My daughter insightfully declared a few weeks ago…”I wish you didn’t have to work.” That simple, innocent statement stuck with me since. I think this occurred after I explained I was too tired to do something with her that she wanted to do. Kids really pick up on associations quickly, huh? Work steals away some of my time and energy, and thus takes away some of the time and energy I have to devote to my family. I replied honestly that I wish I didn’t have to work either. Wouldn’t that be wonderful, having financial security to thus regain time back with those you love?
As I explained in my post about financial independence, I think I have found a really neat life tool to get to my desire to make work optional. I am one that always needs things to do. I like to make “To Do” lists on my phone or in my journal, and I like to keep planning ahead for the future. So I don’t think I will ever sit still too long. However, as my daughter alluded to, work prevents me often from doing what I would rather be doing. One huge value and priority in my life is family and nurturing my relationships with my family members. And often my 8 hour work day takes away from that. It would be nice to have more flexibility to instead work say part time, and set my schedule myself for when I would want to work.
I read a great book on this very topic, that is financial independence and making work optional, a few months ago: Work Optional: Retire Early the Non-Penny-Pinching Way, by Tanja Hester. I would recommend this read to anyone wanting to learn more about financial independence. I really liked how the author spelled out a pathway to learning your values and priorities and life, and then extrapolating how financial independence can give you the power to then create the type of life you want. She also spells out some math on how to achieve this, including the calculators for determining your needed “Financial independence” number (i.e. 25x your annual spending) that I have described in my financial independence post, and other authors in the financial independence community have also described.
I like her different take on buckets of money for those pursuing early retirement as well, with some funds preserved to be used true older retirement (i.e. after age 59 1/2 or 60) and other funds you plan to use in early retirement (i.e. in your 30s, 40s, and/or 50s). There are ways to tap into your retirement savings earlier with the Roth IRA conversion ladder technique (see an explanation of this topic here), but I appreciated the author’s idea of keeping your funds separate. After all, one great fear of any retiree is if you will run out of money. It would not be pretty or pleasant to have to return to work in your 50s or 60s, after being out of the workforce for several years. Indeed, it would be challenging, and you could not re-enter the workforce at the same place you left. Given your gap in working, several employers would likely question your motives or your competence. And you would probably need to either take a paycut and start lower down in your chosen career path, or pick a different line of work with less pay.
By separating out your funds that way, you can better control for future ups and downs in your spending needs and the market. Things taking a turn for the worse in your investments? Having different buckets would mean your age 60+ funds are still left alone to grow and regain things (hopefully) in the future when the market rebounds. But to compensate, you can use your early retirement funds more wisely and more frugally, e.g. taking out a smaller percentage e.g. 3-3.5%, and perhaps taking on a side gig to compensate.
I have also read some other books on the topic, including Financial Freedom: A Proven Path to All the Money You Will Ever Need, by Grant Sabatier, and Quit Like a Millionaire: No Gimmicks, Luck, or Trust Fund Required, by Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung. All of these authors have different ways they approached their journeys to financial independence and achieved it, and offer their own advice to readers who want to follow the pathway, too. I think all of these different perspectives show there are multiple pathways to get to where you want to go with the financial independence journey. In fact, this shows there are multiple answers sometimes to one problem.
My current finances do not allow me to stop working just yet, or go part time (which is a less scary path I am considering in the near future). However, I think hearing my daughter’s wish the other day, “I wish you didn’t have to work,” rekindled my commitment in my path to achieving financial independence. Getting to a point where work is optional would be a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. If something were to happen where I did need to quit, or the market were to change and my job security were to be lost, having that power of financial independence would be so freeing and empowering. I could foresee in the future that the challenge of balancing it all as a busy doctor mom and working mom could get to be too much. Right now, I feel that I am happy in my current roles and in my current busy life, but this may not always be the case.
I think I’ll remind myself of my daughter’s innocent statement (“I wish you didn’t have to work!”) each time I analyze my finances and my path to financial independence. It is important to look at where you are, but it is important also to see where you are going, and to live this life intentionally and with purpose. My pursuit of financial independence, I feel, is my tool to regaining control over my life and my time.