My semi-retired status is official again. After working remotely full-time for a little more than a year, I was laid off. It came as a surprise, but I felt mostly relief and joy. No more meetings, no more deadlines! Since my layoff almost 4 months ago, I've just been puttering around the house wondering what to do next. I don't think I want to work as a software engineer anymore. I still love coding, but the thought of status meetings and process improvement and deadlines make me nauseaous. Fortunately, during the past 3 years, I went from being able to CoastFIRE to being able to outright FIRE; my net worth jumped from 3.4M to 4.7M. Using a 4% withdrawal rate, I can spend 188K a year. With actual expenses of less than 90K a year, the withdrawal rate I need is less than 2%. I had some doubts and misgivings at 4% withdrawal rate, even though that is the standardbearer for FIRE. But a withdrawal rate of less than 2% is well within my comfort zone now.
Retirement calculators also all say I'm fine retiring now, even when two remaining 4-year college tuitions are taken into account. The best free retirement calculators I've come across are FI Calc and cFIREsim. 2-3 years ago, I was at around 80% success rate; both now say I have a 100% success rate. And I do even better when I add in Social Security and a probable sizable inheritance in a decade or two.
While I still might look for a job, I'm going to be extremely discerning about what position I take. It'll have to be fully remote and involve no leadership tasks. I don't ever want to commute again and I want to be responsible only for my own outputs, not have to herd and cajole others into doing their own work. Will I find such a role? I don't know, but it doesn't really matter either way.
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