Thanks for sharing your experience and cautions to young folks! All great points. Before leaving any career or field it’s important to consider how time away might negatively impact the chances of jumping back in (if you need to).

For several years, I was a manager hiring and firing people in a up-and-down business, seeing thousands of resumes and I would have just thrown away any resume of someone that didn’t look like they were trying as hard as they could while they were working. It was OK with me if they had taken time off or slowed down specifically to raise their children, but any resume that looked like they were putting in minimal hours to get by would not get thrown away without a second look.

So I would caution people that anyone doing this needs to realize the risk of a long term hit on their earnings and even their employability in their field. If you take non-challenging jobs and take lots of time off, who gets promoted? Who gets let go in a downturn? If you are looking for work, how do your accomplishments, job responsibilities and salary history stack up against your peers?

If you are “near FI” or “already FI” there is little risk to your financial future if you get let go, so slowing down is a great idea. But it seems really odd to list being young as a good indicator of who should consider this strategy. They are not FI yet, they need to work and this strategy makes them look like less desirable employees.

Hey Ms. B! That’s an interesting take! :) I don’t know about the protection against divorce bit, but I can definitely say that building a nest egg early in life (either when single or as a couple) gives much more flexible work options for a couple later in life. For my wife and I, we can both work, one of us take time off, or both take time off. Whatever scenario we choose is probably financially possible if we make enough income to cover our expenses together. Thanks for reading and have a great day!

This could solve so many problems in that regard and protect against worst-case scenario-divorce. Think how many- usually women- take time off for family obligations. And all too often, face a divorce after being out of the work world for years.

If you use those single years to get that nest egg (in your own name. cough.) then stay home for few years… that cushion is there to protect you. If things play out as you’d like, then you have covered your half of the retirement cushion:-)

Not only is this a “worst case” protection, but I think it would give a stay-at-home parent a little more confidence in the situation, which is better for everyone.

Of course, that’s assuming you keep that money invested and don’t allow it to become a slush fund during single income years. But even if you do… it would be like having a part time income while staying home if you are careful about withdrawals.

Sounds like a great plan :) Remember it might not work out so linear in real life. You might have years where you both are fully unemployed and traveling, and some years when you both want to work full time. The good news is most of the hard work is done (Congrats on passing 500k!) so now you can afford to start thinking about lifestyle vs. money when making decisions. Cheers for sharing Adam!

It’s so great to hear you’d prefer to be doing something your passionate about while traveling with family vs. trying to retire earlier. Those freelance and consulting gigs provide a lot of flexibility!

One quick note of caution… The reason I’m quite relaxed about my timeline is because I have a pretty big buffer on FI dates. If things go wrong, my timeline is pushed out a few years and that’s not a huge deal. But, if my timeline had me retiring at 65, and things went wrong, it might push my real FI retirement date out into my 70’s. This scares me. Not because I won’t *want* to work at that age, but more because I might not be *able* to work at that age. Something to think about!

Assuming her company continues to do well and she still enjoys her work, I’m kinda looking forward to both of us dropping to part-time employment in five or six years. Four-day weekends with company-sponsored health insurance sounds like a dream to me!

Took me years to get m head around it. (And even longer to get my emotions in line with Coast FI!). It’s important to note too, as others have mentioned, that all the graph data can be manipulated by inputs. So everyone has to create their own numbers and path that they are comfortable with :)