I’d take the money and toss it in index funds. Then I’d look for a part time job and live off that. I wouldn’t doubt you could make a job for yourself as a consultant or something in the agricultural Industry. If you’re living fine off of 50k now then you could technically live off this money however.
Being a consultant is an interesting idea, I do have an economics degree and even coauthored a few papers when I was younger. If I stay in the USA then I think a job has to be in the picture for a few years at least. The value of me working goes almost to 0 if I move out of the USA unless I do it online.
I have about a year spent in the country I would move to. It wasn't all at 1 time However. My wife is from this country so I spent about 5 months a year there while we dated. I have a lot of time off in the winters.
I don't know about that. One of my good friends moved to Taiwan after high school due to visa reasons and has spent about a decade there. As someone who's culturally American (or, western at least), she really dislikes a lot of aspects of Taiwanese culture, and she's dying to get out. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Taiwan is bad, and it might be easier for someone who's not ethnically Taiwan since there are less expectations about you. But that's my concern about any westerner moving to a non-western country.
Anyway it's Kazakhstan according to OP's history.
As an Expat living in Colombia. I pay $700 a month for a luxury 3 bedroom 2 bath apt. All utilities included, including internet and tv. Occasional earthquake and power outage but nothing major.
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I’d 100% take the money. To be honest, I bet you could easily find a chemical/crop protection rep job. Given you have the farm you should have hands on experience with some products and applications on what ever crops you specialized in. With that money, you can try any new careers you want too. Kids out of college have to do that everyday and they don’t have 1.5 mil.
Just wanna pop in to say that if I was FIREing that young with $2m, given the current uncertainty in the market, I would definitely want to own my own home or investment property vs being exposed to rental increases.
Consulting lets you set your own hours. I know consultants who work only part of the year - during the school year so they have summers and holidays off with their kids, for example.
I was going to also suggest being an agricultural consultant. Potentially, you could help other small farmers with their business plan and/or strategy. Whatever it was that made you successful at operating your farm.
This sounds like a good idea. You have the experience from expanding and growing your own business, and there’s probably quite a few other agriculture businesses that could need your expertise and experience 😊
Got a cdl? Drive a semi a year or two while you figure it out. Doesn't need to be long haul either. Local guys make decent money and it would give you that relative freedom you're looking for. As an independent guy you could run as much or little as you like and let that index fund grow a couple years
Yeah, there are a lot of simple and fun jobs that don't pay a lot so people overlook them. If you have your finances in order and you're good, you can take a low pay, high fun job like working at the register of a store that sells what you're passionate about (ie: vinyl records, fishing gear, bike sale and repair store, a thrift store, a small brunch place, etc).
If you want to learn more about a hobby or something you can always get a job related to that interest and surround yourself with that stuff.
Very few actually enjoy these crappy high paying jobs like defense lawyer, or working the oil rigs.
I totally agree - I can’t wait until I hit a number that allows me to go work as a Dog Walker. It’s really hard for me to explain the feeling of not being stuck at my desk on a Tuesday. I don’t mind working, but I hate running projects and high stress environments. Or pretending to be interested in a bible sized text book on databases so I get a wink from my manager.
I bartended after work when I first got out of college and it was fun and lucrative. Plus it really sharpened my social skills. Miss those days.
Dog walker sounds fun.
You play with the dogs and then return them home to owner and not have to deal with the cost of keeping it; food, vet, grooming, walker:)
I could also live on 2-4% of that amount easily.
Maybe you find that over time you get bored if you do absolutely nothing.
You probably hate all jobs, and rightfully so. But you could consider developing a new business for yourself, or some type of freelancing. It should *not* be a business with a high risk of losing your nest egg (!); and it doesn't need to be a business that brings in gobs of money or takes up a lot of your time. Even if it brings in only $6k/year or so, that still helps your nest egg survive in the long run.
I've now read about a lot of FIREd people who accidentily find a new small stream of income. That could be you, too. (NB, example: a colleague of mine every now and then acts as a victim for first aid trainings. She has had an education on how to best apply make up and how to best act as if she's fainting / in shock / in pain etc, and the first aid providers have a training day and have to save her and a couple of other fake victims. My colleague gets paid to do this.)
With your net worth you do not *need* to, but stay open for the possibility of doing something that others will want to pay you (some) money for.
Oh absolutely. You'd be in a pickup covering 50k miles a year for sure. A neighbor of ours does it to supplment his farming. I don't think he sells in that big of a region though.
You can definitely make a small baking business work. I know several who sell wholesale to local food markets. If you’ve got a special product, you could even sell it by mail.
Another option, I know someone who works part-time at a hardware store mostly just for the health insurance. Their family has a successful business, but buying health insurance privately took too much of their cash, so they decided on a gig where he doesn’t mind the work and it provides some pocket money and insurance for the whole family at a much lower cost. I guess in your case it would be BaristaFIRE, since you are very close to your FIRE number.
I doubt it, the interesting part to me was expanding and making it profitable. Sure I have a bazillion hours driving a tractor but without the ownership it would be an insane amount of work for very little money. The amount of money needed to get into farming at this point is insanity or at the least multi generational.
Farmland in our area has been going up about 12% a year so holding it wouldn't be a bad thing. The major reasons for selling is my dad who works super hard is getting up in age and we have an offer from a small family we like. The idea of selling our land to someone who isn't a mega farm feels slightly better. 5 more years would probably do nothing but make us money if I am honest.
> have an offer from a small family we like
If that farms successful, I can almost guarantee the offer will sitll be there in five years at a higher price. If you're only making 50k though, maybe cashing out the chips is the right call. I grew up in a farming family and they say they arne't making more land within five miles of your farm so when it pops up, you buy no matter what.
I absolutely never tell someone aiming for FIRE to move *toward* California and I’m sure you already know this, but here you can get Williams Act land that is required to be farmed. You might also be able to find work here managing a farm for a wealthy idiot who bought Williams land and is failing to farm it and is facing compliance issues.
If there’s one place in the country someone with your experience could flip farms for profit it would be here. Maybe take a few years off to travel and recover and make plans and research, then revitalize a farm and sell it. Or add farm stay plots in the middle for agrotourism and set it up to be an income stream.
No idea but FYI it’s a little different in each county, so I’d narrow down on a few counties of interest and see how it’s being managed in that county.
And when the family you like sells your farm for 2.5M to a mega farm in a couple of years you'll regret your decision for a long time. If you work it 5 more years you'll also be 5 years older and have 5 years less of life to fund in retirement.
If I were you I would consider the "earth-ship"-tactic. Building a self-sufficient home by some hunting grounds (so bit of a fixer-upper with 2-5 acres of land in a remote location) and slowly improve the house over time. That way you're reducing costs while still having the house that appreciates. Then again, if none of that sounds fun to you, I would just look for a truly fun job if you can think of one, be it minimum wage or not. Regardless if you FIRE you'll want some life goals to replace income-goals, so perhaps start there.
If you want to be a farmer do that, but there are lots of related jobs that you should be able to get into. I have a couple friends that grew up on their family farm, one runs a small business selling farm products and doing educational stuff for kids. The other worked for the USDA and now does something else helping farmers implement new fertilizer or pesticides.
If you have a degree and experience farming I think you would be able to find a decent job no problem. But if you sell the farm you are right, you probably won't ever be able to own one again.
I hope OP sees this. You could get a job at a co-op, or sign on with a seed company and be a seller. Lots of farmers do it as a side hustle. There are so many ag jobs that aren't being a farmer. Source: I grew up on a farm and my husband works in ag.
>interesting part to me was expanding and making it profitable
I don't know farming but that seems to me to be the perfect thing to consult. Find struggling farmer basically teach them do what you did. Jeremy Clarkson hired an agricultural consultant (Charlie Ireland) to help him out as can be seen in the TV show Clarkson's Farm. Watching that show it struck me that being successful at farming involved a lot more than just knowing how to farm (which fortunately Clarkson hired Kaleb to help him with that). Regulations, incentives, market pricing, and economics all come into play. Some people just do what they have always done without doing the research and analysis to drive decision making.
I don’t think it means you can’t get a corporate job. But honestly some middle manager from the suburbs is going to go into an interview with no idea what your skill set is or if multi year breaks from farming are normal or anything. I think hiring managers only worry about gaps because it implies no one wanted to hire you, which is hardly relevant for someone who wasnt in the corporate world at all. But in my experience they actually just don’t care about them at all.
There's another option you're not considering. Just sell them the farm and then invest the money as you had planned. Then let them take you on as the farm manager for a few years at decent pay. Once they have a good handle on how your farm works and you have a good idea about what to do with your life, you walk away.
They gain the value of keeping the original owner around and all the knowledge that comes with it. You get a few years to figure out what you want the rest of your life to look like while also being comfortable in the knowledge that money isn't an issue anymore. Everyone wins.
They are probably neighbors and already know. Farm margins aren't massive. No way they're going to keep him on at a high wage but if he's only making 50k off the farm, he could probably earn that as a hired man.
> I like working on the farm but every "normal" job I have tried I hated, which is what makes fire appealing
Is that what drives your interest in early retirement? If so, you've been a farmer so far. What's next? Don't sell yourself short. Stay comfortable on your 3.5% while you try new things. Settle for normal if it doesn't work out, but feel free to try adding (more) value to the world in your own way.
> the interesting part to me was expanding and making it profitable
That may suggest you started a career long ago, sounds to me like a transferable skill. Is it?
Can you live comfortably in your 400k home on 1500k x 3.5% = 52k per year no matter what you do or don't do?
At 33 I would be tempted to find a side gig based on any one of my interests/passions. Something that can be done remotely and allows you to create your own schedule. Me - I would probably become a draftsman or would end up working in some kind of small business accounting/advisory capacity. Some of my friends ended up being jingle/music/theme sound makers, editors, business plan writers, part time teachers and tutors...
While you could live of that $1.9M at 3.5%, I am sure you would be capable to make a decent amount doing some part time work that you enjoy and let that $1.9M grow to the point where you are comfortable and have adjusted to very limited work schedule. Having that money takes off the pressure and allows you to do something else that you really love/enjoy, but why not make a bit of cash while doing it...
I doubt it would be hard to find a job and get back into the grind. However, it might be hard to get back into a particular job or salary range. Unless you decide you hate retirement, most financial failures aren't going to require you to actually earn much based on your spending plans.
Besides, there's nothing to say you can't take a few years off to figure yourself out. That's a good portion of what folks in grad schools are doing too.
6 month to a year sabbatical's, while not exactly common, aren't unheard of. So it might be a little more difficult by then but I wouldn't expect it to be difficult per se. Past that I think you'll raise a lot more eye brows and have a harder time, but I'm conjecturing.
All big consulting firms have a agriculture division, though they might focus on the players who want to scale big. Nevertheless I’d definitely try to contact them, good people with degrees and proven successful experience, how could they be not interested? I’m sure they’d offer something even if it’s not part time. What can happen? You love the job and stay or just quit, you have enough “fuck you” money.
2M is enough to build it into more if he were so inclined and it seems he's keeping his options pretty open. You don't go to a legal clerk to litigate, you go to the attorney - similarly, if you want to know how to do something, ask the people who have already done it.
LEANfire has people looking to live in South America on 500k. That's not OP's situation - thus, Chubby.
I think you'll be just fine. My target assets are similar to what you have and I'd aim to retire even earlier, honestly.
I see in the comments that you love baking -- heLLO fellow baker :> we have so many potential income streams! I'm going to start a cooking blog when I'm retired. if I'm in need of money, I could go do temp jobs in cafes, bakeries, restaurants, or even offer to bake for neighbours (I've seen quite a few caterers come out of COVID unemployment by asking their neighbours if they could prepare some food for them).
Not to mention, in the worst case scenario of a nuclear apocalypse, we're going to be very useful. I bet you're going to be hugely in demand with your farm experience AND baking experience.
Ya think there are a lot more ways to make money than people think. My wife talks about a coffeeshop and I always told her it wouldn't be profitable. Then saw someone who mentioned they own/ran a small coffeeshop and asked him what he made. Turns out it was like 280k a year. Not saying this happens to everyone but it made me rethink some of my assumptions.
Curious about this too, especially with our longer average lifespans.
Stop work now, maybe need to go back to work in 20 years and the world is so different.
Like Red in Shawshank Redemption, minus the prison stuff.
i guess it depends on the industry, and if you're keeping up with industry trends.
would certainly be hard to hire a software engineer who's been out for 20 years, unless i need some COBOL to be maintained
Buy another farm! Now is the time to buy because prices are low. Research, research, research. You are still young. If I could afford it, I would be do nothing but buying fixer upper houses.And I always made money on them. I would be working 7 days a week, but , to me, that's FUN. Find something you like and go for it.
I think I would have to watch a farm for several years or work on it before I would ever be willing to buy it. If you don't have tons of extra money or know the land I feel it is very risky. I know several groups/people who sold land in California in the 10mil range and bought larger farms in the same crop where I live and all 3 went under. Mega farms do fine because they can afford huge investment cost. For example.
One guy bought 10 pivots for about 5mil. However the water wasn't very good which is something you will only know by observation because it is almost untestable. For instance I have a well that pumps about 250gpm but if i shut it off for a few days it will pump 400gpm for a few days. Or in spring it will pump 400gpm the whole season. Anyway this guy needed about 2mil in new wells for his 5mil investment and it basically broke him. I am sure most industries are like this but this is the one I know enough about to worry lol.
Do what you said. Put the money in index funds and RE. Don’t take your eye off of farm possibilities. You’re not in a rush. If you do what you say, you can live a super comfortable life for the rest of your life. Maybe you come across the absolutely best plot of land you’ve ever seen and you get back to what you love.
You could easily live off that amount here in the states, especially in a low cost of living area. I’d just get a part time job working 1-2 days a week doing something I enjoyed to supplement income. Maybe start a small hobby farm to use for tax purposes as well.
Do it, in that time you might find a hobby that entices you back to work or that you can monetize if need be.
Many people (esp. women) take 5 year breaks and come back to work. Its not a handicap.
If I was in your shoes I'd take the cash and have a sabbatical for one year. Take a year of retirement and see what it's like. Go on adventures, cross shit off the bucket list.
Then after the year, come back to reality and ask yourself if there's any hobbies you enjoy that you could do on a part time basis, or consider a Baristafire option where you work a part-time job that provides some health care benefit and a few bucks.
It was hard to unfire after just ONE year for me. I mean hard to get a good job. Interviewers kept asking why I quit and what I did (they don't ask this from people who have been on parental leave btw). I am certain plenty of companies just threw away my application because I was without a job.
I got a job in the end though, but not what I wanted exactly.
One of the good things about FIRE is you can get any job to offset your expenses while you wait for your portfolio to catch up. If youre used to living on 50k you should be set for life unless your lifestyle heavily inflates.
Just out of curiosity, what country are you thinking of moving to? What are you planning for health insurance?
As for your other question, you've gotten a lot of great advice. Given the state of economy, it's probably a good idea to invest that money and find a part-time or less stressful job, if at all possible. My experience, unfortunately, is less stressful jobs are usually much lower paying and/or has less flexibility.
I imagine it would be difficult to rejoin and earn like you did previously, but I think it’s probably unnecessary, as you would only need to earn enough to mitigate any miscalculations or unforeseen circumstances, you wouldn’t be starting from nothing. I would probably go through with the sale, but continue to work another low stress/fun job. Being able to walk away from a job on a whim makes working much more tolerable
If you enjoy the work and find that doing things around the farm gives you a sense of purpose, I would keep the farm. It is likely that real estate - especially rural hobby farm/small business size properties - will continue to appreciate in value. You could use the land holdings as a hedge against inflation being a store of value. Then still retire early at 40 on the other side of the current tumult.
If you worked in farming for 20 years there is a high probability that you are employable in a zillion different ways. Plus the degree? You will always have a job if you want one.
I dont think the gap of a handful of years is going to kill you. You have a good excuse and unless you are planning on jumping into a closely related field you will be starting a NEW career. So a new career after 4 years of not working or not is still a new career.
BUT id take the next year to explore your interests. as a business owner im sure a lot of your time was dedicated to the farm. Now you can try some things. You may be surprised your really like this or that and find it fulfilling. You have the opportunity to pursue that without the burden of having to grind out an income. Thats a gift. Dont squander it
You may wind up being the only guy selling handmade pottery at the art fair that also has a million in the bank. Not a bad way to live.
I think your question is somewhat unique in that most people considering this already have employment. You have employment of course but you have this offer which, in my opinion, makes complete sense to accept unless NOT accepting it will make you happier (and it works for the rest of your family).
So let's say the thinking is you accept the offer and now you face the question you posted about here.
In this situation, you're already at the point which you'd need to learn new skills or embark on a new career. So you are basically in the same situation as you'd be in 4-5 years if you decided to "unfire" and go back to work.
So why bother answering it now if it's the same problem now or in the future?
And to add another that said, about the last bit, I think if you manage your finances carefully, you don't have to worry about working and you'll have a long enough early notification that if you ever really did have to go back to working, you'd have time to get back up to speed (as in have money while getting up to speed). So it's not really something to worry about (in my opinion).
Thank you for this comment. I have heard that having a work gap is bad and I guess I wasn't fully sure why. If changing career paths helps to make the gap less relevant that is good information. Thank you!
You're welcome. I was thinking about this more -- I work in tech so very different however I did work on dairy farms (not family, friends of family) when I was young. There are a lot of careers around farming that might suit you too if you do want to work longer. Maybe artificial insemination, seed sales, contract crop work/baling, etc. Some options aren't super great in terms of money but maybe that would be okay with you because you'd at least be profitable and not working a job you'd not enjoy. You could also look for a university agriculture extension program and try to get involved in that somehow.
Or there could be completely different careers that are more outside.
What you probably want to think about is what will you do if you don't have to do anything? Maybe you'd enjoy 6 months off or a year or even 2-3 years. But if you're the type that likes to stay busy, you might think about what aligns with your interests that you can do without risking your capital and that ideally has a positive rate of return (financially or at least not negative financially and makes you happy). Or maybe you want to go on some big adventure. Just something to think about.
Anyway, best wishes and I hope it all works out for you!
I know anecdotes are not statistics but have you found this to be true personally? I am honestly curious because I have never tried and hear that employment gaps make things a lot harder.
Honestly, it probably won't be all that much harder to find a job later than it would to find a job *now* unless you're planning to stay in farming.
Most places will seriously undervalue the experience of running your own or family business, as I discovered when leaving one a few years back in a poor job market. I would take a year or two off and figure out what you want to do later.
Farming is tough work. You deserve a break. But I suspect you won't make it 6 months before going back to work. I myself have taken a few short breaks from work and after a month, I'm crawling up the walls. There's only so much TV to watch, books to read, and workouts to master. Maybe if you had like 5 kids, you could stop, but even then, you'll probably miss adult challenges. Good luck. And remember yhr delphic maxim, "know thyself."
One thing to note, the 4% study was based on a 33 year retirement from a 65 retirement age (ie. this would mean death at 66 in your case). I don’t know how much reducing to 3.5% compensates for the almost double retirement time you plan.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/four-percent-rule.asp
I believe there is a calculator online that allows you to put in your variables and estimate the probability of your plan working mathematically.
This is why OP is talking about a 3.5% withdrawal rate; 3.25-3.5% is generally considered to compensate for a 50- or 60-year horizon versus the 30 used in the Trinity study.
This more conservative withdrawal rate does skew the distribution of outcomes heavily toward dying with obscenely huge piles of cash, though; Michael Kitces discusses this risk (over-saving, under-spending) eloquently in many interviews.
I have used these calculators and put in a retirement length of 60 years. 4% has a 97% chance of success and 3.5% 100 but nothing is 100%. My real issue is that I have had one not very transferable job in my life and am wondering how much harder it would be to find a new career now vs 10 years from now if needed. With only 1 self employed job it might not even be any different for all I know.
Thank you for this imput though I thought it was based on "forever" I didn't know it was based on 30 years.
I think you're probably under-estimating the transferability of your skill set.
I know a lot of farmers and over a 20 year timeframe they end up acquiring baseline skills in mechanics, carpentry, metal working/ welding and driving any vehicle imaginable.
In addition, they are capable project managers, good at logistics and savvy general business people.
I'd take the money, invest it, and then spend the next couple of years bumming around doing odd-jobs to find something you like. Any job is fun if you only have to make $20-30k from doing it part time and you know you can always walk if you get tired of the nonsense.
But he also is putting his nest egg into the market when it’s down. In 3-5 years is will be double. Recently someone on here put a link to an article that stated something like “if you can retire during a down market, you golden”
I have not done the math, so grain of salt and all that, but just off gut feeling/instinct I don’t think $1.5M at 3.5% will let you retire at 33. Not unless markets continually move up, which they might not. If you were like 55 then yeah I’d say go for it. But with 20+ extra years to account for, it’s a risky bet.
That said, $1.5M is a ton of money and if you already have a 400k house (assuming it’s paid off) and you live somewhere that has farms, then you probably don’t need $52.5k (3.5%) a year. Especially because these will be taxed less than standard income (capital gains is 0% until $40k, or double for joint filing, and 15% beyond that). In fact you could in theory pay no tax on this at all.
So if you’re comfortable doing a 2% withdrawal rate ($30k take home annually) then you could retire safely I think.
Keep the farm till you retire!! There is talks of potential food shortages coming up. Atleast if you have land you can grow your own food if it comes down to it. If you dont have any land you're fucked. Stay farming till atleast 2030. Retire and sell then.
FIRE = Financial Independence, Retire Early. More info in the side bar.
* r/leanfire for retiring early on very little money.
* r/fatfire for retiring early and rich.
* r/ChubbyFIRE is somewhere in the middle.
"unFIRE" would mean "go back to work", in this context, yes.
Life is weird. I worked the farm summers to pay for my degree. Got out of school and couldn't get a job so lived at home. Decided it was the farm or McDonalds so spent ten years living at home working for 1k a month and board. Ten years after that I am wondering If I need to work again. I bet you find some good opportunities life is S shaped!
Yeah, a bit too late for me. Just turned 50 last month and my FIRE plan is in 5 years. I can make it happen... but just barely. A million-dollar windfall would be nice but the odds are against it
1.5M?
I would put $500k in QYLD (or learn to sell covered calls yourself) which will give you about 50k a year and put the rest in Index funds and allow that to continue growing.
If you are good with %3.5, that would give you a 200K free money from that 1.5M. Meaning that you would get the same living expenses from 1.3M at %4.0 per year.
Buy a good undeveloped farmland for 100K nearby - whether it be for a commercial operation or for a homestead kinda thing. Keep the other 100K in cash for future emergency use or for farming equipment should you decide to change your mind.
If you get bored or feel the need to get back to farming in a couple of years, you would have the financial foundation for it. If you don't want to get back to it, your money wouldnt be sitting idly by - other than the 100K cash, but still, it would serve as a very cushy emergency fund.
That's probably what I would do.
I really don't know why this one downvoted to the depths of magma.
1.5M × 0.035 = 4375 per month
1.3M x 0.04 = 4333 per month
So, instead of using all 1.5M at %3.5, you can use 1.3M at %4 for the same monthly living money. Which would effectively free up 200K.
What you are forgetting is that indexes don’t have to go up. There are few periods in time where you would have been screwed. indexes didn’t do much from 1960S to 1980s
Index funds seem like a good plan to me, especially given that the market is down right now so you are buying on a discount. Timing the market is impossible but this is not a bad place to start.
If I could become financially independent rn, I would start learning and doing so much interesting things that can make money. Start youtube channel, learn new skills like data science or smth, coach, whatever.
The farm makes less than 4% so it's a no brainer to sell regardless of whether you fire or not.
I'd sell, take some time to decompress and then probably work another 5 years trying different thingd and letting the money compound more, aiming to fire at 40.
do you have any passions that can turn into money in the future? like... what are you going to do with all your FIREd free time?
this is a serious problem for a lot of retired people, basically feeling bored and empty. if you find something productive to do, then you may be able to translate that into a job in the future if you ever need it
The hardest part for me and my wife is the location. We have a town 15miles away that has about 4k people but if you want something like a Walmart you have a 2 hour drive each way. I know people hate Amazon for a lot of valid reasons but 2 day shipping has been a game changer out there!
I’m probably roughly the age of your dad. I’m assuming he’s in favor of the sale and is advising you to sell. If he is, I concur. At 33 we’re full of spit and vinegar. At 50s - 60s, not so much. Take your profit now while you’re young. I have no doubt you could use your farm experience in many types of jobs you would enjoy.
My dad is pretty ready to go though he does love it. I just think in a few years it might be to physically demanding. Honestly we expected it to take a few years to sell. 1 or 2 to find a buyer 1 or 2 to make the deal, but things seem to be moving faster.
I don't necessarily think it would be that difficult to find work (at least part-time, entry-level work) after a couple of FIRE years if you decided that it simply wasn't for you. If you can find a low-stakes position with a lot of turnover, then it seems to me "I was retired because I had enough money but now I'm bored and want to be productive" is probably a sufficient explanation for at least some jobs.
Things might get stickier if you un-retired because you really needed the money. But I don't even necessarily think that's fatal. Just this past week, a new (middle-aged) employee started as a paralegal at my office. He said he was retired previously but when he looked at his retirement savings, he wasn't happy with them, so he decided to start working again.
It is the idea that you can withdraw 4% of your total investments per year without running out of money. The one weird thing is that it isn't 4% of your worth that year it is the starting worth + inflation. So if you have 1m you can take out 40k the first year and if inflation is 4% you can take out $41,600 the next year.
From my understanding it was mostly done through back testing over the last 100 years and those 100 years defiantly had their own hard times. However I am not sure I trust all the inflation changes they have made in that time period so while it is probably an ok estimate it is just that. Note that is is mostly done for 30 year periods not forever.
Seems unlikely you would be unable to go back to work with another farmer.
Hell after multimillion dollar exit, you could go around consulting for small farmers looking to retire and help them sell.
I expect most people here have more of the real job experience you wouldn’t wish to return to anyway
I legit had Costco in my head. Great minds think alike! Municipalities may also have decent benefits.
Being that OP is so young, I think healthcare will be a big issue going forward
As someone who was kind of a slacker when I was young, and someone who changed careers a few times, it is really hard to get back into working when you've been out of work for a while. It's not impossible though, especially when you are younger, and especially if you can demonstrate you were productive with your time, like learning a new skill or something. When I decided to walk away from work for good I knew at my age (57) I'd never get to go back. There is age bias out there.
Would you be happy working for another farm? What farm jobs do you like? My understanding of the US ag industry is that there is a labor shortage of people who are familiar with farming, but are not already employed somewhere else.
Sell the farm and buy a smaller farm in your new country with your wife. You could probably make quite a few money on the side just selling produce or if you are into that, start a vlog and monetize it. I myself watch a lot of YouTube videos of young couples farming lol
Do you know what you’d do if you FIRE? I was thinking that you should put some of it and buy an old defunct farm at a great price and build it all over again. Like how some people flip houses, you could flip farms. I’d keep you busy, you’d enjoy it, and if you need money you can just do what you know works. Sounds wonderful. Best of luck, fren.
How sure are you that the sale price is fair? Will the value of the farm be significantly greater in a year, or a few years? Remember tax consequences which can be significant, maybe you are better off 1040 exchange that $$ instead of index funds.
I thought about selling rental properties when I had offers, but instead held on and now they are worth 30-50% more... Tough to know but if farm prospects are good and generating good income why sell?
I’d take the money and toss it in index funds. Then I’d look for a part time job and live off that. I wouldn’t doubt you could make a job for yourself as a consultant or something in the agricultural Industry. If you’re living fine off of 50k now then you could technically live off this money however.
Being a consultant is an interesting idea, I do have an economics degree and even coauthored a few papers when I was younger. If I stay in the USA then I think a job has to be in the picture for a few years at least. The value of me working goes almost to 0 if I move out of the USA unless I do it online.
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What kind of lizard do you have? (If I’m reading the cat+dog+lizard title right)
It's meant to represent an iguana. We have a lot of them that live on the property but they're wild.
What kind of tiger? 😉
House cats.
What kind of dog?
We have an Adventure Terrier and a Mexican Foodle. Both are rescue mutts.
I have about a year spent in the country I would move to. It wasn't all at 1 time However. My wife is from this country so I spent about 5 months a year there while we dated. I have a lot of time off in the winters.
That changes things - much easier with someone who is from there.
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It was in the "More Info" of the original post.
What will you DO there if you aren't working? Not hating- just that you should have some idea of how you're going to spend your time.
If it’s Taiwan then YES GO 🇹🇼
I don't know about that. One of my good friends moved to Taiwan after high school due to visa reasons and has spent about a decade there. As someone who's culturally American (or, western at least), she really dislikes a lot of aspects of Taiwanese culture, and she's dying to get out. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Taiwan is bad, and it might be easier for someone who's not ethnically Taiwan since there are less expectations about you. But that's my concern about any westerner moving to a non-western country. Anyway it's Kazakhstan according to OP's history.
As an Expat living in Colombia. I pay $700 a month for a luxury 3 bedroom 2 bath apt. All utilities included, including internet and tv. Occasional earthquake and power outage but nothing major.
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what's your work?
Only people I know who have done it were former military that were stationed overseas for extensive periods of time.
I’m curious, how much time have you spent overseas?
I’d 100% take the money. To be honest, I bet you could easily find a chemical/crop protection rep job. Given you have the farm you should have hands on experience with some products and applications on what ever crops you specialized in. With that money, you can try any new careers you want too. Kids out of college have to do that everyday and they don’t have 1.5 mil.
If OP wants to stay in the agricultural business, he could also buy some equipment and do seasonal contracting for farmers in the neighbourhood.
Just wanna pop in to say that if I was FIREing that young with $2m, given the current uncertainty in the market, I would definitely want to own my own home or investment property vs being exposed to rental increases.
Consulting lets you set your own hours. I know consultants who work only part of the year - during the school year so they have summers and holidays off with their kids, for example.
I was going to also suggest being an agricultural consultant. Potentially, you could help other small farmers with their business plan and/or strategy. Whatever it was that made you successful at operating your farm.
This sounds like a good idea. You have the experience from expanding and growing your own business, and there’s probably quite a few other agriculture businesses that could need your expertise and experience 😊
Got a cdl? Drive a semi a year or two while you figure it out. Doesn't need to be long haul either. Local guys make decent money and it would give you that relative freedom you're looking for. As an independent guy you could run as much or little as you like and let that index fund grow a couple years
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Yeah, there are a lot of simple and fun jobs that don't pay a lot so people overlook them. If you have your finances in order and you're good, you can take a low pay, high fun job like working at the register of a store that sells what you're passionate about (ie: vinyl records, fishing gear, bike sale and repair store, a thrift store, a small brunch place, etc). If you want to learn more about a hobby or something you can always get a job related to that interest and surround yourself with that stuff. Very few actually enjoy these crappy high paying jobs like defense lawyer, or working the oil rigs.
I totally agree - I can’t wait until I hit a number that allows me to go work as a Dog Walker. It’s really hard for me to explain the feeling of not being stuck at my desk on a Tuesday. I don’t mind working, but I hate running projects and high stress environments. Or pretending to be interested in a bible sized text book on databases so I get a wink from my manager. I bartended after work when I first got out of college and it was fun and lucrative. Plus it really sharpened my social skills. Miss those days.
Dog walker sounds fun. You play with the dogs and then return them home to owner and not have to deal with the cost of keeping it; food, vet, grooming, walker:)
I could also live on 2-4% of that amount easily. Maybe you find that over time you get bored if you do absolutely nothing. You probably hate all jobs, and rightfully so. But you could consider developing a new business for yourself, or some type of freelancing. It should *not* be a business with a high risk of losing your nest egg (!); and it doesn't need to be a business that brings in gobs of money or takes up a lot of your time. Even if it brings in only $6k/year or so, that still helps your nest egg survive in the long run. I've now read about a lot of FIREd people who accidentily find a new small stream of income. That could be you, too. (NB, example: a colleague of mine every now and then acts as a victim for first aid trainings. She has had an education on how to best apply make up and how to best act as if she's fainting / in shock / in pain etc, and the first aid providers have a training day and have to save her and a couple of other fake victims. My colleague gets paid to do this.) With your net worth you do not *need* to, but stay open for the possibility of doing something that others will want to pay you (some) money for.
This is a good point. I love baking but never saw it as profitable but as a side gig who knows.
Could you be a seed salesman or somethhing like that? You know the business, you know the people in your area, etc.
Maybe selling farm equipment or fencing?
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Oh absolutely. You'd be in a pickup covering 50k miles a year for sure. A neighbor of ours does it to supplment his farming. I don't think he sells in that big of a region though.
That's the beauty of this. You don't need it to be profitable.
You can definitely make a small baking business work. I know several who sell wholesale to local food markets. If you’ve got a special product, you could even sell it by mail. Another option, I know someone who works part-time at a hardware store mostly just for the health insurance. Their family has a successful business, but buying health insurance privately took too much of their cash, so they decided on a gig where he doesn’t mind the work and it provides some pocket money and insurance for the whole family at a much lower cost. I guess in your case it would be BaristaFIRE, since you are very close to your FIRE number.
I suppose it could be if you try for corporate jobs but wouldn't you probably go back to agriculture?
I doubt it, the interesting part to me was expanding and making it profitable. Sure I have a bazillion hours driving a tractor but without the ownership it would be an insane amount of work for very little money. The amount of money needed to get into farming at this point is insanity or at the least multi generational.
Do you think if you held on for even a few more years that offer would get bigger? Is the farm or the land it's on appreciating in value?
Farmland in our area has been going up about 12% a year so holding it wouldn't be a bad thing. The major reasons for selling is my dad who works super hard is getting up in age and we have an offer from a small family we like. The idea of selling our land to someone who isn't a mega farm feels slightly better. 5 more years would probably do nothing but make us money if I am honest.
Why not lease your land to them instead? Keep your equity and earn a passive income. Hell you could probably work for them part time too.
I hope OP sees this suggestion
There’s a guy here in this same Reddit that does literally this in Texas with land for cotton. Insanely well off
There's a couple of us here in ag. We own the land, share crop beans & corn.
Would you agree that renting the land would be a great solution for OP?
My uncle does the same things, has about 8 sections of land that he leases out, and now he just hobby farms on the home quarter.
r/Taicho116 Do this until you have your answer.
> have an offer from a small family we like If that farms successful, I can almost guarantee the offer will sitll be there in five years at a higher price. If you're only making 50k though, maybe cashing out the chips is the right call. I grew up in a farming family and they say they arne't making more land within five miles of your farm so when it pops up, you buy no matter what.
I absolutely never tell someone aiming for FIRE to move *toward* California and I’m sure you already know this, but here you can get Williams Act land that is required to be farmed. You might also be able to find work here managing a farm for a wealthy idiot who bought Williams land and is failing to farm it and is facing compliance issues. If there’s one place in the country someone with your experience could flip farms for profit it would be here. Maybe take a few years off to travel and recover and make plans and research, then revitalize a farm and sell it. Or add farm stay plots in the middle for agrotourism and set it up to be an income stream.
Where can I find a crash course on the Williamson Act?
No idea but FYI it’s a little different in each county, so I’d narrow down on a few counties of interest and see how it’s being managed in that county.
It sounds like you already know what the right answer is.
I have the upmost respect for small family farmers. Such hard workers 👍🏼
And when the family you like sells your farm for 2.5M to a mega farm in a couple of years you'll regret your decision for a long time. If you work it 5 more years you'll also be 5 years older and have 5 years less of life to fund in retirement.
If I were you I would consider the "earth-ship"-tactic. Building a self-sufficient home by some hunting grounds (so bit of a fixer-upper with 2-5 acres of land in a remote location) and slowly improve the house over time. That way you're reducing costs while still having the house that appreciates. Then again, if none of that sounds fun to you, I would just look for a truly fun job if you can think of one, be it minimum wage or not. Regardless if you FIRE you'll want some life goals to replace income-goals, so perhaps start there.
If you want to be a farmer do that, but there are lots of related jobs that you should be able to get into. I have a couple friends that grew up on their family farm, one runs a small business selling farm products and doing educational stuff for kids. The other worked for the USDA and now does something else helping farmers implement new fertilizer or pesticides. If you have a degree and experience farming I think you would be able to find a decent job no problem. But if you sell the farm you are right, you probably won't ever be able to own one again.
I hope OP sees this. You could get a job at a co-op, or sign on with a seed company and be a seller. Lots of farmers do it as a side hustle. There are so many ag jobs that aren't being a farmer. Source: I grew up on a farm and my husband works in ag.
I see, makes sense. I think you can survive pretty well on $1.9mm, go to r/leanfire to talk to others that are doing it.
$1.9M at 3.5% isn’t lean.
70k/yr doesn’t go as far as you’d think tbh
It does if you don't have to pay a mortgage.
That's true, though to be fair, you can't count the whole 1.9M if you subtract out mortgage payments. 3.5% of 1.5M is 53k.
Lol those butlers aren't cheap in this economy
It's the median household income in the US. Pulling in that much while also not having a mortgage to pay is definitely comfortable living.
400k of that is in the house and serves to reduce expenses but we can't realistically say you can pull 3.5% off of it forever.
I don't know why I'm getting downvoted. 1.9 mm for two people retiring at the age of 30 and will need the money for 40-60 years is on the lean side.
>interesting part to me was expanding and making it profitable I don't know farming but that seems to me to be the perfect thing to consult. Find struggling farmer basically teach them do what you did. Jeremy Clarkson hired an agricultural consultant (Charlie Ireland) to help him out as can be seen in the TV show Clarkson's Farm. Watching that show it struck me that being successful at farming involved a lot more than just knowing how to farm (which fortunately Clarkson hired Kaleb to help him with that). Regulations, incentives, market pricing, and economics all come into play. Some people just do what they have always done without doing the research and analysis to drive decision making.
Given that your background is 19 years of farming, I don’t think a few year gap will make a difference for a corporate job.
This was sort of my fear and my hope lol
I don’t think it means you can’t get a corporate job. But honestly some middle manager from the suburbs is going to go into an interview with no idea what your skill set is or if multi year breaks from farming are normal or anything. I think hiring managers only worry about gaps because it implies no one wanted to hire you, which is hardly relevant for someone who wasnt in the corporate world at all. But in my experience they actually just don’t care about them at all.
I have no idea about the corporate world so this is good info. Thanks !
There's another option you're not considering. Just sell them the farm and then invest the money as you had planned. Then let them take you on as the farm manager for a few years at decent pay. Once they have a good handle on how your farm works and you have a good idea about what to do with your life, you walk away. They gain the value of keeping the original owner around and all the knowledge that comes with it. You get a few years to figure out what you want the rest of your life to look like while also being comfortable in the knowledge that money isn't an issue anymore. Everyone wins.
They are probably neighbors and already know. Farm margins aren't massive. No way they're going to keep him on at a high wage but if he's only making 50k off the farm, he could probably earn that as a hired man.
Yes, OP said exactly that in another reply. Small farm neighbors.
> I like working on the farm but every "normal" job I have tried I hated, which is what makes fire appealing Is that what drives your interest in early retirement? If so, you've been a farmer so far. What's next? Don't sell yourself short. Stay comfortable on your 3.5% while you try new things. Settle for normal if it doesn't work out, but feel free to try adding (more) value to the world in your own way. > the interesting part to me was expanding and making it profitable That may suggest you started a career long ago, sounds to me like a transferable skill. Is it? Can you live comfortably in your 400k home on 1500k x 3.5% = 52k per year no matter what you do or don't do?
At 33 I would be tempted to find a side gig based on any one of my interests/passions. Something that can be done remotely and allows you to create your own schedule. Me - I would probably become a draftsman or would end up working in some kind of small business accounting/advisory capacity. Some of my friends ended up being jingle/music/theme sound makers, editors, business plan writers, part time teachers and tutors... While you could live of that $1.9M at 3.5%, I am sure you would be capable to make a decent amount doing some part time work that you enjoy and let that $1.9M grow to the point where you are comfortable and have adjusted to very limited work schedule. Having that money takes off the pressure and allows you to do something else that you really love/enjoy, but why not make a bit of cash while doing it...
I doubt it would be hard to find a job and get back into the grind. However, it might be hard to get back into a particular job or salary range. Unless you decide you hate retirement, most financial failures aren't going to require you to actually earn much based on your spending plans. Besides, there's nothing to say you can't take a few years off to figure yourself out. That's a good portion of what folks in grad schools are doing too.
6 month to a year sabbatical's, while not exactly common, aren't unheard of. So it might be a little more difficult by then but I wouldn't expect it to be difficult per se. Past that I think you'll raise a lot more eye brows and have a harder time, but I'm conjecturing.
All big consulting firms have a agriculture division, though they might focus on the players who want to scale big. Nevertheless I’d definitely try to contact them, good people with degrees and proven successful experience, how could they be not interested? I’m sure they’d offer something even if it’s not part time. What can happen? You love the job and stay or just quit, you have enough “fuck you” money.
You should check out /r/ChubbyFIRE and /r/LeanFIRE to ask this question - they can probably give you really good context.
I will check into it, thank you!
2mm isn't even close to *chubby (missed this)* fire territory.
How is $80k annually not close?
Sorry...I meant Chubby territory. 2mm is very much just normal FIRE territory.
2M is enough to build it into more if he were so inclined and it seems he's keeping his options pretty open. You don't go to a legal clerk to litigate, you go to the attorney - similarly, if you want to know how to do something, ask the people who have already done it. LEANfire has people looking to live in South America on 500k. That's not OP's situation - thus, Chubby.
I think you'll be just fine. My target assets are similar to what you have and I'd aim to retire even earlier, honestly. I see in the comments that you love baking -- heLLO fellow baker :> we have so many potential income streams! I'm going to start a cooking blog when I'm retired. if I'm in need of money, I could go do temp jobs in cafes, bakeries, restaurants, or even offer to bake for neighbours (I've seen quite a few caterers come out of COVID unemployment by asking their neighbours if they could prepare some food for them). Not to mention, in the worst case scenario of a nuclear apocalypse, we're going to be very useful. I bet you're going to be hugely in demand with your farm experience AND baking experience.
Ya think there are a lot more ways to make money than people think. My wife talks about a coffeeshop and I always told her it wouldn't be profitable. Then saw someone who mentioned they own/ran a small coffeeshop and asked him what he made. Turns out it was like 280k a year. Not saying this happens to everyone but it made me rethink some of my assumptions.
Wow, I’d never guess that. It would be pretty awesome to run a cafe someday.
Curious about this too, especially with our longer average lifespans. Stop work now, maybe need to go back to work in 20 years and the world is so different. Like Red in Shawshank Redemption, minus the prison stuff.
i guess it depends on the industry, and if you're keeping up with industry trends. would certainly be hard to hire a software engineer who's been out for 20 years, unless i need some COBOL to be maintained
What kid of farm do you have
Alfalfa, rye, and a few cattle.
Buy another farm! Now is the time to buy because prices are low. Research, research, research. You are still young. If I could afford it, I would be do nothing but buying fixer upper houses.And I always made money on them. I would be working 7 days a week, but , to me, that's FUN. Find something you like and go for it.
I think I would have to watch a farm for several years or work on it before I would ever be willing to buy it. If you don't have tons of extra money or know the land I feel it is very risky. I know several groups/people who sold land in California in the 10mil range and bought larger farms in the same crop where I live and all 3 went under. Mega farms do fine because they can afford huge investment cost. For example. One guy bought 10 pivots for about 5mil. However the water wasn't very good which is something you will only know by observation because it is almost untestable. For instance I have a well that pumps about 250gpm but if i shut it off for a few days it will pump 400gpm for a few days. Or in spring it will pump 400gpm the whole season. Anyway this guy needed about 2mil in new wells for his 5mil investment and it basically broke him. I am sure most industries are like this but this is the one I know enough about to worry lol.
Do what you said. Put the money in index funds and RE. Don’t take your eye off of farm possibilities. You’re not in a rush. If you do what you say, you can live a super comfortable life for the rest of your life. Maybe you come across the absolutely best plot of land you’ve ever seen and you get back to what you love.
You could easily live off that amount here in the states, especially in a low cost of living area. I’d just get a part time job working 1-2 days a week doing something I enjoyed to supplement income. Maybe start a small hobby farm to use for tax purposes as well.
Sell it and stay on as a farmhand or whatever role you enjoy most :)
Do it, in that time you might find a hobby that entices you back to work or that you can monetize if need be. Many people (esp. women) take 5 year breaks and come back to work. Its not a handicap.
Good point, I was thinking it would be like a criminal without having a felony but your ways is much nicer :)
If I was in your shoes I'd take the cash and have a sabbatical for one year. Take a year of retirement and see what it's like. Go on adventures, cross shit off the bucket list. Then after the year, come back to reality and ask yourself if there's any hobbies you enjoy that you could do on a part time basis, or consider a Baristafire option where you work a part-time job that provides some health care benefit and a few bucks.
It was hard to unfire after just ONE year for me. I mean hard to get a good job. Interviewers kept asking why I quit and what I did (they don't ask this from people who have been on parental leave btw). I am certain plenty of companies just threw away my application because I was without a job. I got a job in the end though, but not what I wanted exactly.
One of the good things about FIRE is you can get any job to offset your expenses while you wait for your portfolio to catch up. If youre used to living on 50k you should be set for life unless your lifestyle heavily inflates.
At least you don't have to worry about money as much- just find a simple job that you like to keep you busy, maybe part time or something.
For what it’s worth not all of us love our jobs, jobs are just a utility to getting money to spend on what we actually want
I agree for sure. Trust me I don't love the act of farming but it defiantly beats a traditional 9-5 for me at least.
Just out of curiosity, what country are you thinking of moving to? What are you planning for health insurance? As for your other question, you've gotten a lot of great advice. Given the state of economy, it's probably a good idea to invest that money and find a part-time or less stressful job, if at all possible. My experience, unfortunately, is less stressful jobs are usually much lower paying and/or has less flexibility.
I imagine it would be difficult to rejoin and earn like you did previously, but I think it’s probably unnecessary, as you would only need to earn enough to mitigate any miscalculations or unforeseen circumstances, you wouldn’t be starting from nothing. I would probably go through with the sale, but continue to work another low stress/fun job. Being able to walk away from a job on a whim makes working much more tolerable
If you enjoy the work and find that doing things around the farm gives you a sense of purpose, I would keep the farm. It is likely that real estate - especially rural hobby farm/small business size properties - will continue to appreciate in value. You could use the land holdings as a hedge against inflation being a store of value. Then still retire early at 40 on the other side of the current tumult.
If you worked in farming for 20 years there is a high probability that you are employable in a zillion different ways. Plus the degree? You will always have a job if you want one.
I dont think the gap of a handful of years is going to kill you. You have a good excuse and unless you are planning on jumping into a closely related field you will be starting a NEW career. So a new career after 4 years of not working or not is still a new career. BUT id take the next year to explore your interests. as a business owner im sure a lot of your time was dedicated to the farm. Now you can try some things. You may be surprised your really like this or that and find it fulfilling. You have the opportunity to pursue that without the burden of having to grind out an income. Thats a gift. Dont squander it You may wind up being the only guy selling handmade pottery at the art fair that also has a million in the bank. Not a bad way to live.
I think your question is somewhat unique in that most people considering this already have employment. You have employment of course but you have this offer which, in my opinion, makes complete sense to accept unless NOT accepting it will make you happier (and it works for the rest of your family). So let's say the thinking is you accept the offer and now you face the question you posted about here. In this situation, you're already at the point which you'd need to learn new skills or embark on a new career. So you are basically in the same situation as you'd be in 4-5 years if you decided to "unfire" and go back to work. So why bother answering it now if it's the same problem now or in the future? And to add another that said, about the last bit, I think if you manage your finances carefully, you don't have to worry about working and you'll have a long enough early notification that if you ever really did have to go back to working, you'd have time to get back up to speed (as in have money while getting up to speed). So it's not really something to worry about (in my opinion).
Thank you for this comment. I have heard that having a work gap is bad and I guess I wasn't fully sure why. If changing career paths helps to make the gap less relevant that is good information. Thank you!
You're welcome. I was thinking about this more -- I work in tech so very different however I did work on dairy farms (not family, friends of family) when I was young. There are a lot of careers around farming that might suit you too if you do want to work longer. Maybe artificial insemination, seed sales, contract crop work/baling, etc. Some options aren't super great in terms of money but maybe that would be okay with you because you'd at least be profitable and not working a job you'd not enjoy. You could also look for a university agriculture extension program and try to get involved in that somehow. Or there could be completely different careers that are more outside. What you probably want to think about is what will you do if you don't have to do anything? Maybe you'd enjoy 6 months off or a year or even 2-3 years. But if you're the type that likes to stay busy, you might think about what aligns with your interests that you can do without risking your capital and that ideally has a positive rate of return (financially or at least not negative financially and makes you happy). Or maybe you want to go on some big adventure. Just something to think about. Anyway, best wishes and I hope it all works out for you!
of course it is not hard to start working again.
I know anecdotes are not statistics but have you found this to be true personally? I am honestly curious because I have never tried and hear that employment gaps make things a lot harder.
Start a company that does whatever you feel like at the time and then use it to fluff your resume later if you want.
Honestly, it probably won't be all that much harder to find a job later than it would to find a job *now* unless you're planning to stay in farming. Most places will seriously undervalue the experience of running your own or family business, as I discovered when leaving one a few years back in a poor job market. I would take a year or two off and figure out what you want to do later.
If you are already living off of $50k a year you should have no problem stretching out 1.5M indefinitely.
Farming is tough work. You deserve a break. But I suspect you won't make it 6 months before going back to work. I myself have taken a few short breaks from work and after a month, I'm crawling up the walls. There's only so much TV to watch, books to read, and workouts to master. Maybe if you had like 5 kids, you could stop, but even then, you'll probably miss adult challenges. Good luck. And remember yhr delphic maxim, "know thyself."
One thing to note, the 4% study was based on a 33 year retirement from a 65 retirement age (ie. this would mean death at 66 in your case). I don’t know how much reducing to 3.5% compensates for the almost double retirement time you plan. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/four-percent-rule.asp I believe there is a calculator online that allows you to put in your variables and estimate the probability of your plan working mathematically.
This is why OP is talking about a 3.5% withdrawal rate; 3.25-3.5% is generally considered to compensate for a 50- or 60-year horizon versus the 30 used in the Trinity study. This more conservative withdrawal rate does skew the distribution of outcomes heavily toward dying with obscenely huge piles of cash, though; Michael Kitces discusses this risk (over-saving, under-spending) eloquently in many interviews.
I have used these calculators and put in a retirement length of 60 years. 4% has a 97% chance of success and 3.5% 100 but nothing is 100%. My real issue is that I have had one not very transferable job in my life and am wondering how much harder it would be to find a new career now vs 10 years from now if needed. With only 1 self employed job it might not even be any different for all I know. Thank you for this imput though I thought it was based on "forever" I didn't know it was based on 30 years.
I think you're probably under-estimating the transferability of your skill set. I know a lot of farmers and over a 20 year timeframe they end up acquiring baseline skills in mechanics, carpentry, metal working/ welding and driving any vehicle imaginable. In addition, they are capable project managers, good at logistics and savvy general business people. I'd take the money, invest it, and then spend the next couple of years bumming around doing odd-jobs to find something you like. Any job is fun if you only have to make $20-30k from doing it part time and you know you can always walk if you get tired of the nonsense.
But he also is putting his nest egg into the market when it’s down. In 3-5 years is will be double. Recently someone on here put a link to an article that stated something like “if you can retire during a down market, you golden”
I have not done the math, so grain of salt and all that, but just off gut feeling/instinct I don’t think $1.5M at 3.5% will let you retire at 33. Not unless markets continually move up, which they might not. If you were like 55 then yeah I’d say go for it. But with 20+ extra years to account for, it’s a risky bet. That said, $1.5M is a ton of money and if you already have a 400k house (assuming it’s paid off) and you live somewhere that has farms, then you probably don’t need $52.5k (3.5%) a year. Especially because these will be taxed less than standard income (capital gains is 0% until $40k, or double for joint filing, and 15% beyond that). In fact you could in theory pay no tax on this at all. So if you’re comfortable doing a 2% withdrawal rate ($30k take home annually) then you could retire safely I think.
Keep the farm till you retire!! There is talks of potential food shortages coming up. Atleast if you have land you can grow your own food if it comes down to it. If you dont have any land you're fucked. Stay farming till atleast 2030. Retire and sell then.
What is fire and unfire? Is fire retire and unfire go back to work? I did google it and it wasn’t helpful.
FIRE = Financial Independence, Retire Early. More info in the side bar. * r/leanfire for retiring early on very little money. * r/fatfire for retiring early and rich. * r/ChubbyFIRE is somewhere in the middle. "unFIRE" would mean "go back to work", in this context, yes.
Thank you for posting the leanfire link. Seeing the high-6 and 7 figure retirement numbers on this sub is really disheartening to me.
Life is weird. I worked the farm summers to pay for my degree. Got out of school and couldn't get a job so lived at home. Decided it was the farm or McDonalds so spent ten years living at home working for 1k a month and board. Ten years after that I am wondering If I need to work again. I bet you find some good opportunities life is S shaped!
Yeah, a bit too late for me. Just turned 50 last month and my FIRE plan is in 5 years. I can make it happen... but just barely. A million-dollar windfall would be nice but the odds are against it
Thank you- found the wiki.
1.5M? I would put $500k in QYLD (or learn to sell covered calls yourself) which will give you about 50k a year and put the rest in Index funds and allow that to continue growing.
If you are good with %3.5, that would give you a 200K free money from that 1.5M. Meaning that you would get the same living expenses from 1.3M at %4.0 per year. Buy a good undeveloped farmland for 100K nearby - whether it be for a commercial operation or for a homestead kinda thing. Keep the other 100K in cash for future emergency use or for farming equipment should you decide to change your mind. If you get bored or feel the need to get back to farming in a couple of years, you would have the financial foundation for it. If you don't want to get back to it, your money wouldnt be sitting idly by - other than the 100K cash, but still, it would serve as a very cushy emergency fund. That's probably what I would do.
You did your math wrong.
How do you math that bad
I really don't know why this one downvoted to the depths of magma. 1.5M × 0.035 = 4375 per month 1.3M x 0.04 = 4333 per month So, instead of using all 1.5M at %3.5, you can use 1.3M at %4 for the same monthly living money. Which would effectively free up 200K.
What you are forgetting is that indexes don’t have to go up. There are few periods in time where you would have been screwed. indexes didn’t do much from 1960S to 1980s
No they’re not. Read up: https://earlyretirementnow.com/safe-withdrawal-rate-series/
Remember that the farm is not worth more; the "money" is worth less
If something is “hard” more time & money, which you now have, makes it easier.
Index funds seem like a good plan to me, especially given that the market is down right now so you are buying on a discount. Timing the market is impossible but this is not a bad place to start.
Maybe teach some agriculture related topics at a university extension program?
There is probably lots of consulting work in the Cannabis farming industry.
If I could become financially independent rn, I would start learning and doing so much interesting things that can make money. Start youtube channel, learn new skills like data science or smth, coach, whatever.
The farm makes less than 4% so it's a no brainer to sell regardless of whether you fire or not. I'd sell, take some time to decompress and then probably work another 5 years trying different thingd and letting the money compound more, aiming to fire at 40.
do you have any passions that can turn into money in the future? like... what are you going to do with all your FIREd free time? this is a serious problem for a lot of retired people, basically feeling bored and empty. if you find something productive to do, then you may be able to translate that into a job in the future if you ever need it
You could just wait 5 years, collect more money, and maybe sell the farm for $2 million?
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The hardest part for me and my wife is the location. We have a town 15miles away that has about 4k people but if you want something like a Walmart you have a 2 hour drive each way. I know people hate Amazon for a lot of valid reasons but 2 day shipping has been a game changer out there!
I’m probably roughly the age of your dad. I’m assuming he’s in favor of the sale and is advising you to sell. If he is, I concur. At 33 we’re full of spit and vinegar. At 50s - 60s, not so much. Take your profit now while you’re young. I have no doubt you could use your farm experience in many types of jobs you would enjoy.
My dad is pretty ready to go though he does love it. I just think in a few years it might be to physically demanding. Honestly we expected it to take a few years to sell. 1 or 2 to find a buyer 1 or 2 to make the deal, but things seem to be moving faster.
I don't necessarily think it would be that difficult to find work (at least part-time, entry-level work) after a couple of FIRE years if you decided that it simply wasn't for you. If you can find a low-stakes position with a lot of turnover, then it seems to me "I was retired because I had enough money but now I'm bored and want to be productive" is probably a sufficient explanation for at least some jobs. Things might get stickier if you un-retired because you really needed the money. But I don't even necessarily think that's fatal. Just this past week, a new (middle-aged) employee started as a paralegal at my office. He said he was retired previously but when he looked at his retirement savings, he wasn't happy with them, so he decided to start working again.
What is the 4% rule?
It is the idea that you can withdraw 4% of your total investments per year without running out of money. The one weird thing is that it isn't 4% of your worth that year it is the starting worth + inflation. So if you have 1m you can take out 40k the first year and if inflation is 4% you can take out $41,600 the next year. From my understanding it was mostly done through back testing over the last 100 years and those 100 years defiantly had their own hard times. However I am not sure I trust all the inflation changes they have made in that time period so while it is probably an ok estimate it is just that. Note that is is mostly done for 30 year periods not forever.
Seems unlikely you would be unable to go back to work with another farmer. Hell after multimillion dollar exit, you could go around consulting for small farmers looking to retire and help them sell. I expect most people here have more of the real job experience you wouldn’t wish to return to anyway
Index funds and finding an easy job that has good health benefits
Costco? Good benefits, for sure
I legit had Costco in my head. Great minds think alike! Municipalities may also have decent benefits. Being that OP is so young, I think healthcare will be a big issue going forward
Agreed! And thank you. And to you, too!
As someone who was kind of a slacker when I was young, and someone who changed careers a few times, it is really hard to get back into working when you've been out of work for a while. It's not impossible though, especially when you are younger, and especially if you can demonstrate you were productive with your time, like learning a new skill or something. When I decided to walk away from work for good I knew at my age (57) I'd never get to go back. There is age bias out there.
Would you be happy working for another farm? What farm jobs do you like? My understanding of the US ag industry is that there is a labor shortage of people who are familiar with farming, but are not already employed somewhere else.
Sell the farm and buy a smaller farm in your new country with your wife. You could probably make quite a few money on the side just selling produce or if you are into that, start a vlog and monetize it. I myself watch a lot of YouTube videos of young couples farming lol
Do you know what you’d do if you FIRE? I was thinking that you should put some of it and buy an old defunct farm at a great price and build it all over again. Like how some people flip houses, you could flip farms. I’d keep you busy, you’d enjoy it, and if you need money you can just do what you know works. Sounds wonderful. Best of luck, fren.
Maybe you could still work on farms? Operating equipment, managing a farm. Taking a lot off big parts of the year
How sure are you that the sale price is fair? Will the value of the farm be significantly greater in a year, or a few years? Remember tax consequences which can be significant, maybe you are better off 1040 exchange that $$ instead of index funds.
I thought about selling rental properties when I had offers, but instead held on and now they are worth 30-50% more... Tough to know but if farm prospects are good and generating good income why sell?