*the photo with this blog post is from my new shirt design featuring my favorite question on the annual employee survey we would take at work…It always annoyed the piss out of me. What jackass in corporate had the audacity to think people are going to be excited to come to work?*

I will finally have my first day off today to really kick off retirement. My last full time day was followed immediately by picking up three shifts after the weekend so it did not feel real quite yet. Last night at work, I was counting down the hours and nearly giddy with excitement looking forward to day 1 of freedom!

Maybe I subconsciously selected them, but my podcast listening happened to feature two different interviews endorsing the use of a safe withdrawal rate greater than 4%. The first was Frank Vasquez of Risk Parity Radio who I tend to agree with more times than not in message boards and the times I’ve heard him on other podcasts. I know I tried listening to his podcast once in the past, but if I remember correctly his podcast had the highest usage of clips and other things that seemed to exceed the generally accepted limit of clips by any standard. The other podcast interviewed Bill Bengen who is making the podcast rounds with an updated mix of funds to hold that offer closer to 4.7 ish percent that you can read about in his new book in August 2025.

This brings my thinking back to Brad on ChooseFI mildly berating everyone for having this plan to reach FI then not going through with the selling of investments once you get there. I understand what he is saying but I think my concern is despite listening and striving for FIRE for nearly 10 years and hearing the math and the most conservative safe withdrawal rate for all of recorded history, it just doesn’t guarantee that it will not blow up. If a parachute works 999 out of 1000 jumps, you don’t know that the next jump isn’t catastrophic.

The USA could take a nose dive with a “horse in the hospital” again. I know JL Collins says it always seems like it is the worst of times and this time is different, but eventually it really could be?

Typing this out is making me look like I’m worrying about a black swan event or zombie apocalypse. I think my concern is more if the USA becomes a less prosperous country and the stock market does not see gains of more than 4% for the next 20 years. But I guess we just have to have faith that owning stocks really is like having all of the smartest people working for you trying to ensure their businesses and my stocks succeed.

All in all, I’m not worried about our plan. Our plan is currently not even to touch our savings since we have the potential to work minimally and earn enough to maintain our lifestyle sans saving any additional for retirement. By working just a handful of shifts every month, I’m hopeful it will provide a little structure, purpose, and money. I have a feeling the sporadic nature of available shifts will become a burden and impediment to our peak enjoyment of our time. But for now, we will make it work and it feels like vacation time!