Eight weeks ago Mike unexpectedly lost his job. I still feel a deep, visceral gut punch as I type that out.
And around the same time, we hit our FIRE number. Ironic, huh?
We’re unbelievably lucky his job loss came right as we reached a huge financial (and personal) milestone. If there was ever a time to be fired (hah!) into FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early), this was it.
At the same time, it’s difficult for us to adequately express how shocking this was.
If you know anything about the FIRE movement, you know, for the most part, we’re a bunch of crazy planners and optimizers. And that is an accurate description of how we approach life. While our intention was for him to depart work in early 2025-ish, we planned to use 2024 as the runway to optimize, maximize, and get our financials in tip-top shape. This would allow us a “perfect” transition into a life without work.
But the universe had other plans. It was a good reminder…
We’re not in control.
So here we are, somehow two months later, literally catapulted into our FIRE life.
Today we’re sharing what we navigated in the immediate aftermath. We’ll address some of the biggest questions people raise related to reaching financial independence. What we share may be helpful for those wondering:
I hit my FI number, now what?
Background on Our FI Journey
For those who are new here, let’s do a quick recap to bring you up to speed on our FIRE journey.
It’s just the two of us, and our dog, Ziggy. We both had professional jobs with good income. He only started earning six figures around 2018, while I never quite hit six figures.
We’ve been on the path to FIRE since 2019, after he found Mr. Money Mustache and went down the rabbit hole. His search for an alternative path was partially driven by my quarter-life crisis, and a life together without the requirement to work was very appealing (freedom, anyone?!). So we jumped in with both feet.
In 2019 we anticipated a 8-10 year timeline when our journey first began, meaning we’d retire early around 45 years old.
The first few years we overhauled our lifestyle, which mostly focused on making small changes. We reevaluated where we went out to eat and frequency (this was a big expense prior to 2019), membership services we weren’t using, and doubled down on maximizing tax savings via our HSA, employer retirement plans, and IRAs. We began tracking our expenses in Empower, and nerded out together over our monthly financial reviews.
The most impactful change we made was being more intentional about where and how we spent our money. We spent in accordance to our values (travel, experiences), but cut back in other areas that weren’t as important. We focused on the concept of “enough” and admittedly a lot of delayed gratification. Contrary to some FIRE critics, we never felt we lived in deprivation.
Just a couple years later we began to experiment with lifestyle design to exercise some of the freedom our growing financial safety net provided.
We were RV-curious and rented a few, only to find we loved it! While initially we thought RV life would come after hitting our FI number, we pulled the trigger in 2021 and purchased a brand new travel trailer, only 2 years into our journey!
The following year in 2022 I took a 60-day sabbatical from my HR career, and we spent four weeks traveling west in our RV. Later that year in November 2022 I decided it was time to call time of death on my career, and started this blog. That marked the official start of our SINK (single income, no kids) era, which obviously slowed our progress towards our FI number.
That same year Mike started an LLC and invested in a couple of real estate syndications.
Meanwhile, our nest egg kept growing.
Since then, I’ve done some small consulting projects on the side, and recently started life and career coaching. We spent several 4-5 week periods traveling in our RV, and planned to upgrade our truck and RV to be more comfortable traveling for longer periods of time.
Mike started to pull back from work ever so slightly at the end of 2023, and began focusing on his mindset and identity related to his job. Knowing we would hit our ideal FI number in the next year or so, he started to envision what a transition out of work might look like for him. This was important to him given his tenure with the company and the fact he was in a leadership role.
That brings us to March 25, 2024, when everything changed.
I Lost My Job & Hit My FI Number, Now What?
What does the aftermath of job loss look and feel like from a spouse’s perspective? The only thing I can compare to is how I felt immediately after the loss of a close family member: shocked, numb to an extent, and a grave feeling of something missing on a visceral level that takes your breath away. I know it may seem odd, even gross, to compare the two.
But that’s what it felt like to me. Mike had worked for the small company for over 18 years, moving up the ranks starting right out of college. Some of his coworkers had been in our wedding party. We had traveled extensively with many of his coworkers over the years.
Y’all. They were close. The HR person in me hates to admit it, but they were “family” (but not really).
So, it hurt. A lot. And I’m just speaking from my perspective on this.
And also, despite the horrible feelings, there was some… relief. We’ll share more on that soon.
But the week of March 25th will forever be lost in a time suck, us living in a zombie-like trance asking, “Why? How?” And doing the absolute bare minimum to survive, like figuring out some legal shit we had to get through.
And then, s l o w l y the trance started to clear. The first thing that popped into our (my?) head…
Health Insurance
One option was COBRA coverage, but the cost was nearly $1000 per month. We called up a FI friend who was knowledgeable on health insurance through the ACA, and immediately went through the process to see the cost of plans through our state (Kentucky) exchange. In the end though, we ended up on Medicaid, which is free (!!).
While this is a great option for us currently because Kentucky has expanded Medicaid, every state handles it differently. We’ve heard some people in other states say Medicaid is terrible. But for now, we have insurance coverage and are taking advantage of the benefits to get our annual check-ups completed, blood work, and even some mental health support.
From our experience we decided to pay for COBRA coverage to continue his employer sponsored dental plan, which costs us about $40 monthly. The dental options with Medicaid weren’t great, which we had heard similar feedback from others.
So if you hit your FI number and think now what about health insurance, finding coverage was easier and much cheaper than we anticipated. We know things could change at any time, but that was one “win” in the aftermath.
Spending
Before March 25th, he worried about money and hitting our FI goal way more than I did. I took his steady paycheck for granted. Post March 25th, I found myself more worried about money and him not as worried…
So have we gone into a spending lockdown? Are we living in scarcity or abundance mindset when it comes to our money?
In our 2024 projections, we planned to purchase a new truck (F350) to tow a larger RV soon(ish). We ordered the truck in February, before everything transpired with his job. Ordering the vehicle didn’t lock us in to purchasing, either, just a small refundable deposit.
Post March 25th I assumed we’d pass on the new truck and push the RV upgrade out a year. This would give ourselves time to adjust to the abrupt financial hit.
But, after discussing with our knowledgeable FI friends in early April, we felt comfortable purchasing the truck when we were notified a week later it was ready. And trust me when I tell you he was very happy with the decision to purchase…
And what about the upgraded RV? Again, we discussed at length and decided if we found a good deal on the model we wanted, we would move forward. We didn’t have any particular timeline and were in no rush.
Well, the universe works in strange ways. We picked up the new truck on April 15th. Shortly after he found what seemed to be an unbelievable deal on the RV model we wanted, including some upgrades we were hoping for. The RV was in south Florida though.
No worries… Without any work constraints, he used credit card points to fly down to see it. A few days later we hopped in the truck, drove down to Cape Coral to officially purchase on April 29th, just two weeks after we got the truck. Just wild!
With those large purchases I think we’ve demonstrated we’re both embracing abundance mindset. And yes, of course it helps immensely that we hit our FI number around this time.
There are several actions we took that gave us (more) confidence to move forward with these large purchases.
First off, having our FI friends review our financial situation in-depth was enormously helpful. It’s nice to have people in our lives further down the path than us to highlight blind spots, opportunities, ask good questions, and give us confidence that we’re on the right path.
Secondly, we’ve gone back to our monthly financial reviews. Over time we drifted from that habit, but now it’s an important touch point for us to see how we’re doing and closely monitor expenses (and more so for me now that I’m beginning to understand sequence of returns).
Third we have a planning session with our CPA coming up next week to figure out what our draw down strategy looks like for the remainder of the year.
When I look at the broader picture, I’m immensely proud of how quickly he leaned into utilizing the tool (money) we’ve worked so hard to build over the last ~18+ years to make the life we envisioned back in 2019 come true. We could have lived in fear and played it safe by holding off on the truck and RV upgrade.
But we planned for these purchases and know travel is a big part of our ideal life.
While we were in the accumulation phase, delayed gratification served its purpose and helped get us to where we are today.
Now though it’s time to use the tools (money) and we’re leaning into it!
Day-to-Day Activities
One of the parts of post-employment life Mike worried about was, what will I do day-to-day?
Unlike me, when I quit my HR career in November 2022 I wasn’t worried about that. Instead, I felt a deep need for space from work. While it was a scary to have a big, blank slate in front of me, I knew that is what I needed and had confidence I’d figure it out.
For him only two months in, I’ve already heard him vocalize, “I’m not sure how I had time to work.” Prior to March 25th, he tore down our old deck and planned to rebuild it and add a new garage bay onto our house for his new truck. He loves renovation projects, so for now he’s living his best life working on the garage, deck, and has ideas for RV mods he wants to complete for the new (to us) fifth wheel.
He wakes up, enjoys a slow start with coffee, then works outside, moving his body doing projects he wanted to do anyway. Throw in some long weekends with FI friends, family get togethers, and late afternoon naps, and you’ve got a pretty good picture of what the first two months has looked like day-to-day.
What happens when those projects are over? Well, later this year we’ll be traveling in the RV extensively! And from there, who knows.
But so far the off-ramp to post-employment has been pretty smooth.
For anyone worried what they will do after they hit their FI number and quit working, we recommend spending time reflecting on what you enjoy. And if you don’t know, that’s okay. Get some ideas and start experimenting now.
If you have a picture of your ideal life that is completely new, something you haven’t tried yet, it may seem exciting and ideal while you’re working. But in reality you may not actually enjoy it once you try it out. And that’s okay. But figure that out sooner than later.
For example, say you’ve always wanted to run a marathon but you’re saving that goal for after you quit work because you’ll “have more time.” While you truly may not have time now to train for a marathon, at least start running. Or, if you already run, start increasing your distance to see if a marathon is something you truly want to commit to.
Maybe you love it–perfect! Keep going. But maybe you realize long distances aren’t for you, or you find out your body cannot handle the extra distance. Figure things out now while you still have time to experience it, process what you learn, and adjust as you need to.
I’ll also point out we are prone to bias, thinking we will have more time in the future.
That is not my experience after quitting my job, and from talking to many others, including Mike two months in, they agree. The hard truth is that you have to protect your time and prioritize what you want to do. Otherwise you will waste it away, or allow others to dictate your time. Yes, even after you quit working.
And anyway, do you really want to wait to start doing things you think you’ll love or find fulfilling? For many, that is years away! Find ways to do what you love or think you’ll love in small bits now. It’ll pay off once you actually quit your job (or take a mini-retirement, scale pack to part-time, etc.).
Other Thoughts
So if you hit your FI number and think, now what will I feel?
My best guess is you’re going to feel many different things. Happiness, fear, relief, anxiety, enthusiasm, grief, etc. And somehow they can all co-exist at the same time, and are all valid.
In any other scenario that didn’t include an unexpected job loss, reaching our FI number would be cause for huge celebration. So for us it’s been a bit of an emotional roller coaster to have something so negative (and yet somehow a blessing?) paired with something so incredible we worked unbelievably hard for.
And that’s not even highlighting the fact we reached out FI number in 5 years instead of the 8-10 years we anticipated, which is cause for celebration in itself.
A large part of me can’t get over how ironic, horrible, incredible, beautiful, shocking it is all at the very same time.
But isn’t that life?
I’m slowly learning to accept the beautiful (and sometimes wild) nuance of life. That in fact, many things can be true at the same time. And that is what makes life so hard, lovely, beautiful, messy, heart breaking, and impossible…
And yet so worthwhile!
What other questions do you have? We may have an interview style blog post coming up where we delve more into his perspective of how everything unfolded.
Feel free to put any questions you have in the comments below!
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