It’s hard to believe that I left my corporate accounting job over 2 years ago! Time really does fly. Here’s my early retirement update for the second year.
The biggest difference between my first and second years of early retirement? I actually had more freedom!
If you’ve been following our journey, you know that I retired in March 2020, the start of this (seemingly) never-ending pandemic. Instead of having days to myself, I spent them full-time parenting our young child. Because I was no longer working and we are cautious people, we kept her out of preschool for 18 months. Being able to spend time together and not have to juggle working at the same time was a blessing. But it also meant that my true early retirement experience was delayed.
This past August, our daughter returned to school and I finally got to experience the freedom that I’d anticipated for so long. Here’s how the past year went…
Money
Let’s start with the money talk. That’s what you’re here for, right?
Financially, the second year of early retirement was a lot like the first year. The money struggles that I’d worried about before quitting my job never materialized.
We continue to do just fine on a single income, and even managed to reached financial independence a few months ago!
Despite losing over 40% of our income after I retired, our savings rate only decreased by a few percentage points during the first year. Pandemic-induced reductions to bonuses also made it our lowest income year as a couple.
In the second year of early retirement, Mr. RFL received his full bonus in addition to the first vesting of his company stock. Our income was back to within $6,000 dollars of what it was immediately before I retired (excluding a small inheritance).
Although earning the same amount of money, we decreased our after-tax expenses by 25%, from $71,000 to $53,000. Our savings rate actually increased by 12 basis points, to 88%.
In addition to our monthly updates, you can read our complete financial updates for the 2021 and 2020 calendar years on the blog.
I remain convinced that my working was much more costly than we had initially thought. Suffice to say, I no longer feel the need to worry about money going forward.
Finding Purpose & Time Management
Surprisingly, I continued to struggle with finding my purpose during the second year of early retirement.
I’m not bored. There are plenty of hobbies and obligations I find it easy to fill my time with. However, despite keeping busy, I’ve sometimes found myself feeling unfulfilled, unimportant, and (occasionally) lonely.
These feelings have bothered me so much that I’ve considered such drastic actions as going back to work (gasp)!
Regardless of whether I take it that far, this has caused me to reflect on my values and goals, including how I want to spend my time going forward.
The theme of time and purpose quickly took over this early retirement update, so I moved the discussion to it’s own blog post.
Health & Wellness
Health and wellness remain one of my primary “whys” for pursuing financial independence.
Freedom from needing a paycheck or full-time job, provided the freedom I needed to pursue better mental and physical health.
I continued down the path of improving my health during my second year of early retirement. However, after achieving a significant reduction in stress and my weight-loss goals last year, I slacked off a bit this year and fell back into some negative habits.
The meditation habit I had been working on fell off, so I’d like to get back into that.
Similarly, I’ve continued to work out, but have recently been eating and drinking more unhealthy foods than I would like. Although I had managed to lose a few more pounds after my last early retirement update, I’ve gained them back, so I’m still hovering around a 32 pound total weight loss.
I won’t lie, I secretly would like to be super fit. I just don’t have the motivation to do so, and it’s not the highest thing on my priority list.
Nonetheless, in year three, I would like to continue building on my fitness, improving my mental health, and finally kick my bad eating habits to the curb.
Everything else…
Social
We finally entered civilization again! Despite my desires to become involved in my community and make new friends when I retired, the pandemic held me back for quite a while.
We’re finally in a place where it feels (somewhat) comfortable to go out. Despite my self-diagnosed social anxiety, I’ve been putting myself out there more often, attending community and school events both with my family and solo. It is always stressful before, but I’m usually glad I did it afterwards.
Volunteering
Similarly, I started volunteering again, though I’m still sorting out what organizations I’d like to work with and how much time I’d like to give.
I recently took over as treasurer of a small local non-profit, which has been fun (in a nerdy way) and a great way to get to know people within the group. I’m also slated to volunteer in a similar capacity at our daughter’s school next year. For the rest of my volunteer time, I’m currently exploring various environmental/sustainability and other charitable organizations with which to donate my time and skills.
I have no doubt that this work will be fulfilling.
Family
Early retirement has continued to allow me to spend more time and energy on my family. Raising a young child (especially a strong-willed one) is rarely easy. But having the privilege to do so, without the added stress of two-working parents, has been a huge blessing.
I’ll take any parenting tips on how to deal with sassy 5-year-olds now, please.
Home Renovation
Up until recently, we’d put most of our renovation work on hold due to lack of time and burn-out.
I don’t recommend doing a DIY renovation with kids unless you’re comfortable living in a semi-construction zone long term. After over two years, we finally finished the baseboards on our first floor. We also started moving forward with our backyard project again.
Hoping to make greater progress in my third year of early retirement, and to provide a formal update for the blog soon.
Learning
I didn’t make as much progress in this areas as I’d hoped last year. While I did continue to read up on many subjects, I still haven’t accomplished all that I’d expected.
New skills I’ve finally put to the test this year included: making sourdough bread (success), gardening (mildly successful), and composting (TBD). I’ve also decided that this is the year I’m finally going to get back into music and learn how to play piano.
Overall, learning new things and mastering new skills is a key value for me. Continuing to challenge myself and set goals will be important in feeling fulfilled going forward.
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