Owning some land and an RV seems like an awesome life. … ideally a tow behind, so you can stay mobile and not have to give up your house if you have car problems. … where I am bare land is relatively cheap and living in an rv 9 months would be easy and the 3 you’d want to relocate somewhere warmer. …
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If you don’t mind piss-soaked parking lots, the most practical solution is just to get hired at a trucking mega carrier that will never fire you. You’ll have decent PPO health insurance with in-network options widespread in every state, not just where you “live”. Just don’t hit anything, and they’ll never fire you no matter how late you are on every load. The chain truck stop showers are very clean, and they’re all private rooms with toilet, sink, and shower. This way you’re not dealing with your own gray and black water. And have you seen the inside of a fucking latest gen Volvo or Freightliner? It’s good living in there
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Strongly considering retiring now-ish, 0-3 years, here at 47. I am so sick of the software industry, working for assholes, being judged all the time, feeling old, and by far the worst, the interview grind while the job market sucks.
We have no debt, monthly nut is like $1800, wife is 5 years younger loves her low 6 figure job and she’s on the director+ track. We don’t have John Goodman fuck you money but we have plenty.
My biggest problem is I’d feel like a total asshole having her work all day (mostly from home) while I do whatever. I’d almost certainly continue to make some webapps and see if any stick/make money, but yeah. She loves 1st class travel, europe, michelin restaurants, all that would have to go away.
IDK.
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Consider voluntary work in the community.
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Have a baby.
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Consider staying in your job and decreasing your effort, commitment, and the mental energy you devote to your work. Then you get fired or laid off and at your advanced age for your industry they’d probably have to give you a severance package to avoid an age discrimination lawsuit. This is my retirement plan.
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Learn to cook and start making regular fancy meals? I really feel that you need there to be something in your retirement that makes your wife’s life better for it to work. Otherwise it’s just going to be such an imbalance where your life gets better while hers gets worse that’s it’s going to be hard for her not to resent your decision on some level.
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It sounds like the wife is set to make more money in future years, so your income may become (even more) unnecessary.
I would suggest spending the next two years secretly saving money to help smooth the runway of 1st class excursions until she hits the higher pay grade.
I would not suggest trying to become a Michelin chef lol.
One of the best pieces of advice I can give without being specific about your situation: Retire to something, not from something. It’s common to see people talking about FIRE but just trying to get away from the annoyances of life right now and they don’t have something lined up which often leads to dissatisfaction with the retirement phase. I <3 Jalfrezi and JonnyA ideas in that it gives you things to work on in that phase which help other people and yourself.
I also don’t hate Keed’s approach to leaving the workforce! I’m probably 5-7 years out from seriously considering the Retire Early part of the acronym, but I could see myself going that same route.
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Yeah the Keed suggestion is good I think. Just coast at your job, don’t worry about being some hard working overachiever and just bank a nice salary for 5 more years or something and then retire in your early 50s.
I’m in a kind of similar spot except I’m younger and my wife is basically at the peak of her career path (being a CEO is all she has left to accomplish career wise). She makes so much more than me that I could retire today and our lifestyle wouldn’t change at all. We’ve talked about it but I’d feel shitty leaving her to do everything while I just fuck off around the house and golf everyday. I do most of the cooking and house stuff currently so I’d obviously continue that but I think there would still be some resentment from her, she says it would be ok but I don’t think it would be.
Have you considered opening a bakery
You can do anything you want
Is there something when you first became disillusioned with office work, but before being able to retire, that you were like “I wish I had gone into ____ kind of work”?
Try that out. Be a forest ranger or a fire fighter or drive a dump truck
Operating a bakery sounds like the opposite of retiring if devoting fewer hours of one’s life to work is the objective.
This seems like the kind of situation where talk therapy could be extremely helpful.
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Yeah but he’d never have to pay retail for cake again
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Like are you actually bored with all the things you could spend money on, or are there things that you ruled out at some point, that you could rule back in? Use your salary to buy a classic muscle car or build a homeless shelter
Not to mention keeping the wife happy
Are you sure this isn’t going to be an Osborne Cox moment when you tell your wife you stopped working at the CIA. Your memoir?!
I’m not depressed in any real sense of the word but yeah some kind of financial planner/advice would be a good idea for at least a session, I’ll take a look.
The learning to cook thing is a great idea for this path, I make about 1/3 of the meals now and if we flipped that ratio that’d be fine.
I’m waiting for my next job to start which is just W2 contracting i.e. mostly be left alone to do one thing which will be a great change from my last job where I had to a million things most of which I didn’t want to so we’ll see how I take to that. Getting another 5 years would be very smart though but not sure I have it in me.
Gonna be honest my silent gen father dying would make this decision easy so “I have that going for me”.
You don’t really need to be “depressed” or have major problems to benefit from therapy. It can just be sorting out standard midlife malaise stuff like what do I do with myself if I’m not working, how do I feel about the wife being the breadwinner, how does she feel about all this, etc. It sounds like you guys are going to be fine financially, but the life/relationship stuff is complicated.
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This seems ridiculously low. Any chance you could break it down?