For American families, this is a show stopper. First, the children need to get jobs, and employer subsidized health insurance for themselves. And if your employer would continue to subsidize an early retirement health insurance (this happens in the case of restructuring buyouts of soon-to-retire oldies in the company headcount, sort of like VRS for banks in India), then the not-yet-qualified-for-Medicare kind of old people can retire. I am always reminded of the physics nobel prize winner having to sell his gold medal from Stockholm to pay his medical bills.
First a funny thing.. the threads in the past few weeks are all rolling into each other. I scrolled up to check who is the OP and is a tangent OK. When I read about the FI/RE success stories, I wonder how the 35-45 plan to take care of medical costs till 65. There must be a set of options and they choose the best for their health and other situation. I would prefer a luke-warm placeholder job with medical insurance. That's what people did in our friend circle in their 30's and 40's. As the husband tried his hand start-up's or the women tried being a real estate agent, one spouse maintained a seat-warmer job for the non-money benefits. === Not today, but sometime later.. we need a thread on the non-financial aspects of ER. As the menfolk in my childhood neighborhood started to retire, many a woman would say that she was willing to pay someone to hire her husband for a job a few hours each day. : )
The Sane Person's Guide to FIRE Savings I like this article on FIRE. There is no magic number and no magic way of achieving that number. Most of us immigrants are frugal to some extent and saving comes naturally to most. People who make six-figure salary and live in not so HCOL can easily save 30-40%. Once this saving level is achieved, increasing savings slowly over time can help build the portfolio big enough to retire/ semi retire. Our goal has always been to have enough to cover expenses, save for rainy days, and live a fulfilling life free of competition. While we believe in FI, we have never been Uber frugal. I spend on hair cuts/color and occasional manicure/pedicure. I love a well curated wardrobe and buy quality clothes for me as well as the kids. My husband would never let me touch his hair. Kids go to Charter school and extra activities. We travel and help my family financially. But, we don’t buy every new gadget. Our kids have IPads for school work but no PlayStation or other gaming stuff. Our laptops are from the university (we get funds for new laptop every 3-4 years), we bought our iPhones out of pocket and have cheapest phone plan (Verizon has a prepaid plan for $30/ line). We bought our cars pre owned. Both vehicles were 2-3 years old with ~15-20k miles on each. Most of the furniture I bought is from Estate sales. We both run (no fancy gym; however I have tried OrangeTheory in past). We live close to work so commute is short and only need gas once or twice a month. We do drive separately. We have solar panels so electricity/ gas bills are minimal. FIRE is about finding the sweet spot and spend money on things that are important while saving on the rest. It is personal choice.
Many government jobs [below GS12 in federal, and equivalent in state and local] tend to pay a low salary, especially for locations like Seattle, CA-bayarea. And for most of these there are no upper age limits. They all pay medical insurance, and don't fire employees willy nilly. These are ideal jobs, especially those jobs that have no direct customer contact. One should apply for these jobs, and take them on when a convenient one comes along, especially when the children have gone on to college.... and the parents are still not medicare age yet.
I grew up in Bangalore India. My father is from Maharashtra and mother from Karnataka Maharashtra border place. Both my parents were government employees. My mother passed away when I was in my 3rd year engineering. I finished my engineering in Bangalore. After that I moved to US for MS. Even my elder sis is here(west coast ).Financially for my ms my sis & bil & bro chipped in and helped me and also I got scholarship, 6 credit tution fee waiver based on my scores and on campus job. DH & I are childhood sweethearts. He finished his MS & phd in Boston. He came to US then I followed him. We each other followed one another everywhere. I can say he is the one who started all this early retirement and savings, selling things. Till now I don’t know how he comes up with new things. I am also greatful to one of my professors who had given me idea to have Spanish language , ethical hacking certifications later which helped me so much.
That used to be a more American thing to do.. Then, Asians in our area caught on to the attractiveness of the idea. : ) It became the norm for tiger/ helicopter/drone / lawn mower moms - after the youngest kid entered middle or high school, mom joined the school district in some arbitrary role that needed no specific qualifications. With job description and benefits as described above. I toyed with the idea briefly after seeing couple of Telugu moms get those jobs. Then, I thought more deeply whether I wanted that kind of mind-numbing job for 10-15 years? Don't kids already kill our souls enough before they leave the nest? Why the double murder or murder/suicide... It works for some people who thrive in the routine of a relaxed job and predictable unopinionated fellow-workers. Me.. always was hatke.
So nice to read, FH. Really inspiring. And in an odd way comforting and reassuring (more on why so another day). Another question - this one not so nosy. Do you guys keep in touch with the technology and other job skills etc to be prepared if you need to go back to a regular job again? This falls under the financial aspect of retirement, so OK to ask here I think.
Thanks. I will continue keep up with technology and also will keep continuing with freelance projects and bug bounty. I am also actively participating in stack overflow.
I am glad. There is someone like us. There are lot of people who runs this service and repair kind of business buys those. We have even sold our old AC air handler and compressor.
There was an interesting thread on minimalist lifestyle recently. That made me examine some of our spending habits. I realized that we were accidental minimalists in some areas and borderline thoughtless spending in others. Free of competition is important. Where we live most people upgraded to bigger homes on bigger lots. Some of them move to bigger home when kids are 16+. We wonder why. Not that old parents moving in or planning for the future when kids will visit with their own families. Just thinking of all that yard to plan, landscape, the water bill and all that interior to vacuum/mop or host the cleaning lady 3-4 hours, high ceilings to clean cobwebs ... makes me want to go take a long nap. But it makes me happy that the bigger house, bigger kitchen counters, huge family room and grand winding staircases, huge porch with state-of-the-art grills and outdoor gas stoves etc make my friends happy inside out. Often the woman initiates the next house hunt and move.
