Early Retirement Extreme Forums

One concern I have about ERE is the potential event that you may have to go back to work.

Example: Lets say you retired at 37 as a software engineer. You made all your calculations and you figured you can not work for the rest of your life. But lets say 15 years later, you're 52 and you realize that the numbers aren't working out. Maybe the market took a shit, maybe you spent more than you thought, maybe inflation was much higher than anticipated, or maybe there was some unfortunate life event (medical bills, etc etc).

Now you're 52 and you've completely forgotten how to do your job (much less work). In the software engineering field, your skills can be become stale, rusty and out of date very quickly (even within 5 years). Shit in this field can churn fast.

Now you've essentially ruined your life because you thought you could ERE too early. Is this a fear some people here have? How do you mitigate this?

The best way to is to have multiple income streams, i.e. many ways to bring in money, verses just living off savings.

That way, you can adjust your path if you find things going a little off kilter, rather than waiting until you're mid fifties and crapola has exploded everywhere from its trip through the fan.

Jacob had copy writing that would pay enough to live off of. I'm doing writing next year, once this medical field assignment is done. I had a programming career years ago that I cannot go back to, for all the reasons you listed. For me, writing will be the ultimate in getting anti-fragile. Right now I'm in this lucrative field that requires me to travel to work, with the pay off (besides money) being short assignments verses committed employee servitude. However, 8 am is just too dang early.

Is there anything you are interested in doing that you can make money from? It doesn't need to be much - just enough to supplement, or perhaps even enough to cover the annual bills, so your nest egg can grow.

For me, my main income stream when I retire will be 3-4 properties that I own. I'll still have my 401k but I have no plans on touching that till later, my real estate should be enough.

But, tennants can leave, properties can burn down, etc etc.

I can't think of anything I love enough that will bring in some kind of income, but I haven't really thought too much about it....teaching?

Right. Those things can happen to properties, but there is insurance for fire, and the rental market is tight right now and probably will be for the foreseeable future. So you have two good legs - current job and rental - perhaps three with your savings.

Teaching could possible work. There are people who teach all sorts of writing courses online and seem to make money from it. Could you teach programming at the local community college? Just trying out ideas.

It might take some time to find something. You could experiment with a few different things, or more, at a time to see what pays, and what you like. You don't need them all to pay off... just one! Jacob has at least one posting about how he had many irons in the fire at the same time when he first retired from Physics.

Just add more margin of safety.
My personal plan is to quit my "regular" job when in theory I could survive on a 3% SWR, but still continue to work for stuff I like and enjoy (mainly: teaching math and english to kids, and being a part time tourist guide).

When your expenses are low, almost any job can cover them, and if you have a large nest egg, you don't need to save.

It will be hard enough for me to have a 0% savings rate* as even when I started my career (and was technically almost poor) I still saved 20%. I could never quit working completely and have no income whatsoever, unless I somehow won a lottery I don't play and found myself with 250 years of expenses

*excluding dividend income

I must admit I'm sniffing around a bit to increase the cash 4 years after I quit at 38. It is difficult to return to your career. People aren't so keen when you've been out a while. And you get older and it's harder and harder to get employed by people younger than yourself.

But I still have no regrets. We just need to look around, throw lots at the wall, and see what sticks, as Jacob has said.

neemap wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 11, 2017 10:44 pm

In the software engineering field, your skills can be become stale, rusty and out of date very quickly (even within 5 years). Shit in this field can churn fast.

I actually think that software engineering is ideal for ERE: it results in a high salary during the earning years, and is a skill that can be continued after FI. Open source, tinkering projects, start-up ideas... all things to hack on without any special equipment or location-dependence. Once work requirements are gone, you are free to pursue software projects of personal interest, which is what Mad Fientist is doing.

But if you're looking forward to FI because you detest software engineering, that's another story...

Absolute worst case - you got 15 years in the prime of your life to live as you want. Even if your only option at 52 is death due to zero resources, that's not totally awful.

I'd offer that you ought to be paying attention to the net worth more closely and adjusting along the way.

If in the US, you also only have a 10-15 year gap to bridge till social security and medicare. As a presumably high earning individual, with now low expenses, it's likely those can carry you through old age.

You're probably also capable of becoming under-employed relative to your prior profession. Teach computer classes at the library or community college, sell laptops at best buy, pick up work on utest, etc.

"Maybe you should keep your electrical license?" One well intended friend told me, that didn't understand the whole strategy. That was five years ago.

Diversify. I have four AG related assets, plus the real estate, and the stock market.

Opportunity. I have run across more than a few good opportunities that I would not have had a clue about if I was working. I've also had two interesting job offers that I ultimately declined, but had to look twice.

If you are not hiding in your mom's basement, there's a whole lot of opportunities out there. And I live in a sparsely populated, economically depressed environment...

Parsimonious. When you have minimal expenses, you won't require the highest paying gig.

My plan is to cut my living expenses. I baked in a big factor of safety that I can just ditch if life gets tough. Mainly I rent an expensive place that I can move out of in a month.

I'd hate to never do any work again. I just don't want to work a full-time office job. With all the free time I will have, it should only take a few years to figure out some decent income stream doing something I like doing, whether it's working from home, working in a more interesting (but probably lower paying) job, or just finding some boring job but only doing it part time. After several years of intensely studying new skills and forgetting my old work skills, I figure if things didn't work out financially I would be better off trying a completely different type of job than trying to go back to my old type of work.

This topic reminds me of one of my all-time favorite movies, The Edge.

It's about guys crashing in the wilderness, stripped of all of their possessions and having to rely upon what's between their ears to survive.

In the movie, like in life, people rarely change. Those who depend on others still do and those who provide are expected to continue, no matter what the circumstances.

Where does your confidence come from? What has made you successful in your current situation will do so again, if it's the right stuff.

Is it urban myth about the guy who walked away from his millionaire lifestyle to start all over and four years later was right back where he started?

In the case I can't go back to work ...

15 years from when I retire I'll be 70 and in my line of work it is a virtual certainty that there's no going back, so to me that's a given.

My plan is twofold: accumulate way more than I need to support a lifestyle (for this purpose as defined by spending) that I have a degree of confidence I scale back on the order of 50% and still be relatively content. I don't think that's what you'd call "the ERE way".

If I screw it up, I'll be a 70-year-old living under a bridge, and at the latitudes at which I plan to retire, the problem (and I) will be short-lived.

DBF retired relatively early at age 45. He had a pretty large law practice--owned the buildings, had several lawyers working for him, etc.-- and then some stuff in the law changed, he had some personal issues, and ultimately cashed out and quit. He lives off his money and some rentals, but when his youngest son went to college, he got a job at a friend's firm doing trying small cases and doing some legal research, etc. to pay for his son's tuition. Did that for 4 years then re-retired. He continues to do his continuing education to maintain his law license, and he dabbles a bit here and there, drafting a will for for someone, helping someone with child support, etc. He earns a little cash here and there, but from what i can tell, it's mostly favors for friends, or barter with guys who do repairs on his houses and stuff.

He was really successful initially as a lawyer and was fortunate to make a good bit of money with some large personal injury cases, but he absolutely hated full-time lawyering, and didn't particularly enjoy the 4 years he went back to work, but keeping his license made it possible. He keeps enough contacts in that world that if he needed to, he can work full time again, most likely, but I think it would have to be a dire situation for him to go back. It really stresses him out.

I think the point is, if you have a skill like a law or accounting or something, if you keep your certifications and contacts current, you could probably find a job doing SOMETHING, though it won't be as high-powered or prestigious, maybe, as your current situation, but you could probably make some coin. I guess other things probably have an expiration date--programming, maybe, yet a lot of companies try to run old systems as long as possible, so you might end up having a good niche.

I'm an insurance claims adjuster, and there's actually a pretty good shortage of experienced people right now. I could probably quit and come back in a couple years if I needed to, though I wouldn't make the kind of money i make right now.

Personally, I think that, barring some cataclysmic recession situation, a person with work experience and a good job history will always be able to find SOMETHING to earn some cash. It may not be big bucks, but then again, knowing what you know having achieved early retirement, you may not need big bucks.

Just had a brainwave for this topic.

If you think that you'll be skill less 15 years into early retirement then all you have to do is look at another group of skill less employees (on paper) and see what they are doing. These are things you could do (barring great recession as mentioned). For me, I look back to high school. I had very little money, very few skills and no work experience. What did I do?

- Hustled for bursaries and scholarships (i.e. free money/writing)
- Studied to gain skills or employability (school)
- Worked at a convenience store (learned how to juggle)
- Worked at and helped manage an ice cream store and kitchen (became damn good at cooking fries)
- Drank a lot and did some drugs (Learned ????, probably not to do this for long)

See? If the first 4 things don't work out, you can always just resort back to number 5.

...

Why go to either extreme of staying full-time in the game vs. completely quitting work?

Maybe an alternate solution is to maintain or improve your employability/flexibility/adaptability part-time, so that if you do need to go back to work, it'll feel like taking an easy ramp rather than three flights of stairs.

So say you're a software engineer, you never totally drop coding, but keep working on small side projects, preferably always using up-to-date tech. That way when you do need to dip back into the job market, you won't be starting from zero.

Of course, the pay might not ever be as good as when you were in your prime, but that's what savings and frugality are for, right?

neemap wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 11, 2017 10:44 pm

Now you've essentially ruined your life because you thought you could ERE too early.

My idea of "ruining your life" is sitting in a cubicle during the prime of it hoping your boss will allow you to use your vacation days.

Anyway, if you're ERE your expenses should be low enough (or you can make them low enough) that just about any job will do. If you're worried about a stock market crash, that's why we diversify, across asset classes and countries.

Once you’re fi, any job will do. Personally, I’d rather take the “risk” than spend the best years of my life as a slave.

Worst case - you shoot yourself at 52 and you can still say that you lived a better life than most people.

neemap wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 11, 2017 10:44 pm

The trick is to focus on your expenses and fine tune them more and more everyday. Like the other day I thought, I dont throw away my tooth brush after every brushing, so why would I throw away every piece of floss unless it shreds or breaks ? Why not simply rinse it off with water and use it again ? Remember every little bit helps. lol