[Editor's Note: Today's guest post was submitted by a long-time physician reader who wishes to remain anonymous. The decision to retire early is never an easy one. Here's an inside look at the decision process. It's particularly fun to have a longitudinal “study” of an individual white coat investor as it provides “the rest of the story”. We have no financial relationship.]
In August 2015, WCI published my first WCI guest post, Super Saving for an Early Retirement. Robust interaction in the comments section ensued, so I thought readers might enjoy the sequel to my story, which was published about two years later in 2017. People seemed to like that one, too, in part due to the voyeuristic aspect of watching my wife and me honestly explore a tense topic in a public forum.
It has now been more than three years since I penned Part 2. While I'm not arrogant enough to believe you are as invested as I am in the ongoing case study that is my life, I do hope that sharing my personal and financial evolution toward retirement will help those grappling with the same beast.
Before going any further with this post, I recommend you check out the original post and Part 2. They're fairly quick reads, even in light of my tendency toward verbosity. But I realize your time is a limited resource, so here's the TLDR recap:
My physician wife and I both have two copies of the recessive frugality gene, so we lived like financially-strapped medical students for many years, not upgrading to living like residents until several years after completing our fellowships. Without being particularly sophisticated investors, we accumulated a substantial net worth in a short period of time, through the simple process of investing the majority of our income every month in index funds and allowing compounding to work its magic.
Intensely focused on the “finish line” of early retirement, I was running on fumes, taking too long to pull in for a pit stop. Ultimately, I cut back my hours, life got better, some surprising marriage dynamic conflict ensued (told you to read Part 2!), conflict dissipated, personal growth flourished, and life continued.
Super Saving for an Early Retirement – Part 3
As a diehard fan of Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise and his follow-up film (with the same actors) 10 years later, Before Sunset, I both wanted and didn't want to see the third film in the trilogy – Before Midnight. While the chance to see how things turned out for Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy another 10 years into the future was too juicy to pass up, I worried that the romantic shine on the first two movies might dull by number three.
Indeed, the third movie forced viewers to confront some painful realities of life, which left me sort of wishing I hadn't watched it, but also grateful that it didn't present an impossibly idealized version of the future. After all, who wants to compare their own life to perfection? All this is to say: I'm not claiming parity with Linklater; I just hope that this installment of Super Saving isn't a disappointment and that you take something useful from it. If nothing else, you can take comfort in the knowledge that I—probably like you—have no idea how to walk this path perfectly.
Cutting Back Doesn't Solve All Problems
In the physician FIRE world, the advice to “cut back” is sometimes imbued with magical qualities. That's probably because decreasing the amount of time spent on painful tasks naturally increases the time one has to pursue more rewarding things—and that leads to awesomeness. No doubt, cutting back to about 25 hours per week of clinical time gifted me the time and energy to create a blog with a small but passionate following (not financial, not monetized, and not looking to cross-pollinate my audience with WCI's), spend more time with my wife and child, work a couple of side gigs that I find intellectually satisfying, and spend lots of time exercising outdoors.
But what about those 25 hours I spend at work? Are those fulfilling hours? The answer to that question has been, increasingly, no. With each step-wise reduction in my hours over the last 4 years, I found myself better able to allow work-related annoyances to roll off my back – for a while. But as I equilibrated to my new normal, the frustrations would again begin to mount, and I have found myself questioning why I put up with this when I don't need the money.
Of course, if I was motivated solely by money, I would have quit a few years ago after reaching financial independence. I'm sure that many readers, especially physicians, understand that it's not all about the money. My identity is wrapped up in being a physician; I enjoy talking to, teaching, and helping so many of my patients; my colleagues are good people; and I feel like my life generally has meaningful purpose.
But those downsides…insert prolonged sigh here.
When Should I Retire?
Assuming one's situation is analogous to the “frog in a boiling pot” parable, I don't believe that the answer to the question of when to quit is ever straightforward. As much as I am a pros/cons type of person, I've had to approach this issue with a “what does my gut tell me” mentality, because my gut has been increasingly vocal. Unfortunately, my mind knows that my gut can be fickle, so the two organs have been engaged in a chess match that has, thus far, resulted in a stalemate of maintaining the status quo.
Within the last month, however, my gut is telling me that it's starting to feel like the right time, and my mind isn't protesting. And that worries me. Why does my brain appear to be acquiescing? What does my gut know that my mind doesn't? Is my mind just getting tired of the struggle? Is this just a temporary aligning of the two organs' orbits, but they'll diverge again soon? Will I regret this decision? Shouldn't I be in possession of something called “certainty” before moving forward?
If it sounds like I'm trapped in my own Woody Allen movie, I'll concede that. At this point in my quit/don't quit decision-making process, I think the best I can do is employ a hybrid approach. I can work on figuring out the tangible issue of which endeavors to pursue next. I can lay the groundwork for continuing a very light clinical load, somewhere, just to keep myself in the game until I'm more ready to say goodbye to patient care. And I can simply be present for the ongoing gut/brain chess match, staying attuned to anything that's pushing me further in one direction or the other.
The Critical Influence of Living with a Retiree
OK, I may have buried the lead a bit, but my wife retired from medicine more than a year ago. She went through a similar amount of hand-wringing and perseveration prior to arriving at her decision, though for different reasons. Very little of her identity is wrapped up in being a physician. Though she enjoyed helping her patients, she was more punching the clock as opposed to responding to a calling. If she didn't need to work for money, well…she's got plenty of interests other than medicine.
Since retiring, her life has been wonderful—there's really no other way to say it. She loves to learn new skills and work with her hands, so she threw herself into home and yard improvement projects with all the gusto one might expect from a high-achiever. She bought hundreds of dollars worth of power tools that saved us thousands of dollars in renovation costs—and gave her the immense satisfaction of regarding her handiwork and being able to say, “I did that completely by myself, with some [a lot of] help from YouTube.”
When the coronavirus came along, she was in the position to press pause on all of her projects and home-school our child, whose online education experience has been suboptimal, at best. Not only that, but my wife essentially made our child's happiness her new job, given that the social isolation was significantly tougher on our extroverted kid than on either of her introverted parents.
And let's not leave out the impact on my life. When she was still practicing, I had many household responsibilities on my plate that are now gone from my to-do list. Among other benefits, this has freed me up to disappear into the great outdoors for longer periods of time than in the past, which is restorative for my soul. My retired wife can also join me when she wants to, which is even better.
Is My Wife Ready for Me to Retire?
In Super Saving Part 2, I explained how our marriage had always been a 50/50 balance in most major aspects, such that when I cut back my hours and she continued full-time, we had to work through the ramifications of that on our relationship dynamic. In light of my wife's prior reaction to me decreasing my hours, I hadn't really considered the fact that the situation is quite different now. Back then, she was bitter because I cut back and she was still working full-time; if anyone was going to inhabit the role of the more-at-home parent, she always assumed it would be her. Now, she's retired and relaxed, and she simply wants me to have what she has.
My wife's current posture is all well and good—and I love her for it—but of course she acknowledges the critical influence our financial position has had on her thinking. In the five years since my first guest post, our portfolio has grown far beyond our original target “number”. While part of that growth was due to a bolus from our practice buyout, the last few years of substantial growth have been due to the same, boring process of investing the majority of our salaries in index funds and watching the money compound during a lengthy bull market. We have also amended our Investment Policy Statement a couple of times as our need to take risk has decreased, gradually shifting from 85/10/5 (percentage of stocks/bonds/REIT) to 70/25/5.
Additionally, our yearly spending has been remarkably constant (we don't track it, we just query the prior year of bank statements every January), which we didn't expect but do find reassuring. In the old days, my wife fervently believed that our savings would reach a number at which we would start flying first class and shopping at Whole Foods. Nope, we mostly fly economy and still clip coupons for the local grocery store. It's funny to me that she continues to think our yearly spending is going to increase dramatically at some point when it's clear to me that our DNA makes anything more than slow, organic increases unlikely. Because of this apparent fact, if I retired tomorrow our portfolio withdrawal rate would be a little over 1%, which has finally convinced my mid-40's wife that we're probably not going to run out of money.
My wife has been extremely careful to be measured in our conversations about me quitting, as she wants me to come to this decision under my own steam, as much as is possible. To her credit, even though our decisions obviously affect each other, she understands that this is an incredibly personal decision with fairly high stakes for my psyche. Remember, much more of my identity is wrapped up in being a physician, so she doesn't want me to pull the trigger until I'm comfortable with the idea. She also understands that I feel the need to work in some capacity, so I should have somewhat concrete plans for how to fill my time, at the very least.
What Do I Want?
I'm great at knowing what I don't want; it's one of the perks of being a glass-half-empty kind of person. But what do I want? I want to do work that is intellectually and/or emotionally gratifying. If I can get paid for that work and avoid drawing down the portfolio at such a young age, even better. (Yes, I understand that we can safely spend down our savings. No, that realization doesn't change the psychological impact. Yes, I know it's pathologic, but I expect that mindset to gradually change as I age.)
In any case, I want the majority of my work to be location-independent. Maybe this is the coronavirus isolation talking, but I'm ready to travel for more extended periods of time when there's no school, and having a set clinic schedule is too rigid. Most side gigs in which I've engaged these last few years have involved computer and phone work, which I enjoy and can do from anywhere.
As of now, I'm talking with one company for which I already do some work about joining them in a more robust, but still part-time, capacity. It's a principled company with a noble mission, so I hope that works out. I've also had an initial discussion with a mature start-up about joining them as a medical advisor—another good company offering a good service. As for seeing patients, I suspect that my current organization, as flawed as it is, will want to keep me on one day per week to continue offering the services that my partners do not. This would allow me to not abandon (all of) my current patients, while giving me the flexibility of a limited contract (only work when I want to). If my employer balks, or if they eventually find they don't need me anymore, there may be some other local options for an arrangement of that nature.
The rest of my wish list is fairly simple: exercise outside, hang out with the family, travel, continue re-learning a foreign language I used to know, read deeply about whatever I find fascinating, and make time for doing nothing other than meditating.
Given WCI's typical backlog of several months worth of posts, by the time you read this, it's possible I may have already given notice and have a plan in place for my next phase of life. Thanks for coming along for the ride!
Now it's your turn. If you're still working, what does your decision-making process look like, with respect to cutting back or retiring? If you are already retired, how did you finally decide to do it? Do you miss seeing patients? Do you wish you did anything differently? How is life post-medicine?
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I hadn’t read the prior posts before and I enjoyed reading them all. I’m in a similar situation to you in that while I do somewhat enjoy my physician job and provide value by being good at what I do, I’m not passionate about it and it’s not a calling. At the age of 45 my family and I are well on our way to financial independence. But I don’t see not working in some capacity, in part because we have young kids and will be tied down for some time to come. What I’ve come to decide is that I want the decade of my 50s to be my “fun” job, and so I’m beginning the process of making that happen. It’s fun to think about and I feel a growth happening that I haven’t felt in a long time. Wishing you well on the new opportunities you might find.
Guest post author here… I can relate to your comment: “I feel a growth happening that I haven’t felt in a long time.” After years of doing more or less the same stuff, there is a component of boredom, for me at least. I really enjoy feeling as if I’m always moving forward, or moving towards something. Now that I’ve made some decisions, I do feel that movement again. I hope it’s not merely a temporary dopamine hit that fades! But I don’t think so.
I did wind up giving notice at work after writing this post; I’ve got about 3 months left before dropping down to one day per week. That’ll last until they don’t need me anymore or I get sick of it, whichever comes first.
I also decided to increase my hours with the company I already work for, in which all the work (non-clinical) is done via computer.
I’m so glad you wrote a second follow-up. It’s great to hear that your wife is happy with her newfound freedom, and it sounds like you’re just about ready to join her, at least from the mental perspective. From a financial perspective, you’re far beyond ready.
Between the startups looking for help, the blog, and the one-day-a-week position at the old job, you could find yourself working four 25% jobs. I’m no math whiz, but that sounds almost like a full-time job! Maybe the variety is what you need, and I’m guessing some of those require fewer than 10-12 hours a week.
Thanks again for the update and good luck with the decision-making if you haven’t decided already — I’ve got to get back to my Duolingo Spanish lessons. I’d hate to lose my 443-day streak.
Cheers!
-PoF
Yes, PoF, I definitely like variety. Once I start my new schedule in about 3 months, I figure I’ll put in about 20-25 total hours of work per week, 20 of which will be mandatory and the rest optional.
Good luck with your Spanish. I found a free language exchange website run by someone at Dickinson College, so now I’m video chatting for an hour twice weekly with someone who speaks the language I’m trying to learn and wants to learn English. I have found that my comprehension far exceeds my ability to form grammatically correct sentences on the fly and speak them in a reasonable amount of time…
Hm, “equilibrating to a new normal.” Yeah, that sums up my struggle at work. Initially, my goal was to not be in the hospital 12a-5a. That changed to 12a-6a. Then I didn’t want to wake up before 6, so 12a-7a. Then I wanted to be in bed by 12, so 10p-7a. Now, I’m like I want to be in bed by 10p…where does it stop?!
Thanks for the guest post.
8-12 is pretty good IMHO, but I haven’t yet managed to talk my group into allowing me to work shifts like that. 🙂 6a-2p is about as close as I’ve gotten.
Congratulations on winning the game. I hadn’t read the first two parts and found the comments enlightening as well.
re: Part 2 can’t travel with child in school. Homeschool!!!
After rejiggering my business to allow a flexible lifestyle working anywhere in the world with light hours, it became hard to accept staying locked at home for nine months each year due to school. My wife was excited at the idea of homeschooling our two daughters and started F/T three years ago. Our three months traveling throughout New Zealand a couple years ago and subsequent extended adventures have been really memorable for the entire family. It’s understandable if that’s too much of a commitment (I certainly couldn’t do it), but most states allow for extended absences with relatively little hassle. Keeping up with curriculum requirements isn’t difficult.
Honestly, the more I learn about personal finance, the more I’m convinced my financial advice to them will fit on a postcard. The first bullet point has long been: Invest 1/3 of gross income in index funds. I haven’t quite decided whether any more advice is necessary, but it usually bounces around fluffier things like happiness, lifestyle and making a contribution to the world at large.
More power to you and your wife! We have had a taste of homeschooling, what with the quality of online school being underwhelming, and it is clear that my wife and daughter would divorce each other if that was a full-time proposition. Is that a thing? 😉
LOL. There would absolutely be a pair of daddy-daughter divorces in our household were I the primary instructor. It would be a sprint to the lawyers to see who could file first. My role is barely supplemental.
Man, not only did you inspire me to watch the Before _____ series, but to consider not being so scared of retirement and losing my identity as a doctor and searching for what I want outside of medicine. I had planned to retire at traditional age of 65, but your story (the brief synopses of the movies you mentioned) has reinforced that I have no idea what my 65year old self, or heck, 55 of even 45 year old self will want (I’m 39 right now). I think Jonathan Clements had mentioned that in his book, and also Jason Zweig, that we as humans have a very tough time projecting what we will want and who we will be in the future. Your race to the finish line, all that hard work and planning that went into FIRE has given you the opportunity to ponder and pursue what you really want, as like the stock market, its was hard to predict your future self. Makes sense why your brain is now aligned with your gut! well done!
btw, is the Before series on Netflix, Hulu, or Prime? Out of all my streaming services (obviously I’m not as frugal as you, but I did cut the cord!), I would hope to watch it!
Thanks, Rikki. I think you nailed one of the lessons I hope people take from my story – tabling the fact that I was a little too focused on the “finish line,” the drive to save early in order to make work optional has definitely paid off.
As for the Before… series, we actually own the DVDs for Before Sunrise and Before Sunset; I think we bought them before streaming was a thing, or at least before we decided to spring for a streaming service. We watch those every 1-2 years on our anniversary. I’ve only seen Before Midnight once, in the theater. It’s not exactly a “happy anniversary” type of movie.
I just watched the trilogy. Phenomenal. Oddly joyful and sorrowful at the same time.
Yes, exactly. That’s the perfect way to put it. So glad you enjoyed the trilogy.
I would submit that humans actually prefer fewer choices (a 3 item menu rather than a Cheesecake Factory menu). Becoming FI in your 40s is like a Cheesecake Factor menu. Yes, you have all the options in the world. No, that doesn’t necessarily make things easier or better. It’s more likely to provoke an existential crisis like the one I’ve been in the last couple of years trying to figure out if there is something else in life I want or would make me happier other than the pathways I have previously chosen.
WCI, I agree that having fewer choices can be better, if the three options on the menu are appealing. When the menu is offering a dry burger, some rubbery pasta, and what looks like a hot dog that’s been sitting around for too long, then increasing the number of options can really whet the appetite.
Not that it doesn’t have the potential to provoke an existential crisis – clearly it does – but many would consider the risk of dealing with that crisis to be worth it. All that said, there is great danger in constantly looking and reaching for the next “great thing,” as high achievers (like you) with numerous interests and skill sets are wont to do. It’s a recipe for dissatisfaction and existential crisis, to be sure.
So basically, I agree with you. 😉
Maybe that’s why only the high end restaurants get away with the “3 things on the menu” thing.
All three movies are on Prime at the cheaper end of rental fees ($2.99) or free with an HBO trial.
I figure anything that rents for less than I rented videotapes & DVDs two decades ago isn’t too expensive. 😉
Don’t bring perspective into this. 🙂
btw also just read your part 1/Before Sunrise post back in 2015 and noticed an anomaly- VG Sm Cap Gr Index $146,000 in taxable? Was that planned to tilt to small cap growth, sort of the red headed stepchild of equity asset classes? Or was it bought at a time of you were still on the path to financial literacy? Is buying into this asset class still part of your IPS?
I bought that fund years before I knew what I was doing. I knew enough to make sure I was exposed to large, mid, and small cap, so…yeah. Interestingly, I haven’t touched that fund for a long time, and now it has really taken off, so I will be selling a chunk and paying some capital gains taxes in order to rebalance. I have been able to do almost all of my rebalancing in tax-protected space, but I’ve run out of trades I can make in protected space. I’ve gotten heaviest in small cap and lightest in bonds, according to my IPS, so I will have to sell some of that growth fund and buy more bonds.
Enjoyed this installment in what I hope will be an ongoing series.
Found the marriage dynamics fascinating – allowing your wife time to find her retirement groove before you potentially pull the trigger on your own escape seems like precisely the sort of staggered plan that allows for greater odds of success. I say this coming off a phone call with my parents where mom’s early to bed early to rise routine combined with dad’s sleep in, night owl schedule seems to be the secret to their peaceful coexistence while occupying the same space for months in lockdown during COVID.
Cutting back and eliminating the job aggravations is an enormous power play for a physician; the ability to say no when an employer insists on an untenable working arrangement tilts the power in your favor since the employer is forced to acknowledge they need you more than you need them.
While cutting back is an improvement and a chance to extend a runway, as you discovered, it’s not a panacea nor a substitute for figuring out your next act. I’m glad you have several great options available to you.
Wishing you (continued!) success in this next stage of the journey,
CD
Thanks, CD. I wish I could claim that it was all part of my grand, master plan to have my wife retire first. That would have been some next-level, chess-playing, type of move. Although I’m not that strategic, I can appreciate how it is paying dividends now.
As a medical student, this makes anesthesiology – a field that was in my top 3 – much more appealing. Although many talk about the gloom and doom of anesthesia, the opportunity to go up or down in FTE – from 0.4 to 1.0 – due to the shift work nature of the job make it an excellent choice for someone who has many interests outside of medicine. The ability to adjust workload based on the season of your life – before you have children, while your children are young, and beyond – would allow me to make income when I need to, but also decrease my workload without major hassle from my employer.
Thank you for this post – it provided so much clarity to what is important to me and how my priorities may change as time goes on.
Thanks so much for the follow up post! It was as if you were talking about my life right now. My wife is working very part time and wants desperately for me to cut back significantly asap. I am also mid 40-‘s and our net worth has skyrocketed way past any of my expectations by being frugal. I could retire tomorrow and live off less than half of the passive income. But it is still a struggle in my mind when to slow down on my profession. Planning on selling my business this year and then working one or two days a week to stay in the game. I think that could be the sweet spot for several years.
Best of luck to you!
Sorry for the existential crisis that occurs when you no longer have to work for money.
Thank you so much for this post and sharing both you and your wife’s experiences! I’m in a similar situation and find it really helpful to hear how others are figuring out what comes next. I’m in my mid-40’s and have already cut back at work. This was great for a while, but as you also found, we adapt to anything and it becomes the new normal. For an ObGyn my job could not get any more ideal so a different clinical gig is not an option. I’m burned out and I’m FI, but still worry I’ll miss my connection to patients, colleagues and the sense of having meaningful purpose. I love my days off and they fly by with activities I enjoy and I dread going back to work. My husband, who is not in medicine and plans to work a long time, tells me to quit regularly. I know that I am fortunate to have options thanks to FI, but it is difficult to decide when to leave medicine. It’s inspiring to hear how others are approaching this transition.
FWIW Emily, the fact that you love your days off, fill those days with activities you enjoy, and dread going back to work should tell you most of what you need to know regarding when to pull the trigger on retiring or cutting back even further.
Although my wife may have had less of a strong connection than you to work-derived satisfaction, she still had a connection. After retiring, she has missed that, very mildly, on occasion. But it does not appear to weigh heavily on her – ever. She is too busy with the myriad things she enjoys outside of medicine.
For me, as I get closer to the possibility that my practice may ultimately decide they don’t need me anymore (when my replacement eventually arrives), I’m already starting to feel an increased sense of acceptance of that. And this is after all the hand-wringing that I wrote about in the post. All this is to say: now I’m not so sure how broken up I’ll be if I wind up doing zero clinical medicine at some point within the next year.
Tyanks so much for the post. I agree with much of what you have said and I am on a similar journey. I am curios if you would be willing to give a few specifics, just out of curiosity?
1. How old are you and your wife currently, and when did you achieve FI. Do you care to share the type of specialty you both are?
2. How old and how many children do you have?
3. What is your average annual spending based on your bank statements?
4. How many years of spending did you have saved to consider yourself FI? Was this based on investable assets or Net worth, and did it include your home value?
Thanks again for the insightful post.
Duke
I can give you some more details, but not all the details for which you asked:
1. Mid-late 40s now, achieved fat FI about 3-4 years ago. I’d say we’re now at obese FI. Both in medical (non-surgical) subspecialties.
2. One early teenager.
3. In one of my previous guest posts, I think I said we spend around 100k. My wife did some recalculations recently and realized that was an overestimate. We’re in the 70s to 80s k/yr. That number does not include money spent on taxes.
4. I started to feel like we were comfortably FI when our withdrawal rate (based on PROJECTED spending, i.e. more than we spend now) dropped to about 3% of our liquid assets (cash + stocks + bonds + REIT). As the portfolio continued to grow and the WR dropped well under 3%, that made me feel very secure, given that I like safety factors on top of my safety factors. We do not include our home in our portfolio, as we are of the opinion that it should not be used to justify how much one can spend in retirement (I realize many would disagree with me on this point, but it’s what makes me comfortable). We have no debt, so our portfolio value = net worth.
Thanks for info, very helpful.