The Great Resignation of 2021

An article in the Economist came out recently that claimed up to 40% of the American workforce is planning to resign from their current job in the next 12 months. This should not be news to anyone that is actually paying attention to American work culture and the fallout from decades of working ourselves to death.

On the Mr Money Mustache forums there is a thread called “feeling burned out – anyone else?” That thread has exploded in the last 3 months with the same story repeated over and over. We are all burned the fuck out and hustle culture is killing us. Everyone has their own story of how they got burned out and most of us just looked up one day, opened our eyes, and realized this is not the way to live a life.

One thing we are learning is that even “good jobs” are causing burn out and are even more dangerous than the overly toxic jobs contributing to it. At least when your job is truly toxic you know you have to leave, but when the job is mostly good then it is very hard to see the problems. That is the exact situation I find myself in. The golden handcuffs are locked tight and it’s time to bring out the saw before I chew off my own arm.

A random forum post really resonated with me – “My situation is a bit different, but I am burned out by the constant anxiety hanging over my head of having to perform well. I’ve been in jobs where mistakes could be life and death. I am tired too, so fucking tired. It’s been a rough year.”

Yes! This is my sentiment exactly. It’s not that my job is bad, it’s really not and I’m lucky to have it, but the reality is that the American pressure to perform supersedes working in a good environment. The pressure to perform at higher levels is the reality of the world we have created and it is becoming clear: we have set ourselves up to be miserable through our own expecations and ambitions.

All of this stress, anxiety, peformance metrics, and pressure to perform has finally reached a breaking point and that has manifested itself with 40% of the American workforce desperate to call it quits. Not only do I empathize; I am one of them.

Until we address the American work culture this will never change. At my primary role we have hired a new CEO, who by all intents and purposes, is the exact kind of CEO organizations spend years searching for. She is young, energetic and full of great ideas. With this change brings new expecations, work load and metrics to meet that will make the organization better as a whole. It also brings much higher levels of stress to the entire team. I’ve spent a lot of time in start ups and this is nothing new; except this time I am finding that I have no energy or excitement to do it all over again.

It’s nice to know that 40% of my fellow Americans are feeling the exact same way. Hopefully this leads to a new revolution and we can finally change the way Americans view work.

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Vacation Home to Speed up FI/RE?

Before the days of the Fat FI/RE movement that headline would have seemed like blasphemy. I say the notion of a second home in the context of the Financial Independence movement is a rare fringe, but I am here to make the case that, for a % of us in this movement, purchasing a vacation home is the best use of our resources and could even accelerate your FI/RE date. It’s going to take some work, research, energy and effort but it can be done and it can be done A LOT cheaper than you think.

Our FI/RE journey was built on investing capital aggressively in businesses and opportunities regardless of geography with very few limitations. This has led us to our current position of owning 3 businesses that operate in 17 states and internationally, 4 rental properties in 3 states and family far away from our primary residence. We have kids, dogs, equipment to work remotely, etc. We travel heavy and FI/RE dad has enough committments that I need to be able to connect on a regular basis. Those are the logical reasons to consider a second home somewhere near some of the items listed. It so happens that the most time consuming business and lots of family are all within a 150 mile radius.

The icing on the 2nd home cake is that I built an Event’s Consulting business on the back of travel. Lots and lots of travel that took me to multiple countries and 30+ states every calendar year. It will take decades before I willingly want to spend a vacation in a hotel. Air Travel and hotels are not things I associate with fun and that is just a product of being a million mile traveler before the pandemic of 2020. It’s been 15 months since I’ve been on a plane and if I never had to fly again I’d be happy.

Everything seems logical, but from the lens of FI/RE it seems illogical to buy a second home just so you can keep working. Looking at current real estate prices the most modest home in the cheapest places in the US are at least $100,000. The time it takes to earn that extra capital plus maintenance should outweigh any potential savings so much that there is no way it could actually speed up FI/RE?
This is fundamentally a math equation where the purchase needs to directly contribute to an increase in earnings or reduce future expenses enough to offset the initial outlay of capital. Turns out, that math isn’t as difficult as it sounds if you’re willing to spend the time and energy. Let’s look at our costs:

$55,000 – Cost of 2br/1b cabin on 1 acre
$5,500 – Initial repairs
$1,250 – furnishings

$61,750 – One time investment

Annual costs

$1,200 – Utilities
$2,100 – Tax and federal land lease
$1,500 – repairs fund

$4,800 – Annual expenses

The vacation home we purchased is a cabin with central air, heat, plumbing on a national wildlife preserve. it is 25 miles away from my retail business and 30 miles away from 3 of our rental properties with a ton of family in easy driving distance.

Given the opportunity we would spend 6-8 weeks each year in this general area either working on our investments, visiting family and now, vacationing. The cost of lodging for us on the vacation home market would be enormous (we were estimating $7-8,000/yr) and would easily exceed the annual expenses of the cabin each year which helps pay off the principal investment from year 1.

Did you know that the federal government owns tons and tons of land? Did you also know that this land has been leased out to citizens for over 100 years? These programs are extremely cost effective ways to enjoy some of the most beautiful parts of America, having access to a second home and helping to protect and preserve public land.

Going through the 10 month process of applying for a lease I learned that these applications are dropping by my generation and younger. The programs are hard to learn about, there is little information online and most of the process is paper and phone calls.

The goal of this post is not to try to convince everyone they need to lease public land. Rather to give another concrete example of what my blog is all about. The tagline of this blog is “A Frugal Life of Luxury” and I can’t think of a better example than buying and maintaining a vacation home for less money than hotel stays.

Here are some photos from the first 36 hours we had the cabin.

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NW Update – May 2021

Another month and another Net Worth update! May 2021 was the month of real estate. We had 3 closings this month. After spending months trying to find any deals in real estate and falling flat I finally found the key to success in our current market. Purchase properties from investors that come with leases. Retail buyers don’t even consider these properties that they wouldn’t be able to take possession of for up to 2 years based on a lease.

Our net worth got a large injection by becoming vested in my public employee pension and then 50% of the bump came from investment returns. Who knows when this insane bull market will end, but with 4 rental properties I feel sufficiently more prepared for any downturn than I ever have before.

I’m still toying with the idea of including our vacation cabin in our net worth calculations. It’s a small enough % of our total NW that I really don’t think it matters either way.

Assets
Real Estate	Value	Monthly Income
IA Rental 3818	$130,000	$1,050
CO Duplex 1060	$580,000	$1,000
IA Rental 55th	$125,000	$1,200
IA Rental 15th	$155,000	$1,200
Cabin	$55,000	N/A
Real Estate Total	$990,000	$4,450
Tax Advantaged Accounts	Value
457	$77,800
401k	$64,300
IRA	$77,200
ROTH IRA	$58,200
Spousal IRA	$37,000
529	$16,500
Pension	$55,700	$20k change from becoming vested!
Tax Advantage Total	$386,700	$500,000 goal
Investments	Value
Brokerage Vanguard	$74,000
Brokerage WeBull	$12,100
Crypto	$46,000
Retail Business	$415,000
Total Investments	$547,100
Cash/Savings	Value
Checking	$12,000
Real Estate Checking	$7,000
Sold business note	$17,000
Total Cash/Savings	$36,000	Spent over $100,000 on real estate this month!
Total Assets	$2,014,800
Liabilites	Type	Amount
Mortgage CO Duplex	Mortgage	$399,000
Business buyout loan	Business	$93,000
Mortgage IA 55th	Mortgage	$95,000
Mortgage IA 15th	Mortgage	$95,000
Total Liabilities		$682,000
Total NW May 2021		$1,332,800

Increase/Decrease single month
$64,000

May 2021 Goals and reflections

• Set ourselves up to max the 529 each year for the next three years. (already done for 2021)
• $2,000,000 NW by April 2024 – May21 update- Consider moving goal posts to quit F/T job. Other avenues to get health insurance to cut 1-2 years off. Rental property income is strong and won’t make the NW goal as important.
• Closed on 2 rental properties in May 2021. I am not actively shopping for investment properties. The market is not great for remote buyers.
• Invest $50,000 additional into CO Duplex in improvements to create a better income property by April 2023.
• Invest $25,000 in cabin by April 2023.
• Continue to max 457 and 401k until April 2023 – get pre tax to $500,000

Things to note for the coming months of 2021.

• I’ve already achieved a June 2022 goal related to rental properties. I’m going to slow down and think through next steps. With the current real estate market and us having $1mil in real estate; building up cash to purchase aggressively in the event of a turn down might be a better play. If the market continues to rise then we are still doing well with a large real estate portfolio and if the market takes a dump then we have the cash to buy up entire city blocks.
• Look into a Solo 401k or SEP IRA for my business income. I’m finding the rules extremely complicated with our situation – Single earner, many sources of income. The IRS has lots of avenues to tax shelter massive amounts of money and now is the time to put energy into that.

Exactly 3 years left!

The FireFamily has a lofty goal of being fully financially independent by April 2024. Since it is the middle of April 2021 as I write this that means we have 36 months remaining to get our shit together and meet the goals. This seems like a reasonable time to reassess the situation, see if anything has changed, if we are still on track and go from there.

Goal	Current Status	To do in next 36 months
Own 5 income producing units	2 current, 1 under contract – Ahead of goal	Purchase at least 2 more rental properties
$2,000,000 NW by April 2024	$1,268,800	Increase NW by $19,500 per month – a LOFTY goal
Max 457/401k	On track	Continue – Consider changing this goal to open up after tax cash for real estate?
Max 529 each year ($15,000/yr)	2021 – DONE	3 years to go
Pay off business loan	automatic payments/current	on track

When I look at my goals above I feel like perhaps the goals are too conservative and we could achieve quite a bit more in the next 36 months.

I expect we will have the rental property goal met much sooner than 2024 so I have adjusted that goal to be completed by June 2022. Once that goal is met then it will be logical to increase this goal to have more cash flow in retirement/travel.

$2mil NW is the only goal on here that feels like I will really have to work to achieve it. Since the timeline is so short at 36 months remaining I am at the mercy of the market to achieve this goal. I think shifting even harder into real estate will help us meet this goal independent of the stock market.

Maxing the pre-tax accounts is pretty easy as long as I keep my full time job. Everything happens automatically so that goal is not nearly as rewarding to achieve.

Maxing the 529 does take intentional action, but is absolutely not a problem. If the contributions were not maxed I might have considered dropping $50k or more into the 529 this year and never worrying about college savings again, but that’s not how the IRS works.

Paying off the business loan is another one of those goals that each month doesn’t feel super rewarding. Since the check is cut automatically from the business account I just have to count down the months until that burden is gone.

1,095 days remaining until I can quit my full time job. FireDad will be 39 and FireMom will be 34 with 100% freedom to take back our days. The FIRE community is one of the most important things I’ve ever studied in my life and I’m grateful every day for the skills I have learned and honed from this community.

NW Update – April 2021

Another month and another Net Worth update. Despite some expensive hobby purchases, bordering on excessive to drop at once, we still increased our Net Worth by $56,200 in the previous 30 days. That is well ahead of track to be at $2 million by April 2024, but this massive bull market can only last so long. I continue with my goals to move as much after tax savings from equities to real estate as possible.

We have a $122,000 real estate purchase with a tenant already in place that will close mid May. This is on track with the goal of purchasing 3 rental properties by June 2022. This property is the first rental property I’ve purchased that I’ll be using traditional commerical financing. I’ll write a detailed report of how that goes in a future post. For now, onto the updates.

Assets
Real Estate	Value	Monthly Income
IA Rental 3818	$130,000	$1,050
CO Duplex 1060	$580,000	$1,000
Real Estate Total	$710,000	$2,050
Tax Advantaged Accounts	Value
457	$75,000
401k	$62,200
IRA	$78,200
ROTH IRA	$58,000
Spousal IRA	$37,000
529	$16,500
Pension	$35,800
Tax Advantage Total	$362,700
Investments	Value
Brokerage Vanguard	$68,500	Moved all single stocks to Real Estate checking
Brokerage WeBull	$12,100
Crypto	$50,000
Retail Business	$415,000
Total Investments	$545,600
Cash/Savings	Value
Checking	$61,000	BIG spend on Astrophotography this month…..
Real Estate Checking	$67,000	(multiple closings soon)
Sold business note	$17,000
Total Cash/Savings	$145,000
Total Assets	$1,763,300
Liabilites	Type	Amount
Mortgage CO Duplex	Mortgage	$399,000
Business buyout loan	Business	$95,500
Total Liabilities		$494,500
Total NW April 2021		$1,268,800

Increase/Decrease single month
$56,200

April 2021 Goals

• Set ourselves up to max the 529 each year for the next five years. (already done for 2021)
• $2,000,000 NW by April 2024 – Current FI goal date.
• Continue moving after tax investments from apps and into real estate; purchase 3 rentals by June 2022. – Under Contract with 1 property to close in May 2021
• Invest $50,000 additional into CO Duplex in improvements to create a better income property by April 2023.
• Continue to max 457 and 401k until April 2024 – get pre tax to $500,000

Things to note for the coming months of 2021.

• $54,000 going to cabin purchase in May 2021. This will be a hobby/luxury expense and will not count towards the $2mil NW goal as it will be a liability property with additional expenses and will not be monitized.
• Closing on rental property 2625 Mid-May with a mortgage. 20% down at 4.125% for 30 years is just crazy.
• End of May/Early June FireDad’s pension should double as I become vested.

Setting yourself up for post FI/RE success – Setting Goals

If you are a consumer of Financial Independence content on a regular basis then you can’t ignore that there has been a MASSIVE uptick in the people who have really struggled 2-5 years into their retirement. 

It makes sense though, depending on how you measure the growth of this movement, there is no denying that it has grown to a scale no one imagined. It’s also been around long enough that there is a sizable population that has been early retired for some large chunks of their lives. Nearly all of the earliest FI bloggers have been retired for years and many of them decades. Some of them are starting to admit online that they got slapped in the face that “money doesn’t buy happiness” still applies if you live frugally. People need a purpose.

I follow plenty of the bloggers who have been varying levels of happy and content with their choices, but the takeaway that I heard “was that burning your life energy away to reach that FIRE finish line at all costs is a miserable decision and might even be worse than the “normal” folk who work until 63”. I also took away that nearly everyone who seemed happiest among the FIRE Giants out there is that they all had some form of meaningful pastime that they pursued very purposefully. 

The fear of the post FI regret was all too real for me and in searching for guidance on that issue I found the Die With Zero book I wrote about. Elements of that book are exactly what I needed to guide my decisions with less than 5 years to go until our FIRE date. 

Invest in hobbies and interests I’ve always been interested in. I’ve done a lot of thinking about what would produce the most happiness in our family compared to actual dollar costs. Here is the current list to achieve:

1. Spend as many clear nights as possible looking at the stars, when covid ends, reach out to astronomy groups, clubs and observatory in walking distance, consider volunteering there. I’ve spent too many years wanting to study astronomy and it’s so silly I never have. That stops; it’s time to live more intentionally.
2. Invest in my health to ensure I never am the slow leg when taking our family on adventures.
3. Show our children as much of the US as possible, every national park at the very least, and hopefully for months or years at a time. Anything is on the table to achieve this. 
4. Increase our knowledge of homesteading, including doubling our growing capacity in the next two seasons.

11pm

Some of these are personal and others are shared goals of our entire family. I expect that when we reach FI/RE and are truly comfortable while being able to achieve these goals that we will be giving our children a better childhood than anyone I’ve ever met experienced. 

In the end, all of these goals point back to the only goal that really matters. To make sure we give our children the best life we possibly can.

NW Update – March 2021

Another month it brings the most comprehensive NW update I have done in a couple years.

Assets
Real Estate	Value	Monthly Income
IA Rental 3818	$130,000	$1,050
CO Duplex 1060	$580,000	$1,000
Real Estate Total	$710,000	$2,050
Tax Advantaged Accounts	Value
457	$69,600
401k	$58,000
IRA	$74,000
ROTH IRA	$56,000
Spousal IRA	$35,700
529	$16,000
Tax Advantage Total	$309,300
Investments	Value
Brokerage Vanguard	$126,000
Brokerage WeBull	$12,300
Crypto	$42,000
Retail Business	$415,000
Total Investments	$595,300
Cash/Savings	Value
Checking	$70,000	(multiple closings soon)
Real Estate Checking	$7,500
Sold business note	$17,000
Total Cash/Savings	$94,500
Total Assets	$2,018,400
Liabilites	Type	Amount
Mortgage CO Duplex	Mortgage	$399,000
Business buyout loan	Business	$97,500
Total Liabilities		$496,500
Total NW March 2021		$1,212,600

March 2021 Goals

• Set ourselves up to max the 529 each year for the next five years. (already done for 2021)
• $2,000,000 NW by April 2024 – Current FI goal date.
• Continue moving after tax investments from apps and into real estate; purchase 3 rentals by June 2022.
• Invest $50,000 additional into CO Duplex in improvements to create a better income property by April 2023.
• Continue to max 457 and 401k until April 2024

Book Report: Die With Zero by Bill Perkins

Within the last year I reached the first FIRE goal we ever set for ourselves which was a big $1,000,000 in assets. While I haven’t kept a blog for an especially long time I have kept lots of personal writing about my FIRE goals along the way, my reasoning at the time and some justification so that when I reviewed these goals in the future there was some context to them.

That said the first FIRE goal I ever set was a million dollars. My goal was actually a little more detailed than that.

$600,000 in liquid assets
$200,000 in real estate
$200,000 in tax sheltered retirement accounts
Age goal: 40
Notes: This should produce $40,000 in reliable lifetime income adjusted for inflation. As of today I can live safely on $32,000 which should give enough of a buffer to be safe for the extended time of no work and be conservative in down markets. – Written by the 25 year old version of FIREDad

Now that I’m above this number by about 10% I look back on this goal and think that the 25 year old me was an idiot. Of course he wasn’t married, didn’t have any children and lived in a super awesome condo without a car. Like so many of those that are reaching Financial Independence the goal posts moved and they moved hard. I’m not going to lie that this set off alarm bells in my head of the fear of becoming a 50, 55, 60, 65 year old who worked his life away. The only difference between us and a regular American would be that in old age we would have A LOT to show for our efforts.
Make no mistake, the $1.1 million in assets we have today does not feel like nearly enough; especially when every additional year of working creates such a huge future benefit, but when does that stop? When does enough become too much and instead you watch your life energy be depleted for numbers on a spreadsheet?

I found the answer to my problem on the r/FatFire subreddit. That place is a total shitshow and it can be hard to sort through the humble brags and bullshit to find real content, but when a great thread comes up it is worth the effort. The post is one of many but it was essentially my exact scenario except all the numbers were 5x larger. The OP was in a scenario where they had over $5 million in assets and it didn’t feel safe to them. In fact, each additional year of work OP was able to put in rather than drawing on assets would increase the portfolio by 25%! This post scared the shit out of me, because without serious focus and intentional choices I would be that person in 5, 10, 15 or 20 years. In that thread a very high NW poster recommended reading the book “Die With Zero” by Bill Perkins. Many other respected contributers also felt it was what the OP needed. I reserved the book at our library right away.

The overarching theme of the book is crystal clear: You are wasting life energy on earning rather than living. Now if you are thinking “wait a minute, isn’t that the exact premise of ‘Your Money or Your Life”. Why dear reader, you are correct! I would suggest that Die With Zero is the high net worth version of YMYL.

There were significant points that Bill makes in this book that are logical and if you are remotely involved in the FIRE community you will agree with. There are others that I am sure are controversial. The compelling case the book makes is that you should, above all else, maximize your life experiences. Nearly all life experiences are unique based on your age meaning that experiencing The Grand Canyon for example is a totally different experience running rim-to-rim on your 20s as it is to taking your kids in your late 30s.

Bill highlights and places very high value on the “memory dividend” that compounds in the rest of your life as a result of these experiences. This is a fantastic way for those that are results driven to justify having fun with their money. I found the discussion on memory dividend to be the most useful content in the entire book.

There are a few fundamental flaws with some of Bill’s writing where I found myself disagreeing. The first is the black and white approach he has to his premise. It makes sense, the book is called DIE WITH ZERO so it makes sense that he drives home the point of that goal, but I felt too much was focused on that goal specifically. The real value in his message is a shift in thinking to realize that leaving behind millions is not always a good thing, unless it’s done with an intentional purpose that is wasted life energy. That shift in thinking is the true value in Bill’s message and it is one that a very specific group needs to hear.

If you are nearing the end of your FIRE journey, are buried in a career you hate, or are just working too many hours and watching life go by then I would highly recommend Die With Zero from Bill Perkins.

Here are the takeaways from Die With Zero that I have used in my own life:

• Make a plan to maximize your life experiences. Use specific goals and use money intentionally to reach those goals
• Give money to your children intentionally rather than on your death. I have started outlines of plans of when and how our children will receive any money we want them to have
• We have created a multi year plan to maximize the life experiences, starting with an increase in experiences in 2021, with subtle increases in life experiences as our son reaches the age we most want to show him experiences.
• Worked on adjusting my FI/RE numbers from a perspective of having significantly less at age 75+ than originally intended.

Die With Zero – Bill Perkins – 4.8/5

2004 Porsche 911 C4S – 1 Year Ownership Review

Well it’s been a little over a year since I took the plunge and wrote a $30,000 check to purchase a 2004 Porsche 911 C4S with a little over 40,000 miles, sight unseen and shipped it to my home.

The TL;DR – I could not be happier with the purchase despite some MAJOR costs this year.

Total Costs:
$30,000 purchase price – Listed at $32,000
$800 shipping expense
$2783.44 Tax and 1 year of license
$761.26 Insurance, full coverage for 1 year
$3,985 Wheels and snow tires
$7,978 IMS, Rear main seal, shocks, struts, clutch, coil packs and some other various deferred issues

TOTAL: $46,307.70

I imagine that most people would look at that number and be surprised that I spent so much more than the purchase price in the first year. I am extremely happy with all of those numbers above and would likely do it all over again.

See the list of items I wanted in my 911 were very specific and difficult to find:

• Cabriolet with a factory hard top (rare)
• manual transmission
• All wheel drive
• Infotainment system done and that be some of the only modifications

This came along and had everything above. I knew that the IMS had not been done which meant that there was very likely going to be other issues. I built that into my plan and sorted EVERYTHING. With all the work I’ve done on the car it drives like brand new.

The total cost of ownership is inflated by about 10% by an optional decision I made to purchase different wheels with snow tires. That was a pure luxury purchase and man oh man was it an awesome one.

With snow tires this car can go just about anywhere and do just about anything. She sure doesn’t like deep snow with the low stance but everything else is fair game.

$46,000 for a car that puts a giant smile on my face everytime I drive. I cannot wait to run errands down the mountain because every moment is thrilling and engaging. I suppose I could have bought a new car and had a bunch of technology but where’s the fun in that?

When Will Enough be Enough?

It’s never been a secret to me that I am a workaholic. I always approached it from my unique FI/RE perspective with this in the distance dream of never having to work again. As I have reached higher and higher income levels with more and more investments and companies I’ve worked on becoming successful I am once again faced with a question of “Is this enough?”

Since I was 20 years old working as a supervisor at UPS and doing a part-time job during the day I have always, and I mean always had at least 2 sources of income and one of them (except for a brief unemployment) has always been a full-time salary position. That 15 years of continuous income has led to a very comfortable life that has multiple sources of reliable income at any given time. This has allowed our family to have just me working and FIREMom can stay home full-time. 

Even going down to one income it is getting harder and harder to justify working the full-time job. This is despite the fact that I would rate this job a 9.5/10 in terms of how awesome a job can be. The pay is good, benefits are amazing, it has a pension, my coworkers are great, my direct reports do a reliable job, etc etc. Despite knowing that once May 2021 hits I will be vested in my pension and have it on my calendar as a sort of freedom date I am hesitant to even consider doing something else. 

Since in 5 months our family will be a version of LeanFire in May 2021 every day our family makes the decision for me to keep working is a conscientious decision to give up family moments in exchange for greater comfort, luxuries and experiences. 

With this post I am setting some goals that I can hold myself accountable to. I know myself well enough to think I’ll never reach a NW number that makes me feel 100% comfortable so instead I’ll set these goals to allow my future self the ability to leave full-time employment.

Goal  1  

Tax sheltered retirement > $500,000

Goal 2 

All business debt paid off

Goal 3

Paid off mortgage or after tax investments of equal amount

Goal 4

$250,000 in after tax investments

Goal 5

Reliable $50,000 in S-corp ownership income

Using current account values and savings rates I should hit these goals between 3 and 7 years from now depending on how the market does. That is still longer that I would like some days and honestly I know that even if I end up going 7 years that it is likely I’ll have moved the goal posts again. Although I hope to look back on this post and be reminded that this is enough money to lead a happy, safe and prosperous life. If this is more than enough to meet those needs then why keep going?