FIRE v Condo

** Note: This is a blog post from the end summer that was stuck in “Draft.” I had wanted to write about the emotional roller coaster of buying the condo, but I didn’t want to make those thoughts public to sellers, bankers, realtors, etc. who after a 3 second google search could read my mind. Here it is now, because it will relate to my upcoming post. Enjoy! **

A few weeks ago, the New York Times ran an article about FIRE: Financially Independent, Retire Early. Initially, the FIRE movement was started by people who wanted to live simply and consume less. It has since been taken over by people with high paying, burn-out jobs who amassed a decent amount of money but wanted to bail on the workaholic lifestyle.

Without even knowing what FIRE meant, I always kept that possibility in mind. Both Jack and I had grown-up in families that who were once comfortable and then experienced a financial crisis. As a result, we both have been reliable savers and conservative with spending our money.

For me, money in the bank is a parachute, a get-out-of-jail-free card for a bad job. And I hate Jack's job. I loathe and despise it. The job turns Jack--who is otherwise a nice guy--into a self-absorbed, irritable, do nothing around the house, zombie when he is at home.

Long story short--I saved a bunch of money and paid off the mortgage. I did this initially as a way to maximize our cash flow before Claire-Adele went to college, but then she got into a state school (granted, out of state) and got a scholarship, and we ended up with an extra bolus* of cash we weren't expecting.

After we learned about Claire-Adele's college situation and I paid off the mortgage, I told Jack he could quit his job. We had no debt, money in the bank and I had a job. I didn't know the term FIRE at the time, but we had lived it: we were financially independent (mostly) and Jack could retire early.

I told him this for nine months. Nine months.

Finally, one day he said to me. "I'm not going to quit my job."

Fine.

Okay, not fine.

What should I do? What kind of person wouldn't take me up on such a wildly generous offer? I told a friend what I told Jack and he said letting someone quit their job was the most supportive and generous thing a person could do. But now what do I do? How should I responded my offer being rejected?

“Buy me a condo downtown.”


* Jack is a physician. We use terms like bolus around the house even though it means nothing related to what we are talking about. According to my internet dictionary, bolus means a small rounded mass of a substance, especially of chewed food at the moment of swallowing. Normal people don't use words like bolus.