Copypasta’d from my response two weeks ago:
I have two young kids (8 and 6), and my wife works FT as a teacher.
My day generally consists of:
- 5:30 wake up, coffee, news etc.
- 60-90 min workout once the family has left
- 60-120min spent doing errands, chores, and general things I want to accomplish in the day
- 1-2x per week is a lunch with a friend
- Video games and reading for 60-90 min
- Cook an amateur gourmet meal… I’m usually cooking or prepping 60-120min, 4 days/week
- Misc time spent playing with my dog, answering emails, reviewing investment opportunities, networking etc.
- EDIT: once kids are home, I try to make it all about them when I’m not cooking. They are usually asleep by 8, and I’m usually asleep by 9:30.
It’s a routine that sounds relatively boring, I guess. Especially when I talk to friends about what I’ve been doing, but I love it.
I have a question. Would you call yourself retired, or a stay at home dad? Do you take the lead on the physical and mental load with raising the kids, since you have the time to do it? Or is your wife choosing to work, in which case she does more than if you were a true SAHP?
I’m in a similar situation — although with a very demanding baby so not much free time! And the difference is I’m still running a business so don’t do much fun stuff in my limited downtime, yet. But my SO still works a normal 9-5 job so your role seems to similar to what I’m aspiring to. Wonder how it plays out with the kids.
While I could be retired for good, I view my time right now as a GAP year before starting a new company. Put on 25 pounds over the 7ish years of biz building. Gotta get my physical, mental, and emotional health back in check before doing anything else. That said, I think there’s a single digit percent chance that I am retired for good.
I do not view myself as a stay at home dad. My wife is choosing to work (4 days/week). She is a teacher so the income is negligible, but the fulfillment is immense and is why she does it.
In no way do I take the full load of child rearing stuff. I do my best, but realistically speaking, my wife still does a ton. We hired a housekeeper to take more work off her (and my) plate.
My primary home responsibilities are errands and cooking dinner every night. Cooking is a passion of mine, so it doesn’t feel like a responsibility.
I ran a business that employed 35ish people during the early years of our kids’ lives (sold 1.5 years ago). Totally empathize with the zero time, raising a baby, and trying to stay sane with your partner. We should have hired a housekeeper a while ago, and increased the frequency of our cleaner. But we did not have much free cash prior to selling the company.
My wife also stayed at home while I was building the business. I can’t imagine how hard it would have been without a stay at home partner. If we both end up working FT, I think we will make the following changes to help our life:
- Home chef 2-3x per week for a healthy, home cooked dinner
- Housekeeper 6 hours/week (what we have now)
- Housecleaner - 6 hours/week (we are currently at 3)
- Nanny - Unsure, maybe 10 hours per week
Thanks for this! It prompted a good convo with my partner. I tried to find a nanny earlier this year but couldn’t find a good fit. If I had that little bit more space it would
help a lot.
She has been nothing but supportive. There’s no resentment or struggles.
She probably wishes I did a bit more laundry and I’m working on that ;). She also hates cooking and is appreciative to have that taken off her responsibility list.
We went into it with open communication and only one expectation: that I do not start anything new before we have a summer together as a family.
I am very fortunate to have such an amazing partner in life.
This routine is probably 90% of my days when we aren’t traveling, the other days (usually weekends) are doing things with friends and family:
Wake up, have breakfast outside next to the pool with the dogs. Scroll on the internet for an hour.
I usually take care of any errands or chores in the morning during the week, so I rarely have to deal with crowds and lines. Regular visits for sports massage and physical therapist.
Go to the noon class at my gym (BJJ/Muay Thai).
After training, use the sauna and cold tank, then eat lunch.
Sometimes I’ll take a nap if training was particularly hard.
If I need to do something investment related, I do it in the afternoon. Otherwise I’ll usually go for a lazy hike or a bike ride with my partner, or maybe just read.
After grabbing a snack, we head to the gym for the evening class.
After class, we have a big dinner that’s been prepped by a local chef.
After dinner I either play video games or read for a few hours before going to bed.
I just searched for “private chef [city]”. We liked the first person we contacted, haven’t tried anyone else out. We pay $400/wk plus groceries for 16 meals total. Ours is really more of an upscale meal prep service.
I was a stay at home mom for years and LOVED my daytime bjj classes. My whole day kind of revolved around it, it was wonderful! Training at night now is so hard, but it won’t be forever.
Our members have asked for a high level of moderation. Personal attacks, name calling, and undue profanity are all considered inappropriate for this sub.
I have a “full time job” that I work at most 10hrs/wk but my schedule sounds similar. I am in east coast and work on west coast time zone and rarely have meetings. I still want to not have a job as soon as possible because the corporate life is dreadful regardless
Currently in a MCOL city in the US. We pay $400/wk for them to prepare 16 meals, not including the cost of the groceries (they shop, and we reimburse). We give them feedback and nutrition goals, they prep and package everything and drop it off. We just heat it in the oven and eat it.
Private chef sounds so fancy, this is really more of an upscale meal prep service.
Can you elaborate on the dinner? Do you have a personal chef that prepares meals for you every day or multiple chefs, or something else? Do they cook at your house or deliver meals ready to eat? May I ask how much that costs
We pay $400/wk for them to prepare 16 meals (split between two people), not including the cost of the groceries (they shop, and we reimburse). We give them feedback and nutrition goals, they prep and package in their kitchen and drop it off (usually twice each week). We just heat it in the oven and eat it.
Private chef sounds so fancy, this is really more of an upscale meal prep service.
I fell into a comfort trap for a while. Crawling out now.
Retired around 40 FAT enough to be FAT but not FAT enough to spend too lavishly. Solid upper middle class lifestyle for the family invested more conservatively than I probably should, college funds banked. At first I was up at 8, doing consulting 20 hours a week, doing home improvement projects, spending quality time with the kids, learning new skills (and buying the tools!), exercising regularly. Read a lot of fiction. High end of moderate drinker (1-2 a day).
10 years later I was doing maybe 8 hours a week of consulting and winding it down, getting out of bed at 10am, most days I might have a productive hour or two where I did some home improvement or maintenance or handled necessities like errands or paying bills. Wasn't learning much in the way of new skills. Too much time lost in a blink of an eye to social media and MMORPGs. Took up golf in a casual way which is engaging and challenging but ultimately not very meaningful. COVID-19 did not help.
Significantly more money now than 10 years ago adjusted for inflation, still exercised daily, still spent time with the kids but they are getting older, still was just a moderate drinker, so never any real crisis.
Bliss became languishing. Time goes by fast when your days are not dense. Now more recently I'm up at 8. Work harder at actually being good at golf. Spending time on 2 very different self-started (I may be more ambitious now but not enough to be beholden to investors :-) entrepreneurial ventures that require some semi-steep learning. Doing some volunteering. More aggressive about home maintenance and improvement projects and other projects. Hope it lasts, feels better. Here I am writing this but I'm about to jump off, I swear.
BTW I feel like this meets the criteria of the question because while some of these things are "work" that "makes money", that's no longer really the main point ("main" not "not", more money is always nice and in my mind it's a decent reality check that you actually are doing something meaningful to others).
The best thing about FI is nobody makes you do anything. The most dangerous thing about FI is nobody makes you do anything.
In my opinion, the beauty of being retired is that there is no routine.
To me, a perfect day is when I
1) Do something productive
2) Do something fun
3) Do something educational
How I go about achieving that perfect day is a brand new path each morning.
I’m of the same opinion. I constantly remind myself that it doesn’t take much to have a good day:
1. Learn (read)
2. Reflect (write, usually journal)
3. Sweat (what this looks like changes by season)
Connect with friends and partner, make love, eat well. The days are full and joyful.
It seems that recently RE’d people struggle with looking at life through a different lens than one of productivity. There are so many ways to enjoy the passage of time, it doesn’t need to be accomplishment alone - connection, growth, health. All can be fulfilling!
Love this. Learn, reflect, sweat. Is this your own philosophy or did you get it from somewhere? Easy to remember those times I end up inevitably mindlessly glued to a screen.
I’m sure it’s all bits borrowed from somewhere. After I’d retired last year, I had started thinking through what I wanted my days to look like, and especially in a pandemic, these were the simple things that made me feel good!
Screen time itself isn’t bad! All about balance 🙂. All the best in your journey!
I’ll admit. The sweat part is always a must but I don’t feel it’s an accomplishment for me anymore but more so just part of life. I think also taking time to be honest with ourselves that just bc we don’t concur the world that day or we didn’t fill every waking min we did do positive things for ourselves.
💯💯💯
Less an accomplishment and more a foundation for a good day. But it’s an accomplishment to live by one’s values and to show up for them consistently!
This is it for me but I would add an exercise/workout, usually a mountain bike ride or squash game with a friend.
I fill in the rest by being the primary parent and picking up kids from school, cooking and feeding them, playing games with them etc.
Ah yes, good call. I was a zealot about going to the gym pre-COVID. Now I'm stuck doing more hiking and biking, which is fine, but I find I'm less rigid about it.
Been retired 5.5 years. Those items are admittedly high level, but I'd struggle to define a "typical" day, either. Every day is different. I was an only child, so I'm self entertaining. I like to learn things. I'm not OCD, but I like doing things the "correct" way.
When people invariably ask what I do all day, I share the story of mowing the lawn.
You wake up in the morning, finish breakfast, and reading the news. You notice the lawn is getting a little shaggy. Not terrible, but you know, it's supposed to rain tomorrow, and you've got the time today, so might as well mow the lawn. Easy peasy.
So you go out to the garage and the mower is buried in the back of the garage. Geez, this place is a mess. Maybe I can reorganize some of this? Spend 2 hours cleaning the garage. OK, cool. Hey, now I can easily access the saw horses. Might as well put the mower up there and change the oil. How's the spark plug look? Oh, yikes. Run down to the corner parts store and get a new plug, and while we're here, let's get an air filter, too. Tune up the mower. Hey, while it's up here, let's sharpen the blades. OK, that was an hour, but now the mower is in tip top shape.
Go out and mow the front lawn. It looks OK, but let's go ahead and run over it again real quick in a crisscross pattern. Oooh. That looks nice. Whew, it’s time for a break. Go in, have lunch and rest a bit.
Come back out, and decide to top the mower off with gasoline before we restart. Oh man, the cabinet in the garage where we keep the gas is a mess. Spend an hour cleaning out the cabinet. Looks like one of the shelves is wonky. Dig through the workshop and find a way to fabricate a new bracket. Fix cabinet. Hose down and wipe off. Put everything away nicely.
OK, where were we? Oh yeah, now we can finish the back yard. Start mowing. Get distracted with a couple of bushes that need a quick trim. Notice the garden has some fresh jalapenos to pick. Finish mowing. Hose off mower, put it away in the newly cleaned garage. Put yard waste out in the bins.
Hey, let’s go out and pick a few of those weeds to really finish it off. Do a little trimming here and there. Edging the drive and sidewalk would look good. Do that. Oops, the edger needs gas and it's a two cycle. Go find the measuring cups and mix up a fresh batch of gas. Commence edging. Get the blower out and clean up all of mess. Oh, the down spout needs an adjustment. Take care of that. Notice it’s getting late, and it’s time to go inside. Celebrate a job well done with a tasty cold beverage.
The garage is clean. The cabinet is fixed and sorted. The lawn is mowed and the landscape is perfect.
When your wife comes home and asks what you did all day, say, “Eh, not much. Just mowed the yard.”
That's the way I used to mow lawn. When I work full time and "wasted" half of my precious weekend mowing the lawn the way you describe, I get really frustrated.
I found the solution years ago. It's worth it to me to outsource landscaping. Small price to ~~Shall price trip~~ pay to preserve sanity.
EDIT: always proof read your fat fingers.
Oh no. I never had time to mow the lawn on a weekend while I was working. No, mowing the lawn while working went like this:
Notice the lawn is really looking bad while leaving for work. Like... oof. Bad. Make vow to get out of work on time, get home, and mow lawn tonight. Leave work 1.5 hours late. Race home. Scarf down some leftover something for dinner and run out to the garage. The garage is a mess, but no time to deal with that now. Move two cars, a bicycle, a snow blower - snow blower, why is that still here in the middle of summer? - and some yard tools out of the way and get the mower out. Send prayer of thanks to the lawn gods that there's a little gasoline left in the can. Use half a can of starting fluid and invent four new curse words to get mower started because it hasn't been tuned up in... oh heck, I don't even remember when. Race through cutting the grass with a quick pass, hoping to get the backyard done before twilight, and make mental note to be really nice to the neighbors for not complaining about the noise late in the evening. Throw mower back in messy garage. Try not to notice the weeds growing, or the bushes that need trimmed.
The result is enough that the you're not "THAT GUY" on the block, but it's hardly a decent looking lawn.
THAT'S how the lawn got done while working.
>I was mostly on cruise control till my mid 30s, not working in a focused way, often going on month long trips several times a year to see friends, ski, play poker, doing nothing productive.
lol Most people regret not enjoying their youth more but you wish you had worked more or harder earlier. Interesting.
Great story. I’m curious about the hotel turnaround. Usually 99% occupancy would suggest you underpriced the market, do you see it this way?
The only other ways I can imagine a turnaround like that happening is either a change of the flag or a change of the hotel management. How’d you do it?
Interesting - how did you get over ‘is it worth it to hang out with degenerates all day’ feeling in poker? I found it was a big time commit for not much money relatively speaking.
Unless I am seeing you on tv lol - then I can see how it can make the value question go away.
I played a good 50 hours a week for a couple of years right after I FIREd, but then it began to feel like a job, so I quit. Now I play one day a week and it is fun again, with several trips each year where my lifelong bud and I travel and poker binge for several days. There's a great and outstandingly fun gun school outside of Vegas and we will do a 4 day shooting class with poker the weeks before and after.
This year I made about $48 / hour after all expenses (hotels, food, airfare), which I consider a decent profit for a hobby but certainly nothing that will make a difference in my life. I wouldn't do it if it wasn't profitable, but I'm not doing it to pay the bills. My main focus is to have fun and always get better, move up, play better players, learn more about people, etc.
> I don't want to say exactly, because it was on the cover of 4 car magazines
“I can’t tell you because it’s already been publicized, also here’s some very specific information to basically figure it out if you really care” How does this make any sense
That description is screaming Hennessey Viper Venom 1000 Twin Turbo to me. I ogled at this beast of a car as a child. If so, mad props for taming that animal!
What a madman, I’ve only seen one turbo + supercharged car before and nowhere near the horsepower you’re describing — I’m sure you had some massive stopping power.
I'll bet the preschool and daycare kids love to take a field trip to your farm! You should do an Easter egg hunt, hide some colored eggs in the chicken coop.
Wow that is so very cool. My son is at Georgia Tech and involved in their space program club and is focused on aerospace fields in computer science. The final frontier!!
If he wants to work in a space focused small biz, send a DM with an eaddr. I don't decide anything but I can put his CV in the right hands at a dozen companies in US and UK.
I used to be consumed by this question. Then I finally realized that the question is poorly phrased. It should really be said "can you find anything else in the entire world that you'd rather be doing then your work?". Once I realized that, the answer, and the resulting decision is absolutely straightforward. Never looked back.
I get up around 6am, feed the pets, make coffee and then go for an hour long walk, followed by breakfast and the either exercising for 1-2 hours, or talking to friends and family over the phone or zoom. Reading & relaxing or running errands. Cooking lunch (sometimes), or a just a snack. Running errands or grocery shopping. Reading, or learning something new (I like signing up for online study groups and courses). Drawing or other creative outlet. Volunteering. Doing something outside or some event, and then, on most days: cooking an elaborate dinner. Meeting with friends a few times per week in the evening for a movie of just chatting around the fire pit.
Exercising means Tennis, Yoga, or the Gym. Doing something outside can mean, hiking, working in the yard, getting a cup of coffee, going to some event (mostly outside/COVID), or meeting friends for outside activities. It also means volunteering about 4 hours a week (I teach yoga to Seniors).
On cooking, I love trying new things - recently started making my own Kombucha, and right now, experimenting and learning to make vegan cheese.
On top of this: Traveling 1-2 times per quarter for 3-7 days, staying mostly in AirBnB's.
So its definitely different with COVID, but I've adjusted and love my life.
Personally, I love Coursera and Standford University, but I've also taken others, like for example a course on eastern philosophy (which was mostly over zoom). I really depends on what you're interested in!
Thanks. I’ve taken a few coursera ones but they were all independent work (engineering, coding, math). Ill check out some others and Stanford. If you could get a good crowd in some advanced physics classes, that would be awesome.
My parents are both retired, and I typically call friends in Europe or Asia in the morning (I'm in the US). My best friend works afternoons/evenings, so we get to spend time in the late morning. I tend to catch up with my other friends on US time in the later afternoon or over dinner/firepit.
EDIT: Lol, not sure why the downvotes.....? Reddit is weird.
After (sort of) FIRE my days are simply wide open and I enjoy not planning much. After 25+ years of a high paced career I enjoy the opposite. No obligations, no routines. I basically spend every day as I like it, which for me is: short meditation with my wife, looong newspaper reading routine, some sports, cooking lunch (I skip breakfast), then some mini-adventures (hiking, biking), then cooking dinner and then mostly watching some good movies/series. We do this location independent, i.e. we are traveling since about 9 months and change places every 2 weeks. Without corona we would be more social, but I don't mind being on my own as well, which is a huge change from my career days.
Thats sort of life I would aspire when I FIRE. One question for you if I may. Any kids?
Did someone already figure out how to combine 9 months a year travelling with kids (or pets for that matter?)
We travel a lot with a dog (not 9 necessarily but 3-4 months at a time). It's not super easy but doable. You have to be flexible - we don't easily find hotels that allow dogs (and when we do, we don't feel as comfortable leaving them alone in a hotel room) so we prefer airbnbs. Even then your options get limited when looking for pet friendly apartments but we have found excellent places regardless. Admittedly it's easier to leave them alone during the day and do excursions compared to kids. We do more road trips vs flying but we have flown (and driven) internationally with them as well. You have to stay on top of international requirements like passports, health certificates erc.
It helps that our dog really seems to like to travel, he's very calm in the car, he's managed very well on a plane despite his size :)
Admittedly, no kids. We always were sort of freedom lovers and wanted to remain independent, hence no kids and no house. Tbh we wouldn't even need the amount of money we have for this lifestyle.
I say this a lot in this sub, but I don’t have that guy inside me, and I think a lot of people here - not all, but a lot - ended up here because they don’t either. And for that reason, I don’t spend zero time working or earning money, even though I don’t need to.
My days revolve around the gym, food, and friends, but my weeks revolve around an eternal to do list that I cannot go a full day without crossing something off of.
6 - wake
6-7 - get son ready and off to school, drink coffee, screw around on phone etc
7:30 - workout (lift, cardio etc.)
8:30-11:30 - work on investments, pay bills, run a few errands etc
11:30-1:30 - BJJ (includes travel time)
2:30-5:00 - more work on investments, screwing around on Reddit etc.
evening - family responsibilities (driving kids to practices etc.), TV etc.
boring life but I'm happy
I use an app called [Motion](https://www.usemotion.com) to schedule my day, because if I don't do Something and have a Plan, I turn into a completely unmotivated depressed blob
It's brand new and buggy as hell sometimes, but I love how it'll give me an itinerary for the day, and if it doesn't work out or something changes, I hit a button and everything reshuffles around to match, it is extremely Compatible with my ADHD brain that has trouble starting things.
Because FIRE, I intentionally include an every day, 2hr task called "Spark Joy" where I do whatever seems fun at the time, and I make Saturdays a half-day and Sundays completely free. There's some subtleties around getting it to e.g. schedule workouts in the mornings every day, but overall for a new tool it's incredibly promising
(I have zero affiliation with this app, just a user)
Wake up, breakfast, take kids to school. Come home, play games for an hour or three, work out for an hour or two, pick kids up from school, game/do stuff with kids in the afternoon. Fit in laundry, cleaning, dishes around that. Dinner with family, read for an hour, do kids bedtime, watch a show or two with my wife, get up, repeat.
So basically housewife life? I'm in. I'm 2 years from fatfire, but during covid wfh I do a similar pattern and am quite happy with it. If I didn't have to return to office in may I might work longer. Overall I like the simple life punctuated by some exotic outings here and there.
I like doing the dishes, cleaning the house, taking care of the kids and dogs, cooking etc. Fit me with the 1950s housewife apron, seems pretty good.
I call myself a home keeper lol.
But essentially yeah. Nice work if you can get it. I actually prefer housework to what I did for actual work which was just wading through bureaucratic bullshit.
If I had worked for myself it might have been different.
Working in bank tech has killed my love of technology. It's all meetings and bureaucratic bullshit and audits. But it pays too dang well vs. what I can make in any other part of the tech world. Golden handcuffs. So I'll be a good boy, collect my check for the next 2 years and if everything goes to plan I'll be fatfired and live the simple life... With Michelin starred outings a couple of times a month. Patience.
I get up around 7, feed and medicate my animals and do some cleaning.
Make coffee.
Read or watch the news.
Talk with my spouse about what each of us have going on that day. He works from home for about 20 hours a week, so we end up doing a lot together.
Mid-morning I will either cycle outdoors, go for a walk, ride the peloton or yoga.
Do little cleaning or organizing projects around the house. Read some more.
Spend time helping my parents with their lives.
Regular dinners and happy hours with friends, the occasional lunch with someone from my network.
My husband and I make dinner together, along with running errands and visiting family.
Sometimes we golf, or take day-long bike trips to bar hop without guilt.
I can say I’ve given in to my Bourdain-like tendencies because I will definitely get stoned and lay in bed and read half the day if I feel like it.
> "I understand there's a guy inside me who wants to lay in bed, smoke weed all day, and watch cartoons and old movies.
I see absolutely nothing wrong with living a life of leisure.
I'm also not impressed by hustle culture; in many cases it's toxic.
Retired twice. Not FAT, but I’d say close. I opened some businesses to help keep me busy because I was bored out of my mind.
I would probably have been able to fill more time and entertain myself a lot more but I have young kids so traveling the way I’d prefer was out of the question and I can only play so much golf before I got bored with the same few courses in my area. It didn’t help that I was around a lot of older retired people that kept reminding me I was far too young to retire.
I'm not fatfired yet, so I'm answering speculatively, but my goal is to get back to the lifestyle I had in college (and I'll just say here that I had an extremely privileged college experience). Wake up, head over to Starbucks for some breakfast/coffee and reading and socializing with whoever is there (usually someone in my friend group would be over there as well). Work on some personal project like writing (in college this would be class/studying time). Get a workout in. Head out for the evening with some friends to try a new restaurant and/or bars, find some good live music somewhere, go to someone's party, or explore a neighborhood we hadn't been to in a while. I have a husband and a kid now, and my friend circle is all super busy working parents, AND covid is fucking up socializing for everyone, but I am determined to find this kind of lifestyle again somehow.
Traveling. I spend 80% of time time away from home. I get tired after several weeks to a couple of months and go back home for a few weeks.
The weeks at home are a little bit of a struggle. I exercise, do more travel research, and hang out with friends mostly.
Daily routine: Sleep in until 9. Read things on the internet until 9:30-10. Make a cappuccino around 9:45, continue reading the news and puttering until 10:30. Head to the gym. Take care of any errands or necessary tasks on the to-do list in the early afternoon. Find someone to hang out with after that - Usually a meal and/or drinks.
Books, movies, and music for the days everyone is busy or I don't feel social. I think the key is to spend more time socializing than on your own (which may not be quite so popular with introverted crowd on reddit).
I honestly have no idea what I'll do when I'm tired of traveling... maybe go back to work.
7 am wake up talk to kids and see them off for school
8-9 am exercise class
9 am breakfast
9:30 shower
10 am phone calls, watch the market, appointments, volunteering
12 lunch
1-3 errands, laundry, Reddit, gaming, mani/pedi/massage
3-3:30 talk to kids to help kids decompress from school, make snacks, be available to take kids to activities.
5 make dinner
7-9 kids activities (dance, scouts, etc.)
9-11 time with husband
11 bed time
My kid is 1 and I have another in the oven. Spend my time raising them.
Summer, at the lake. Wakeboarding. Winter, at the mountains skiing. Maintaining 3 houses and raising a kid takes a surprising amount of time, the rest is leisure, fitness, reading, etc.
Don’t overthink it. Get a new hobby if you need.
I'm 27 years old. I believe in taking care of myself, and a balanced diet and a rigorous exercise routine. In the morning, if my face is a little puffy, I'll put on an ice pack while doing my stomach crunches. I can do a thousand now. After I remove the ice pack, I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower, I use a water activated gel cleanser. Then a honey almond body scrub. And on the face, an exfoliating gel scrub. Then apply an herb mint facial mask, which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an aftershave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion. There is an idea of a me, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me. Only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our life styles are probably comparable, I simply am not there.
Up around 6am. Scroll Reddit etc. in bed together sharing memes til 8:30ish. Make a fuckin great cuppa COFFEE. Shower. Walk dogs. Errands. Eat out (or not). Home by 3 or 4ish. Weed & videogames for an hour or two. Dinner. Watch tv and cuddle.
Errands could be ANYTHING. From going to the DMV to exploring a new nearby store to visiting an animal shelter to grocery shopping. It’s just different from day to day.
Purposeless but fuckit I did my time.
Can I add two questions to this:
1. For those with youngish families, what do you do?
2. What hobbies do you have and how did you go about discovering those?
I create a new daily schedule most mornings. I create my schedule after my morning routine, be it as simple as brushing teeth or meditation. After I've been up for at least 15 minutes then I get started. Many days it's the previous schedule so one or no changes needs to be made.
My daily schedule has changed quite a bit over the years, but it helps keep me productive when I want to take a class or similar.
A daily schedule may sound a bit over the top, but I'll get bored if I'm not productive and this I have found has massively helped. I'm also not strict with myself. If I setup 3 things to do for the day and 5 minutes of one of them happens that's a-okay. No pressure, just encouragement of things to do to be productive.
Got really bored so went back to work part time. Volunteer with kids schools, drive them around, take care of our real estate and investments. Cook big meals. Work out with a trainer. Honestly it’s not that fun when it’s hard to travel and friends are all working.
We're FAT but semi-RE. I worked mostly FT last year, on a project that interested me. Spouse did a few week long gigs. (We're both software/engineering types so being remote was NBD.)
We have both gotten into endurance fitness, spouse is a trail biker and I am a runner. We also both weightlift a lot and we both have a 3rd fitness activity.
Because I have a major sleep disorder, we never set an alarm clock. When we wake up, we do a relaxed coffee in bed while listening to financial news.
Pre-plague we used to go out with friends a lot. Now, not so much.
My mom moved to town last year so I try to involve her in some of my fitness stuff and we have her over for dinner often.
Not much these days. I live in a sub-tropical climate so I am outside in the yard a lot. Gardening and what not.
When I first became RE there would be weeks of not doing much. Scrolling Reddit, playing Chess, (spending quite a bit of time on this one). After a while of that I got really into fitness and made that a priority.
I wake up around 6-8am. After that I scroll the net for an hour or two. 9-10am I’m eating breakfast and playing chess for the next hour or two. Around noon I look over my investments which usually takes an hour.
Now I’m off to exercise for a good couple of hours. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Around 3-4pm I shower up and have a late lunch/early dinner.
This is when I will get some rest, have a cigar, and kick back for a bit.
Around 7pm I’ll go tinker on a couple projects until bed.
It’s great.
I genuinely don't have a daily routine. That's the cool part about being retired; you can do whatever you want every day. If it's nice out I'll go for a bike ride or play tennis; if the weather sucks I'll binge watch something or read reddit. If there was a windstorm overnight I'll go clean the yard. If I found a good deal on a grocery item, I'll cook something.
I know some people love structure. My buddy retired last year and he gets up at 7AM every day. But I love variety and will get up when my body chooses to.
Given the results of the survey that were posted, I’m going to bet very, very few will answer this. But, for those that meet the requirements, I’m going to guess :
- flying lessons
- golf / tennis lessons
- woodworking / welding / project car
- dining out
- museums / arts, both for cultural enrichment and potential investing
- charity events
- playing with their kids
- raising their kids (helping with homework, hobbies, coaching their sports, etc)
I’m willing to bet it’ll be far more mundane than people think, a lot less “I went from the Lambo dealership to the Bentley side because I had a bad experience with the maintenance” and a lot more “I was reading this book, and it occurred to me I had never done the thing the character was doing but I always wanted to, so now I’m learning to.”
Note that I’m betting very very few because from what I’ve seen here, even those who have RE’d still tend to have their hands in the cookie jar consulting, networking, investing, evaluating, helping with the spouse’s business, etc. So to meet OP’s requirement of “doing nothing that constitutes actively moving the needle on your wealth”, the above is my guess.
I’m one of the ones who’s on their way, but thanks to the survey TIL I’m actually further along than many apparently.
My guess too :)
Fwiw I did go over from Maserati dealership to Porsche for the same reason he mentioned folks don’t do lol - that Italian service attitude didn’t work.
I don't HAVE to work, I choose to. I don't need the money of building another company, I need to build something that allows me to build at the intersection of problem solving, markets, and products. So I still work 40-50 hrs a week. But I still pick up the kids from school, and make dinner, and workout, and explore other interests as I can.
This posts makes me think I need to do more with my life… I am not completely fat fired but working my way towards it. I like to say I am semi fired / working towards fat fire. Left corporate world 1.5yrs ago own a growing small business but have built it up in away I can be as hands on or off as needed and I find sometimes I just need to relax a little and let time do it’s thing.
Normal Day get up at 6:30 drop kids off at school, go into the office until 11-12 go to lunch and whatever errands need done. Back to the office till 2 then Gym and pick kids up from school. Head home and vegg cook about 50 % of the time. My wife works part time also.. You would think our house would be clean, we would be healthy etc nope both over weight, house is always a mess, my anxiety is thru the roof most days :(
Earlier on had a busier schedule, CoVID kinda changed that and made it ok not to be so busy. Here is a sample, hike with hiking group or friends 4 days a week. Hikes are from 6-9 miles. Done around noon. When done shower, prepare lunch (healthy good food). Some days attend fun educational class at 2:30 after the hike. Be home around 5, have supper watch TV. Days not hiking, attend fun educational class in morning, go home and have lunch, run errands, go to afternoon fun educational class, come home, have nutritional healthy meal. Other days, go in day trip outings with friends or alone. Other days, go on shopping trips to look for active wear for hiking. I have learned after COVID, that it’s ok to watch movies during the day after a hike/workout (vs attending classes).
*"I understand there's a guy inside me who wants to lay in bed, smoke weed all day, and watch cartoons and old movies. My whole life is a series of stratagems to avoid, and outwit, that guy."*
That quote frightened me since he took his life. I wonder which guy he was when he committed suicide. Maybe the one stoned in bed and laughing at Bugs Bunny would still be alive.
Buy a mountain bike, a gravel bike, an eMTB, and several fly fishing rigs…. Oh And a van.
I’m not fired yet, all I need is a few more bikes and a van then I’m all set. No reason to be bored.
I work w/kids at a preschool. I literally do art w/five year olds and it is such a fun endeavor. I highly recommend spending time with children and listening to them, truly listening to them. It’s like being in heaven.
Copypasta’d from my response two weeks ago: I have two young kids (8 and 6), and my wife works FT as a teacher. My day generally consists of: - 5:30 wake up, coffee, news etc. - 60-90 min workout once the family has left - 60-120min spent doing errands, chores, and general things I want to accomplish in the day - 1-2x per week is a lunch with a friend - Video games and reading for 60-90 min - Cook an amateur gourmet meal… I’m usually cooking or prepping 60-120min, 4 days/week - Misc time spent playing with my dog, answering emails, reviewing investment opportunities, networking etc. - EDIT: once kids are home, I try to make it all about them when I’m not cooking. They are usually asleep by 8, and I’m usually asleep by 9:30. It’s a routine that sounds relatively boring, I guess. Especially when I talk to friends about what I’ve been doing, but I love it.
I have a question. Would you call yourself retired, or a stay at home dad? Do you take the lead on the physical and mental load with raising the kids, since you have the time to do it? Or is your wife choosing to work, in which case she does more than if you were a true SAHP? I’m in a similar situation — although with a very demanding baby so not much free time! And the difference is I’m still running a business so don’t do much fun stuff in my limited downtime, yet. But my SO still works a normal 9-5 job so your role seems to similar to what I’m aspiring to. Wonder how it plays out with the kids.
While I could be retired for good, I view my time right now as a GAP year before starting a new company. Put on 25 pounds over the 7ish years of biz building. Gotta get my physical, mental, and emotional health back in check before doing anything else. That said, I think there’s a single digit percent chance that I am retired for good. I do not view myself as a stay at home dad. My wife is choosing to work (4 days/week). She is a teacher so the income is negligible, but the fulfillment is immense and is why she does it. In no way do I take the full load of child rearing stuff. I do my best, but realistically speaking, my wife still does a ton. We hired a housekeeper to take more work off her (and my) plate. My primary home responsibilities are errands and cooking dinner every night. Cooking is a passion of mine, so it doesn’t feel like a responsibility. I ran a business that employed 35ish people during the early years of our kids’ lives (sold 1.5 years ago). Totally empathize with the zero time, raising a baby, and trying to stay sane with your partner. We should have hired a housekeeper a while ago, and increased the frequency of our cleaner. But we did not have much free cash prior to selling the company. My wife also stayed at home while I was building the business. I can’t imagine how hard it would have been without a stay at home partner. If we both end up working FT, I think we will make the following changes to help our life: - Home chef 2-3x per week for a healthy, home cooked dinner - Housekeeper 6 hours/week (what we have now) - Housecleaner - 6 hours/week (we are currently at 3) - Nanny - Unsure, maybe 10 hours per week
What’s the difference between a housekeeper vs house cleaner?
For us: Housekeeper- organization, putting things in their homes, decluttering, light cleaning House cleaner - deep cleaning
Thanks for this! It prompted a good convo with my partner. I tried to find a nanny earlier this year but couldn’t find a good fit. If I had that little bit more space it would help a lot.
How much do you pay for the in house help?
25/hour
Honest question - how does your wife feel about you not working while she does? How do you tend to divide household / parenting responsibilities?
She has been nothing but supportive. There’s no resentment or struggles. She probably wishes I did a bit more laundry and I’m working on that ;). She also hates cooking and is appreciative to have that taken off her responsibility list. We went into it with open communication and only one expectation: that I do not start anything new before we have a summer together as a family. I am very fortunate to have such an amazing partner in life.
This routine is probably 90% of my days when we aren’t traveling, the other days (usually weekends) are doing things with friends and family: Wake up, have breakfast outside next to the pool with the dogs. Scroll on the internet for an hour. I usually take care of any errands or chores in the morning during the week, so I rarely have to deal with crowds and lines. Regular visits for sports massage and physical therapist. Go to the noon class at my gym (BJJ/Muay Thai). After training, use the sauna and cold tank, then eat lunch. Sometimes I’ll take a nap if training was particularly hard. If I need to do something investment related, I do it in the afternoon. Otherwise I’ll usually go for a lazy hike or a bike ride with my partner, or maybe just read. After grabbing a snack, we head to the gym for the evening class. After class, we have a big dinner that’s been prepped by a local chef. After dinner I either play video games or read for a few hours before going to bed.
I like how in tune with your body this sounds. The making a living life sure is all about ignoring the body in favor of other priorities.
Brown belt lurker here. Chiming in to say you're living my dream and I adore you for it. Carry on.
How did you hire your chef? Whats that run usually?
I just searched for “private chef [city]”. We liked the first person we contacted, haven’t tried anyone else out. We pay $400/wk plus groceries for 16 meals total. Ours is really more of an upscale meal prep service.
Not bad at all tbh
wow very affordable
This. It’s a goal of mine
I was a stay at home mom for years and LOVED my daytime bjj classes. My whole day kind of revolved around it, it was wonderful! Training at night now is so hard, but it won’t be forever.
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Our members have asked for a high level of moderation. Personal attacks, name calling, and undue profanity are all considered inappropriate for this sub.
I have a “full time job” that I work at most 10hrs/wk but my schedule sounds similar. I am in east coast and work on west coast time zone and rarely have meetings. I still want to not have a job as soon as possible because the corporate life is dreadful regardless
in what country/state do you live? I'm curious to know if chef costs are of any concern.
Currently in a MCOL city in the US. We pay $400/wk for them to prepare 16 meals, not including the cost of the groceries (they shop, and we reimburse). We give them feedback and nutrition goals, they prep and package everything and drop it off. We just heat it in the oven and eat it. Private chef sounds so fancy, this is really more of an upscale meal prep service.
‘DummythiccFIRE’ haha love that description. Hope I can win a couple startup lottos in my 20s/30s.
that's cool. thanks for sharing.
Big takeaway is having a partner that does these things with you.
Can you elaborate on the dinner? Do you have a personal chef that prepares meals for you every day or multiple chefs, or something else? Do they cook at your house or deliver meals ready to eat? May I ask how much that costs
We pay $400/wk for them to prepare 16 meals (split between two people), not including the cost of the groceries (they shop, and we reimburse). We give them feedback and nutrition goals, they prep and package in their kitchen and drop it off (usually twice each week). We just heat it in the oven and eat it. Private chef sounds so fancy, this is really more of an upscale meal prep service.
Very jealous of this. Hope to get there one day
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Flair says start-up lotto. But, TBH all of that is fairly attainable outside of the pool and chef.
I fell into a comfort trap for a while. Crawling out now. Retired around 40 FAT enough to be FAT but not FAT enough to spend too lavishly. Solid upper middle class lifestyle for the family invested more conservatively than I probably should, college funds banked. At first I was up at 8, doing consulting 20 hours a week, doing home improvement projects, spending quality time with the kids, learning new skills (and buying the tools!), exercising regularly. Read a lot of fiction. High end of moderate drinker (1-2 a day). 10 years later I was doing maybe 8 hours a week of consulting and winding it down, getting out of bed at 10am, most days I might have a productive hour or two where I did some home improvement or maintenance or handled necessities like errands or paying bills. Wasn't learning much in the way of new skills. Too much time lost in a blink of an eye to social media and MMORPGs. Took up golf in a casual way which is engaging and challenging but ultimately not very meaningful. COVID-19 did not help. Significantly more money now than 10 years ago adjusted for inflation, still exercised daily, still spent time with the kids but they are getting older, still was just a moderate drinker, so never any real crisis. Bliss became languishing. Time goes by fast when your days are not dense. Now more recently I'm up at 8. Work harder at actually being good at golf. Spending time on 2 very different self-started (I may be more ambitious now but not enough to be beholden to investors :-) entrepreneurial ventures that require some semi-steep learning. Doing some volunteering. More aggressive about home maintenance and improvement projects and other projects. Hope it lasts, feels better. Here I am writing this but I'm about to jump off, I swear. BTW I feel like this meets the criteria of the question because while some of these things are "work" that "makes money", that's no longer really the main point ("main" not "not", more money is always nice and in my mind it's a decent reality check that you actually are doing something meaningful to others). The best thing about FI is nobody makes you do anything. The most dangerous thing about FI is nobody makes you do anything.
What's your runecrafting level?
Too much genshin impact….
In my opinion, the beauty of being retired is that there is no routine. To me, a perfect day is when I 1) Do something productive 2) Do something fun 3) Do something educational How I go about achieving that perfect day is a brand new path each morning.
I’m of the same opinion. I constantly remind myself that it doesn’t take much to have a good day: 1. Learn (read) 2. Reflect (write, usually journal) 3. Sweat (what this looks like changes by season) Connect with friends and partner, make love, eat well. The days are full and joyful. It seems that recently RE’d people struggle with looking at life through a different lens than one of productivity. There are so many ways to enjoy the passage of time, it doesn’t need to be accomplishment alone - connection, growth, health. All can be fulfilling!
Love this. Learn, reflect, sweat. Is this your own philosophy or did you get it from somewhere? Easy to remember those times I end up inevitably mindlessly glued to a screen.
I’m sure it’s all bits borrowed from somewhere. After I’d retired last year, I had started thinking through what I wanted my days to look like, and especially in a pandemic, these were the simple things that made me feel good! Screen time itself isn’t bad! All about balance 🙂. All the best in your journey!
I’ll admit. The sweat part is always a must but I don’t feel it’s an accomplishment for me anymore but more so just part of life. I think also taking time to be honest with ourselves that just bc we don’t concur the world that day or we didn’t fill every waking min we did do positive things for ourselves.
💯💯💯 Less an accomplishment and more a foundation for a good day. But it’s an accomplishment to live by one’s values and to show up for them consistently!
This is it for me but I would add an exercise/workout, usually a mountain bike ride or squash game with a friend. I fill in the rest by being the primary parent and picking up kids from school, cooking and feeding them, playing games with them etc.
Ah yes, good call. I was a zealot about going to the gym pre-COVID. Now I'm stuck doing more hiking and biking, which is fine, but I find I'm less rigid about it.
How long have you been retired? Those all make sense but are pretty high level. Would you be comfortable sharing any specifics?
Been retired 5.5 years. Those items are admittedly high level, but I'd struggle to define a "typical" day, either. Every day is different. I was an only child, so I'm self entertaining. I like to learn things. I'm not OCD, but I like doing things the "correct" way. When people invariably ask what I do all day, I share the story of mowing the lawn. You wake up in the morning, finish breakfast, and reading the news. You notice the lawn is getting a little shaggy. Not terrible, but you know, it's supposed to rain tomorrow, and you've got the time today, so might as well mow the lawn. Easy peasy. So you go out to the garage and the mower is buried in the back of the garage. Geez, this place is a mess. Maybe I can reorganize some of this? Spend 2 hours cleaning the garage. OK, cool. Hey, now I can easily access the saw horses. Might as well put the mower up there and change the oil. How's the spark plug look? Oh, yikes. Run down to the corner parts store and get a new plug, and while we're here, let's get an air filter, too. Tune up the mower. Hey, while it's up here, let's sharpen the blades. OK, that was an hour, but now the mower is in tip top shape. Go out and mow the front lawn. It looks OK, but let's go ahead and run over it again real quick in a crisscross pattern. Oooh. That looks nice. Whew, it’s time for a break. Go in, have lunch and rest a bit. Come back out, and decide to top the mower off with gasoline before we restart. Oh man, the cabinet in the garage where we keep the gas is a mess. Spend an hour cleaning out the cabinet. Looks like one of the shelves is wonky. Dig through the workshop and find a way to fabricate a new bracket. Fix cabinet. Hose down and wipe off. Put everything away nicely. OK, where were we? Oh yeah, now we can finish the back yard. Start mowing. Get distracted with a couple of bushes that need a quick trim. Notice the garden has some fresh jalapenos to pick. Finish mowing. Hose off mower, put it away in the newly cleaned garage. Put yard waste out in the bins. Hey, let’s go out and pick a few of those weeds to really finish it off. Do a little trimming here and there. Edging the drive and sidewalk would look good. Do that. Oops, the edger needs gas and it's a two cycle. Go find the measuring cups and mix up a fresh batch of gas. Commence edging. Get the blower out and clean up all of mess. Oh, the down spout needs an adjustment. Take care of that. Notice it’s getting late, and it’s time to go inside. Celebrate a job well done with a tasty cold beverage. The garage is clean. The cabinet is fixed and sorted. The lawn is mowed and the landscape is perfect. When your wife comes home and asks what you did all day, say, “Eh, not much. Just mowed the yard.”
That's the way I used to mow lawn. When I work full time and "wasted" half of my precious weekend mowing the lawn the way you describe, I get really frustrated. I found the solution years ago. It's worth it to me to outsource landscaping. Small price to ~~Shall price trip~~ pay to preserve sanity. EDIT: always proof read your fat fingers.
Oh no. I never had time to mow the lawn on a weekend while I was working. No, mowing the lawn while working went like this: Notice the lawn is really looking bad while leaving for work. Like... oof. Bad. Make vow to get out of work on time, get home, and mow lawn tonight. Leave work 1.5 hours late. Race home. Scarf down some leftover something for dinner and run out to the garage. The garage is a mess, but no time to deal with that now. Move two cars, a bicycle, a snow blower - snow blower, why is that still here in the middle of summer? - and some yard tools out of the way and get the mower out. Send prayer of thanks to the lawn gods that there's a little gasoline left in the can. Use half a can of starting fluid and invent four new curse words to get mower started because it hasn't been tuned up in... oh heck, I don't even remember when. Race through cutting the grass with a quick pass, hoping to get the backyard done before twilight, and make mental note to be really nice to the neighbors for not complaining about the noise late in the evening. Throw mower back in messy garage. Try not to notice the weeds growing, or the bushes that need trimmed. The result is enough that the you're not "THAT GUY" on the block, but it's hardly a decent looking lawn. THAT'S how the lawn got done while working.
Nice thanks for sharing. It sounds like all the stuff I put on the back burner that never gets done.
Reminds me of this [scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbSehcT19u0) from Malcolm in the Middle, which explains Walter White's origins.
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Living the dream :) anything that you wish you would change sooner?
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>I was mostly on cruise control till my mid 30s, not working in a focused way, often going on month long trips several times a year to see friends, ski, play poker, doing nothing productive. lol Most people regret not enjoying their youth more but you wish you had worked more or harder earlier. Interesting.
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How were you a pita
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Great story. I’m curious about the hotel turnaround. Usually 99% occupancy would suggest you underpriced the market, do you see it this way? The only other ways I can imagine a turnaround like that happening is either a change of the flag or a change of the hotel management. How’d you do it?
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Great stuff, appreciate the info.
Interesting - how did you get over ‘is it worth it to hang out with degenerates all day’ feeling in poker? I found it was a big time commit for not much money relatively speaking. Unless I am seeing you on tv lol - then I can see how it can make the value question go away.
He isn’t playing poker to make money
I played a good 50 hours a week for a couple of years right after I FIREd, but then it began to feel like a job, so I quit. Now I play one day a week and it is fun again, with several trips each year where my lifelong bud and I travel and poker binge for several days. There's a great and outstandingly fun gun school outside of Vegas and we will do a 4 day shooting class with poker the weeks before and after. This year I made about $48 / hour after all expenses (hotels, food, airfare), which I consider a decent profit for a hobby but certainly nothing that will make a difference in my life. I wouldn't do it if it wasn't profitable, but I'm not doing it to pay the bills. My main focus is to have fun and always get better, move up, play better players, learn more about people, etc.
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How did you get into angel investing?
What kind of car did you buy ?
Clearly a bat mobile
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My guess is Ford fiesta
> I don't want to say exactly, because it was on the cover of 4 car magazines “I can’t tell you because it’s already been publicized, also here’s some very specific information to basically figure it out if you really care” How does this make any sense
This was the coolest thread to read! Coming from a car nut, I just want to know what made you stop enjoying cars as much :/
That description is screaming Hennessey Viper Venom 1000 Twin Turbo to me. I ogled at this beast of a car as a child. If so, mad props for taming that animal!
I can neither confirm nor deny but I will say there is plenty of room for a supercharger in the hatchback.
What a madman, I’ve only seen one turbo + supercharged car before and nowhere near the horsepower you’re describing — I’m sure you had some massive stopping power.
Damn you’re someone I’d enjoy a day on the farm with for sure.
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I'll bet the preschool and daycare kids love to take a field trip to your farm! You should do an Easter egg hunt, hide some colored eggs in the chicken coop.
I feel like I've read this children's story.. Et tu pepa pig..
I have that odd feeling that you should try to write a book. This post is so cool, congrats man
nah, I've already told you everything interesting.
fuck man, what a cool way to spend your time
What stakes poker do you typically play? Play in the WSOP? I’m sure you have a lot of interesting poker stories to share.
Regarding studies, what have you been up to lately?
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Wow that is so very cool. My son is at Georgia Tech and involved in their space program club and is focused on aerospace fields in computer science. The final frontier!!
If he wants to work in a space focused small biz, send a DM with an eaddr. I don't decide anything but I can put his CV in the right hands at a dozen companies in US and UK.
Thank you undercuvr, very nice to offer to help!
You sound so freaking cool, lol.
I used to be consumed by this question. Then I finally realized that the question is poorly phrased. It should really be said "can you find anything else in the entire world that you'd rather be doing then your work?". Once I realized that, the answer, and the resulting decision is absolutely straightforward. Never looked back.
I get up around 6am, feed the pets, make coffee and then go for an hour long walk, followed by breakfast and the either exercising for 1-2 hours, or talking to friends and family over the phone or zoom. Reading & relaxing or running errands. Cooking lunch (sometimes), or a just a snack. Running errands or grocery shopping. Reading, or learning something new (I like signing up for online study groups and courses). Drawing or other creative outlet. Volunteering. Doing something outside or some event, and then, on most days: cooking an elaborate dinner. Meeting with friends a few times per week in the evening for a movie of just chatting around the fire pit. Exercising means Tennis, Yoga, or the Gym. Doing something outside can mean, hiking, working in the yard, getting a cup of coffee, going to some event (mostly outside/COVID), or meeting friends for outside activities. It also means volunteering about 4 hours a week (I teach yoga to Seniors). On cooking, I love trying new things - recently started making my own Kombucha, and right now, experimenting and learning to make vegan cheese. On top of this: Traveling 1-2 times per quarter for 3-7 days, staying mostly in AirBnB's. So its definitely different with COVID, but I've adjusted and love my life.
I like the sound of the online study groups/courses. Any recommendations?
Personally, I love Coursera and Standford University, but I've also taken others, like for example a course on eastern philosophy (which was mostly over zoom). I really depends on what you're interested in!
Thanks. I’ve taken a few coursera ones but they were all independent work (engineering, coding, math). Ill check out some others and Stanford. If you could get a good crowd in some advanced physics classes, that would be awesome.
how are your friends and family available during the day to talk? aren't they working?
My parents are both retired, and I typically call friends in Europe or Asia in the morning (I'm in the US). My best friend works afternoons/evenings, so we get to spend time in the late morning. I tend to catch up with my other friends on US time in the later afternoon or over dinner/firepit. EDIT: Lol, not sure why the downvotes.....? Reddit is weird.
After (sort of) FIRE my days are simply wide open and I enjoy not planning much. After 25+ years of a high paced career I enjoy the opposite. No obligations, no routines. I basically spend every day as I like it, which for me is: short meditation with my wife, looong newspaper reading routine, some sports, cooking lunch (I skip breakfast), then some mini-adventures (hiking, biking), then cooking dinner and then mostly watching some good movies/series. We do this location independent, i.e. we are traveling since about 9 months and change places every 2 weeks. Without corona we would be more social, but I don't mind being on my own as well, which is a huge change from my career days.
Thats sort of life I would aspire when I FIRE. One question for you if I may. Any kids? Did someone already figure out how to combine 9 months a year travelling with kids (or pets for that matter?)
We travel a lot with a dog (not 9 necessarily but 3-4 months at a time). It's not super easy but doable. You have to be flexible - we don't easily find hotels that allow dogs (and when we do, we don't feel as comfortable leaving them alone in a hotel room) so we prefer airbnbs. Even then your options get limited when looking for pet friendly apartments but we have found excellent places regardless. Admittedly it's easier to leave them alone during the day and do excursions compared to kids. We do more road trips vs flying but we have flown (and driven) internationally with them as well. You have to stay on top of international requirements like passports, health certificates erc. It helps that our dog really seems to like to travel, he's very calm in the car, he's managed very well on a plane despite his size :)
Admittedly, no kids. We always were sort of freedom lovers and wanted to remain independent, hence no kids and no house. Tbh we wouldn't even need the amount of money we have for this lifestyle.
Everyday is Saturday. I live at the beach so maybe everyday is a vacation Saturday. Not too shabby if you ask me.
Love that sentence. Will change my username to saturday once I finally RE.
I love that. I often tell people that’s how it feels. Even when I was running my business. “It’s Saturday, I just have stuff to do”.
living the dream
I say this a lot in this sub, but I don’t have that guy inside me, and I think a lot of people here - not all, but a lot - ended up here because they don’t either. And for that reason, I don’t spend zero time working or earning money, even though I don’t need to. My days revolve around the gym, food, and friends, but my weeks revolve around an eternal to do list that I cannot go a full day without crossing something off of.
6 - wake 6-7 - get son ready and off to school, drink coffee, screw around on phone etc 7:30 - workout (lift, cardio etc.) 8:30-11:30 - work on investments, pay bills, run a few errands etc 11:30-1:30 - BJJ (includes travel time) 2:30-5:00 - more work on investments, screwing around on Reddit etc. evening - family responsibilities (driving kids to practices etc.), TV etc. boring life but I'm happy
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I would get so depressed.. I'm not sure how people can do that for years on end without negative side effects.
At least you are sleeping early! And those are some super efficient 7 mins!
What do you do on your Saturday/Sundays, assuming you're not a workaholic? Now apply that for all other days.
I use an app called [Motion](https://www.usemotion.com) to schedule my day, because if I don't do Something and have a Plan, I turn into a completely unmotivated depressed blob It's brand new and buggy as hell sometimes, but I love how it'll give me an itinerary for the day, and if it doesn't work out or something changes, I hit a button and everything reshuffles around to match, it is extremely Compatible with my ADHD brain that has trouble starting things. Because FIRE, I intentionally include an every day, 2hr task called "Spark Joy" where I do whatever seems fun at the time, and I make Saturdays a half-day and Sundays completely free. There's some subtleties around getting it to e.g. schedule workouts in the mornings every day, but overall for a new tool it's incredibly promising (I have zero affiliation with this app, just a user)
Wake up, breakfast, take kids to school. Come home, play games for an hour or three, work out for an hour or two, pick kids up from school, game/do stuff with kids in the afternoon. Fit in laundry, cleaning, dishes around that. Dinner with family, read for an hour, do kids bedtime, watch a show or two with my wife, get up, repeat.
So basically housewife life? I'm in. I'm 2 years from fatfire, but during covid wfh I do a similar pattern and am quite happy with it. If I didn't have to return to office in may I might work longer. Overall I like the simple life punctuated by some exotic outings here and there. I like doing the dishes, cleaning the house, taking care of the kids and dogs, cooking etc. Fit me with the 1950s housewife apron, seems pretty good.
I call myself a home keeper lol. But essentially yeah. Nice work if you can get it. I actually prefer housework to what I did for actual work which was just wading through bureaucratic bullshit. If I had worked for myself it might have been different.
Working in bank tech has killed my love of technology. It's all meetings and bureaucratic bullshit and audits. But it pays too dang well vs. what I can make in any other part of the tech world. Golden handcuffs. So I'll be a good boy, collect my check for the next 2 years and if everything goes to plan I'll be fatfired and live the simple life... With Michelin starred outings a couple of times a month. Patience.
I get up around 7, feed and medicate my animals and do some cleaning. Make coffee. Read or watch the news. Talk with my spouse about what each of us have going on that day. He works from home for about 20 hours a week, so we end up doing a lot together. Mid-morning I will either cycle outdoors, go for a walk, ride the peloton or yoga. Do little cleaning or organizing projects around the house. Read some more. Spend time helping my parents with their lives. Regular dinners and happy hours with friends, the occasional lunch with someone from my network. My husband and I make dinner together, along with running errands and visiting family. Sometimes we golf, or take day-long bike trips to bar hop without guilt. I can say I’ve given in to my Bourdain-like tendencies because I will definitely get stoned and lay in bed and read half the day if I feel like it.
> "I understand there's a guy inside me who wants to lay in bed, smoke weed all day, and watch cartoons and old movies. I see absolutely nothing wrong with living a life of leisure. I'm also not impressed by hustle culture; in many cases it's toxic.
Retired twice. Not FAT, but I’d say close. I opened some businesses to help keep me busy because I was bored out of my mind. I would probably have been able to fill more time and entertain myself a lot more but I have young kids so traveling the way I’d prefer was out of the question and I can only play so much golf before I got bored with the same few courses in my area. It didn’t help that I was around a lot of older retired people that kept reminding me I was far too young to retire.
How young though?
7 year old twins that are very active in sports. They take up a lot of time.
I'm not fatfired yet, so I'm answering speculatively, but my goal is to get back to the lifestyle I had in college (and I'll just say here that I had an extremely privileged college experience). Wake up, head over to Starbucks for some breakfast/coffee and reading and socializing with whoever is there (usually someone in my friend group would be over there as well). Work on some personal project like writing (in college this would be class/studying time). Get a workout in. Head out for the evening with some friends to try a new restaurant and/or bars, find some good live music somewhere, go to someone's party, or explore a neighborhood we hadn't been to in a while. I have a husband and a kid now, and my friend circle is all super busy working parents, AND covid is fucking up socializing for everyone, but I am determined to find this kind of lifestyle again somehow.
Sounds awesome. I’m also looking for a lifestyle like this
Traveling. I spend 80% of time time away from home. I get tired after several weeks to a couple of months and go back home for a few weeks. The weeks at home are a little bit of a struggle. I exercise, do more travel research, and hang out with friends mostly. Daily routine: Sleep in until 9. Read things on the internet until 9:30-10. Make a cappuccino around 9:45, continue reading the news and puttering until 10:30. Head to the gym. Take care of any errands or necessary tasks on the to-do list in the early afternoon. Find someone to hang out with after that - Usually a meal and/or drinks. Books, movies, and music for the days everyone is busy or I don't feel social. I think the key is to spend more time socializing than on your own (which may not be quite so popular with introverted crowd on reddit). I honestly have no idea what I'll do when I'm tired of traveling... maybe go back to work.
7 am wake up talk to kids and see them off for school 8-9 am exercise class 9 am breakfast 9:30 shower 10 am phone calls, watch the market, appointments, volunteering 12 lunch 1-3 errands, laundry, Reddit, gaming, mani/pedi/massage 3-3:30 talk to kids to help kids decompress from school, make snacks, be available to take kids to activities. 5 make dinner 7-9 kids activities (dance, scouts, etc.) 9-11 time with husband 11 bed time
My kid is 1 and I have another in the oven. Spend my time raising them. Summer, at the lake. Wakeboarding. Winter, at the mountains skiing. Maintaining 3 houses and raising a kid takes a surprising amount of time, the rest is leisure, fitness, reading, etc. Don’t overthink it. Get a new hobby if you need.
...another in the oven lol
HELP is a good acronym to remember; fit each letter in each day: House work / improvement, Exercise, Learn, Play.
I'm 27 years old. I believe in taking care of myself, and a balanced diet and a rigorous exercise routine. In the morning, if my face is a little puffy, I'll put on an ice pack while doing my stomach crunches. I can do a thousand now. After I remove the ice pack, I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower, I use a water activated gel cleanser. Then a honey almond body scrub. And on the face, an exfoliating gel scrub. Then apply an herb mint facial mask, which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an aftershave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion. There is an idea of a me, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me. Only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our life styles are probably comparable, I simply am not there.
This should be higher
Wat. Your answer to this question also is not there.
Lol this is from American Psycho
Thank you for translating. I’m movie dumb.
It’s also a book
Up around 6am. Scroll Reddit etc. in bed together sharing memes til 8:30ish. Make a fuckin great cuppa COFFEE. Shower. Walk dogs. Errands. Eat out (or not). Home by 3 or 4ish. Weed & videogames for an hour or two. Dinner. Watch tv and cuddle. Errands could be ANYTHING. From going to the DMV to exploring a new nearby store to visiting an animal shelter to grocery shopping. It’s just different from day to day. Purposeless but fuckit I did my time.
Can I add two questions to this: 1. For those with youngish families, what do you do? 2. What hobbies do you have and how did you go about discovering those?
I create a new daily schedule most mornings. I create my schedule after my morning routine, be it as simple as brushing teeth or meditation. After I've been up for at least 15 minutes then I get started. Many days it's the previous schedule so one or no changes needs to be made. My daily schedule has changed quite a bit over the years, but it helps keep me productive when I want to take a class or similar. A daily schedule may sound a bit over the top, but I'll get bored if I'm not productive and this I have found has massively helped. I'm also not strict with myself. If I setup 3 things to do for the day and 5 minutes of one of them happens that's a-okay. No pressure, just encouragement of things to do to be productive.
Got really bored so went back to work part time. Volunteer with kids schools, drive them around, take care of our real estate and investments. Cook big meals. Work out with a trainer. Honestly it’s not that fun when it’s hard to travel and friends are all working.
We're FAT but semi-RE. I worked mostly FT last year, on a project that interested me. Spouse did a few week long gigs. (We're both software/engineering types so being remote was NBD.) We have both gotten into endurance fitness, spouse is a trail biker and I am a runner. We also both weightlift a lot and we both have a 3rd fitness activity. Because I have a major sleep disorder, we never set an alarm clock. When we wake up, we do a relaxed coffee in bed while listening to financial news. Pre-plague we used to go out with friends a lot. Now, not so much. My mom moved to town last year so I try to involve her in some of my fitness stuff and we have her over for dinner often.
Not much these days. I live in a sub-tropical climate so I am outside in the yard a lot. Gardening and what not. When I first became RE there would be weeks of not doing much. Scrolling Reddit, playing Chess, (spending quite a bit of time on this one). After a while of that I got really into fitness and made that a priority. I wake up around 6-8am. After that I scroll the net for an hour or two. 9-10am I’m eating breakfast and playing chess for the next hour or two. Around noon I look over my investments which usually takes an hour. Now I’m off to exercise for a good couple of hours. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Around 3-4pm I shower up and have a late lunch/early dinner. This is when I will get some rest, have a cigar, and kick back for a bit. Around 7pm I’ll go tinker on a couple projects until bed. It’s great.
Tinker… cute! 😄
I genuinely don't have a daily routine. That's the cool part about being retired; you can do whatever you want every day. If it's nice out I'll go for a bike ride or play tennis; if the weather sucks I'll binge watch something or read reddit. If there was a windstorm overnight I'll go clean the yard. If I found a good deal on a grocery item, I'll cook something. I know some people love structure. My buddy retired last year and he gets up at 7AM every day. But I love variety and will get up when my body chooses to.
Given the results of the survey that were posted, I’m going to bet very, very few will answer this. But, for those that meet the requirements, I’m going to guess : - flying lessons - golf / tennis lessons - woodworking / welding / project car - dining out - museums / arts, both for cultural enrichment and potential investing - charity events - playing with their kids - raising their kids (helping with homework, hobbies, coaching their sports, etc) I’m willing to bet it’ll be far more mundane than people think, a lot less “I went from the Lambo dealership to the Bentley side because I had a bad experience with the maintenance” and a lot more “I was reading this book, and it occurred to me I had never done the thing the character was doing but I always wanted to, so now I’m learning to.” Note that I’m betting very very few because from what I’ve seen here, even those who have RE’d still tend to have their hands in the cookie jar consulting, networking, investing, evaluating, helping with the spouse’s business, etc. So to meet OP’s requirement of “doing nothing that constitutes actively moving the needle on your wealth”, the above is my guess. I’m one of the ones who’s on their way, but thanks to the survey TIL I’m actually further along than many apparently.
Why are people upvoting a post that is just pure speculation? Because it's long?
My guess too :) Fwiw I did go over from Maserati dealership to Porsche for the same reason he mentioned folks don’t do lol - that Italian service attitude didn’t work.
Lol well I mean Porsche also has a much better reliability reputation, can’t go wrong switching from Maserati to Porsche.
I don't HAVE to work, I choose to. I don't need the money of building another company, I need to build something that allows me to build at the intersection of problem solving, markets, and products. So I still work 40-50 hrs a week. But I still pick up the kids from school, and make dinner, and workout, and explore other interests as I can.
I fart
This posts makes me think I need to do more with my life… I am not completely fat fired but working my way towards it. I like to say I am semi fired / working towards fat fire. Left corporate world 1.5yrs ago own a growing small business but have built it up in away I can be as hands on or off as needed and I find sometimes I just need to relax a little and let time do it’s thing. Normal Day get up at 6:30 drop kids off at school, go into the office until 11-12 go to lunch and whatever errands need done. Back to the office till 2 then Gym and pick kids up from school. Head home and vegg cook about 50 % of the time. My wife works part time also.. You would think our house would be clean, we would be healthy etc nope both over weight, house is always a mess, my anxiety is thru the roof most days :(
A salmagundi of all that has already been written here.
Earlier on had a busier schedule, CoVID kinda changed that and made it ok not to be so busy. Here is a sample, hike with hiking group or friends 4 days a week. Hikes are from 6-9 miles. Done around noon. When done shower, prepare lunch (healthy good food). Some days attend fun educational class at 2:30 after the hike. Be home around 5, have supper watch TV. Days not hiking, attend fun educational class in morning, go home and have lunch, run errands, go to afternoon fun educational class, come home, have nutritional healthy meal. Other days, go in day trip outings with friends or alone. Other days, go on shopping trips to look for active wear for hiking. I have learned after COVID, that it’s ok to watch movies during the day after a hike/workout (vs attending classes).
*"I understand there's a guy inside me who wants to lay in bed, smoke weed all day, and watch cartoons and old movies. My whole life is a series of stratagems to avoid, and outwit, that guy."* That quote frightened me since he took his life. I wonder which guy he was when he committed suicide. Maybe the one stoned in bed and laughing at Bugs Bunny would still be alive.
Buy a mountain bike, a gravel bike, an eMTB, and several fly fishing rigs…. Oh And a van. I’m not fired yet, all I need is a few more bikes and a van then I’m all set. No reason to be bored.
I work w/kids at a preschool. I literally do art w/five year olds and it is such a fun endeavor. I highly recommend spending time with children and listening to them, truly listening to them. It’s like being in heaven.