Posted by Tim Stobbs on August 17, 2011
This is a guest post by Martin, who is preparing for retirement within the next 5 years; no later than his 40th birthday. He is married, has 2 young children and lives and works in rural Alberta as a regional finance manager for a large energy company. (As a reminder here was his last post)
Like most similar-minded readers of this blog, unconventional early retirement is possible for me because I respect money. I work as hard and smart as I can to earn it and am diligent in making sure that I add real value to my life when I spend it. Being an accountant only compounds the analysis and dissection that I place on my finances. This obsessive, objective approach has revealed a point of concern in executing my retirement plan.
My financial mind is having a hard time dealing with the thought of leaving money on the table.
When I philosophize about it, it is clear to me that I do not want to work a day longer than I have to. However, when I get into the details of determining how much do I need to retire, I keep reasoning that if I work an extra couple of years beyond what I need, I’ll add enough money to (a) provide a larger inheritance to my children, (b) not have to be so diligent about spending in the future and be able to afford the odd frivolous expenditure *gasp*, (c) buy a little cottage on a lake up north, or (d) <insert any of the reasons/excuses I’ve come up with add just a little more to my nest egg before retiring>.
I think my hang-up is derived from the notion that I haven’t yet been paid back in my career for the sacrifice it took to get where I am today. For those with experience in the corporate world, I’m just starting to bump up against the threshold where employees go from from being underpaid to overpaid commensurate to their qualifications and experience. The objective financial quadrant of my mind is urging me to hang on for a few more years to correctly compensate me for the years spent being underpaid.
Has anyone else gone through this idea that you owe it to yourself to hang on a few more years to validate the effort it took to get there? Any ideas on how to shake this idea and just walk away when the numbers are right?
Posted by Tim Stobbs on July 20, 2011
The purpose of early retirement is of course to have the option not to work. The key word in that sentence was ‘option‘. You can work if you happen to actually love what you are doing. While I know I’m still in the honeymoon phase of my new day job I recently had an odd experience just prior to my current vacation which makes me think I might even consider keeping working longer than I have to if I can do something similar.
So what happened? I left work and I wasn’t desperate to start my vacation. I was looking forward to going on my trip, but at the same time I wasn’t trying to escape work. I mean I left the work, because I had finished what I needed to get done, not because I was trying to get out of the door. That is literally the first time that has ever happened to me during one of my day jobs. Normally I’m crawling up the walls trying to start my vacation, but this time I didn’t have that feeling at all.
It was a different feeling for sure and I certainly hope it continues. While I come home a little tried from my job at times I actually like going to work again. Which is a huge leap forward from my old day job and I actually find myself in that odd spot of liking everything I currently do for work. It’s a little surreal to be this happy most the time…actually I have to check my arm periodically to ensure I’m not being injected with something to keep up this feeling.
Yet this experience to date is teaching me something. I have to stop settling for my day jobs. I’m far enough along in my plan I can handle a period of unemployment if it happens, but I should start being a little bit more picky on what I want to do and what it pays. Also I have to be more willing to move on if things go sour on a job. Often some items are short term and you deal with them, but if they change into longer term issues I should be more willing to move on. Life is just too short to be unhappy at my job when I have other options.
So that is my plan going forward…I’m going to be a bit more picky about my day jobs because frankly I can be at this point in my life. Damn, that is a good feeling to have.
Did you ever get picky about what work you did in your career? Or was that a luxury you never worried about having?
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Filed Under: Misc
Posted by Tim Stobbs on June 9, 2011
You can only push people so far before something in them snaps. This recently happened with me and my day job, so yesterday I quit. For the longest time I kept telling myself I couldn’t do that since I didn’t want to give up my current situation with Friday’s off…yet even after a while that wasn’t a good enough reason to stay around.
So what was wrong with my job? On the surface, not much. I like my co-workers, my work and I felt I was being well compensated for my time and my company was very supportive of my other job as a school board trustee. Yet the problem in a nut shell was I was incompatible with my supervisor. You see we didn’t choose each other at all. He got assigned to be my boss after my old one transferred positions and I felt I have to give my new boss a fair try (its been over a year now). We had our problems working together and I tried to discuss the issues and propose some solutions, but in the end not enough progress was made. I felt like I was banging my head against a wall in frustration, so it was time to move on regardless of what that might cost me. If you are routinely unhappy are your job, it doesn’t matter what the other reasons are for sticking around it is time to move on.
Apparently, I’m not alone on this situation as I came across a few statistics on why people leave their jobs and their direct supervisor accounts for 30 to 35% of why people quit. In some respects I’m amazed I lasted this long as I could have quit at any time in the last year and been fine. My other income make me ineligible for Employment Insurance and we have enough savings that I could literally not work for years (yes, I used the plural there correctly). Yet I’m stubborn and had to try to work the situation out prior to quitting.
So am I unemployed? No, I’m just transferring to a new position down the hall. Actually the position that opened up is very similar to the work I do now, but just has a different focus. Rather than working with proposals on air emissions regulations, I’m going to be working with on a broader scope of environmental regulations but excludes air emissions. Also I have a bit of bonus situation of I got to recently work with my future boss on a joint project between the departments, so I already know I like working with her.
While this change of jobs was largely precipitated by me being unhappy in my current position, there are a few fall outs financially about this change. First up is I’ve given up my 80% working schedule. So while I’m somewhat sad to see that go, it isn’t all bad as I did manage to negotiate a 90% work arrangement with the new job. So I will shift from having every Friday off to having only every second Friday off. Which isn’t a huge deal as I’ve grown comfortable enough with my other position as trustee on the school board that I can handle the change. This also means I’m basically getting a 10% raise which makes my recent 20 month dash to finish the mortgage just shifted from challenge to easily done.
The other price I’m paying for this move won’t come due for a few years, but I have accepted a lower job classification. In English, it means my maximum pay possible at my job just got cut back severely. Which is some respects you think would matter more, but it really doesn’t at all for me. The pay ranges move annually for inflation adjustments which is all I require for my retirement plan. Also I do work on other things that provide some additional income anyway, so the lack of bigger raises at one job isn’t that particularly limiting to me.
So have you ever left a job because you were unhappy? Is so, what was driving you nuts? If not, what has driven you nuts at some of your jobs?
