If you have skills, why not contribute to society? And if your skills are valuable, why not get paid for it? I think semi-retirement is a great plan. Here’s mine.

I’ll work until I am able to retire, probably age 42. A couple years before that, when the kids are in school, my wife plans to go back to university to become a teacher. I’d also like to become a teacher, so that we can be a positive influence for children.

The fact that we will have retired means that we don’t have to accept dictatorial pronouncements from above. (“You think I should do exactly as you say? Why, you might fire me?”) We can do it for the love of the kids, which is how I think it needs to be.

I’ll be staying home in the fall after my wife returns to work so that I can take care of our daughter. Will this help us retire sooner? No, but it will keep me happy which is what should be driving us all.

I’ve had similar thoughts. Do you always do interesting work or do you do some that just pays really well so you only have to do a little of it? In the end, I might do both. Keep a job which pays really good, but little hours and then do fun stuff with the rest of my time.

Deegee,

Thanks for the story. I can’t wait to put up your guest post this week to share the rest of of the story with everyone.

HGM,

Ha! I didn’t even think about that one, but you are right. I’m now getting flash backs of HGTG. *grin*

No Debt Guy,

Ugh, shift work. I would be looking forward to the end of that as well. Keep up the good work!

Dave,

Actually not a bad idea. Tax season is short and in winter so you would leave your summers free.

Jon Snow,

There is nothing wrong with likely your job, goodness knows my wife likes her job most days. It sounds like a plan, but perhaps you can suggest you only work three years after your mortgage is gone. $50,000+ is getting a bit much when you can live on half of that.

Tim

This scenario is made possible by adhering to a dedicated “LBYM” and “DINK” lifestyle. It really works.

If all goes well our mortgage will be fully paid off in 3.5 years and I will be able to quit my job.

This will enable to to pursue my business and or find employment that is flexible enough to have the same time off as my spouse. She is a teacher and has all summer off.

I am looking forward to it!

My pay was reduced by nearly 40% after taxes but I was able to keep my health insurance and my vesting in the retirement plan as well as the valuable and fast-growing Employee Stock Ownership Program (ESOP).

I was still earning much more money than I needed to live on and added to my 401(k) as well as my non-retirement investments. My company match was reduced, so I boosted my own contribution to make up some of the difference.

But what was important was that I got my life back and was no longer depressed – for a while.

This arrangement did not last long because my company pulled the plug on open-ended telecommuting 2 years later. I could still work P/T but had to put all my 20 hours in at the NJ office. This was a terrible policy change, one I knew would cause me to quit at some point.

After 4 years of going to the office 3 days a week, I reduced it to 12 hours a week (2 days) in 2007. My pay took another drop but it was still enough to live on, despite having to pay for my own health insurance via COBRA (for 18 months). I stopped adding to my 401(k) because I was now ineligible for the company match and needed more current income to meet my expenses.

But working those 17 months saw my ESOP continue to grow, so when it hit the $300k mark (as I predicted it would), I retired in late 2008 at age 45 and cashed it (not the 401(k)) out. I live on the dividends from the ESOP and still turn a surplus overall.

Being single with no children makes budgeting pretty easy. Being debt-free, my expenses are very low and predictable.

Some of the things that I’ve had to consider are keeping my skills up-to-date and my network active too in case I want to pick up some work down the road.

I’m torn between doing something that’s interesting but not well paid or staying in my career path that is well paid. The downside that I’ve found is that it’s harder to find consulting or temporary jobs in my field that require less than a year commitment (which would be ok if it ran across tax years to split your income a bit…) However, it only takes a month or so to hit that $10k/year threshold if you pick up a good consulting job.

Going with semi-retirement is much more efficient when it comes to your #1 expense – which is probably taxes, or at least mine is. It seems silly to work my butt off for a couple of more years and pay crazy taxes when I can cut out 30+% in taxes by working less.

One of the things that’s probably a bit harder for us left-brained people to deal with is living with uncertainty and being okay with knowing that you can’t plan everything out into 5, 10 or 20 year goals/plans with semi-retirement. Opportunities will come up that you couldn’t have planned for as well as unexpected expenses. If you have built up a reputation of being a good worker and have some contacts, lots of unplanned opportunities will come along that you’ll have to say no to, especially in the beginning of your semi-retirement. I haven’t even stopped working yet (will be doing that this week) and already I’ve been offered a one year mat leave coverage that I’m probably going to say no to.