Hello from Pittsburgh, PA

[AxelHeyst]

Not bad etiquette at all, thanks for the update.

If you don’t mind telling, I’m curious what sorts of things (besides healthcare) you discovered increased your quality of life and justified a few more years? Were there tiers of access to things the at increased QoL, or was it a steady upwards rise, or would you describe it some other way? And are these things you are experiencing while still working, anticipate experiencing when you RE, or both?

[soundoff]

If you don’t mind telling, I’m curious what sorts of things (besides healthcare) you discovered increased your quality of life and justified a few more years? Were there tiers of access to things the at increased QoL, or was it a steady upwards rise, or would you describe it some other way? And are these things you are experiencing while still working, anticipate experiencing when you RE, or both?

The big thing is housing expense - I went from living in a house I had maybe $120k of basis in with an average of 2-3 housemates to living in a house I bought for around $300k and then immediately spent $100k of upgrades on (now with the move to a different region, $700k) by myself. There was just a chunk of my life that was being spent dealing with drama with housemates, or even more importantly, the drama spent dealing with the people my housemates would bring along. And for the most part they were all decent so it was nice for many years to have forced socializing of sorts, but by the time I hit my 30s I realized I wasn't spending the energy I had to socialize on the people and relationships I would have chosen for myself, so I wanted the increased control that living alone gives you. Maybe it's wild I was in my early 30s until I loved alone but that's what it was.

The home renovation project with the new house is one where I realized how much my natural inclination towards frugality was potentially holding me back. I remember stressing about whether I should get luxury vinyl tile or if I could justify the expense of hardwood. Then I thought about the price delta compared to what I was making at the time, and realized if the happiness of having the nicer floor (/ and not having to stress about the decision) would be enough to make me work another 2-3 days at my career before retiring, it'd be worth it, even if the hardwood added nothing to the sale price of the home. I had spent 2-3 days working and stressing over the decision before that clicked: I was worrying more about the resale of my house than the enjoyment I derived from living in it, when it was plainly the case that if I made my day to day working and living in the house significant more comfortable such that I was willing to work a couple extra days here or there, that it'd be worth it.

Also, therapy. I've been paying out of pocket for that, to have the most flexibility about therapist and how we structure the sessions. It's not a huge expense (a little under $6k a year) but it would have been challenging to budget for that if I retired when I hit around $2M (a dozen years ago I was estimating my target to be somewhere between $1M and $2M liquid on top of living in the $100kish house I owned and rented to housemates).

For reference, in 2023 dollars that means when I stated this journey I was estimating needing $1.4-$2.7M on top of a $150k house packed with housemates - I had been estimating I'd always want to live with housemates. Living in a $700k property that produces no income (but could easily produce $12k if I wanted to rent the apartment out, and that would cover likely property taxes and some maintenance) is significantly more expensive than the housing expense I had before, which was really net negative due to the housemates paying rent.

I'm sure my real expenditures at restaurants have trended up over the years. I also paid for housecleaning a few times; this stopped with COVID-19 and a shifted risk calculus about having other people in my space, but I may resume that some point.

I'm also targeting safe withdrawal rates closer to 3% than 4% now. In 2011 I thought I had a skill set where I could have somewhat easily found other jobs also paying a vaguely comparable amount, even if I had gone my own way or freelanced or whatever. So the risk of returning to work during a bad sequence of returns seemed not as bad. Since advancing into a position that pays mid six figures, I'm more or less incredulous that if I walk away for several years I could make that again or approximate it via freelancing. So I want to increase my confidence that when I'm done, I'm done.