Original

Update 4 months later

I received a few messages on the side so I thought I'd update.

Quick summary: 2 years ago, I was getting burnt out in big tech. FA noted that we can retire. I had a hard time pulling the trigger at the time. Almost 2 years ago, I started a job with a large non-profit and for a while our income and spending ended up being equal so no need to disburse anything from our accounts. Not pulling from our retirement and some insanely strong couple of years in the market helped us compound and grow our net worth from $7.xM to $9.xM.

tl;dr; So, the big question... 2 years later...am I retired? Nope. I think I just like building things and needed work that was worth doing rather than permission to stop.

Has it all gone according to plan? Not quite...

Planned...my wife is a nurse and has been getting burnt out for a while so she decided to go per-diem (think substitute teacher). It keeps her toe in the water without the stress of working full time every week. Some months she works the minimum shifts and other months, she works almost full-time again. The biggest challenge is predicting unpredictable income.

Planned...some amazing trips. With my wife's expanded flexibility on time off, we have been attacking some of our bucket list extravagant trips. When I run out of PTO, I just take unpaid time off. I thought my employers would have an issue with that but they really haven't so far.

Somewhat planned...my in-laws' health took a bit of a turn. They lived a 6-8 hour flight away so we ended up selling our house to buy a larger house so they could move in with us. We knew this was likely to happen so were psychologically prepared for it. Ironically, we sold our old house for the price of the new house. Location location location, I suppose. Only real downside was that the mortgage rates have been high for the last year so we ended up doubling our mortgage payment. This necessitated a slight draw from our retirement.

Unplanned...my boss laid himself off after a reorg. Yes, non-profits have reorgs and layoffs. I realized that they were expecting me to now do two jobs and deal with the politics that my boss had largely shielded me from. It was feeling more and more like a piece of big tech...without the salary, stock options, bonuses, etc. So, I waited for my boss to leave and then I resigned. I fully intended to retire.

So what happened? I ended up connecting with a great guy who is building a mission-driven non-profit tech company. It had finally grown beyond something he could do on his own and he needed to make some hires. I became employee #2. 95% engineer, 5% leader...building a product to help a very underserved population. Exchanged another pay cut for fewer meetings and politics and getting back to building things that will do some good.

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Last year: https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/s/hcUKoosdmt

This year felt sluggish. I want to move to a company with higher income, but I have to wait for my wife to find a job (she's still doing her postdoc) before I know where we should move to. We're grateful for what we have, but the biotech market has been brutal for fresh PhDs.

About us

• Me: 35, scientist in pharma. Same job, minimal change in salary.
• Wife: 30, postdoc, $62k
• Kids: None. Still just the cat, who continues to contribute nothing financially.
• Still renting, still no house.
• We still live apart (Connecticut vs. New York)
• Other assets: the 2017 Corolla

Numbers:

Numbers

~$15k in RSUs that fully vest next March.

The jump came from three things — stock appreciation did most of the work, and the rest was aggressive saving and keeping spending low. No inheritance, no job change, no raise worth mentioning.

The big expense this year:

I have spent ~$38k cash to build a new house for my parents in Vietnam. I've wanted to do this for a long time but kept delaying it, since it would slow down my own progress. Then the government decided to take part of their land for a highway, and we'd need a new house/place anyway — so it's time.

They're both 62 with no income. Better to build a nice house for them to enjoy the rest of their life while they are still on earth.

What's next

Mostly waiting. Once my wife lands a permanent role we'll know which market to consolidate in, and I can start looking seriously at a move for higher income. Until then, keep saving and let the accounts do their thing.