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Anyone else have someone in your life who is impossible to buy gifts for?
My spouse’s birthday is next week and I thought I had the perfect idea to get them a new phone (they’ve been complaining about their old one a lot but haven’t talked about getting looking for a new one much). Fast-forward to yesterday when they mentioned they were looking at the trade-in value of their current phone ($5). If they buy themselves one before next week I’m going to be so annoyed!
Does it count if I’m that person? 😅
I’m like this too. Having enough money to get anything I could wish for I cannot think of a material gift that I would really appreciate. I would already buy it if I could think of something.
Pretty similar, I don’t want much, and what I do want I tend to buy. It drives my wife nuts because she never knows what to get me.
Update: I had to bust out their gift early because they were about to buy a used one off FB.
At least you beat them to the punch!
My spouse and I stopped doing gifts for each other 9 years ago. If we do buy a gift, it’s random and not tied to a holiday. It’s definitely tied to us being frugal and not wanting to buy unwanted things. Christmas has always been a weird one because our families are the complete opposite.
Do we have many other already FIREd folks here? I FIREd 2 years ago and kind of felt like I lost my online community was I hit my goal. I’m more than happy to share my experience with folks still in the boring middle but am hoping to find some already FIREd folks to discuss the after FIRE life too.
I retired July 1, 2022! It’s been a little stressful figuring some things out, but it’s been great overall. I don’t miss the alarm clock!
I love not having a set schedule. Ive wanted to do volunteering somewhere just for the socializing but having to commit to a set volunteer schedule has held me back from following through on that.
I felt like I needed some structure, so the first 6 months I took a couple of art classes. Now that I am a year into it, I’m ok without things scheduled. But I liked having a gentler introduction into having a bunch of free time. And I am getting better at initiating social times with friends!
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Yep, FIREd Jan of 2022. Was sweating it out last year, but starting to feel a bit better with the markets and inflation this year.
Cool. I had to force myself to stop checking my balances all the time. The transition from saving to spending was very weird psychologically. There was one big dip that had me questioning my decision but I got over it pretty quick when I started thinking about going back to my old job.
I’m FI but not RE (yet).
I FIRE’d March 2023. The first two months I felt really free. I traveled quite a bit and connected with a lot of people. But now that the dust has settled, people no longer seem to care or reach out as much. I’m starting to self-doubt and am sometimes worried if I killed my career. What if I can’t find another job if I need to? What if I get bored? I still check my accounts often and need to remind myself that it’s better to be frugal and bored than working and miserable. :)
Do you think you’ll realistically need to go back to work? Is the lack of social engagement becoming an issue? Genuine questions, not loaded.
I think I’d feel more comfortable spending if I built more cushion by working another 2-3 years. I have so much fear that I’ll run out of money despite my calculations showing I’m okay as is. I feel like the lack of social engagement is/will be an issue. All my family and friends are still working and I don’t always want to hang out every weekend either. I miss talking to my coworkers about things I know really well. Now that I think about it, maybe I’m missing intellectual stimulation…?
Have you looked into clubs, volunteering or something that otherwise might scratch both the intellectual and social itch?
Yes and yes, but recovering from a sports injury so am not able to be super active right now. Catching up on a lot of books and shows though! :)
Hi all, I found my way here after the whole Reddit third party app fiasco. I’m coming from r/financialindependence where I was an off and on regular. Anyone else following the same migration path? If so, how have you found the adjustment to lemmy?
That’s me too. Came from Reddit where I was mostly a lurker. Maybe I’ll be better about contributing this time!
Be the change you want to see!
I migrated around the initial announcement from reddit about the API. Found this community a bit after joining lemmy. I was more on the r/Fire, r/personalfinance, r/leanfire and r/coastfire…but lurked far more than commented.
It’s quite a bit slower around these parts, but give it time it will pickup. Everything is just stabilizing.
hey me too! not as many subscribers are here compared to Reddit but hopefully it will grow with more engagement. The community foundation seems good and I suspect a lot of people are lurking here also.
Came here form Reddit, hope these communities can continue to grow.
I also came from Reddit, mainly r/FIRE. I posted occasionally there, but there was usually enough activity that by the time I read a post, multiple other people had already posted responses similar to what I would have said, so I didn’t feel like I had much to add to the conversation. Also, lots of the main posts were asking for advice or feedback on investing and I don’t have enough confidence in my own investment ideas to recommend anything to others.
I’ve been a manager for the last couple of years. Tomorrow marks the second time in as many years that I’ll have to fire (the not fun kind) someone. By far one of the worst aspects of the job. Anyone else in management?
I took a director role at a previous job because I saw a lot of issues and I wanted the power to fix them. I didn’t know the pain of having to let someone go. After the second firing, I left for a contributor role and vowed to never work in management again. Worst two years of my career.
I have been relatively lucky in that regard. So far all of the involuntary terminations I have had to deal with were a level below me, so I have been involved, but not to the same degree as firing someone I’ve worked with closely. I was starting on a PIP a few years ago with a direct employee, but they took a long-term leave and reorged to another team before we finished.
This year my department has been going through a particularly bad reorg, which included some individuals ending up in roles they didn’t want. One of my directs asked for severence, which was a weird situation and so far one indirect employee has quit.
Overall, I don’t enjoy being in a leadership role, but I can’t make the same pay in a more enjoyable role, so I have stuck with it.
but I can’t make the same pay
I can empathize with this. Theoretically anyone can progress to higher levels and pay at my company but it rarely happens without leadership, and usually also means directly managing people.
What was the context of your firings? As in, was it something mandated or a decision you had to make?
The first was mandated. It happened my first week in the office. The other one was initiated by me with a long, drawn out pip. That one was hard because we had worked together for almost two years and our families became close.
The second one sounds rough. Both of mine have been campus hires that weren’t panning out. I wasn’t close to either but I did put nearly a year in managing and mentoring before throwing in the towel. Sucks in its own way though to fire a kid from their first real job.
Following on DogMom’s post, where is everyone in their journey at the moment or what is your destination?
I’m probably 15 years from FIRE on my current path, which would put me in my late 50s. I really just started on my path a few years ago, much later than some. For a long time we were a family of 4 with a single income and two sets of student loans in MCOL area, so it took us more than 10 years just to break even. I’m sure we could have made some better choices along the way, but nothing I can think of that would have made a significant difference.
My hope right now is to make some major lifestyle choices, including relocating, in about 10 years and shift to a coast FIRE or barista FIRE plan. I’m not sure if my wife will be ready then, or even if I will be, but I would like to leave the corporate world and do something more enjoyable with my time. Alternatively, I would be open to doing remote work in Europe (probably Italy) for the rest of my corporate career at some point. My current job allows me to be remote in the US (with some limits), but not international.
Currently our goal is to retire in Italy. Five years out would likely be the soonest we would go, but probably only if I could maintain my income for another five years.
I’m pretty uncertain of what our exact path will be at this point. We’ve got two young kids, with the youngest at 7 months. Theoretically we could pull the trigger now, but I feel strongly that we should keep my income and cheap insurance at this point. Partly my reluctance is because my income has greatly increased the last few years and it’s sizable relative to net worth.
The very rough plan is:
- Do a few more wish list home renovations
- Finish front loading the kids’ 529s
- Pay off the house
I’m thinking 3-5 years from now. That puts me in my early 40s and the kids in school. Hopefully by that point we’ll both have a better view on what “normal” looks like for expenses as well as have built a large financial buffer.
Are you already where you want to be, geographically? One of our limitations is that our kids are old enough that we don’t want to relocate until they finish school, so that has us staying where we are for 5+ years. If we had been in the same position 10 years ago, they would have been young enough that we would have been willing to do an international move if we could work out the details. Learning a new language would be rough for them at this point of their education.
Ideally (for me), we would leave as soon as they graduate (or close to it) and they would come with us, then they could take a break to learn the language before going to college.
Maybe I’m just too old or burnt out but right now just the idea sounds exhausting 😆. As things stand I don’t see us moving home base for the next 17 years and, if I’m honest, I doubt we’ll leave the country outside of vacation.
Sounds exciting for you all though!
