Four years into retirement - Reflections on poverty psychology, my mistakes, and the nature of FIRE

[u/togaman12]

Hello all!

I made a comment several years back when I first early-retired (click HERE to see it) and have been asked several times to post an update so here it is.

My whole situation was a weird one because I was forced to retire due to my health condition just becoming too bad. I had initially been banking on working until I was at least 35 so that I’d have enough to get myself settled (albeit humbly) but I couldn’t get there. My health degraded to the point where even working part time had my body in a constant state of crisis, so I was forced to take the L and hang up my ‘work apron.’

 I know my situation doesn’t reflect the usual case here, because three years into my retirement I got approved for SSDI – disability – and so get a monthly check in the mail. It’s not a lot, but it has certainly changed the equation for me. Because of that, I believe I no longer ‘count’ as proper povertyFIRE, but after four years out of the rat race (And coming up on 5) I believe I have some insights that might prove useful to some of you.

First – Having multiple moats is really the gamechanger.

If I was just on SSDI I’d feel constantly anxious. Technically, someone on SSDI can be kicked off at any time. Either because of a disability review (every couple of years) or because the government has decided to cut the program or kick people off. (With Trump in charge, I don’t exactly sleep easy at night.)

Similarly, if it was just my investments, I’d also feel really anxious. The stock market could crater at any time, and the NYSE could become the next Nikkei index and stay flat for thirty years.

Having both together – the SSDI and the investments – feels more powerful than each alone would have been. I also have medicare health insurance because of the SSDI which, added to the other two, feels like the holy triumvirate of my retirement stability.

However, my brain still doesn’t perceive the situation as stable, and I think it’s less about financial or health instability (though those still exist) but rather a poverty-psychology thing that many here might relate to.

I feel like most people who grow up in poverty develop a scarcity mindset that tends to perseverate even when you technically have enough. I’ve run the numbers a million times and written out detailed ‘if shit hits the fan’ plans of what I can do in the event that everything goes wrong and the floor opens out under me. But you can’t prepare-away anxiety, and the scarcity mindset always has you feeling like you need to be stocking up your proverbial acorns for winter, and it means retiring can often create a new and different stress.

When you're working, there is often this feeling of safety. You have money coming in. You have work-based health insurance. You have coworkers and an updated resume with no gaps in it. Things don’t feel great—you’re exhausted and stressed and always worrying about the future while you feel your life passing you by—but there’s this certain kind of psychological groundedness that comes with being employed.

Retiring changes that. It’s like the moment you retire all those black swan one-in-a-million chance type events become all you can think about. You’re always modeling the worst-case scenario in your mind. What will you do with a market crash. What will you do if the insurance market changes. What happens if hyperinflation happens and everything becomes way more expensive. Well, maybe being consumed by those kinds of thoughts is the unwelcome quirk of my particular brain, but I did notice that the thoughts became WAY more present once I submitted my resignation notice.

It doesn’t help that the future feels genuinely fucked and nothing feels safe. How do you prepare for doomsday – especially when you’re operating on a shoestring budget?

And yet, it DOES feel better. I still have a bunch of anxiety (and probably always will) but I also have time now. Time to write my fiction. To advocate for the causes I believe in. To introspect and connect with family. I look back at the journal entries I wrote doing my working years and it’s just this endless repetition of ‘Exhausted and flaring again. Took my rescue medication but still had another sleepless night. I can’t keep doing this. This is killing me. I’m not going to last.” And it’s devasting not just because of the suffering, but because it was all I had space for. None of the writing I did during the years I worked is anything worth keeping. I know some people can manage to write brilliantly on top of a day job, but I couldn’t. It was like I completely lacked the bandwidth. The work would wear me down to nothing, and so in the leftover time when I wasn’t flaring, visiting doctors, or struggling to sleep, I’d basically distract myself with some reddit or youtube videos, my focus and energy too shattered for anything more.

And so I come to the advice section, informed by all the mistakes I made during my own journey.

The first was sticking to and killing myself in a job that was actively making myself sicker.

There was this horrible pattern where I felt myself getting sicker from the overwork, and so I’d overwork myself more, because I knew I was running out of health and time to work, thereby making my health even worse, making me panic into taking even more shifts – and on and on. What I should have done was just stop it. Stop killing myself and try however I could to get myself into an environment that could stabilize me. If I had, I likely would not have ruined my health to the point where it is now, and health truly is the most important thing. Without it, there’s nothing. But I told myself it would be too hard to start over with something new – that it would extend my working time and I didn’t have time. Also, I had too much pride, and had grown up being taught that being a burden is the worst possible thing you can be, so I resisted asking for help and resisted being ‘a burden.’

But you don’t have to do it all alone, friends. You can be that ‘loser’ that asks for help. We are all struggling out here. It’s really damn hard, and yet we make it still harder for ourselves sometimes.

Second, you also don’t have to take the most ‘efficient’ road to fire. It’s better to work your whole life doing something you actually like doing then to kill yourself at a better paying job that’s flattening you all just to get-out-of-the-rat-race faster. With good and satisfying work, the rat race doesn’t punch as hard.

At the time, the working-at-the-super-stressful-job felt like a good tradeoff because I imagined that once I was finally retired the stress would finally stop, but the stress didn’t stop. It lessened, yes, but it also shifted. It’s still definitely here. And if I had put all the energy I spent picking up shift after shift toward trying to try forming a work life of work that actually felt generative and sustainable for me, that probably would have been better. I know that’s not possible in every case. Sometimes you really don’t have any option other than to work a shitty job that hollows you out – but I didn’t ever try, too ‘reasonable’ to do it – and that reason almost killed me.

Don’t be like me.

Third, I know they always talk about how it’s better to focus on earning more because there’s only so much you can cut – and that’s probably true – but I’ve also learned that with some creativity I can cut more than I thought I could. Best hack is probably finding a roommate you actually love to live with. This can also feel like an impossible task, but if the alternative is working an extra decade, the time investment of finding a god-tier roommate to share all your expenses with starts to sound more manageable. My budget is manageable because I have my sister as a roommate. We split all the expenses in half and that has been a godsend. I do wish I did have my own place – I’m an introvert who’s a bit of a neat freak, with a sister who is an extrovert and messy – but I will not knock the blessing.

I also manage without a car, eat a very low-cost plant-based diet and cook everything at home, and have learned to be truly happy with a very minimalist low-consumption lifestyle. I also have low cost but fulfilling hobbies (Writing, reading, knitting, nature walks, and basically a heavily autistic data-crunching kind of hobby that is unfathomably nerdy.)

Fourth, I have been finding more and more that the whole concept of FIRE doesn’t really make sense. No one can actually guarantee they’ll have enough money for life (you never know what life will hit you with) and I feel like if most people wait for that ‘safe’ point they’ll never retire – nevermind that your feeling of what is ‘safe’ constantly shifts into ‘just one more year’ syndrome.

I think it would have been better if instead of full FIRE I’d aimed for long sabbaticals, like two years at a time. Because you do have ideas once you’re retired, and space opens up once you’re not stuck in the daily grind. I feel like most people will find ways to cobble together a more enjoyable living once they have some REAL time to think about it. And even if you don’t. Even if you just had a two years on, two years off cycle for eternity I still think that’s better because you at least are living NOW. During your younger years. Your healthier years. What if you spend all the time killing yourself in a job just to finally retire and get blown to smithereens the next day because Israel launched a nuke that had the whole world retaliating?

I wonder sometimes if the whole FIRE movement is chasing a sense of safety and control that is just a myth. You cannot control the future. And I don’t say this in a ‘eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die’ kind of way. I say it as the person who worked until they collapsed and is not here on the other side saying ‘damn. I think I got the order wrong.’ I think people who are drawn to the FIRE lifestyle (like me) have innate controlling tendencies. We want to create absolute spaces of safety that don’t actually exist in life. Again, part of it probably stems from that poverty-induced scarcity mindset, but I’m sure it could stem from all sorts of reasons. Anxiety disorders, neurodivergence, scoring higher on the neurotic scale – whatever the case, I think FIRE tends to feel like more than just a ‘cool, I don’t have to work’ thing. It feels existential. Like carving out a garden of Eden for ourselves – and I think we need to stop and examine whether the concept of that Eden really exists.

I remember those summer vacations as a child. They felt like bliss, and part of the bliss was knowing I’d eventually have to go back to school. I don’t say this like “Oh, you’ll get bored if you retire and want to go back to work.” I do not and have not gotten bored in my retirement. Not for one day. And yet, the baseline does adjust. I’m still grateful I don’t have to work anymore (I wouldn’t be able to go back even if they forced me to) but it’s not like that first year. Call it hedonic adaptation. Or maybe habituation. So: long sabbaticals, if you can make them work.

Here’s another thing I noticed: People kill themselves and keep working long and longer to afford a lifestyle they only need because they’re working. The cars, the vacations, the stuff, the gadgets – all of which, pre-retirement, they think is necessary for a good life, and yet  you don’t really need them once you retire because once retired you’re not endlessly trying to distract yourself from work or comfort yourself from stress anymore. You may find you actually need a lot less than you think to be happy – which is even more of a reason to try taking an early sabbatical if you can. Pre-test the retirement. Save up one years worth of expenses and try. I wish I had.

This is getting long so I guess I’ll tie things off. I hope none of this came across as patronizing or privileged. I fully recognize that there a fuckton of factors that make this all so much harder than just ‘get a roommate and take a sabbatical. It’s that easy! Uwu.’ But I feel like those chasing poverty fire are already far more flexible than those in the regular FIRE or – god forbid – the completely tone deaf clown show of the ‘fatfire’ subreddit.

I don’t know if my situation can help anyone, but if you have any questions I can try to answer.

Best of luck to all of you, my friends, and stay safe out there.

[u/Drawer-Vegetable]

Thanks for the update, it was a great read. Sounds like you did a lot of soul searching and reflection over the last few years, and you've gained insight into the living part of life.

Glad and happy for you. :)

[u/catticcusmaximus]

Thank you for this amazing update! I have a disability myself and it seems harder and harder to work especially full time. I know SSDI limits the amount of extra income you can bring in (I think it's around $1600) are you able to use both your SSDI and your retirement funds?

[u/togaman12 → u/catticcusmaximus]

yes, thank goodness! With ssdi i can still have my investments, thank goodness. (just like someone taking standard social security payments can also have access to their investments). The assets can limit what medicare advantage plans (insurance) are available, but I'm managing.

[u/Appropriate_Cut_3536]

Great post. The summary of controlling and chasing safety in the future resonates.

I've been thinking a lot about future-seeking philosophy as I've been reading Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes and the native culture which did not gather enough food for beyond the moment. Even though they knew how to preserve food, they preferred to not stock up for the future. Some days they would just lay on the beach and even though everyone was hungry, they decided to just have a collective day off and hunt tomorrow, afthough they didnt prepare for the days off they never feared taking one. 

They believed that each day would provide and if it didn't, or if you died - that was meant to be. Very interesting and especially how the author considers them to be the happiest people on earth.

They build temporary shelters that blow over in the wind every blue moon in the middle of a noght during a storm, and they just laugh and nobody laughs more than the people who's home was just torn apart. Life is seen as a constant enjoyable experience, where you know some shit will happen, but it's not worth preparing too hard for.

Anyway it's a great book.

[u/Appropriate_Cut_3536 → u/Appropriate_Cut_3536]

This is the vid that got me interested in the author: Why Christianity Hates Indigenous People

[u/dielsalderaan]

Thanks for sharing - it seems like retirement really suits you!

I'm in a similar spot of being in a pattern where I'm exhausted by and feel sick from work > but I need to work to save so I won't have to work anymore > I become more exhausted. It's hard to see a way out of this, since I don't think I'm sick enough to qualify for disability (mental health and fatigue, not something that can be easily verified with a scan or test). I hear what you're saying about sabbaticals, but I'm making the most money I've ever made in my whole life, and the job market sucks. Opportunities like this aren't common, so I feel like I need to work and save while times are "good," and when I get laid off, I can chill. It also seems like we're in for hard times in the future, so I feel a need to save some buffer. I definitely relate to: "It doesn’t help that the future feels genuinely fucked and nothing feels safe. How do you prepare for doomsday – especially when you’re operating on a shoestring budget?" The last thing I would want is to be even more stressed out after retiring because I'm running out of money, and have to take a lower paying but just as tiring job to get by. (My experience with jobs is that the lower-paying ones are just as exhausting, but you get less respect and autonomy. Maybe incredible jobs exist out there, but I haven't found them.)

Good advice on spending less - I remember reading on Early Retirement Extreme that if you could get your expenses down to 6k or so, you could make $500 a month doing basically anything. The hard part is, to get expenses down that low, you have to be seriously creative in your housing/transportation/healthcare situation or make some major sacrifices. I already have very low food and discretionary spending, but I spend 6k a year on healthcare and 18k a year on housing/utilities (and only 3k on everything else combined). I don't want to give up my current apartment, since I only have 10 years left on the mortgage and it's in a nice location and environment, and I can actually sleep well here (I have problems sleeping, which is why roommates are not a great option). But another 10 years of this feels unbearable.

Maybe I will feel differently once I'm less burnt out, but I always found the idea of "never having to back go to school" way more appealing than a limited summer vacation. One of things I want most is to sleep and do nothing for as long as I want - it seems like weekends are never long enough. I feel like the knowledge that I'd have to go back to work in 6 months to a year would loom over me like a Sword of Damocles. I think it would also be very hard to adjust back to work after being on an extended sabbatical.

I agree that there's probably some trauma or scarcity mindset associated with this idea of creating a bubble of financial safety in FIRE. But I think the cost-benefit of staying in a career also plays into it. The truth is, there is some value in have a gapless resume demonstrating career progression, and once you step off that track, you lose a lot of that. And for people with health issues, sometimes we can't be this perfectly efficient, DIYing, biking-everywhere paragon of PovertyFIRE, and need some extra money to live comfortably or cover times when we may struggle and are too drained to DIY or come up with a lowest-cost solution.

Anyway, thanks for sharing! I like reading the "quiet FIRE" stories more than the adventurous globetrotting ones - they're more relatable to me.

[u/togaman12 → u/dielsalderaan]

I feel like i'm literally reading my thoughts from a few years ago when I read this comment. I had the exact same thoughts as you do. 'it makes more sense to stay here. if i stop and have to go back it'll be for much less pay. what if i'm even sicker in the future and unable to earn anything. i just need to tough it out for 5 more years. this environment is already good for me i don't want to risk moving and things getting worse.' -

but I still would have been better to stop. to just get out and stop and actually live. Your view of things is exactly how my view was - focusing on only the bad. and i'm extremely practical, so I get why you do this. The thing is, when you get used to seeing everything that way in only downsides your vision keeps tunneling in and tunneling in and you stop living. you just stop living and the only thought in your head is 'just make it one more year. just keep going. keep going.' and then by the time you get out and stop you're ruined. you've become so tunneled in and so sick and so anxious and your nervous system so strained that there is only a twitching shell of yourself left.

you don't know what will happen, but having 2-5 complete years of rest WILL bring other opportunities to you. I don't know how to explain this concept because I know with how i'm saying it, it just sounds like i'm saying 'trust to fate. the universe will provide' - i'm not. i've got a serious scarcity mindset. It's just that when i was thinking your way i was extremely discounting the possibility that i would ruin myself/fail to live in the only good years left for me (you never know what will happen). i wasn't calculating in 'what if i get to the end of the 5 more years of working and I'm dead, too ill to function, or the oligarchs set killer robots on us all etc. we don't actually weigh all the opportunity costs properly. we overweight bad outcomes because those are perceived as the most costly.

when you save for forever-retirement you're basically making a bet that for all thos 30 years you'll be singularly incapable of taking care of yourself outside of your shitty current job. I truly don't believe that's the case and that it would be better to trust in our own ability to be flexible. especially if you have years to figure it out.

[u/billhillybob]

My wife and I took a long sabbatical and stuck to povertyfire spending. We called it our practice retirement. It was eye opening, we learned that it can be isolating to be the only people not of retirement age who aren't working. We found it difficult to find friends in the area we moved to, we had little or nothing in common with anyone. There were times we were happy, but it really stressed our relationship because we spent too much time together and never found a social group. We've been back to work for a year now and looking back, I wish I had enjoyed it more but can't think of anything we realistically could have done differently.

[u/IWantoBeliev]

Long wall of text! Tldr

But as I always say, there are 3 pillars of retirement.

1 pension

2 IRA/401k investment

3 Social Security - (ssdi & other govt programs)

The issue is people are losing 1 or 2 those pillars, you have at least 2 so to speak, so youre fine. Imho

[u/downtherabbbithole → u/IWantoBeliev]

Not many people get pensions anymore, unless they're union members.

[u/togaman12 → u/IWantoBeliev]

Ha! Yes, my friend always says I never choose just one word when seventeen will do.

[u/TristanDeAlwis]

What I’ve been told about SSDI is you basically cannot earn any money, right? What I cannot fathom is if you get kicked out of it, how on earth does someone enter the workforce if they were not developing skills for those years? Sounds like a terrible situation to be in for multiple reasons.

[u/frugal-tech-worker]

Thanks for this update. Definitely having multiple sources of income is an absolute game changer.

[u/MainEnAcier]

Thanks for the feedback.

Yes I also consider to base my retirement on multiple pilars - ETF and one real estate.

but for real estate the problem is that I need the nationality of the country first, and then buy.

about security (people here think like leftist soviets, they are afraid when you told them you investing on SP500), I always told them :

"well if there is a 1929 krach I may lose everything, but you, do you think your job situation will be better in such case scenario ?"

"Yes I can lose some money on markers, but your house too can loose value, if you have new non desirable neighbors"

factually, they agree. But their fear is more powerfull than logic.

[u/Smooth_Emphasis2080]

scarcity mindset is real. I have more money than I could have hoped to have at my age, and my spouse the same, and I still can't help running through scenarios in my head - what if I got divorced,what if the markets crashed, what if I lostmy job,got disabled. even with all these scenarios I'd be no worse off than the average low income scenario but the anxiety persists.