Early Retirement Extreme Forums

At the moment I am at the point where I am (or at least feel) work independent. I am not financially independent but I have a couple of income streams including my consulting and investment incomes. Plus my spending is shrinking and my incomes increasing. I am at the point where I am not particularly scared of losing my job because I know I can cover at least 5 years of spending in my net worth- and thats not including any consulting income. Plus then I would ramp up consulting work plus find other ways to grow money. I am possibly totally financially independent of my job including that. Its a hell of a nice feeling I have to say. Especially when I have a shit day at work like today, that I dont need to care too much. Liberating.

Do others on here feel, that although not yet financially independent you are independent of your job? Does it feel great?

is this FU money?

Yes and Yes. Most conflict based situations or difficult times at work bring up this thought and emotion. It makes wading through shit easier, because I know, well, worst case is they fire me (which is unlikely) or I have to quit for reasons of shame or guilt or something like that. If this happened, it would simply force me to try something new and I would have 9 years of 0 income (between both my wife and I) before we were even close to starvation, no roof over our heads mode.

9 years ago I used to break beer bottles over my head for fun. A lot can happen in 9 years.

Yes and yes. To maximize optionality to maximize life's potential.

I am not afraid of losing my job because absolute highly unlikely, worst-case-scenario (barring two broken legs or a coma) would be I could move into my garden-camper and scavenge for empty pop cans with which to purchase propane. And I actually think that might be kind of fun even though I am a wee bit too chicken/lazy to do it right now.

Yes and Yes.

I have enough to comfortably last more than 10 years... Potentially enough to last me forever, depending on future market returns.

My employer has gone through a series of leveraged buyouts, has massive amounts of debt. They have also done a lot of layoffs in recent years.
Despite the company's dire financial situation, the severance packages provided during layoffs have been pretty stellar thus far.
I am hoping that I can collect one of these "pots of gold" before the shit really hits the fan. As long as they don't change this policy, I'm in line to get about one half a year of pay.

I suppose you could say that over the last two years or so, I've been actively trying to engineer my layoff.

I'm tired of this place anyway, and I want to move on.