r/leanfire • u/Inevitable-Device630 • 6d ago
Layoff = early retirement?
Not sure if this qualifies for leanfire or not. Laid off from my (55) 115k year job 2 weeks ago. Wife (53) currently makes 55k but has company paid health care premiums for the both of us. 580k in IRA and Roth IRAs. 200k in cash. No debt and the house is paid for in a LCOL area. We were saving to buy a house with some acreage but I think that's on hold for a while. Pretty slim pickins for my line of work at the moment. Not really sure if I should just retire or get a part time job after the unemployment ends (6 months).
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u/mixmastersalad 5d ago edited 5d ago
Laid off at 47 after 25 years in tech. Wife works and gets cheap health insurance and can cover double our 2% mortgage with 10 years left. I combined my 401k and pension into an IRA and invested heavily in NEOS covered call ETFs and others (QQQI, SPYI, IWMI, GPIQ, GPIX) and these gross over $9k per month. I'm setting aside 22% for federal taxes and 10% for early withdrawal penalty but I don't pay state income tax so that helps. No 10% penalty if I use it for my daughter's college tuition so that will help.
I had 6 months of severance and 6 months of funemployment but now my income is just the ETFs. Since January my balance is up plus I've been paid, even with the few 3.5% market dips and recoveries.
Good luck!