Happened to notice today on the treasury direct site that they are discontinuing the ability to get savings bonds as part of your tax return. I’d actually been leveraging this to eke out an extra 5k a year. Sad times.

I think this bike is looking to throw hands.

I realized it’s been just over seven years since I started pursuing FIRE proper. Prior to that I was saving and thought about retiring early but without much of a framework or depth. Since then our net worth has gone up five fold. Our lifestyle has also inflated a bit, we’ve bought a house and had kids. I’m contemplating pulling the trigger in the next year or two, or at least stepping back and changing what I’m optimizing for with work (eg. less hours and stress, more enjoyment and balance).

Looking back at some old mint emails I had about an early retirement goal I’d setup it’s fun to see how far I am ahead of that timeline and also how much lower the target was.

The rub of it is that we don’t know the future, the extra SS income stream if you delayed could be key if you run into health problems later in retirement that necessitate long term care. That stuff is expensive, and the places you’ll end up if you’re out of funds aren’t the places you want to be. Which isn’t to say your choice is bad, just offering another perspective where you might care about this even without kids or a spouse to worry about.

I’ve thought a good amount about it, but I’m only on the cusp of 40. I think for many people it’s not even a choice to start pulling SS early, it’s a necessity. For example my dad has terrible finances and started taking payments at 63 because it was that or building up (more) credit card debt.

Going back to the FIRE angle, I plan on retiring far enough out that I don’t foresee SS being a major factor either way. I’m also far enough out that whatever is going to happen with payments will long since have happened by the time I’m eligible. So my current thinking is to frame it as longevity insurance — basically leave it until 70 so if I live longer than I expect I’ll have a stronger income stream from SS for long term care or whatever else.

How heavily does SS figure into your retirement plans?

I’d love to see more content and engagement. It’s hard when you’re a niche community within a niche platform. More posts amongst the same small set of voices may or may not end up leading to meaningful engagement.

Perhaps a parallel question to consider that ties in with your goal of helping more people improve their financial lives: What content would attract new members to the community? Naively the back to basics type focus seems like something that could be welcoming for newcomers, even just explaining what FIRE is and how the (Shocking Simple™) math works.

Honestly it’s a shame there wasn’t a meaningful migration of FIRE folks from reddit to lemmy.

I’ll let you know when it happens. 😅 I’m solidly in OMY syndrome.

I think I’ll stop in the next year or three, but that might just be the one more year syndrome talking.

Why I think I’ll do it:

• Decreasing benefit to additional savings, I’m looking for more buffer, not lifestyle creep
• Less interest and satisfaction with work — as I’ve climbed the ladder it’s become more politics and fiefdoms, it’s where the money is but not what I enjoy
• I’d like to spend more time with my kids as they get out of toddlerhood, I work a lot and have to travel several times a year, it’s not the best balance and I doubt I’ll look back and wish I spent less time with my kids

I’m getting Mona Lisa vibes.