Resign on a small sum

[thrifty++]

Awesome Bobby McGee thanks for sharing!

Sounds like you are owning it!

You have a very interesting and efficient past. Wow 55k at 21 years old! I didnt get that much until I was about 27. And I had big student loan debt too lol I know what you mean by heaps of projects. I am happy in my work but have so many other projects on the back burner that I would rather roll out.

[2Birds1Stone]

That is Fantastic Bobby,

Our NW is very similar and I am also 29. Unfortunately my assets are tied up in primarily tax deferred accounts. I do have a large cash buffer, which may help FIRE sooner if I took the plunge into REI. I would definitely have to move though, RE prices here on Long Island are insane.

[jacob]

I think the OP question is somewhat ill-defined.

I resigned on 150k back in 2009, but it was 25x of my living expenses, so not exactly small relative to my expenses (6k). I would rather the number had been higher (33x+) but I resigned end of Mar/2009 when the Shiller PE10 was ~15 (not 25+ like today or ~20 like most of the 21st century) and I had a small hourly paid piecework editing job that could pay my $500/month expenses by working about 4 hours per week, so I felt my situation was robust both financially and psychologically.

I consider this a very different situation than resigning on 15x presuming that income can be found later, i.e. to someone spending $50,000/year, $750,000 would be a pretty small sum in my optic, and I'd personally be too chicken to pull the plug under the assumption that some source of income would be found at a later point to close the gap. Of course, lots of people resign all the time even with no sums at all.

[thrifty++]

@jacob - yours is exactly the kind of story I am keen to hear about. I didnt realise you resigned on a sum that small. For some reason I thought you resigned on about $450k. Maybe that was what your NW was at when I first read your story though.

[belgiandude]

@janfrombelgium - awesome! It sounds like your plan should work. Belgian civil servant pensions sound pretty good

You would think so, but actually these civil servant pensions are at/just below the level of the average pension in our neighbouring countries like the Netherlands, Germany and France. It is the private pensions in our country that are brutally low (average 1200 euro per person/month after 45 years of full-time toiling...). It is really surprising to me that almost no Belgians are jumping on the FIRE-wagon...

I am planning to FIRE. Out of my group of friends, there are only 2 persons interested in doing so. I am thinking about pulling the plug at 40. I am now in my mid thirties and if I moved back to Belgium, my expenses would be covered with my investment income.
The good thing about Belgium is no taxes on capital gains

[classical_Liberal]

...

[thrifty++]

@classical_liberal - yes I also think about the costs of working. Often living in a high cost of living area, high rents, drycleaning costs, corporate attire, travel costs, which could all be chopped if not working. As well as the ability to further implement more innovative cost reduction measures which otherwise take up time and energy already used up for working.
'
Then I also think about the opportunity costs of working, other potential entrepreneurial opportunities and income streams and monetisation of hobbies as well as more time to focus on investment strategies.

I think there is a tendency to underestimate the years of expenses one has, as it is based on the higher cost life of having to work all the time.

[Did]

@thrifty++ Yes I think frugality comes naturally post quitting. Also I think work which is depressing enough would be even more depressing if you couldn't, say, hang out with workmates after work and catch the odd taxi home, or if you earned 200k but lived in a car. Now I'm out I never have a bender in town and catch a cab home, and I loved vanaboding around the place.

[7Wannabe5]

I agree with classical_Liberal. I say this even though I just took a hit to one of the legs of my stool (my book business) that would be roughly equivalent to worst drop in last 30 years on stock market. One of my favorite parts of Jacob's books is the diagram showing the Salary-man/Renaissance-man/Working-man/Business-man quadrants. If you are choosing to efficiently earn money in a Salary-man position and then invest it in something like Index fund, it is kind of like you are inscribing a deep narrow path from the bottom right quadrant to the top left quadrant, even though there are lots of different businesses in the basket.

I only spent around 6 years of my life in full-time corporate employment. It was fun for a while, and I was quite well-regarded, but eventually I wanted out of that trap so bad, I would have gnawed my own foot off to release the iron bands. So, I started my own business and quit with two kids still completely dependent, and only $8000 in the bank and a "hipster" husband for back-up (One of the reasons I semi-jokingly, or rather ruthlessly, apply the dismal science even to my dating/mating life is that I am rarely not in a relationship with a man (or men due to recent romp with polyamory), and it is only very rarely the case that there is not a completely voluntary or "natural" flow of some combination of money/resources in exchange for some combination of time/services in my direction, so I don't want to mislead others with my spending/happiness ratio. For instance, I spent next to nothing on travel last year, but I enjoyed many free hotel breakfasts and much exploration of novel locales in the role of travel-concubine, whereas even a highly-skilled, attractive young man such as C40 has to make some budgetary allowance for dating expense.)

What I have discovered, in part thanks to "ERE", in the 15 years since I was last full-time employed by other is that there is no end to the cages or ruts you can find yourself trapped in due to cultural "rules" and/or self-definition towards identity. Once I gained the freedom of being self-employed, I told myself that I would NEVER work for somebody else again, and I self-defined as Rare Book Dealer. Then, after I divorced and my ex went completely MIA (zero child support) and I still had two teenage kids, and the internet book dealing industry started on its sunset decline, my financial situation became VERY TIGHT, but in retrospect, I realize that the primary reason why this happened was that I had set myself up for failure by assigning myself too narrow of a definition for success.

So, there was this sort of ratcheting process I went through where I first expanded my self-definition from Rare Book Dealer to Trader on the Discard Market, and increased my income by engaging in retail arbitrage. Shortly after that I did some reading on the topic of Cultural Capital and integrated that into my thinking in the mix of Social Capital and Value of Home Production. I was at that time paying very low rent for two rooms (office/bedroom)in a nice neighborhood in exchange for cooking one meal/day for one of my sister's ex-boyfriends, and it was clear that part of the reason he felt this was a very good deal was I was capable of intelligent discussion of various topics over coffee and homemade muffins in the morning. I also had a much older, wealthier BF (trade with him therefore also obviously net inclusive of Sexual Capital) who covered my entertainment expenses, so my lifestyle was quite a bit more posh than one might surmise by the content of my 1040. Then I further expanded my definition of success to include part-time employment by other if/when coherent or net-positive with my other goals (as shown by the positive side-effects arrow diagrams in "ERE") and I finally invested in some land to garden/develop which I was able to afford mortgage free all on my own-some

Anyways, the point I am trying to make with this rambling anecdote is that even though I was temporarily rendered rather bummed-out/grouchy by the major hit my business recently suffered, here I am on a Thursday work-a-day-for-most morning, free to babble at you guys while drinking coffee in my robe, listen to my next online robotics course lecture, take a hike to go check on my frozen garden space, plan a 4 day trip next week with my BF, do my laundry, go to a book sale, or bake a pie. IOW- LOSE-WIN-WIN-WIN-WIN is more than good enough.

[thrifty++]

I'm resurrecting this post in the hope there might be more people who see it this time who are in this category. Anyone?

[Smashter]

I am strongly considering leaving full-time work in a years time, when I’ll be around 12x savings. I’d be doing it for all the reasons listed above, and I would continue with my freelance side gig.

I’m not very well rounded and I want to change that. I specifically want to become more self-sufficient with regards to food production and handyman skills. I also want to pursue some more creative pursuits. My wife would continue with her full-time corporate gig, so I’d join her health insurance plan.

I’ll only be 32, so I figure I’ll have time to get back on the corporate grind if my plan is a total flop. Also, who knows, I might be more like Jacob and find that I don’t like home ownership or gardening as much as I think I will. But I’d rather try and find out earlier rather than later.

[classical_Liberal]

...

[Colibri]

Hello,

I might fall into this category. I resigned 13 months ago from full-time corporate office work with about 16x savings. I had a paid house at that time (and still do) and I figured I needed about $15,000/year to keep the same lifestyle that I had while working full-time. I knew I could earn that $15 000 pretty easily if I had to go back to work, any kind of work!

I am still working very part-time with a self-employment gig, I work about 4 hours/week on a yearly average, that is about 2 months of full-time work, not a bad deal. This is enough to cover most of my expenses. I also get about 1/4 of my income from my investments.
I found this very satisfying. I would not be ready both mentally and financially to completely pull the plug, I am giving myself another decade to achieve this. I am 30.

It was such an amazing feeling to know that I could resign from the corporate world much sooner. The golden handcuff were getting wayyy too heavy.
I guess the idea is that if you do have low expenses, in any given scenarios you would be able to earn that money with a minimum wage job and that is very comforting.

[DutchGirl]

I'll possibly quit my current job when I have 240k euros. I would probably supplement the roughly 10k/year coming from that by earning 5k/year. I'd do this for roughly 20 years and then my pension would kick in, providing more than plenty for age 70+.

(PS I'm half of a couple, which lowers my expenses. The 15k or so would cover my half of the shared expenses).