Category Archives: FIRE

FIRE.198 Are you, who you are?

Do people leaving a career and venturing into the amazing world of FIRE, retirement, freedom, fun, and the unknown accurately believe they will become a great new person? Does one’s purpose lie just beyond that final pay period?

The Monday after a long multi-decade career doesn’t energize someone into a magical new being. There is no victory lap and no celebration parade on Monday. There is no amassing of grandeur. It’s just a Monday without work. It’s not much different—yet better— than a Monday holiday.

On this very first Monday life will and should feel great. The first week will be great. For many people, paying attention to their feelings on Sunday afternoon will show a relaxed—no work tomorrow—perspective.

Over the weeks—or months—this feeling may lessen for many.

I have a theory from the many people I’ve talked with who’ve retired/left their careers.

Theory:

Who you are before retirement is probably who you will be when you start retirement.

The good:

If you are a happy, curious, active, or energized person during your career life, then as you enter retirement you will maintain many of the same traits.

The bad:

if you were anxious, bored, looking for something more, pushing yourself to meet the next goal, then after your career life you may possess (be possessed) in much of the same trails.

Retirement is not a magic day of personal change. It is a HUGE day of working/employment change, but you are not a new person because you turned in your badge.

Consider the person who was laid off. It’s pretty clear that most of those people may not be happy. They will be inserted into a possible retirement mode against their will, and possibly far from their target timeline. This consternation is understandable.

I want to talk about retirement by choice.

Planning for life without work is more than just daydreaming. While daydreaming before retirement is good—and daydreaming in retirement is great—it’s a good idea to have a plan of action. Actions that you want to take during your hundreds/thousands of weeks.

You can make your life what you want:

The idea of retiring to something, not from something is mostly valid. In the same sense, you make a plan/route to drive somewhere for a reason. Retirement should not be similar to the act of stepping out of a car at a location/destination and wondering why you are there. It’s very, very helpful to know why you want to be somewhere/somewhen. Your timing is an important aspect of “when.”

You are who you are…you’ve been this way for a LONG time. That’s OK.

You do have the opportunity at any point in your life to attempt to change, improve, and even experiment with almost anything. These changes can be internal or external.

Imagine the opportunity to change your stressed-out-get-off-my-lawn-because-I-had a bad work-day personality for a relaxed, no worries type perspective. Imagine how your ticker and blood vessels may thank you for this pressure shift.

I don’t believe these shifts have on day one of retirement. I believe you are, who you are/were, but you can shift, with intentionality in an attempt to be/feel better. THIS IS NOT AN AUTOMATIC, MAGICAL CHANGE.

One other random thought I have; you don’t have to grow everything. You can shrink some things. You can look at what aspects of your weeks/life you don’t love and probably let some of those go. You can lessen your commitments. You may be able to assign away tasks you dislike. You may shift physical, mental, or emotional tasks to others who have time, are specialists, or, at least are not you.

You are in (mostly) full control of your ship.

*** Nothing in this article is to be construed as financial advice. I am not a financial planner, nor do I pretend to be. You should always consult your own professional when seeking advice. This post is not a piece of literary mastery, just a random thought I had.

FIRE.197 Have you ever wandered…

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To play on the title from my last post…what’s out there?

Have you had the ability to take a chunk of time and roam around? Did you do this while on vacation and in a town somewhere?

Did you roam as part of vacation from location to location—wherever you may roam and end up?

Did you roam around your hometown and see what’s out there that you haven’t thought about or experienced?

I think of roaming as gathering info, experiences, and perspectives.

Roaming physically is much like my curiosity post on learning new topics/subjects, except you’re in different locations.

I’m pretty good at roaming when I’m on vacation. Of course, we like to see some tourist sites, but we also like to see how the locals live if we can. We get off the beaten path somewhat. We almost always take a day trip to another town close by, especially if we’re visiting a big/famous city. Those side trips are usually very cool, and usually totally unplanned on what to see. We’ve had lunch in an old jail in Sweden, visited plantations, tried to order food where NOBODY spoke English (multiple times), etc, etc.

Almost all of our wandering has been good to great, nice, and enriching. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Here’s the sad part of this post. We don’t do this very well locally. We just had lunch with some friends visiting Phoenix and they did all these activities and adventures that I’ve never done. I had to have them tell me about my city. When I told them I’ve lived here for over 30 years, I felt disappointed in myself. I did work most of the first 20 years, but I’ve been FIREd for 10 years with less than—far less than—expected wandering accomplishments.

I’ve got work to do. I’ve got wandering to do.

FIRE.196 Have you ever wondered…

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Do you wonder about things? Do you find yourself googling and gathering data and turning that data into information?

Do you enjoy building up knowledge, skills, and abilities over time? Do you find satisfaction in understanding more things?

I have really noticed my interest in Curiosity.

I love getting information about everything. There is so much information available to us today—in just a matter of seconds, or even a fraction of a second.

Availability

It seems like almost everything known to humans (I don’t think we know the true details of possible extra-terrestrial visitors from the past—if they were/are here) is available on the internet. I have seemed to maintain the ability to avoid so much of the useless/fake/time-wasting bits of data transmitting around.

Stone Age Progression

I remember being able to gather data from USENET newsgroups in the early 90s and from Mosaic browser usage in the mid-90s. When Yahoo, AltaVista, and Google appeared in the mid 90s it was like a whole new world of data gathering. I was sad this became more prevalent after I graduated and couldn’t use them for school.

Today the search and delivery of information is truly unimaginable. We can get basics to advanced to the highest levels of comprehension for nearly every subject. I often think, “Why do some many people waste their time with useless 10-second videos from irresponsible sources?” I’m sure that’s just old-man thinking.

What & Why

I love learning new things. I love the ability to learn new things.

I have found one of the most valuable things to me is curiosity. Wondering and finding the answer, or at least some information about the topic.

I have a HUGE list of items to dig into. I don’t call it my To Do List, but instead, my Don’t Forget List. It lets me take a quick note of something I’m curious about that I can dig into at a future time.

Even though I don’t work at a job and have LOTS of unscheduled time, I find it hard to really allocate time to dive into so many of the topics I’m interested in. I believe that true structure for learning would be quite beneficial. I’m working on that. It’s another way I wish to be a work in progress, rather than a steady-state life.

Sources

I used to read a lot of web articles and blog posts. For the past couple of years, I have tried to read less because so much of the content is very, very similar..

I do listen to a lot of podcasts. It’s interesting how much I love music and keep thinking that music is less enriching to my day/life. That’s sad to me. I am trying to learn more about playing and recording music. That is one way I can gain new skills while doing something I love.

I have been checking out more ebooks from my libraries. I think I have 6 library cards. It’s so nice how most of my libraries link to my Amazon Kindle account. I ALWAYS read each morning on my “commute.” It’s doubly the best way to start my day.

Tech Tool of Importance

I am so thankful for my Apple watch (when it works well) and I can tell Siri to “create reminder” for whatever I need on my don’t forget list. In a few short seconds I can have a reminder for later while I continue doing whatever it is I didn’t want to interrupt. Multitasking/task switching is much harder when you’re older and have so much you’re thinking about but not necessarily concentrating on.

Future Power

I’ve often been thinking about the SloGo and NoGo phase of life. I believe this curiosity trait I’ve nurtured will help me find enjoyment in those phases—much more than if I didn’t want to expand my mind…well my knowledge at the moment…I still struggle with the conceptual details of neuroplasticity.

I believe curiosity is invaluable.

FIRE.195 Retirement Drift

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Are you on track? Are you moving along the path you have planned or the path you want to head down?

Drift

Like in surfing, where you’re sitting in the lineup, outside the break, you feel like you’re stationary in one place. Yet, after a while, you notice the current has drifted you up/down the shoreline. Sometimes your position is a few feet in one direction, and other times you are many, many yards from where you paddled out.

The surfers who know what they’re doing (not me, not at all), stand on the beach and pick the break that they want to ride that day and paddle out. They have a target break that looks the best for that session. But what happens when the current has shifted you away from your planned target?

I don’t know exactly what my FIRE lifestyle target was. I knew I wanted to set my own schetchle—to exercise when I wanted, and to do whatever activities I wanted each day. I don’t think I really had any projects or travel goals lined up in the immediate honeymoon period (maybe I was a $lacker all along?). I did maintain a calendar that generally had a weekly schedule of exercise and dates of travel to our different home locations for the upcoming year, but nothing too grand.

The Opposite of Drift

I’ve come to appreciate my FIRE groove. I feel like I’ve locked into the pocket and just rock each day in the manner I choose. It’s truly outstanding.

Lately, however, I’ve started to wonder: “As I’ve stayed in my groove so long, is it wearing deeper and deeper turning into a rut? I did an interweb search and found that a rut is: “A habit or pattern of behavior that has become dull and unproductive but is hard to change.” Uh oh. Am I dull and unproductive?

First, I’m not unproductive. Yes, I definitely am less productive than I could be. But not too much less productive than I want, or need to be. To help with that pressure I changed the name of my ToDo list to a Don’t-Forget list. Pressure removed. Bonus: memory management process implemented to help not forgetting things.

Second, am I dull? Well, my wife would say I’m much more of a pain in the ass than dull. Does that count? I am kind of boring and quite far from the “normal” people and conversations I hear around me. My appearance and interests are not dull, but maybe my lack of overall activities are. I really wish I did better at our We-Day/Wednesdays. Those were supposed to push us to do more, be more, live more, more, more, more.

A new “L” word

When I think about doing more, or the lack of it, I think about the term languishing,

Languish: lacking vitality. That seems like an old retired guy classification, doesn’t it?

I then thought, well if one is in a state of languish, then is that not anguish? Or leading to anguish?

How to flourish

I don’t want to be that old guy, or at least THAT old of a guy, right now.

I want to be super sure that I’m loving (most of) every week I have in my LifeInFIRE.

I want to be sure I feel the reward of our FIRE position. I want to feel the reward of an amazing wife and family. I want to be sure I recognize and do some of the things I love each day and each week.

I want to recognize doing something outside my comfort zone may be freaky, but may turn out to be great. (that’s a totally glass-half-full position, vs “turn out bad”).

Full Speed? (At Times?)

When we went race-karting last month, turn #2 was a nasty full-speed 180. In our three races (38? Laps) I must have tried at least 25-30 different attacks on that turn. I never once felt like I nailed it. It was a challenge every single time. Sometimes there was traffic in front of me, sometimes it was people chasing me (aggressively), and others it was me all alone, but I still thought about that turn ahead of time and wanted to best it, or at least better it.

Is life not any different? We go outside our comfort zone—like racing karts. Some of us are full-throttle, using very little brakes, and still want to improve.

Far From Conclusion

So, are we drifting in our activities in FIRE? Are we floating off our planned course? Or are we following a natural path of change?

I dread the thought that at 53 I’m sinking into a nice rut of life/routine that I’ve built without seeing what other tracks are out there.

Keep exploring life.

FIRE.194 Wasting or Rewarding

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What is a waste of time? We’ve heard this phrase over and over—all the time. Is it a structure of our driven-to-succeed society that concerns us with such detailedness?

Can time be wasted? Or does time just pass no matter what?

Is looking back at passed time a bad or good thing?

In my LifeInFIRE I have a very different view/respect of time. I no longer base my “time” reference on my after-work or weekend hours. I also have a clear understanding that I may have an average of 1400 weeks left. Of those, 700 may be full MoJo/GoGo weeks. The later remaining weeks will be slower or nothing weeks.

I thought of this post idea (“my random thoughts”) while lying in bed the other morning—as I often do—for 20-30 min after waking up. Is this time wasted? Sure, I could have completed multiple items on my don’t-forget list each day, or any of the days. Or am I using my time wisely, reflecting on the previous day, and the day ahead?

Almost always when I am out of bed—upright/vertical—I am so grateful for my day. I have taken on a positive mindset (a large percentage of the time) and know how amazing of a life we’ve built. Decades of having less than others while enjoying life and simultaneously planning for our future. [Were we the “Jo” of the “Jones” with less?]

Having taken 20-30 minutes of my day to do something other than activities, I have instead taken that time for my mindset (I don’t think I do “mental health,” but I definitely do Metal Health). Not very many people are lucky enough to wake up slowly and take in the amazingness of their life. I want to pause there—do you stop and think about the amazingness of your life? Do you think about how the greatness in your life? Of course, we have stuff that sucks or can suck at the moment/phase, but we have so much more greatness. I feel instead, that so many people are shocked (buzzered) into their rush-around day.

I’m not there yet (as of this 2024 writing), but many people take a 20-minute nap to “recharge their batteries.” They often wake up from the nap and have enough energy for another round of accomplishments for the day. Isn’t that just another form of taking a few minutes for yourself to energize? Are those 20 minutes wasted time? If not, then why would mind-energizing first thing in the morning be any different? We’re all just energy and carbon after all…or something life that. (that was a purposeful typo).

While I often get engrossed in some stuff on my computer and tend to accomplish less “home/life” things, I don’t feel like I’m wasting time, even as it’s ticking by. I enjoying my time. I’m learning, gathering data, giving, and being curious among other things.

I’m curious if you purposely allocate your time to what you enjoy.

FIRE.193 Hell yes or no, or Yes

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It’s time to say yes to most things.

Why wobble on decisions? Why wait to do something later, in the future? Why over-calculate the cost, time, value, and importance-wasting time?? Why not say Yes, NOW?

Yeses

I’ve had the opportunity to go on multiple trips with my FIRE $lackers friends/family. Kathy and I joined almost 50 Rock Retirement Club members (and most of my $lackers gang) on a wonderful Alaskan cruise. I also had the opportunity to go to Bali and hang out with 50 FI friends.

I’ve purchased a few things from cars to guitars to a storage shed to make our lives better and more enjoyable. I’ve watched Kathy sit in first class enjoying the comfort (while I enjoyed sitting in the back and keeping some funds to pay for better expenses on the trip).

We’ve enabled the freedom to do almost anything we want for this MoJo decade. It turns out that we aren’t quite able to complete spending the target/allowable amount most months. Yet, the knowing that we can is amazing. Deferring spending was pretty great.

I’ve given more and more of my Playcheck to people/causes that I believe are worthy. These are things that are worthy enough for the allocation of my money to something other than me and my personal playcheck spending requirements (Health, Fitness, FIRE lifestyle, Tech). As you can see from my deliberate planning goals, I plan, organize, and think through almost EVERYTHING. Hence, the need to just go for it once in a while—say Yes.

Intent

I’ve frequently heard the wise ones around me say “It’s either hell yes or no.” I get it. That forces you to prioritize the amazing stuff that you really want to do. But it’s also possible that being greedy or overly cautious with allocating our time causes us to miss something that may be delightful (that’s definitely not a Kevin word).

So, do we attempt to live by the powerful Hell Yes or No, or do we embrace the ability (in FIRE) to just say “Yes” more often and jump into the adventures/activities that life will allow us?

Outcomes

True, some of the activities may turn out to be duds or worse, but many may turn out to be wonderful and possibly set up future activities or even better; friendships. I see over and over how relationships are one of the five core values for a better life. Maybe saying “yes” will enhance the relationship variable. It may even enhance the active lifestyle variable.

Bali was a “yes” that I said without any consideration for expense, time, or life phase. I had friends heading over in Sept so the January before I jumped right in, 9 months early, no regrets. It’s true there was some concern over the 24 hours of travel each way, but it is what it is. I was way too cheap to spend the extra $6000 for business class lie-flat seats (even though I should have) and instead purchased what seemed to be a good alternative in Premium Economy, the same as we used for France in 2014. This year’s FI Freedom Retreat in Bali event sold out in 2 ½ hours!

Reflection

Is this trip a good way to use my QTR? I can’t think of negatives, nor can I count all the positives.

Are there other intentional decisions I should be making to better my life, absolutely. It’s an ongoing process of improvement, or attempted bettering.

So, is “hell yes” the goal, or is being intentional with your time and energy? Hell Yes.

FIRE.192 What’s Time Worth?

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This is one of those “should I mow my own lawn for an hour every two weeks or is my time worth more than that” post. That mowing question is similar to my original thought but probably fewer overall hours per month than what I’m thinking about—at least for most people.

Incremental Saving

I feel as though I’ve moved away from the general FI journey community’s position based on multiple fairly recent podcasts discussing strategies like turning off netflix or Disney for a month, and turning your heat down and wearing sweaters. I’m not saying that saving money is wrong. I’m not saying that taking the 5 minutes to suspend service is wrong. I just feel like this is a very personal journey and such an extremely minor target of saving $10-15 per month may not move the overall balance. Though, yes, multiple saving categories over time do add up.

Time Thieves

Yet there is a concept I wonder about often—time-thieving ads on streaming services.

When you want to watch something on your TV (old people) or your device (young people) how do you feel about in-show ads?

If I want to watch a show that has 45 minutes of content (netflix, curiosity stream, MasterClass, Wondrium, Amazon Prime video), I don’t want 10-15 minutes of ads wasting my time every single relaxing hour.

I have owned a DVR for our satellite service since Microsoft Ultimate TV in 2001. To me, the ability to reclaim an hour of time from a lazy 4-hour TV viewing session (or hockey game) was worth far more than the $10/mo service fee.

I think about streaming services that have “premium” no-ads pricing for an additional $3-10/mo (think Amazon Prime, Netflix, Paramount+, Peacock, etc). Even if I only watch 5 nights of video from any of those per month, I’m saving 3-4-5 hours per month of my time. To me, that is well worth $10/mo.

Monthly Plan

I should be clear, yes, I do subscribe to Peacock+ premium just for July then turn it off at the end of the month. I often subscribe to Paramount+ in Nov/Dec when Amazon has their $2/mo special. I just turned off my AppleOne family plan which went from $30 to $42/mo removing AppleTV+, AppleNews, etc. I will turn on AppleTV for one month, maybe twice per year, but not to save money exactly, but rather to lessen my frustration when there’s “nothing to watch” on the service. I swear, I spend 30+ minutes per night looking at the little rectangles of shows, not finding anything, even though I have “my playlists” set up everywhere. What?!

My main thought is, that I pay for no ads when I have a streaming service so I can avoid wasted (commercial) time and frustration.

I also pay for Global Entry, TSA PreCheck, Walmart+ delivery, extra legroom on some flights, and some other time-saving/life-enhancing programs. We NEVER get more time once it has passed.

Learn

Each night when we watch TV we often try to make sure we “learn something.” (The worst ads are when watching YouTube while on the spinning bike and their stupid commercial interruptions (bam $25/mo spent on sanity—and often better videos/shows than other services). Learning while exercising seems like habit-stacking.

Included for Free

I am aware that some services and subscriptions have bundles that include “free” services. Our Walmart+ delivery service comes with paramount+ ad version, which is almost useless, or at least commercially frustrating to me so I don’t use it. I could upgrade for $60 to the no-ads plan, but that requires a year of commitment. I’d rather pay $15-20 for one month (or a $2 Amazon Prime deal) and be in/out—done.

Wasting Away?

This seems like a dumb post, but are you wasting your life/time with ads, just interruptions, and not allocating your money to what you enjoy the most (definitely not commercials—not even super bowl commercials for me)?

I love the concept of using your money to add what you love, and using your money to remove what you dislike. That is one power of “wealth.” The power to better your life. That’s just my random thought from my LifeInFIRE.

FIRE.191 Due Day,Deux, Do, Do’s, Dos…

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Yeah, having freedom, being independent, flexibility to choose, gratituding, they’re all benefits of FIRE.

FIRE allows the person(s) to pursue their passion and dive into something they love, or many things they love. But what if someone’s not diving in? What if a person is just looking at the water, or sticking their toe in? Is this FIRE person fully utilizing the time they have garnered?

Tiiiiimmee

I recently posted about having/wanting All the Time. I said I didn’t want to be bound by appointments and commitments. I didn’t want to have to be somewhere or doing something at a specific time. I didn’t want the hassle associated with “things” like that. Yeah, it’s all about me.

Well, it’s also quite possible that a lack of schedule, structure, and even passions leads to a lack of any sort of accomplishment by each evening, or worse, each week as a whole.

I want to make sure I “do” something each day. I’m also targeting doing two or more accomplishments each day. Deux, Dos, etc. I’m just focusing on each day.

There is no way I could ever commit, or follow, the daily theme model for a week. The thought of trying to do the same type of activity (family, learn, household, volunteer, etc) for an entire day is so far from fathomable it’s laughable.

I am working on (which means “considering” and possibly attempting to) creating timeslots in my days for the many different activities I’m interested in doing/accomplishing.

Tool Strategy

Google Keep, Google Calendar, and Google Tasks let me organize and track my thoughts. Note: I use google so I can type interests into (older-man style) my PC, rather than on my phone. I can view or edit these items anywhere. Continuity is wonderful.

Categories

Health Chores Tasks Errands Money Work Learn Music Read Help Hide, become proficient with music recording, learn more foreign language words (not learn “a” language—whom I kidding), learn more technical skills, figure out a long-term Roth conversion strategy, do more sporting adventures, etc. There is so much I strive for.

Commitment, not

I think I’ll target a loose structure of two things per day. This will allow me the opportunity to go beyond two and say “I did THREE things today,”—overachiever. “Three things today” will qualify me as a fully retired person. Actually, that would qualify as a busy and successful fully-retired person, at least from my count. Under-promise and over-deliver.