A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

[IlliniDave]

So I found out today that there's a high likelihood I'm going to hit a crossroads in my employment situation in about 5-6 months. This is not good news. Still too soon to know for sure what will happen to me, but it's hard to foresee an outcome that is either the same or better than the present.

I should know better than to accept at face value any appearance of the universe being a benign place.

*Sigh*

[George the original one]

On the other hand, you're in a solid financial situation and don't have to panic. The prudent thing is probably to start putting out feelers? Or would it be to say "screw it" and work the FI plan with the hand you're dealt?

[IlliniDave]

Hi George,

You are correct in that I'm in better position than the average 50 year old guy you'd find on the street. Odds are probably a bit better than a coin toss I'll have opportunities to stay with my employer, but either in a capacity that is far less enjoyable on a day-to-day basis, or potentially looking at having to move to a different part of the country. Finding a new employer locally is also a possibility, of course, in spite of my age, though in one way or another it will almost certainly entail a compensation hit.

I'll be revisiting all the numbers over the next day or two with the sharpest pencil I can muster. Just throwing in the towel on the ol' full-time professional career is likely to be an option too, although I'd be forsaking a lot of the margin I'd been intending to build in.

Nothing like a good scare to amp up one's focus!

[Chad]

Sometimes a scare can mean positive growth too. Don't get down before anything actually happens. Good luck with it.

[IlliniDave]

Thanks Chad--you're right, it was a similar scare back in 2011 or so that got me on the path that ultimately led me here. As long as you don't let it overwhelm you fear can be a great catalyst.

I already feel somewhat better. In the 24 hours after word got out that I might be "available" soon five people contacted me (four directly and one indirectly) gauging my interest and offering a place to land. I guess all the stories about 50+ guys in my industry post-2008 who are still underemployed or unemployed rattled my subconscious. Nevertheless, I am highly motivated to hone my efficiency over the next 6 months. And having some of the options might allow me to actually get a little ahead in the long run. Still, it's a long way from done deal.

My efforts to cultivate mindfulness have been paying off, as have my efforts to strengthen my financial position. I had a brief twinge of fear upon getting the news (complete surprise), but since then I've passed into a state of remarkable clarity, and am now feeling much more predatory than fearful.

[Dave]

I'm glad to hear that you have options regarding employment - hope everything is still going well.

That's great the mindfulness has helped deal with such a situation. Unrelated, do you meditate ID?

[IlliniDave]

Hi Dave, things are going okay so far. The more I think about it the more I am convinced the best option would be to work a little longer with my present employer, but it's nice to know I could survive without working for wages.

I do not meditate on a regular schedule or anything. Mostly what I do is pause to center myself (that's what I call it) several times during the day.

[IlliniDave]

The $1,867 Challenge

Many of you will (and rightly so) will smirk at this. With a crossroads looming for me, I'm going to begin a process of auditioning future lifestyles. The first step is to scale back my spending to $1867/mo. It will probably not be possible for April since I've already made a bunch of discretionary purchases in preparation for the inaugural two-week stay at my cabin. Hopefully it is not also my last stay. I'm going to use this online journal for accountability, and moral support from anyone kind enough to provide it. If my present situation is insufficient to motivate me to make this work, then obviously it would not be viable over the long haul.

[Noided]

IlliniDave, I like you also have an interest in mindfulness. I am 22 years old and I sometimes I also fall in the trap of thinking that after X my life is all roses. I know I can't think like this. Every day, hour and second are a journey and we must enjoy life now.

However, it is hard to start thinking this way. I thought It would grow on me with age, but you are an example how life struggles will always be there.

Best of luck

[Linnie]

I like your challenge. I'm embarking on a $1864 challenge myself. That's is the magic number that I need to put on my mortgage each month to be free by April 2017 when I'll be able to quit work and sell the house.
Practicing mindfulness is so important for me right now to get me through these next two years with my nose to the grindstone!

[IlliniDave]

If you had to do it all over again, how would you get started with meditation and mindfulness? I am such a armchair practitioner, any words of wisdom would help me get off my butt.

Spoonman, I don't know what I would do differently specific to that. For me it was definitely a case of, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." I don't think I'm much more advanced than the "armchair" level either.

However, it is hard to start thinking this way. I thought It would grow on me with age, but you are an example how life struggles will always be there.

Hi Noided. Yep, it's very hard. Especially for those of us who have a "calling" of sorts to enact a plan to change our futures. It's almost a paradox when trying to that with mindfulness in the Zen sense. Mindfulness will grow on you over time if you stick with it as best you can on an ongoing basis. Struggles will come independent of mindfulness--that just how life is. In theory mindfulness will improve our ability to navigate them. At the same time, going through rough waters in life makes maintaining mindfulness very difficult for me. That is probably where having a more formal degree of daily practice would help. I just haven't taken that step yet.

Linnie-I dunno how far back you've read my ramblings in this journal thread, but for me developing a degree of mindfulness very much went hand-in-hand with simplifying life where I learned that for me there is no correlation between consumer spending and contentedness (or happiness) once basic needs are met. I think mindfulness and frugality are natural companions. Good luck! Sounds like you're doing well and on the road to even better things.

[Noided]

Hi Noided. Yep, it's very hard. Especially for those of us who have a "calling" of sorts to enact a plan to change our futures. It's almost a paradox when trying to that with mindfulness in the Zen sense. Mindfulness will grow on you over time if you stick with it as best you can on an ongoing basis. Struggles will come independent of mindfulness--that just how life is. In theory mindfulness will improve our ability to navigate them. At the same time, going through rough waters in life makes maintaining mindfulness very difficult for me. That is probably where having a more formal degree of daily practice would help. I just haven't taken that step yet.

Yesterday I really started to ponder about the way I think about my daily life. I am always falling in that old trap "when I finish X, those will be the times". No! The times must be now, or else I am a donkey chasing the carrot. I am young, I have a job, I am studying to improve my income, I have no major health issues and I have improved a lot in the space of one year.

Yeah my savings could be bigger, I could have more work experience, I could have more free time, I could be way ahead if I had done a b and c differently (or even if I was different). It could, but it isn't and I have to start being more relaxed.

But with this way of thinking, I hit a mind block. But if I think this way, It seems I have no incentive to do anything. If I am already ok, why should I progress? I guess could just do it to be occupied... Who knows. I still have to think a bit more about all this.

[IlliniDave]

$1867/Month Challenge: April = Fail

So I didn't make my new goal in April, but that wasn't a surprise--I'd already pretty much exceeded the limit before I even set the goal.

I'm probably struggling with this situation more than I should be. It's easy to have neat and tidy contingency plans sketched out on paper, but for me it's not so easy when the conditions that prompt the contingency appear! Very little has changed on the job front. I have a number of colleagues who are affected sooner than I am, so the priority is getting their situations sorted out first.

This has sort of changed the calculus regarding my house. I'm giving strong consideration to selling it sooner rather than later. Some decisions have to be made regarding how much updating to do in preparation for that. I'll be calling on an acquaintance who owns a brokerage to come look at it an give an opinion on what I might do to optimize what I net on the sale. Selling means I'd be renting for a time. With luck I can probably make it a wash regarding rent versus ongoing costs of owning and return on the invested proceeds. I'll probably breathe a little easier with my equity transferred to more liquid assets. I might feel kinda dumb if I wind up finding a position that meets all my criteria, but that's a feeling I've tolerated fairly well in the past.

I can't remember if I stated this here anywhere, but I've sort of settled on taking any reasonable-sounding position that comes up and giving it a year. If I'm content with it I'll keep going with it out until the time frame of my original plan. If it turns out to be drudgery and adversely affects my quality of life, I'll probably pull the plug not long after the year is up. If it all comes to an end late this year I'll probably be okay, but an extra year of work puts me in a position I'm more comfortable with.

[Myakka]

Hi IlliniDave,
I've enjoyed reading your journal.

And in my experience telling people things that are outside what they are ready to hear is tough. You go in hoping to share your joy, to share your experiences and that sharing is met by scolding and rejection.

There is a Japanese saying that seems to fit the American pattern well: The nail that sticks out gets hammered.

[JayK]

Hey IlliniDave -- I appreciate following your path, and I'm wondering where you've been lately. I hope things are going okay.

[IlliniDave]

Hey IlliniDave -- I appreciate following your path, and I'm wondering where you've been lately. I hope things are going okay.

Hi JayK,

I'm still around, just haven't been adding to the journal as frequently (gone from monthly to quarterly). It happens today starts a new quarter so I was just getting ready to drop something in here!

[IlliniDave]

Q2 2015 Summary

This year's second quarter brought many challenges. I learned that my position at work for 17 years will be eliminated at the end of October. That development has tossed a wrench into the works.

First, the boring stuff. Second quarter over first saw a growth in net worth and invested assets of $33.0K and and $32.7K, respectively. Those are among the lowest quarterly growth numbers I've had since I started paying attention. I don't have income and spending figures, but income from wages was above nominal. Spending was high as well , much higher than the $1,867/mo goal I set for myself. Off the top of my head I probably averaged around $3,000 month. The drivers were vacation/travel, and allowing myself some leeway in getting myself established in the new cabin.

Presently my nest egg should support $1,375/mo in spending for an indefinite period. Net of downsizing my house upon ER, I'd estimate that number at $1,575/mo. Liquidating the cabin would bump it up to $1,900/mo.

Speaking of the cabin, I had my first opportunity to spend time there during the first two weeks of June. In the last 6 months I've frequently been visited by second thoughts regarding the wisdom of spending as much money as I did, which then intensified a whole bunch when my employment situation destabilized. It's almost a cliche, but when I stepped inside the cabin for the first time as owner, all the doubts faded. Since I've returned to my real world, I've had a pronounced sense that I really don't belong here any more. Someday in the near future I'll add some thoughts here from that perspective, rather than the "Just the facts, ma'am" entry today. [Edit: if I was more savvy about such things, I'd figure out a way to link a picture or two somehow.]

On the employment front it appears likely that I could take another position with my present employer at the site I'm at now once this one winds down. I anticipate a significant falloff in "job satisfaction" with this new position based on what I know about it so far. It's one thing to hang on and pile up extra assets when your job is a neutral factor in your life on the worst of days. When it creeps into the negative half of the continuum on average, the calculus changes. Things are further complicated by emergence of some reasonably credible rumors about early retirement incentive packages being dangled in the near future. Where I happen to be age and seniority-wise, it makes a pretty substantial difference should I leave the company on my own initiative versus on the company's initiative. In other words, if they laid me off in October it would be a large boon to me. Add any "incentive" to that and I more-or-less picked up a winning lottery ticket at just the right time.

I'm now looking hard at leaving somewhere between the end of this year and the middle of next year, irrespective of any action on the part of the company. If I did that and could get by on $2,000/mo until age 55 and $3,000/mo from there on out, I'm on reasonably solid ground. With the "bonus" of either straight severance or a retirement incentive my position is just stronger.

Quite a lot to think about in the days ahead. Imagining early retirement is much easier than actually taking that step.

In the scientific sense I'm 3 months closer to ER. In a more expansive sense, I feel my first journey of a thousand miles rapidly coming to a close. Being 51 years old with an opportunity to redefine oneself waiting just around the corner is a pretty good deal.

[IlliniDave]

Well, it's been a while since I've said much here except for reporting a few financial data points.

My day-to-day degree of difficulty has been ramping up as my headlong flight towards the big fork in the road nears its conclusion. My family is going through a stressful weekend while we await the results of my mom's 6-month post-radiation PET scan. That is a significant data point in my short-term future. We remain hopeful.

The odds seem to be around 50/50 that I'll have a viable opportunity to continue on with my employer beyond October. Some opportunities have been identified, but it remains to be seen whether they pan out. I remain hopeful.

I've spent a lot of time pondering the question, “How little is enough?” I can lay out numbers in a spreadsheet that say bowing out as early as the end of this calendar year is viable. I could, on average, execute a 4% withdrawal from assets over the first 18 or so years, then lower that when SS kicks in at 70, and pretty much replicate my current lifestyle spending profile during the period. The caveat is that it would require me to get through the first 4 years at a really low average spending rate (for me), about $2,200 a month, then for the next 14 years I could relax to what I'm spending today. What I mean by “what I'm spending today” is the all-in number to include even unexpected things like major repairs and home renovations that I've averaged over the last few years, so a fairly safe number. And if I continue at that spending rate going forward, once I start SS I'd be accumulating again.

I expect that I'll be successful in keeping my spending profile below what it is today, as one of the pursuits I look forward to as a hobby is maximizing thrift and contentment simultaneously. Nevertheless I have the proverbial cold feet. Frigid ones. It's perhaps unfortunate that I have the level of skill with math and spreadsheets that I do, because it's very easy for me to see the benefits of “one more year”, and "one more year after that". I'm at that stage of life where the slope is steep, and beneath it all I have a streak of fear and weakness that cause me to tend towards clinging to excess financial margin.

Working against that is a newly-found, still emerging sense of self. I always believed that I had escaped the trap of over-identifying myself with my various roles—career, father, mate—but I'm learning that all I really had was a vague sense that my essence was other than what I was acting out, but I really had little clue of what lay behind the actor. Such a profound task of discovery is a daunting thing to face at midlife when one is so habituated to being the good little soldier.

Anyone who has been reading here knows the story of my new cabin tucked away in the Northwoods. The thing that's really messed me up is the profound sense of completion I felt when I walked inside for the first time after I bought it. Since returning to the real world my state of being has been dominated by a feeling that I no longer belong here. Add the uncertainty with my mom's health and the uncertainty at work, and the appropriate action is obvious.

Yet the weak little boy in me still fears being cut off from the money fountain and stepping into his big boy pants. It's quite a little conflict I have going on within me, and somewhat embarrassing to admit given all the bold words I've been uttering to myself and others these last few years. In the secret moments I've even wished, for the first time since I've been single-again, that I had that fantasy partner/soul mate with whom to work out a path forward. Since that's not happening, though, I'll have to face the big, bad, future on my own.

I'm a compromiser by nature, and that's probably where I'm headed here—my leading option is to cling on until the midway point of next year to add a little extra margin. My intellect tells me that it is possible to make up a little bit financially in the future, much less so any time I surrender now. But my gut doesn't give a shit about that. It seems set on the fortress of dollars I promised it long ago when I had a more conventional attitude about career and retirement.

So what is the point of writing all that? I dunno. It's cathartic I suppose to confess that I may very well be somewhat of a fraud when it comes to ERE. Maybe I'm just fishing for an encouraging word or two. Maybe I'm just thinking aloud.

The good thing is that the internal stress reached a tipping point where mindfulness has returned (possibly a defense mechanism). At least for today there is nothing I can do that will change what awaits in the future. But I have an opportunity to make today a good day, and I think I'll take it.

[George the original one]

Anyone who has been reading here knows the story of my new cabin tucked away in the Northwoods. The thing that's really messed me up is the profound sense of completion I felt when I walked inside for the first time after I bought it. Since returning to the real world my state of being has been dominated by a feeling that I no longer belong here. Add the uncertainty with my mom's health and the uncertainty at work, and the appropriate action is obvious.

Sounds very familiar, except I don't have as strong of the good soldier streak. My completion moment was definitely last fall, watching coho, chinook, and steelhead come upstream to spawn at (or above) our future retirement home. The time spent watching and participating in the cycle of life has been more memorable than the time spent earning an income, especially as the artificial stress of employment becomes less relevant to my future.

Financially, you've been calculating a comfortable path. Have you considered taking social security at an earlier age? Or various short-term extreme paths? Like two years at barebones spending giving you X% increase for the remaining 16 years?

[sky]

I am right there as well, could quit today, but the money is good. I have one big project to complete, and after next week, my heavy lifting on the project is done. The project will peak in public visibility in September/October and will be done in mid-November. I'm thinking about staying on till the end of the year if only to leave this circus while most everybody is on vacation, so I can just slip behind the curtain and disappear.