Operation Endgame

Hey friends, let's pick it up where we left off from the last post.  As you may be aware from my many rants about it on the blog, for the past few years my work situation has felt like this.  Sure I've been looking for a new job and sure I've gotten lots of interviews and one job offer but nothing that really looks any different.

The full picture is this:

It's time for me to tell you what I've been thinking about for the past few months and officially launch Operation Endgame.  Let's figure out how much longer I'm going to stare at that open door before I walk out of it.

My Work Options

Option #1: stay in my sucky job and continue to be unhappy - the default outcome.

Option #2: get a new job and quit my sucky job - the preferred outcome.

Option #3: tell my sucky job to shove it with the traditional two weeks notice without having another job lined up - not preferred but definitely an option.

Option #4: work out a deal with my boss to leave the company at the end of the year.  This gives me a bit more money and keeps us on our cushy insurance for the rest of the year so that we don't have to start over on a new deductible mid year (saves $0 if everyone stays healthy/saves a few thousand if something happens).  I think work would go for this because it keeps me on the desk until my boss gets back from maternity leave, and they tend to be very slow about hiring.  In the event that I get a new job by the end of the year, I'll renege and leave with a two week notice.  This is my current plan

Note to anyone who wants to play along at home - telling your employer that you want to leave at a future date is risky.  They are under no obligation to keep you on until your preferred date.  I'm only doing this because I can afford it and I think I'll go mental if I keep up the act that everything is just fine for much longer.

The Timeline

My boss's boss is on vacation until the end of August, so there's no one to quit to until then.  This gives me one last shot to change my mind/have something amazing happen on the job search front.  It wouldn't be nice for me to quit on her first day back, and oh ho a few days after her return is when I become eligible for my first stock vesting in the new company (which will either be free money in a few years or total garbage depending on what these clowns do with the business).  My current intention is to quit on August 28.

What's Next

Here's where it gets cute - once I'm rid of the toxic job, I may or may not go back to work. I'll continue to apply to jobs in hopes of finding that special unicorn, but I won't sign up for a seat in the next available jail cell.  I'll also be open to taking contract roles, so maybe I'll work a bit here and there.

But wait you're saying, you have a family and you said in the last post that you're the breadwinner for insurance in your house.  You've got teenagers and one of your dreams is to have them graduate from college with no student loan debt (actually I don't remember if I've ever shared this on the blog, but yes starting the boys out in life owing nothing to no one is high on my list).  So why are you talking about leaving your job?

Just a few years ago I would never ever have considered leaving a job with nothing lined up or considered the possibility of not working. So what's changed? 

TL&DR I'm older and my financial situation is looking pretty sweet.

A Look Inside My Wallet

When I was 22, I graduated from college with no career prospects and got a temp job for $6 an hour.

Around the same time, my parents heard about a book called Your Money or Your Life.  They read it from cover to cover and then passed it on to me.  While I was sitting in my temp cubicle racking in $6 an hour, I read about financial independence and the tales of folks who started from nothing, saved their dough, and left the rat race behind.  I took notes.

That's as far as I went with financial independence, or FI as we used to call it in those days.  I saved all my spare change and split it between money in the bank and mutual funds that seemed to have good rates of return.  I didn't make very much money back then, but between the ages of 22 to 39 I bought a house, made it through a year long stint of un/under employment during the Great Recession, paid for a grad degree out of pocket, and built up a very nice FU fund.

After grad school I started making moar money and slowly started spending more money, but I also started doing cute tricks like maxing out my 401k and HSA (Health Savings Account).  I was relatively happy in my job, so I just kept socking away money with no goal.  I acquired a family along the way, and went from being an "I" to a "we".  The hubs and I started with completely separate finances, but over time we've merged a few things together.  We handle money a bit differently, but compatibly.  I'm better at investing (lol put money in an index fund and leave it there) and he's better at big ticket items like houses and cars.  Our superpower as a couple is calling each other out anytime that one of us gets too cheap.

A few years ago I was amused to see this article in The New York Times about the FI movement.  These days it's called FIRE - Financial Independence Retire Early.  Lots of the FIREees profiled in the article are bloggers, and I enjoyed digging into the blogs and reading how the cool kids do it nowadays.  But it was all for entertainment purposes.  I'm all in favor of not working if you don't want/have to, but I didn't understand why everyone had such an issue with their jobs.  Sheesh if your job sucks just find a new one.

A few months ago the follow up NYT article showed up in my internet world, and there was a section that addressed this: "Instead of leaving the work force, why not find a more rewarding job?".  Yeah that's exactly what I was thinking!!!  The answer: "they didn't consider that option...they were so burned out from their jobs by the time they quit they still look back on the experience with something akin to post-traumatic stress" 

My jaw dropped.  Yes, this describes my situation to a T.  Two years ago when I left my previous job the idea of not working wasn't something that I ever imagined.  Today it's looking mighty appealing.  A good chunk of the inspiration has been from starting to spend our investments.

What Happened When We Started Spending our Investments

I have a lot of experience with saving money, and as you may have guessed, not so much experience with taking it out of investments and spending it.  The early results have been very positive.

Experiment in Spending #1

Remember that HSA?  I haven't contributed anything to it since I left my previous job two years ago (that had the kind of insurance that makes you eligible to contribute to an HSA) and we've had a ton of medical expenses so you'd figure we'd have used that sucker up by now.  Except we haven't.  The balance is half in cash and half in investments, and that sucker just seems to regrow itself every time we take money out.

Experiment in Spending #2

The hubs and I both hold 529 (college savings) accounts for the boys, which goes back to the days when we had completely separate finances.  He started his accounts when the boys were small, I started mine when we got married and I had extra cash from selling my house.  By freak coincidence the balances in the accounts are very close.

Hubs told me that saving for college was hopeless.  I told him that based on what I'd just paid for my graduate degree that he was talking nonsense.

So who was right?  I don't mean to say I told you so (much), but now that we have a price tag for stepson #1's degree, it's going to be about what the two of us have set aside for him.  And then Mr. Smarty Pants got himself a partial scholarship so the current projection is that he will almost certainly have money left over from his 4 year degree.  My early research says that leftover 529 funds can be kept in the 529 account if he ever wants to go to grad school, or he can transfer the funds to a Roth IRA (retirement) so that boy is set.

We don't know what school stepson #2 will attend or what the cost will be, but he has two more years of earnings power than his brother does, so it feels pretty safe to say that we've got him covered.

Other Sources of Inspiration

I'll start with the positive role model.  You may have heard the phrase "green with envy", but every Tuesday morning when I go to the blogosphere I turn purple with envy when I read the latest post from A Purple Life.  I've read a ton of finance/FIRE blogs, but she's the clear winner.  I started reading her blog back when she was still working and it's been so fun to watch her plan unfold in what is now year three of retirement.

On the negative side...I've been thinking a lot about the concept of what is enough and some of the icky things that I've seen in the business world.  In that vein of thought, someone like Elizabeth Holmes or these guys have been very inspirational role models for What Not To Do.  Having enough money to take care of yourself and your family is great, but it seems like there are diminishing returns after that.

The Plan

I've got a chunk of money in retirement accounts and a chunk of money in non-retirement investments.  Based on what I spend, I should be able to comfortably fund my lifestyle from the age of now (48) to the age when I can start taking money out of retirement (59.5).  This includes continuing to put money into our joint checking account for shared expenses, continuing to fund the boys' 529 accounts, more travel that I do currently, and little details like my 10 year old car isn't going to last for ever.  It's possible that the investment returns will be more than I spend, so I might get to have my cake and eat it too.  Like I said, I'm open to another job or doing contract work so the odds that I'll be totally living off my FU money are slim, but I *should* be able to get by on my nest egg.

The tradeoff is that the hubs will have to be our breadwinner for insurance.  That works right now because he likes his job.  We'll spend a bit more than we currently do for my plan, but nothing that's going to wreck us.  Long term there is some risk - he might lose his job, once he sees me not working he might want to join in, he's probably going to want to retire before I'm eligible for Medicare, yada, yada.

My assignment before I quit my job is to find out how this insurance thing works.  I know that a lot of the FIRE squad uses Obamacare with varying results - some people pay nothing and others pay OMG ARE YOU KIDDING ME for healthcare. The system isn't meant to be easy to figure out, but there are people who know the ropes.  I'm tracking down names to talk to someone to figure out what our lives would look like if we were paying for our own insurance.

Why Am I Running My Mouth Instead of Quitting Today?

For practical reasons, it's nice to have the cash from working the rest of the year and a little more time on our insurance.  But that's not the real reason.

The truth is that I'm scared.  All of my research tells me that the jail cell door is really open and that nothing bad will happen if I walk through it.  But the jail cell is what I'm used to.

As far as what I will do if I stop working - it will be exactly the same as now but without that pesky work in the way.  I'll get up at the same time as the rest of the family, workout, have me a nice long relax on the internets, possibly study up on stuff that I'm interested in/watch movies, cook dinner for the fam, and take my little side trips when they're away at Boy Scout camp.  Purple is 100% my role model that you don't need to "do" anything in retirement.  I think that after a while I will get bored, but that I'll find things to do.  And/or I may go back to work.

My only fear is that something would happen to us on the health insurance front.  Having been invested in mutual funds since the late 90s, I've weathered plenty of stock market oopsies, so that's not a concern.  What goes down really does come back up.

I would, however, like a bit more time to think about all of this.  I'm leaving my current job because I can afford to send the message that it's not OK to bleed your employees for money.  If I worked for two more years, I'd be 50 which seems like an auspicious age to leave the rat race.  If I worked for six more years, that would see both boys through to the end of their undergrad degrees.  If I worked for 10 more years, that would be when stepson #2 is 26 and we will for sure not have any kids on our insurance.  I'm not seeing a reason to work after the next 10 years - unless something changes and I want to.

Who's heard of FI/FIRE?  At what age do you plan to stop working?  Or have you already made the leap?