI was always what I’d sought. RE I’ve always thought of as optional at best. Retirement police, come at me.

I took to not working like a fish to water. Sure, it felt sorta surreal at first. But, also, completely natural. Surreal because it was the first time in about 30 years that I had no school or professional work obligations. Completely natural because my new normal felt totally . . . well . . . normal. 

I took many long walks and explored areas of my city I’d not spent (much) time in. I also read a lllot of books, cooked and cleaned more than I otherwise would’ve. More to the point, I de-stressed.

This period wasn’t a panacea, of course. But it sure as heck was restorative. 

I also find that addition by subtraction often works wonders. Now, all of the myriad work-related situations that’d get my stress level up were gone. Poof! Also, the simple fact that I wasn’t working (full-time) in a stressful job produced outsized positive results. That is, the latent stress I’d felt for decades simply vanished. 

Get to work!

But some old stresses die hard. So, as our investments took a beating suffered increasing losses during this time, I began entertaining thoughts of engaging in some income-generating endeavors. Bank account sign-up bonuses and my side-hustle/gig work had always been on the post-FIREing agenda. But, feeling a need to generate more revenue, I explored low- or no-stress part-time employment opportunities. In time, I found a gig. As of this writing, I’ve been at it for more than six months. It’s fit the bill (pun intended) and been fun. 

In addition to providing the extra income I sought, there’ve been positive knock-on effects. First, it gets me out of the house just the right number of days a week. I’ve always needed and imposed daily and weekly structure on myself. This job made that easier. 

Second, I’ve gotten to work with a great buncha kids just about to, or just starting, their working lives. I’ve also been able to provide some helpful information to some of them. Information that for some, I hope, positively impacts their lives from this early point. In part, that information has taken the form of details about/an introduction to FIRE. 

This brings up the third positive knock-on effect of my job. My original plan was to take home all the income I could so as to minimize our need to dip into our investments to fund us. But, as I discussed FIRE with some coworkers, I figured that I ought to go through the motions of opting into our employer’s retirement plan and picking investments, so that I could walk the walk. As a result, I made unanticipated contributions to retirement accounts . . . in a down market. The sums are small. But given the likely massive rebound in the markets likely to take place between the time of my contributions and the time I’ll withdraw from the accounts years from now (and dividends they’ll provide in the meantime), they’ll end up far exceeding what I put in. And hey, they even reduced my 2022 taxable income. 

I had two main side gigs going into 2022. One involves work along the lines of what I did in my career. I don’t love the work, but it pays pretty well. The other pays far less well, but I like the work. Going into 2022, I expected to do a fair amount of work for the former gig, and some for the latter. To my surprise, the opposite happened. 

In a surprise, I also was unexpectedly presented with a separate opportunity that’d involve me doing work that was right in my (former) professional wheelhouse. I accepted it, and pocketed some welcome unanticipated income. Those monies had the added benefit of staving off a bit longer any need to dip into our investments which since had taken a far more eye-watering beating suffered further losses.

Booked up

A pleasant and somewhat hoped for development in 2022 was that I read more books in just that year than I’d read collectively in probably 20 years. I read fiction and nonfiction. I read long and short books. And I read good and not-as-good books. The best and/or most interesting were The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead (one of the best books I’ve ever read) and The Nickel Boys by the same author, and Trillions, by Robin Wigglesworth (a highly educational history of index funds). I still read a metric ton of blog posts (mostly from FIRE blogs) and thousands of articles in my beloved The Economist, and The New Yorker, among other media. But I enjoyed mixing things up with books. 

Free work

I’d long wanted to do volunteer work. Although it took a long time to secure gigs (getting responses from people to my inquiries was shockingly and maddeningly difficult) in 2022, I finally secured a few gigs. For various reasons, they’ve been a mixed bag. I’ll continue on with one or both next year, but after that I may look for new opportunities. Regardless, I’m glad to be engaging in activities far more likely to have a positive impact on humanity than what I did during my professional career. 

Travelin’ man

I wanted to take more and longer trips after FIREing. This ended up being a mixed bag. In terms of numbers of trips, I took fewer than I’d hoped. That was in part due to schedules/work/school obligations for The Missus and Thing One (The Elder) and Thing Two (The Younger). But also due to my reluctance to spend the money as our investments were being shellacked faced increasing headwinds. 

As for the length of trips that I did make, I took a camping trip with Thing Two that was longer than any trip I’d taken in years. It was a great time, and I hope that Thing Two carries happy memories of it with him for the rest of his life. I know I will. I’m also planning a big trip with Thing One for next summer. It’ll be close to as long a trip as I’ve ever taken, and that, pre-FIREing, would have been difficult to pull off. 

I like bike

A completely unexpected development in 2022 was that we bought our first e-bike. I’d long considered getting one. But I’d held off because I couldn’t get past the fact that I considered these things
“cheating.” Also because I frankly didn’t want to spend the money. A kinda-too-good-to-pass-up deal was the game changer.

I now can honestly say that I love the bike. I use it regularly, and The Missus also has used it, too. What’s more, it’s started paying for itself, by way of car or public transportation trips replaced by e-bike rides. I expect that it’ll completely pay for itself in one to two years. I likes that ROI.

Community center

Although not by design, 2022 also was the year that I did more stuff in and with the FIRE community than I ever had. First, I became friends, and got together independently, with several people in the community throughout the year. I also attended a lot of in-person FIRE community events. It was so great being with these people, with whom I share a common understanding as to personal finance generally and FIRE specifically.

Flex fuel

And last, 2022 was the year I enjoyed the massive life flexibility I’d long sought. Having for several years worked from home, I’d already enjoyed a fair amount of flexibility. But post-FIREing, it went to another level. In addition to that longer-than-in-prior-years camping trip mentioned above, I took on more family tasks, did other things at my leisure as opposed to by diktat of a schedule, took on side hustle opportunities I likely otherwise wouldn’t have, and generally moved at whatever pace I preferred. That’s been as nice as I could have imagined. 

And in the end . . . 

All in all, I’m pretty satisfied with my 2022. I accomplished or made progress on most of the goals I’d set for myself before FIREing, had a lot of fun during the year, and weathered a brutal challenging year (and even made further progress) financially. What’s more, I learned a lot about myself and about retirement post-career living, and generally enjoyed life as much as I ever have. I’m hopeful that this is my noon new normal.