It doesn’t matter why you want to try and retire early, there is no question that this idea is growing increasingly more popular by the day. Driven by the FIRE movement, the goal and hope are to accumulate enough money to retire early and truly enjoy life before it becomes harder to travel and move around as one grows older.
For this Redditor, having a great salary has provided them with significant financial opportunities and the means to retire early. The hard reality is that under other circumstances, she might have stayed working where she was, had it not been for an awful boss who made her leave, a decision she doesn’t regret one bit.
Why Try Early Retirement
If you are someone who wants to retire early, the hope is that you have saved enough money between the ages of 20 and 50, possibly even in the early 50s, to call it quits. The hope is that if you have either had a high salary or lived frugally enough, you have more than enough money set aside to leave the workforce for good.
Unfortunately, in this Redditor’s case, we have someone who was making enough money to be able to ChubbyFIRE, but also had to contend with a problematic and frustrating boss. This meant that she had to accelerate her plans to leave her high-income role ahead of schedule to improve her mental state, rather than going to bed every night constantly thinking about work.
One thing that is missing is the ability to spend more time with her young children and create lasting memories. The way the stress affected her in her old job made her a less attentive mom than she would have liked. This is absolutely something she hopes to rectify with this new role and again in a future early retirement scenario.
Why Return to Work?
Instead of feeling overjoyed about not working, the original poster still had concerns about money. There was a feeling that she had had enough, but not enough to feel like the family could do whatever they wanted without considering money. The hope was to take on some home projects, but the reality is that the fear of overspending sometimes takes precedence in one’s mind, even if enough money is set aside.
As a result of being able to retire early, this 42-year-old Redditor found herself in a unique position where a friend asked if they wanted to come to work for them. Earning just around $450,000 a year, they are going to try for another three years in the workforce and see how things go.
The primary motivator here is to build a larger nest egg and create a substantial buffer that will enable the husband to retire in five years, once he reaches his target date, and take advantage of a small pension. Another motivator is that her mood didn’t really improve after retiring early, and that even with less stress and more free time, she still didn’t find herself in a position where she could do the things she wanted.
What Is The Right Move?
It’s not on us to say if this was the right move for this Redditor overall, but it’s hard to ignore that if someone is in a poor mental health situation, sometimes you have to choose yourself over money. In her case, setting a three-year goal for this new work to see how things go, knowing that she can quit at any time, is giving her far less stress than her old position. Whether it works out is something only time will tell, but everything suggests this is a better scenario.
If she can earn more money, there are some benefits, including achieving one of their primary goals, which is buying a larger home. There is also the consideration of building a larger cash buffer to cover emergencies, such as family members needing help or any other unexpected event.
The hope is that with this new role, not only can she find her peace while still earning a good income, but also enable her husband to walk away from his job in five years. As he will gain a pension after five more years of employment, this, combined with her additional three years of work with her friend, would likely provide them with the buffer they lacked the first time around. In addition, she can see the family traveling more, something she was hesitant to do the first time around.
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