By Anthony Ellis, WCI Columnist
The perception of time changes as one gets older. Time crawled in medical school despite 40 hours of classes and 20 hours of studying per week. Now, at almost age 61 with three children in college, time moves like a Japanese bullet train. The first quarter of a decade since I left my full-time job as the CMO of a community mental health center and chose semi-retirement has been a blur. I have had Thursday to Monday off since September 2022, and I have enjoyed it immensely.
What have we done with all this free time? How do we fill our days? Are we bored? Have I considered working more? Are we happy? Have we become couch potatoes? Do we have regrets? Do I miss all the social aspects of work? Have we made friends? Have our children adjusted to the new state and smaller house? Do we have enough money? Did our plan work? Has our health gotten better? How does our happiness rate? Do I still have life insurance and disability insurance?
Here, for your reading delectation, is the skinny on navigating this new world of working a lot less and living a lot more.
Do I Still Have Life Insurance and Disability Insurance?
My last life insurance policy was a 10-year level term policy that I purchased at age 52, when my prior 20-year term (mistake, should have been 30 years) policy expired. I must have purchased the first $2 million policy a year after residency. After another $1,325 premium in 2025, I will have no life insurance at age 62. I will be self-insured. I am living on the edge now.
I have pre-purchased “a modest receptacle” for my ashes. It is a vintage “Chock full o’Nuts” can from eBay. That is sort of funny for a psychiatrist. The idea came from the movie, The Big Lebowski. I have instructed my wife to place my cremains in it for transport to our mountain retreat, where I can become tree fertilizer. I paid premiums of $2,200 a year for own occupation disability insurance from age 30 to 60. I never upgraded the benefit amount from the original $9,000 per month (mistake). I let it expire this year, even though I am still working two days per week. These two policies were inexpensive at a combined $300 per month. That amount can now pay our property taxes until the next increase.
More information here:
A New Way of Doing Business (and Saving Tons of Money) in My Retirement
Are Physicians Who Retire Early Abusing the System That Made Them Rich?
Do We Have Enough Money?
What a great question. We have had enough so far . . . only 25 years to go. The honest answer to this is . . . no, because we modified the plan.
Our original retirement plan had an income target with half from investments and half from a small no-COLA pension (worth $25,000 per year) combined with dual Social Security of about $75,000 per year at age 67. I also planned to work part-time for 2-3 years. Then, the pandemic happened, and inflation became a bigger deal. I have had to increase the target income to adjust for the recent surge in inflation. I took a lump sum for the pension in 2023. I put 2/3 of that money in a money market account at 5% and invested 1/3 in dividend-paying stocks. It has had a 10.6% return in 16 months, and it is 100% money market at present at 4.45%. But with rate cuts, this return will be lower in 2025. If I can earn 5% on this lump sum and never touch the principal, I will consider that a win.
The recent “hard-to-beat-down” inflation, along with the cost of necessary health insurance with co-pays and deductibles, has pushed me toward working part-time a bit longer. So, that means we do not have enough money. Enough to me means you can stay within your budget and not have to worry about the best parts (entertainment and vacations). One can choose not to work at all. Our renovation budget also expanded, and contractors are expensive. Who knew a new primary bathroom could cost $45,000?
Another factor that was not planned was our decision to try to get the two children currently in college, and then our youngest, through graduate school with minimal debt. We saved money for each child in their 529 accounts for a “free” undergraduate degree, but the choice to pay for their room and board in graduate school was added last year. These funds have come from our current cash flow.
We still expect them to pay for their graduate tuition. But the gift of finishing one’s training and starting out their professional lives debt-free (or close to it) is worth my extended part-time work. It is not a burdensome amount, and it has meaning to us as parents. It is harder for grown children to launch with inflation, current housing costs, high rents, and more costly groceries.
Are We Bored?
That is a big “No.” We hike, walk, read, travel, cook, swim, learn new things, take care of our health, and do work on the acreage. My wife read 35 books in 2024. I started six and finished one. It was my “one financial book a year,” called The Richest Man in Babylon. We have made new friends. We have been to many parties, music venues, concerts, and plays. We have traveled extensively. I will not list all the places, but it has been wonderful.
Is Our Health Better?
That is a big “Yes!” Did we become couch potatoes and start to dwindle? Not in the least. With all the physical activity, hiking, strength training, a better diet, more home-cooked meals, less processed foods, and much less stress, we are in great shape.
My column about swimming 5,000 meters across several connected lakes was cautionary, but I did it. My resting heart rate is about 53. We have hiked between 80 and 130 kilometers in four different European countries and in the western US in the past two years. I recently had a battery of tests done, and their proprietary “biological age” estimate for me was age 53. I turned 61 in April. I may have to extend my retirement plan endpoint based on our health dividends.
More information here:
Functional Longevity: What Use Is Retirement If You Can’t Move and Think?
Do I Miss My Job?
Do I miss full-time work and my big office and being in an important administrative and clinical role? That is a big “No.” If I had 10 Bitcoin, I would stop working tomorrow. I do like helping people and saving lives, but let’s be real: it is stressful. I think 30-plus years is enough. Did I ever want to go back or work more? No. In fact, I did no inpatient weekends at my side gig from mid-August 2023 to February 2024. I am constantly offered more work. I still want less work, not more, although it is still good to be wanted.
Have Our Kids Adjusted?
Yes. The two in college have made friends, and they are thriving. Our youngest, now 18, has had a few challenges, but he will be off to college next fall. I think he will do fine. They are all in honors programs.
Are We Happy?
Yes. I have written before about going from a 6/10 on the happiness scale with full-time work and a side gig in Michigan to part-time work in the mountains of North Carolina and ending up at 9/10. This is still true. The place suits us. It is beautiful and temperate here. We love hiking in the mountains, the restaurants and brew pubs, and the live music venues. Have we made friends? Yes. We have a group of people we do things with—hence the parties, restaurants, and music/dance venues. We also host our friends from Michigan several times a year. People who visit us here always want to come back. We have a lot of fun, and there is much to do in the nearby local towns and in our own downtown.
More information here:
Giving Up a $250,000 Salary to Retire Early Is Hard
A Pre-Retirement Financial Checklist
Do We Have Regrets?
I think that we should have saved more to buy freedom of choice earlier. I wish we had saved more for college expenses, too, especially now that there are so many options for any excess funds. We should also have renovated the primary bathroom and kitchen when I was working full-time. Also, I would like to go back to 2020 and buy 10 Bitcoin for $50,000 (now 10 Bitcoin would be worth about $1 million). But that was not on my mind when the market tanked by over 30% that year.
If you want to retire early, plan well and do it. Make it happen. I can recommend it from here, despite a few bumps and some adjustments in the plan. It does make a difference to have something to retire to. We bought our place in 2016, about six years before we moved here full time, and it has since doubled in value—but so have the prices of most things. The biggest threats to our plan’s success have been inflation, routine healthcare and insurance costs, wanting to help our children more, and renovating the place here.
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If you're retired, how's it going so far? Are you happy? Are you bored? Do you have enough money?
Not buying an investment 5 years ago with the benefit of hindsight should never be a regret.
It is entirely possible you could have bought those Bitcoins, got overconfident when it did well, gambled more money as a direct result of that overconfidence, lost a large amount, and be in a much worse situation today.
Fair enough.
I had a good friend who’s a bitcoin genius and he suggested it to me, and instead of buying a few bitcoin I paid off my car note…
Your memory is likely biased to recall this missed opportunity and have regret. I bet you forget all the “hot tips” from friends, media, the herd, etc that actually turned out really badly and you should be thankful for ignoring! Just human nature
My mathematician dad illustrated memory bias to me long ago. “Once I had an anxious feeling about you and went to check and the blanket was over your face!” “Wow dad- baby telepathy or something huh?” “Naw, I worried and checked several times a week that first year, that was the only time anything was wrong, and so that’s the only one in my permanent memory.”
Was this column written before the flooding in western NC? How has that affected your life and work? Or was that distant enough not to have affected you directly?
I really appreciate this column because it demonstrates that whatever your plan is, present you cannot predict exactly what future you will consider priorities, at least not precisely. Much less predict inflation, the market, or the needs(wants) of family. It is inspiring that with your choices you only have first-world problems, like a bathroom remodel and grad school. Thank you for sharing.
Most people who make six figures for several decades have only “first world problems.”
Hurricane Helene devastated the area. Many of our favorite hiking trails are still closed. We have had to adjust and choose new trails.
But, thankfully, we had no injuries or serious financial problems related to Helene. We had family members who needed new roofs, debris removal, and some had loss of wages.
Very nice post. thanks.
I always enjoy your posts and humorous writing style. Glad to know things are working out.
Thanks. It’s been very good for almost three years.
Great to hear about your experience. I just left my hospital job as CL psychiatrist last month and am now working 1.5 days a week and spending as much time at our place in the NC mountains as we can this summer. So far I’m not looking for more work either but have been offered several opportunities. I’m enjoying being able to focus on less stressful things and have more time to workout and read. Please keep us updated on your progress.
Sounds great. Enjoy the mountains and the freedom to take care of yourself.
I ran a C/L service for just over a year in 2013 and found it to be quite a challenge. Most of the consults were about suicidal thoughts or delirium.
Do I miss full-time work and my big office and being in an important administrative and clinical role? That is a big “No.”
Thank you for making me realize that I am not crazy. Great post!
Yes, there is a time to be “just a person” without all of that. I joke around that I like “being just a dude in the laundry room on a screen” instead of Medical Director or Chief Medical Officer.
I did my best in all those roles, but now I prefer bird watching, planting seeds and flowers, growing edible mushrooms, and taking better care of my health. Those positions were stressful at times, especially during the pandemic.
Enjoy the fruits of your labor.
Are you coast fire or pulling a certain amount from current investments and covering the rest with income? Would be interested to know the percentages, especially for accounting for the social security income in the near future.
We downsized in 2022. Our expenses were reduced by a large amount, about 40%.
We have reduced taxes on our lower income. We also have much lower retirement savings (dropped by 66%). We can cover our budget without tapping any retirement funds.
We have, however, spent about a third of our “McMansion” equity on a new HVAC system, an on-demand hot water heater, partial kitchen remodel, new sinks, new toilets, front door replacement and remodel, garage door/opener, paying off our cars, and similar items.
Our average electric/gas bill is $200 a month. That used to be $450 in Michigan. Our property taxes were cut in half. Our auto insurance was reduced by a third. Our yard care/snow removal has been eliminated except for some tree work every few years that amounts to $50 a month. We have no water bill.
Since we bought an older place in 2016, we have finished a lot of improvements and required maintenance. One could buy or build a new place on a couple of acres, but the cost would be at least double what we paid plus the improvements.
When social security kicks in at our age 67, we will be in a different situation as all our kids will have finished college and graduate school. Social security plus a 4% drawdown will work even with our large entertainment and travel allowances.
dominating article as always Anthony 🙂 do you have any plans to live near your kids? for me and wifie we were thinking of retiring by a beach in Florida, but then again we also want to be close to grandchildren. do you have a plan for yourself to pick up and leave and follow the kids?
Rikki,
We started “installing” our children near the NC cabin before we bought it in 2016. We found the place here during multiple college visits from 2014-2016 to see our eldest. We will soon have the three youngest all at the same state school, about an hour and fifteen minutes from us. None of them wanted to “go away to school”. They are cost conscious consumers.
We helped the eldest get a house here in 2021 by co-signing her 2.99% loan. We hope the others choose to stay in NC when they finish their education, but they might not. I cook for them when they come home and my cooking is also a draw.
The three youngest come “home” from college to stay here on most breaks. Sometimes, I can get them to go to the YMCA with me on the family membership. It’s a hoot doing water aerobics with the retirees. They all work their summers here. They also take a trip back up to Michigan with us yearly to see their old friends. That’s why I still have the family van. I rent an air BnB and it’s a family summer vacation.
We have done all we can to make it easy for them to want to come home and to stay near, but I’m sure that won’t last forever. I’m currently working on another plan for a yearly family vacation to a nice spot after they finish school. We all took a ten day vacation to Akumal Mexico in 2022. It was great fun.
I know our time with them all is limited and things won’t stay this way, but they are my favorite people. I recommend doing what you can to make family time a priority. Part of why my happiness index went up in 2022 was simply more time with family, less time at work.
I “semi-retired” from full time work as an anesthesiologist a couple of years ago, now work one week/month and couldn’t be happier. Twenty acres, goats & chickens, huge garden, plenty to do, no debt.
In my case I had grossly overestimated how much money we would need in retirement. For many years we travelled a lot (2 or 3 exotic drive trips/year) and I assumed all that travel would continue. As it turns out, we love to be home and have developed almost an aversion to traveling. We take occasional road trips to the southeast visiting family and might include a few days on a Florida beach, but otherwise being home is best.
My wife & I are indeed blessed beyond measure.
That sounds great! I understand the travel issue. We travelled less this year than the prior two. As you say, we tend to miss being home.
If you create a place and a situation from which you do not need to escape, travel would need to be extraordinary to get any attention.
We are planning another trek for later this year. I’ve become sort of picky.
Your experience is more the norm than an exception as far as spending goes.
Any chance you would be willing to share your expenses pre downgrading and today?
I cut back from an administrative role to part time, 6 years ago. Kids still living at home. Our expenses have increased since that day by about $30k/yr, mostly by choice. The market has been kind to us and my part time work covers almost 100% of our expenses give or take. What else should we do with the extra money? We find ways to spend it that makes life better.
Some of it has gone towards remodeling. With the extra free time we are able to do sone of it ourselves and hire out pieces of a project when needed.
Another large chunk has gone towards traveling to visit friends and family. This has been a huge boost in happiness for us.
One of our two biggest expenses is health insurance and the cost of home ownership which includes high property tax and property insurance and well as maintenance. Not the remodel.
I do miss being a big cheese in the hospital, but I don’t miss being responsible 24/7. I miss getting these huge paychecks every month, but I know we don’t need them. We can retire today if we wanted to, but working part time has rejuvenated my love of practicing medicine. I hope that continues for a little while longer.
I probably have listed them in prior posts. I’ve been fairly transparent with my mistakes and successes for the blog here.
The McMansion was on a 15 year note. It cost us $500K to build in 2003. The payment was about $3200 (mortgage was 4.75%) and the property taxes added $700 a month. Others on the blog that live in expensive states have said they could barely get a nice house for that amount. The NC place is amazingly cheap at $900 a month plus $300 a month for property taxes. We bought it in 2016 and got a 2.5% refi during COVID.
The biggest expenses we had for the decade prior to the move were taxes and retirement accounts. These were about $90K a year in taxes and $90K a year in to retirement accounts. In the tax amount, I counted federal, state, self-employment, FICA, and Medicare surtax. Those two categories have dropped significantly as noted in prior responses.
We usually had car payments or leases that added up to $900 a month. These are gone. We had private school costs that are now gone. We used to put money into three 529 accounts. Those are gone. Our water bill was $125 a month. Gone. Our electric bill was $450 a month, now it’s $200-$250. Our car insurance was $5000 a year, it’s now $3500, even with the kid’s cars.
The savings from taxes, lower retirement savings, no 529 plans, reduced property taxes, lower electric/gas bills, lower auto insurance, not needing disability and life insurance, and not needing much yard care have been huge.
The only bill that has gone up is our cellphone bill. There are six of us on it and for the best plan, it’s a chunky $400 a month. We have no cable bill, but pay for streaming services, about $100, and satellite internet, $135 (the mountain has no other cable provider).
Our entertainment and vacation budget is just about our biggest category now after taxes and room and board for our kids in graduate school. We pay $14,000 a year for medical/dental/vision insurance that used to be free when I was full time.
Most WCI folks have all these categories. Many will have to adjust on the fly and recalibrate during the transition. That’s why I think the transition with a part-time year or two is helpful.
Potential monkeys in the wrench include inflation, medical costs, and consequential policy changes.
“Just because we’re bereaved doesn’t mean that we’re saps!!”
I love that you worked in the Lebowski aspect. The whole funeral industry complex is a rip-off for people who are at a very vulnerable moment in time.
I’ve never been a fan of funerals with their $15,000 caskets, dry humorless services at the funeral home, and the somber graveside service.
Sadly, my older brother passed away in 2024. He was an auto mechanic and lived in the same place near the beach for thirty-five years. He was a local fixture in Cortez, FL. We had a party at a restaurant he loved. We played his favorite rock songs. The proprietor donated all the food and a keg. Over two hundred people showed up and told the stories of his life. It was magic.
After the biggest showing of people I had ever seen at a funeral, the family all put on one of his auto racing event T-shirts, one of his dozens of caps from similar events, and fake mustaches (he always had an impressive mustache). His daughters and I took his ashes and placed them in the ocean and we all laughed and cried.
His celebration of life was the best I’ve ever been to. The costs were the cremation, renting the party venue, and the fake mustaches. There will be no money spent on me once my light goes out except for the party and the cremation. I already have my “most modestly priced receptacle.”
Thanks for the article.
I think of retiring early as 52 or younger. Semi retiring or even retiring a few years early is doable. I know many county and city employees who were able to retire at 50 and go on to do something else. I think the bigger difference is that they probably don’t pay for kids grad school.
I think overworking in years and hours has become so normalized in the US that it seems doing anything else is the exception.
I did enjoy learning about your perspective ..
I just retired a few months ago. I’m wondering about your travel budget. Travel is important to us, and we’d like to travel multiple times a year. We haven’t figured out how much this is going to cost. How many weeks a year do you travel, how much is domestic, and how much international, and how much do you spend?
Travel is a little like a wedding in that it costs what you’re willing to spend. Drive to Yellowstone? Cheap. Delta One to Cairo? Much more expensive. Start traveling and you’ll sort out how often you can afford to and how often you want to do it.