Guest Post:
– Fear of the unknown?
– Fear that your money will run out?
– Fear of losing the paycheck?
– Fear of not having Healthcare?
– Fear of what others might think or say?
– Fear of losing your career identity?
– Fear of not knowing what to do?
I visited each of these fears one by one.
– Fear of the unknown?
We live in a world of unknowns, unknowns each and everyday, yet we wake up, and embrace each and every day with fresh optimism. If early retirement does, in fact, raise the fear of the unknown, why do we not embrace this retirement fear with the same fresh optimism that we approach each unknown day.
– Fear that your money will run out?
As long as the government stays solvent, I will always have social security. And fear that my money will run out is ultimately the fear of the unknown which is a baseless fear. And if the “shite” does happen to hit the fan for me financially, I can always bag groceries at the local grocery store, or work at a garden store, anything but the traditional COJ.
– Fear of losing the paycheck?
Is this even a legitimate fear? This fear is not having faith in the plan that I have been grinding away at for all of these years. I have saved, I am debt free, I plan to live a modest lifestyle, am relatively healthy, so I am not losing a paycheck, I will still have a “paycheck” that was planned for, but more importantly, instead of thinking of this as the fear of losing a paycheck, think of it as gaining my freedom from the COJ.
– Fear of not having Healthcare?
Another baseless fear, with my retirement income being less than 60k, I should be able to get healthcare via the ACA with enough subsidies to make my healthcare extremely affordable, if not free, until at least Medicare is available.
– Fear of what others might think or say?
Why is this even a fear? Ultimately, who cares what others think or say? Anyone voicing objections to, or tries to throw shade on my early retirement plan, is either financially uneducated, jealous, or they are projecting their own fear of retiring early onto me, their thinking is, if they can’t or are not willing to retire early, why should I be able to.
– Fear of losing your career identity
Anyone whose identity is so wrapped up in their careers has more to worry about than retiring early. I work, put in 100% each and everyday, I do a good job, get good reviews, do what is required of me, that is the extent of my obligation to the COJ.
– Fear of not knowing what to do
In life, we should all have interest that we like to engage in separate of our COJ. I personally like to read, I write poetry, I write children’s books, and have an idea for a work of fiction, I am an avid photographer, like to bird watch, love to hike, exercise regularly, as well as wanting to travel extensively. So there should be no fear of not knowing what to do, the fear should be not having enough time to do all that I want to do.
My Story
My original goal was to retire late spring of 2024 at the ripe old age of 58, but my COJ is starting to affect my health with the stress due to increased workloads with no end in sight.
I am recently divorced, my ex-spouse is still in our house, which I still own half of. I am in an apartment currently. The plan is to sell the house Spring 2024 when my daughter graduates high school. When the house sells, my portion cleared should be around 175k. We share custody of my daughter.
My basic expenses while I am working is $5000/mo, the plan when I retire is to nomad travel, and based on my extensive research, cost of living of the areas I am looking at is $3000/mo. When I travel, I don’t plan to have a home base. When I get through traveling, I will find a place to settle down, either renting or buying something modest.
I feel that I have adequate retirement monies in 401k, Roth IRA, Traditional IRA, Rollover IRA (780k) and cash (175k) to last me through my retirement, the only real obligation that I have is to put my daughter through college starting fall of 2024. I have 60k saved for college, and with hopeful scholarships, I should be able to cover the rest with my cash. I plan to take social security at 62 to the tune of 2300/mo.
Given this information, I feel that I have enough to retire now, so why the delay? I am revisiting the “fears” daily to hopefully gain the courage to finally pull the retirement trigger sooner rather than later, as later is not guaranteed.