semiERE: exploring semi-retirement

[7Wannabe5]

I pretty much meet Jacob's true Scotsman (or slacker) definition. My average Social Security recorded earned income in the 11 years I've belonged to the forum has been right around $8000/year and that's also about what I have spent on average. My actual total income has been somewhat more, and my actual lifestyle or effective standard of living has varied to a greater extent due to my tendency to engage in a good deal of barter, especially for otherwise unoccupied shelter spaces. The most I have paid for shelter expenses (beyond the very occasional airbnb or motel stay) has been about $600/month, the least $0 month. The most I have paid for transportation expenses has been around $300/month, the least $0/month. The most I have paid for food expenses has been around $200/month, the least $0/month. I think my only constant expense over the last 11 years might be my cell phone bill, although I also wrote it off as a business expense for the majority of those years. I also paid for my DD33's wedding and took a loss on my third permaculture project when I became ill. My first permaculture project I basically broke even on, and my second permaculture project was owned by one of my poly-partners. My point here being that on this level of earned income, I was still able to save enough to "invest" in a variety of creative ventures. My average wage whether self/other or miscellaneously employed has probably averaged right around $20/hr., so I've usually worked around an average of 400 hrs/year = 8 hrs week, but usually it's been more like not working at all half the time and working 2 days/week half the time, but with some very short runs of working more in the mix. I think the longest run of full-time-work-for-other I've done since joining the forum was teaching 8th grade science in a very impoverished community for a few months. I think my longest stretch of no earned income from any source (employment by self or other) was around a year during the Covid lockdown, although I did get a pretty big chunk of gift/inheritance income towards the end of the lock-down from my multi-millionaire friend whose hospice care I managed.

[daylen]

My average Social Security recorded earned income in the 11 years I've belonged to the forum has been right around $8000/year and that's also about what I have spent on average.

Doesn't this effectively make you FI and thus not semiERE by Jacob's definition requiring a need to work?

I could be wrong but another way to describe semiERE by this definition is perhaps as a steady-state portfolio solution supported by elastic lifestyle constraints?

[Ego]

But what do we call, at least colloquially, people with sub-FTE pre-FI yet non-zeroSR WoGs?

Journeyman Jugaadists

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugaad
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journeyman

[Jin+Guice]

Part-Time Work Extreme
Everytime I think I have a new ERE idea, I reread the book and that rat bastard Fisker has beat me to it. There's nothing in this post that isn't in the book. However, the post highlights ideas that the book only mentions in passing.

....

This is my original VERY long post where I started talking about what I mean by semi-ERE... it's from the very end of 2018. I don't say "semi-ERE" anywhere i the post, but it's mentioned several times in the ensuing discussion.

I don't know if I ever defined it, I'm not big no definitions.

What I have talked about and done since I dreamed it up is to pursue a slower route to FI, which includes working drastically less than full-time. I am still pursuing FI, it's just not my main goal.

I think that maintaining low expenses is part of ERE, so I agree that it loses it's meaning in things like fatFIRE, but I'm also not a huge strict definitions person.

By the definition provided of semiERE above, I am not doing semiERE.

[7Wannabe5]

Doesn't this effectively make you FI and thus not semiERE by Jacob's definition requiring a need to work?

Sorry, I made that a bit confusing. I didn't mean income from social security (I'm not due to collect that for a bit.) I meant the income I earned from a variety of pursuits as recorded in my social security report.

Although, I suppose one could argue that I am FI in the sense that I have created some virtually "moneyless" solutions over the years, but since I don't prefer to always choose my "moneyless" solutions, and I also don't consider my "moneyless" solutions to be of at least 3 completely independent forms towards resilience*, I'm going to say that I do still have a need to work for money. However, it is likely that I will declare myself FI on the day I do become eligible for early withdrawal social security, since it will be more than $8000/year.

*For example, currently I have three options for free shelter and food, so if I dumped my car and my cell phone, my living expenses could be $0, but all three of these options involve me occupying some form of caregiver or "wife" type Lentil Baby role in my adult feminine energy, and I don't prefer to be stuck in my adult feminine energy continuously.

[Western Red Cedar]

Here is another thread discussing SemiERE. Mini Retirements vs. ERE

viewtopic.php?t=7032

[Western Red Cedar]

@Jacob - the definition you are describing seem quite narrow. It doesn't really align with how forum members have used and discussed SemiERE over the last decade. I can see why you never really supported the idea, as your description sounds pretty unappealing.

Remember that the topic and concept evolved over the years. It probably isn't the best term, just as Early Retirement Extreme isn't necessarily the best term for the underlying ERE philosophy. It simply emerged as an alternative to the idea that one should or must save 25-33x expenses before pursuing alternative paths.

In some ways, the discussion reminds me of people who might look at you or MMM and argue that you aren't really retired because you are actively working on projects and engaging in what appears like work. Definitions matter, but we are swimming in our own self-constructed world, concepts, and jargon - dodging SWAMIs, thinking about Lentil Babies, and looking out for HOWLIs.

It is really as simple as what I noted above: though I think we could (and already have) elaborate on the variations:

In some of the early conversations here regarding SemiERE, we established a rough concept centered around the idea of a less direct path to FI. The circuitous route could include ongoing PT work after leaving a career, stints of full time employment with regular breaks, or a hodgepodge of unconventional approaches to reducing costs and/or producing income.

The idea of SemiERE, at least as I understand it, basically represents an alternative to the grind it out and save 25-33X annual expenses template for financial independence.

It doesn't include everyone. Common themes for SemiERE as discussed over the last 5-10 years include:

-An awareness of FI and the underlying math
-A desire for financial independence
-Rejection of a fast-track mentality to FI
-An unconventional career/work history, or at least being okay with one
-Reliance on other forms of capital beyond the monetary system (especially social capital)
-A desire for agency over ones time and a willingness to sacrifice monetary gain for that agency
-Some financial base and/or income source to provide that agency
-Application of systems-thinking to ones life and FI
-Trust in serendipity to provide future opportunities
-Actively searching out serendipity and opportunities for income generation (or cost reduction)
-A higher risk-tolerance than those on the traditional FI path
-A plan to reach full FI through investments, earned income, reduced expenses, or a combination of all three before traditional retirement age

Others are free to add to the list. I'm sure there are themes I've overlooked.

*I'd personally peg @7w5's approach as LentilBabyERE, which falls under the larger umbrella of SemiERE

[Ego]

Others are free to add to the list. I'm sure there are themes I've overlooked.

-Avoiding the damaging nature of full time employment on health, relationships, family, hobbies, skills and the ability to converse on non-work related subjects.

-Necessity is the mother of invention. Most humans, when given the option to do nothing, succumb to the temptations of nothing-adjacent pastimes like sports spectating, gaming, drinking, television watching, mindless scrolling, marijuana ingesting, book-clubbing, porn consuming or gambling. Even worse are those who manufacture physical or mental ailments to give themselves something to think about and do.

[7Wannabe5]

@Ego:

How does the "vice" of book-clubbing fit in with the other items on your list?

I'd personally peg @7w5's approach as LentilBabyERE, which falls under the larger umbrella of SemiERE

I'd agree to some extent, but I only began to develop the LentilBaby concept when I was already slacker self-employed and empty-nest at the relatively early age of 44. I read "Your Money or Your Life" and "The Tightwad Gazette" when I was in my late 20s in full-on Hippie Mom mode, and I first self-funded a "sabbatical" from both school and work for myself at age 21. I largely spent that first "sabbatical" hanging out at the $325/month all-inclusive semi-vegetarian co-op where I was living at the time, reading and working on knitting projects, and organizing social activities such as "The Free Form Movement Group" and "The Summer Solstice Sacrifice of Male Virgins Event." My generalist lifestyle/skillset has always been towards some frugal version of The Adventure Cottage Library, "Lentil Baby" is just one way in which I modularized the "cottage" bit after I was empty nest.

I mean, in case I haven't yet made this obvious, it has been pretty much continuously low-key hilarious to me that I have been able to function a bit in Sugar Baby mode after already completing the entire conventional 20 year adult cycle of having and raising kids to college-age. However, I would also note for the record that around half of the free or steeply discounted shelter-spaces I have occupied post-empty-nest have been with others with whom I am not also sexually engaged, and this tracks with Jin+Guice's experience. I'm just such a good housemate that pretty much everybody I have ever lived with has rarely had a better housemate than me. Even my landlady at the tiny garret apartment I recently rented for a few years has contacted me twice since I moved out to see if I have any interest in moving back in or just hanging out some time.

Unfortunately, I don't think I can teach this "great housemate" skill to those with xxTJ personality type, because it is based on my self-aware reformation of my innate P tendencies. Roughly analogous to how somebody who is naturally chubby, but chooses to works out and watch the cookies a bit, will often be better looking than somebody who is naturally skinny. More "J" types would likely have to learn how to consciously relax in relationship to other human's various form of "messy" in order to do the same/similar. For example, highly unlikely that anybody who engages in any of the vices above listed by Ego would enjoy hosting him as a long-term house guest. I mean, I can just imagine him staring and sneering down the chubby ladies in my book, garden, or knitting club in a manner that would make them feel most uncomfortable, as he performs his burpees routine in an adjacent space. IOW, successful LentilBaby functioning requires being reasonably agreeable, easy-going, and non-judgmental, and supporting other humans from below more than "fixing" them from above.

[jacob]

It doesn't include everyone. Common themes for SemiERE as discussed over the last 5-10 years include:

-An awareness of FI and the underlying math
-A desire for financial independence
-Rejection of a fast-track mentality to FI
-An unconventional career/work history, or at least being okay with one
-Reliance on other forms of capital beyond the monetary system (especially social capital)
-A desire for agency over ones time and a willingness to sacrifice monetary gain for that agency
-Some financial base and/or income source to provide that agency
-Application of systems-thinking to ones life and FI
-Trust in serendipity to provide future opportunities
-Actively searching out serendipity and opportunities for income generation (or cost reduction)
-A higher risk-tolerance than those on the traditional FI path
-A plan to reach full FI through investments, earned income, reduced expenses, or a combination of all three before traditional retirement age

Others are free to add to the list. I'm sure there are themes I've overlooked.

The only difference I can see between this and ERE is in how the nest-egg (or "stash" as the kids call it now) is made. Thus from my perspective, both this and a full-time job would be "on track to ERE". The only difference is the journey to the goal of ERE and the speed at which it is taken. Same reason we've talked about "easy-mode" and "hard-mode" for those who earn high salaries and those who don't respectively.

Whereas what I'm talking about (and how the term semi- and various other prefixes would be understood in the rest of the wider FIRE world outside of the forum) is the destination point, where if someone is semi-retired, they still work a little but they don't have to work as much because they already have either savings, passive income, a pension, etc. They have deliberate chosen not to pursue more money in the future in return for more time now.

Thus for me, these definitions have always described the destination and not the various journeys people would get there. E.g. for barista-FIRE the idea was to get to point where one could retire and find a job at Starbucks to cover health insurance in order to cut the working years a bit short and enjoy some social coffee shop life on one's retired. Whereas barista-FIRE did NOT describe people who reached regular FIRE by working a career serving coffee. Ditto, leanFIRE, fatFIRE. For example, leanFIRE does NOT describe a strategy in which one makes a low salary for many years until one has USD5M saved to retire to live the fat life. Likewise, fatFIRE does not describe a strategy of making $200k/year and retiring on $150k in a camper in the middle of nature after a short life-career of about 10 months. They all describe the destination.

Hence, the confusion. I can see why given the discussion about semi-ERE was mostly happening during a time when participants where still in the accumulation stage would try to find a name for different kinds of accumulation strategies. Fair enough. But calling a part-time/intermittent approach (cf. a full time approach) semi- is confusing for the same reason that people who take the slow road to FIRE and retire at age 55 instead of 40 are not semi-FIRE.

Basically, it's this

-A plan to reach full FI through investments, earned income, reduced expenses, or a combination of all three before traditional retirement age

that throws me off. Because that's not the plan of someone who is semi-retired. Indeed, this suggests that semi-ERE as you define it is still on the journey and that one day ("before traditional retirement age") it will turn into ERE.

I'd suggest instead---hard as it is to rename stuff---that just like we have easy-mode (high income) and hard-mode (low income), we add fast-mode (full time until done) and slow-mode (part time or long breaks).

In that case what you describe as semi-ERE would simply be slow-mode ERE. This wouldn't break anything.

[7Wannabe5]

@jacob:

In that case, wouldn't there also be a number of forum members who are de facto semi-ERE, although also fully-funded? For example, ffj seems to always be engaged in a number of varying money making endeavors both due to plan and serendipity.

[jacob]

In that case, wouldn't there also be a number of forum members who are de facto semi-ERE, although also fully-funded? For example, ffj seems to always be engaged in a number of varying money making endeavors both due to plan and serendipity.

At least for semi-retirement, the distinction is whether one needs to work or whether one wants to work. This makes a functional difference because the former is tied in to laboring. They can't just stop if they no longer feel like it or if they'd rather do something else. (Of course they can take a longer break just like anyone else with savings but at some point, they have to go back to Plato's Cave) This, I believe, is a material difference and which is why the distinction is important and worthwhile to make. Instead of seeing this anchoring as a "bug", one can also see it as a "feature" in that having to make some money forces one to remain connected to "ordinary working people" which comprise the majority of the population. (I'm pretty sure @ffj is fully covered by savings and pensions and does not need any extra earned income.)

[7Wannabe5]

@jacob:

Gotcha. That makes sense. I guess my take on it would be that it is a "bug" at the first order, but such a tiny first order bug with so many positive second order aspects that working 5 years full-time to overcome it absolutely doesn't make sense for me. OTOH, I might be willing to work full-time for some period of time if I needed a large chunk of cash for a creative project or to pay for the surgical removal of a chunk of my intestines at a clinic in Mexico or similar. If I had more money now, I would probably either just give it to my kids or maybe buy some more land or a boarding house, depending on maintenance hassle vs. my energy level. I wouldn't invest in the stock market or similar. However, I suppose the proof of the pudding will be what I choose to do once I start collecting social security.

[Jin+Guice]

@jacob: There are years of people on the forum using semiERE to mean what you described as "slowmodeERE." There are also years of people using it as you've described.

I agree that this is confusing due to how semi-retirement is defined in Clyatt's book. I agree that if we are following naming conventions it makes sense to name something based on the destination. But if a term has already been in use for several years, does it not make sense to follow the convention of how the term has been used?

I don't have a strong attachment to the name, but restricting the term to only mean pursuing a strategy where one keeps working forever would make old posts confusing?

[Stasher]

The ERE-part is using systems-thinking to drive expenses so low that very few hours of work are required. Whether that's 4-10 hours per week or 2-4 months per year or 2-4 years per decade is immaterial in that regard.

I genuinely think this was the decision I made in 2017 to leave my full time career, I was nowhere near FI but 100% knew that I did not want full time work anymore no matter how much it paid. I had enough MMM and ERE baseline skills that with only about 15x spending saved up and nowhere near that 4% SWR, that we would make it work somehow. I wanted to have as much free time as possible to experience life as fully as possible, "semi-ere" allowed me that opportunity. We had just enough saved to offset 50% of the household expenses which meant I could see if semi-ere was possible but we still needed DW income.

I have basically been semi-ERE up until reaching a point here in Q1 of 2025 that I can safely say we now have 25x saved in our investments.We have enough to manage a 4% SWR and with future social security & government pension as a safety net we just left the Semi-ERE subset of this forum. 8 years of trying fun things that had nothing to do with my oil industry 21 year career, how the heck did I pull of making money writing and photographing mountain biking, hiking and outdoor travel destinations?, no idea but it made me some money to get closer to FI. Then some community efforts and educating myself through new mindset and beliefs thanks to MMM/ERE and a couple other sources landed me into another great paid short term contract, I have 18 months left until it expires. (so not decades but just shy of a decade)

In the past 8 years I lived some time of that really going all in ERE style and then the majority I lived a mostly MMM level of optimization. Investments compounded, the stock market grew and of course with good luck even working less, still managed to put money into investments because of the good habits of ERE to spend less than you make. DW and myself have no pressure to do any work now and it indeed feels very privileged with all that is happing in geo-politics currently.

I've really enjoyed this discussion here on the topic, the concept of it all is beautifully organic and adaptable to any person and any situation as long as they are open to it. If only more would just give it a chance, tried recently and two different people got mad at me saying that I am just telling people to "bootstrap" themselves out of a bad situation or "who has money to invest". Wouldn't even give it a chance to look beyond the words and grasp the bigger picture.

[Western Red Cedar]

The only difference I can see between this and ERE is in how the nest-egg (or "stash" as the kids call it now) is made. Thus from my perspective, both this and a full-time job would be "on track to ERE". The only difference is the journey to the goal of ERE and the speed at which it is taken.

Bingo. This is exactly on point. Believe it or not, this was a somewhat radical concept in the broader FI community and even on the ERE forums for many years.

Anyone willing to dig through some of the earlier threads linked here can see a robust discussion on the pros and cons of each approach. The tradeoffs between compounding interest and compounding skills. How temperament, career and personality factor into the decision. Perhaps, most saliently, how the slow-mode is arguably more congruent with the renaissance ideal of ERE.

The notion of SemiERE (CoastFire, BaristaFire, Mini Retirements, Downshifting) arguably fits better in this community because of the focus on building broad skills, prioritizing physical health, avoiding specialization, and emphasizing other forms of capital. This is part of the reason for the interest in the topic. I would argue it may also have influenced the WL jump you witnessed in the forums a while back.

I agree that it isn't really the best name, and people debated that as well, but it is what they landed on almost a decade ago. I continue to find it ironic that we are quibbling over terminology on a site called Early Retirement Extreme that isn't really about retirement.

-----

I want to add that the list I wrote above isn't, by any means, an authoritative statement on SemiERE. Just something I wrote up late last night after thinking about some of the core tenants of what folks have discussed over the years. Some of it may be wrong. I really like @ego's additions. Others are welcome to continue amending or adding to that.

[Jean]

I would define as an involuntary semi ere.
Ere because expense level is well bellow poverty line due to well organised life, semi because i still need some income from work, and involuntary because is was caused by a massive increase in head taxes.
To me property tax isn't a head tax. But per capita utility tax, or compulsory insurances are.
Head taxes are thing that can only be covered with money, and that cannot be shared. They still have to ve counted as expenses, because they could be avoided by moving.

I would define ere by the expenses instead of the fi, because a fi is just a form of income that is very financial capital intensive, but still require some work,while other form of income require other form of capital and work.
But all incone require a combination of capital and work.

[MidsizeLebowski]

Slow-ere seems to be the best descriptor. I’ve often found the semi to be a bit incongruent as there is no partial adherence to ERE tenants of anti consumerism, DIY, applied capitalism, etc.

Returning to the OP, what are the unknowns to consider relative to slow-ere?

[mathiverse]

I think that I tried semi-ERE and didn't really think it was viable for my preferences. Having a return to work (or at least an obligation to make money at some point) hanging over my head was a major stressor and had a distorting effect on what I chose to do that I didn't find value in. The latter part is in contrast to people who think they'd be unproductive without that stressor - eg Ego, maybe.

Unknowns relative to slow-ERE? One thing is that the risk of never reaching FI is larger the longer you go without reaching it because unpredictable circumstances might render you unable to "render unto Caesar" for your originally planned timeline.

[Ego]

The latter part is in contrast to people who think they'd be unproductive without that stressor - eg Ego, maybe.

Unknowns relative to slow-ERE? One thing is that the risk of never reaching FI is larger the longer you go without reaching it because unpredictable circumstances might render you unable to "render unto Caesar" for your originally planned timeline.

Yeah, I get that. Our reasonably large (but non-FI) nest egg provides just enough buffer that - to paraphrase Buffett - allows us to do anything but not nothing.

WRT the unpredictable circumstances, imagine a world where financial markets collapse. The person who kept a foothold in the moneymaking world can more easily scale up, while the person who has been out of the game for a decade is facing a true existential crisis over the prospect of returning to work.