Getting real with you

You may or may not know that I’ve been blogging intermittently for over 5.5 years. My first blog was super unsuccessful, not surprisingly, since the web address was soyouwanttobefinanciallyindependent.wordpress.com. I wrote under a nom de plume, a nickname from college, and I quickly got bored writing a few things here and there but not being completely honest with my reader(s). Not sure if I should even make that word plural. Haha!

Then in 2018, I started writing more and more about my own financial journey. Mostly the things that did not go well, so I could help others avoid my mistakes. Sometimes I’d share a useful travel tool or a credit card hacking success, but it was my own minor contributions to the personal finance world and I was proud to put my name on those posts, no matter how poorly written, at joshovermyer.com

But there is a big part of my story that I have not felt comfortable sharing for the past 5+ years that I am finally coming to terms with as I prepare to step away from my day job… I’ve been pursuing Financial Independence Retire Early since I heard about it in 2014. I never felt safe sharing the words in that sentence publicly since I knew it could jeopardize my employment situation.

My FIRE journey

For the past several years, I have saved about 58 cents of every dollar I have earned. I automate my 457 contributions, max out my Roth IRA early in the year (time in the market beats timing the market), and I save in taxable brokerages and High Yield Savings Accounts. I used to buy all sorts of tech gadgets, video games, DVDs (ok, I’m aging myself here), and I played golf every weekend at moderately expensive courses in Fort Myers and Naples Florida, but for the past several years, there’s not been much I want to buy that makes me happier than adding to my stockpile of stocks and index funds.

My initial plans were to stick with my current line of work, keep maxing out accounts and hit my FIRE number before I turned 43. But some things have happened to change that plan. First, I left my previous job and got a nice bump in pay, which of course sped up my pace. I also got excellent performance reviews and have achieved 4.5-5% raises after each of my annual evaluations. Third, stocks have been on a terrific run for most of this period, especially in 2020 after the Covid Crash and I’m sitting at a net worth that I didn’t expect to see for another 2 years.

But it wasn’t all rosy, because things just kept getting busier at work the past year or more. I often found myself exhausted by the end of the day and I’d crash into bed for a nap before I could even leave my bedroom/office at the end of the workday. I’ve been working in the building department of a local government, and we were issuing nearly twice as many new construction single family building permits today than we did 3 years ago when I started this job. And I have touchpoints on more than 50 permits each day, plus phone calls and emails from a couple dozen members of the public (residents, prospective purchasers of property, realtors, insurance agents, etc.) every day at irregular intervals. It’s often maddening trying to get anything accomplished because there will be 3-5 interruptions during a 15-20 minute period. Come to think of it, a few weeks ago, I had 7 phone calls in 17 minutes and I wanted to scream every time I hung up the phone.

So it is for these reasons that I switched up the plans. I have more money than I expected to have, and I have a worse working experience than I projected to have, so I will not be grinding out the next few years just so I can hit my FIRE number and call it quits. I’ve actually always thought I would probably find something that winds up paying me for my time, knowledge or experience in the future, so I’m OK with pulling the plug early. I am aware that this is not me calling it a career at age 38, but I’m not in a rush to find the next paying gig, either.

A decade of draining jobs

My past 10 years have included a period of unemployment in my tiny hometown in Indiana, but at the time I had a negative net worth. After that, I landed a job back down in Florida, but the negotiated salary wound up being 10% less than what had been offered when I initially applied. I moved from that toxic place to what I thought would be a much better position with the State of Florida, which had some perks like traveling around the state and spending 70+ nights per year in a hotel (sometimes on the beach), but I spent 3.5 years as a full-time temporary employee, with no benefits like a pension, vacation/sick time or holidays. I am ending this 10 year period having spent 3 years back in local government. From the beginning, I knew they were leaning a little too hard on my knowledge and expertise (I had just been an expert for the State, after all), but as other experienced people left, I kept losing the little bits of help I had previously had from admin staff to long-timers who’ve been in floodplain management longer than I’ve been out of high school.

I plan to take the next year or so to fully decompress. Included in these plans will be leisure time with my parents and 3 living grandparents back in my hometown in Indiana. I also plan to road-trip around the country, since most of my traveling throughout my life has been back-and-forth from Indiana to Florida, Florida to Indiana, and a smattering of flights around the country the past couple years (thanks, travel hacking). I got my National Parks Pass, I picked up my CampFI Rock Mountain and EconoMe Conference tickets, and I have few other concrete plans for the next 12+ months. I want to play golf on weekdays with the old men at my hometown golf course. I want to walk all around my hometown and hike through the National Parks and Monuments that I’ve only seen on TV or in the movies. I want to visit with friends all around the country as I pass through their communities, stopping and chatting with them instead of just texting “hey, thought of you as I pass through _____ today.”

And I want to flip the switch in my head that has been accumulating/hoarding cash and investments the past 10 years and start to live off of my investments and savings. It’s not going to be any good to me if I drop dead at my desk from a heart attack or a stroke, and I’m still my frugal self so I won’t be tempted to spend it all. But I would like to find a balance after a while, so I can make a little bit of income to support my plans and goals, more along the lines of BaristaFI now that I’m past CoastFI. A little consulting work, an odd job here and there, or flipping items could provide enough spending cash to cover my low fixed costs of living, and then I can choose to spend more freely from my savings.

The unfair advantage of local government retirement plans

Speaking of savings, I do want to mention that I have been incredibly lucky in the past 6.5 years to have access to a 457 account. You might think of it as the local/state government version of the 401k, but many municipal workers like police and firefighters retire well before traditional retirement ages like 55 or 65, so the rules are a little different. Those funds can be accessed any time, penalty-free, AFTER separation from service. Since I already left the State of Florida, I can access those funds now, if I wanted, and I’m getting ready to leave this local government job, so those funds will be available to me, too. I don’t plan to blow up my retirement by raiding these funds early, but I have the option to do so, which is as good as money in the bank to me, if the need arises. I also have plenty of Roth IRA contributions and conversions that have “seasoned” the requisite 5 years, so those funds could be withdrawn tax and penalty free. Add in funds held in taxable brokerages and High Yield Savings Accounts, and I have access to enough money that I could make this a 10-12 year long break, if that’s what I really wanted to do.

I have a feeling that something will pop up long before then, which is likely because I’ve already had 4 job opportunities crop up in the past 3 weeks, even though I am definitely not looking to take on something new at this time. I want to take this break to really focus on what matters in life, and what sorts of BS I can avoid now that I no longer “HAVE TO” have a job.

What would you do if you had a year off from work? Any sights that are a must-see or places I should visit? Let me know in the comments if you want me to stop by when I am in your area!

Tagged: Tags FIRE Gap Year investing savings Semi-retirement travel