Reaction – Two Sides of FI

March 26, 2023March 26, 2023

Am I Failing at Early Retirement?

Has your shrinking retirement portfolio left you considering part-time work to ease your anxiety? Inspired by a blog post from Go Curry Cracker, we discuss BaristaFIRE, time freedom, what it means to be “unemployable”, and what work we might consider post-retirement. Be sure to see the links below for the show notes and to the blog post referenced in the video.

Show notes may be found below the video

Show Notes

Essential Background:

Never heard of BaristaFIRE before? Check out one of our earlier episodes, “So What’s Your Financial Independence (FI) Number?”. In this video, we talk about the different flavors of FIRE, decode the math used to calculate our FI numbers, and discuss where our FI numbers fall on the FIRE spectrum.
This isn’t the first time we’ve tackled the idea of working post-RE on the show. In “Financial Independence, Retire Early…Go Back to Work?”, we talked about an enticing job prospect that provided a lot of temptation for Jason. One of our temporal check-in episodes, we also discussed Eric’s strong focus on saving to achieve FI, how “vacation time” is different post-RE, as well as some recommended podcasts and books.
How has Jason’s post-RE experience changed over time? To learn more, you won’t want to miss our three milestone episodes. The first is about his first year post-RE, “What I Learned in My First Year of ‘Early Retirement’ ” (our most viewed episode to date). “My New Life: Two Years After Early Retirement”, covers Jason’s second year and Eric’s trip to California to chronicle his experience. Lastly, we recently released “Finding My Way in Early Retirement: A 30 Month Check-In”.

Failing at Early Retirement, a Go Curry Cracker blog post, was the inspiration for this episode. As we discussed in the video, in the article you’ll learn how author Jeremy took on some seasonal part-time work as a UPS driver, and what he learned from the experience.

We talked a lot about BaristaFIRE in today’s episode. The linked post from Financial Samurai is a comprehensive look at this path, and is a good primer for those seeking more information. In addition to the financial calculations provided in the article, there are numerous supporting tools available online including this BaristaFIRE calculator from Walletburst.

Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) is a great IRS program for US taxpayers who qualify for free federal tax preparation. If you’d like information on VITA including how you can volunteer like Jason is doing, be sure to see the IRS Tax Volunteers page.

You can find information on the tools we mention in each episode along with additional information in the Resources section of this site.

February 12, 2023February 18, 2023

What’s Wrong with This Popular Retirement Strategy?

Do you worry about running out of money in retirement? How do you draw down your assets without tanking your portfolio? Eric + Jason talk with FIRE bloggers Karsten Jeske and Fritz Gilbert about the bucket strategy. Is it a reasonable withdrawal plan or nothing more than a gimmick? They discuss alternative approaches, how to generate a retirement paycheck, and the role of cash. Whether you’re interested in FIRE or on a traditional retirement path, you can’t afford to miss this episode!

Show notes may be found below the video

Show Notes

Essential Background

START HERE:

The 2023 bucket strategy showdown began with these two blog posts by Fritz and Karsten: “Is The Bucket Strategy a Cheap Gimmick?” (Retirement Manifesto), and “Discussing FIRE Bucket Strategies with Fritz Gilbert” (Early Retirement Now). These articles provide essential background to the debate about the utility and validity of the bucket strategy!

Did you see our 2021 interview with Fritz ? If not, you’ll definitely want to check out “Retirement Is Nothing Like I Thought It Would Be“. It’s one of our most popular episodes to date for good reason!
In 2022 we spoke with Karsten for the first time. We covered a lot of ground in this episode about safe withdrawal strategies – so much so that we also released a follow-up video called “Karsten Spoke, We Listened. Here’s What We Learned”.
Would you like to meet Karsten and Fritz? If you didn’t stick around until the end of the video, you might have missed Fritz’ comment about them attending FI Chautauqua in Ecuador this year. Get all the details here on this conference and how you can attend.

Fritz Gilbert’s Content

How To Build A Retirement Paycheck is the first of (currently) four great posts on Fritz’ implementation of the bucket strategy, which we discussed at length in this episode and also in prior videos. The other articles in the series are linked here too, including one he mentioned in this episode, “How to Build a Bond Ladder”.
A Strategy For Buying Into A Bear Market is a post which shares what Fritz learned from the 2008 financial crisis and how he’s managing today’s market volatility.
In this episode, Fritz mentioned his post “A Step-By-Step Guide for Your Annual Financial Update”. Within you’ll find his guide to an annual review, including a checklist he developed along with links to spreadsheets to help you implement your own process.
In 2021, Fritz recently wrote a book called “Keys to a Successful Retirement” which captures the many lessons he has learned on his retirement journey so far. This is a great read for all current and future retirees. It goes far beyond the financial, and leans heavily into the social and emotional aspects of retirement, just like his blog. Highly recommended!
Freedom for Fido is the charity that the Gilberts started, whose stated purpose is to:
“Free the dogs who live on chains in the North Georgia Mountains. We are a charity which provides free fencing and dog houses for low-income residents of the Blue Ridge area.” To learn more about this passion project, be sure to check out this link,

Karsten Jeske’s Content

Safe Withdrawal Rate series: This is the landing page for the 56-part SWR series (now; it will surely continue to grow) for which Karsten is best known. Be sure to start with the guidance he provides on how to navigate this great but expansive content. Many essential topics are covered and not all of them involve deep dives into math!
Has Karsten written about the bucket strategy before? Yep! In 2021 he posted Part 48 in the SWR series, “Retirement Bucket Strategies: Cheap Gimmick or the Solution to Sequence Risk? “. Be sure to check it out for all the details, including the financial modeling he referenced in today’s episode.
Portfolio rebalancing is an essential part of both strategies discussed in today’s video. This key topic is addressed in Part 39 of the SWR series. Rebalancing isn’t a panacea for sequence risk, but it’s certainly an important element to consider. As we’ve discussed previously, being consistent + avoiding market timing is essential.
A topic we didn’t hit on today but have talked about extensively in the past is Karsten’s Safe Withdrawal Rate Toolbox. We will be talking more about this powerful, free downloadable tool very soon. In the meantime, Part 28 is the post where the revisions to the original calculator are described and the latest tool is linked. To see the history of this tool, you’ll need to go back to Part 7 of the series.
You may have Karsten mention that Jason is using his CAPE-Adjusted Safe Withdrawal Rate strategy. Big ERN recently wrote several blog posts concerning a new “better” CAPE ratio. This article introduces the concept, while the next: “The 4% Rule Works Again! An Update on Dynamic Withdrawal Rates based on the Shiller CAPE – SWR Series Part 54” dives into details on how his SWR Toolbox can use this factor to model withdrawal rate in retirement. More on this topic soon!

Others Weigh In

Unsurprisingly, the always active Bogleheads forum got in on the action with this lengthy comment thread about the bucket strategy debate. If you want a broad range of opinions from many different viewpoints, look no further than this post, Just be prepared to deep dive for hours if you do!
Popular YouTuber and author Rob Berger also weighed in back in 2021 with this video on the bucket strategy. In it, you’ll learn why he thinks this plan is flawed and advocates you should take a different path.
As mentioned in this episode, financial advisor and blogger Michael Kitces has also written plenty on this topic. Two relevant posts are “Are Retirement “Bucket” Strategies An Asset Allocation Mirage?” and also “Managing Sequence Of Return Risk With Bucket Strategies Vs A Total Return Rebalancing Approach”. These are both excellent articles and serve as a good expansion of the discussion we had with Fritz and Karsten.

Slides from this video:

You can find information on the tools we mention in each episode along with additional information in the Resources section of this site.

November 28, 2021January 11, 2022

Have Enough to Retire (Early)? 10 Steps to Make Sure

Will you have enough to money to retire (early or otherwise)? Achieving financial independence requires many key elements to be in place and special consideration if you plan to retire early. You need a plan: what will you do? What will you spend? Where will it come from?

In this episode, Eric and Jason discuss a recent blog post by Fritz @ The Retirement Manifesto where he discusses the “10 Steps to Make Sure You Have Enough Money to Retire”. We cover how we’ve been designing our “dream retirement”, how we track current expenses and project future spend, how Jason is drawing down assets and Eric’s evolving plan to use “the bucket strategy”, and much more.

Show Notes

10 Steps to Make Sure You Have Enough Money to Retire – This is The Retirement Manifesto blog post that inspired our episode. Be sure to visit Fritz’ website for this article, as well as all the associated tools we mentioned in the show. We also highly recommend his three-part series on The Bucket Strategy, which we referred to in the episode.

Social Security is an important aspect to consider in most US retirement income plans. This link will take you to calculators that you can use to estimate your retirement benefits. SSA Tools is another useful site, one in which where you can copy/paste your SSA.gov data and use “…clear interactive visuals that let the user investigate how different choices might affect their overall benefit.” It’s a really good tool for modeling different scenarios. Lastly, Open Social Security runs the math for each possible claiming age and reports which strategy is expected to provide the most total spendable dollars over your lifetime.

New Retirement .com – More and more people on Reddit seem to be discussing this comprehensive retirement planning suite. They have a very full-featured free offering as well as a modestly priced paid version (free trial here + $10 off if you choose to extend!) with a host of really nice features, as well as consulting services. There’s a very active Facebook community as well.

Financial Order of Operations (Money Guy Show) – is a really great resource that “outlines the 9 steps anyone can take to build wealth and reach financial abundance.” We recommend downloading a copy and having a look at the associated episodes on their YouTube channel too. This is an essential tool to ensure your personal financial habits are supporting your FIRE goals.

You Need a Budget (YNAB) – By our observation, there is no budgeting tool more widely discussed, nor with a user base so passionate than YNAB. If manual spreadsheets aren’t your thing, or you’ve struggled with budgeting, look no further. YNAB has a free 34-day trial and the subsequent annual fee readily pays for itself. (affiliate link – a free month for each of us if you sign up!)

You can find information on the tools we mention in each episode along with additional information in the Resources section of this site.

October 17, 2021January 11, 2022

Retired Early and I Hated It : How NOT to FIRE, Part 2 (Post-FI/RE)

Imagine hitting your FI number, retiring early, and discovering you hate it? In this episode we discuss four examples of such an outcome: from quitting the perfect job and regretting it, to feelings of depression and lack of purpose. Some are unable to find motivation without financial incentives, while others realize they haven’t budgeted enough to do things they enjoy in life.

This is part 2 of our How NOT to FI/RE series. For part 1 and the PRE FI/RE examples, be sure to check out that video here: https://youtu.be/Jb438jvebd0

Show Notes

For Jason’s own thoughts, observations, and lessons learned in his first year of early retirement, check out this Two Sides of FI episode, as well as his blog post.

Are you on Reddit? Join us in the Two Sides of FI subreddit if you’d like to continue the conversation.

Full text of Reddit posts from the episode:

You can find information on the tools we mention in the episode along with additional information in the Resources section of this site! To navigate to this material at any time, just click the menu button at the top of any page on the site.

October 4, 2021January 11, 2022

How NOT to FIRE – Part 1 (Pre-FI/RE)

How much do you really need to achieve financial independence? We decode the math On the path to financial independence, there are ample opportunities for mistakes and missteps. In today’s episode, we review stories from people who shared their FIRE experiences online in the hopes of educating others. Here we review five of these tales: incurring tragic losses due to trying to beat the market, losing 75% of your portfolio value due to sector investing, regretting aggressively saving at the expense of living your life, and resenting your partner who doesn’t have the same degree of FIRE ambitions as you do.

Show Notes

Full text of Reddit posts from the episode: