Common replies to the Financial Independence closet exit
I was recently reading though an interview conducted by TheFireStarter who was speaking with the often hillarious Financial Zombie when he mentioned a term which really stuck in my head:
Are you in or out of the FI closet with friends and family?
I think it’s a great term for the situation we find ourselves in as from what I’ve read on fellow blogs; many really do think of themselves firmly trapped in a financial independence plan closet. It’s odd to think that planning ahead to make the most of your life can be seen as something shameful, perhaps even to be embarrassed about or which shouldnt be talked about openly with friends/family.
Like the reference to being gay, I believe there is nothing wrong with wanting to be financially independant.. and yet I will admit to being reluctant to discuss it with my friends and family! Why is it that I, like many fellow bloggers, can so openly talk about our finances and plans with great exposure online.. and yet be so reluctant to do so in person to those we love and care for?! I believe a large part of the answer lies with the negative responses, or prediction of response, from those we open up to.
I have therefore, for your reading pleasure, collected some of the more frequent and memorable lines I’ve personally encountered:
“Retire early? You’re just lazy for not working”
It’s interesting that the type of people this reply normally comes from are also the same people who are first to exclaim how they can’t save anything because it’s too difficult. This response really annoys me because it makes 2 large and contradictory assumptions:
– That once you retire early you’ll just be sat around watching TV all day
– That you only want to retire because you’re lazy
Tell me; If I were lazy (as noted by the suggestion that I cant be bothered to work into my 70s), how would I be able to achieve the immensely hard job of cutting back expenses, increasing income and performing all the financial planning required to retire early? Similarly why then, after working hard for the 10-20 years needed to retire early, would I suddenly become lazy and never want to lift a finger beyond that of the remote control?
“You must enjoy eating lentils”
This person has at least acknowledged the existence of effort required to reach Financial Independence, yet goes on to make their own assumptions about what it entails. The reference to a food commonly considered bland and unappealing attempts to take shot at the fact you’ll be living a boring lifestyle. And yet – My experience from reading many other financial blogs out there is that these people are some of the most interesting and diverse around. Stories of long summer days hiking out in the countryside, of brewing their own beer, growing their own food and spending the weekends doing 101 different activites beyond just sitting infront of a TV.
One of my most memorable life experiences was backpacking around Australia for 9 months. I lived in the city, I lived by the beach, I lived out on farms and I lived in a tent pitched by the side of a carpark. I went out there with £1000 cash, made another £1000 working on the farms. With a £222 monthly average spend.. it was anything but bland. You don’t need to spend huge amounts of money to have an interesting life, and people aiming for Financial Independence become experts at this skill.
“You can’t do it, the government will have us working ’till 70”
Here we have someone who has drunk too much of the media kool-aid. Newspapers love to put up big scary headlines because it draws the readers in and unites them against a common mystical enemy of ‘The Man’. Stories of forcing people to working to their deathbeds are almost a weekly occurrence in the national press. Too many times than I care to count have I heard people talking about the state pension age when I’ve mentioned a retirement in the 40s. To them; the age at which the government would like you to work to is the age at which you HAVE to work to.
Even after I’ve sat down and ran through the numbers; 25x expenses, 7% averaged growth etc etc.. I still hear about the total unwavering impossibility of my mathematical probability. It seems that even though you could happily support yourself on accumulated assets alone.. you still have to wait for the state pension age before you’re allowed to stop working. Who knew?
And there you have just 3 of ERG’s top financial closet exiting responses. What have been some of your favourite responses from telling people about your financial independence plans?
14 thoughts on “Common replies to the Financial Independence closet exit”
I dont use the word retire it has too many preconceptions
personaly i prefer choice or freedom to choose
Really interesting. Other than to Miss DD I am very much “in the closet” about FI. Not for any active reason. If someone asks something specifically related I often chip in but only if they probe more. However, I rarely go into detail often leaving it as that I am just investing.
Another concern which I think a lot of people have is–for want a better word–envy. I think Dividend Mantra wrote about this some time back. I suspect how much this concerns you depends on the background of you and your friends and family.
Being at the start of my FI journey it is not really an issue that I have to confront yet. However, once FI gets closer as a real possibility it will, I suppose, be something that needs to be navigated carefully. I really don’t know at this stage! I look forward to hearing the various responses to it when I do though!
Thanks again for the fascinating post!
I have to admit I’m generally in the closit. Most of my friends are aware that I don’t work very much but think that I’m struggling and poor. A couple of close friends know I’m retired how I got there.
That’s interesting. That must be quite hard to maintain?
Though, I suppose, if they think you’re poor and struggling they probably would not bring money matters up very often if at all!
I think it would be really interesting to know how various FIers handle the matter. It is a hard one to gauge!
No, not hard to maintain but then I’ve never really hard a traditional work / job / life mix. I don’t hide things, but just the circles I move in it doesn’t come up often. I guess though when they think I’m poor and struggling it’s relative. Folks see the older car, the threadbare carpet, the lack of 40 inch tv etc and make their own call. In my mind I want for nothing! But then it’s the different perspectives on things that help folks like us follow the lives we choose.
Hi ERG,
Thanks for the mention and some interesting thoughts. I haven’t really broached the subject of full FI with many colleagues yet but when generally talking about investing, quitting work and downshifting etc most of my close friends get where I am coming from, which is nice. I don’t really know of many friends that love their work so much that the idea of FI would not appeal to them at a very basic level. I have at least one friend though who thinks you need £50,000 a year and a paid of (very large) house to be able to retire comfortably and he says he will be working in some respect till he is 70, he says he wouldn’t know what to do with himself. Each to their own I say :)
The one person I feel slightly bad for is my Dad who is still working at age 59 and probably got another 5-6 years left. I feel bad because I know he is similar to me in that he would have plenty to keep him busy in his real retirement if he could take it right now, he always has little projects on the go etc… but rather than downsizing the house and batting down the spending hatches they actually bought a larger house and are going on ridiculously fancy 2 week holidays (Sure they could have just bought a campervan and travelled frugally across America for 6 months on what one of these holidays cost!). Also feel bad as they’ve helped us out through Uni etc… although I dare say that if they didn’t then the money would have been spent elsewhere anyway and not put to retirement funds. Anyway I am rambling now… maybe this is the subject of another for post for me so thanks for getting the brain juices going as always :)
Sorry just to expand on the point above, DD’s post made me realise I forgot to say why really I feel bad for my Dad, it’s because when I told him I am going down to working only 66% of the year later on this year he seemed (along with being happy for me of course) really quite gutted in a way… he’s worked hard all his life and I can see from his perspective how it doesn’t seem fair how I can be doing this.
They’ve never been bad with money and were frugal when we were younger as there wasn’t much money about, but they have definitely fallen into lifestyle inflation as they’ve gotten older. It’s a bit of a shame they can’t get out of that trajectory now, but if anything it’s a bit too late anyway. I obviously broached the subject of how he might be able to retire right now or at least a few years earlier if he chucked all the money he had into a SIPP or something like that, but he said they already had plans for some nice big holidays etc… you pays your money…. :) :(
Anyway, they’re both healthy and generally happy so that’s all that matters :)
For me, having quit work at 46, explaining what it is that you are doing (or not being able to explain) is the hardest thing about FI.
I can’t bring myself to tell anyone, including close friends, that I have sufficient funds to not need to work. This means you tend toward telling white lies about consultancy work from home or taking a break. However, this is taken to mean that you are unemployed, lazy or both. I sense the sympathy that my wife attracts – she continues to work through choice – being married to a ‘lay-about’ like me.
I guess that ‘early retired’ best describes what I’m doing, as it hints at FI, but as a relatively sprightly looking 40-something, again this is simply interpreted as unemployed. Maybe once I’ve turned 50 and grown a few more grey hairs, I’ll switch to this explanation of what I do.
For most, the concept of FI isn’t anywhere on their radar. So, to try to describe your plans for, or achievement of it, is unlikely to be comprehended. So, just revel in the fact that you know something that they don’t, and use the FI/ER blogs to reassure you that there are people like you out there.
I’m in the closet for the most part. It is just easier than explaining it to everyone. I’ll tell / explain to people if they ask about my financial plan, so therefore many close people know. But other than that I keep it anonymous.
I’m ‘quietly saving’ so pretty much in the closet!
I’ve mentioned to my immediate colleagues and close friends that I intend to retire early but I get the feeling that they don’t think I’m being serious as they can’t see how I can do it without a big lottery win! Only my best friend knows that I am saving and investing all I can – she’s on her way to FI in about 5 years time (once her youngest has finished university!)
My family aren’t really aware, they just think I’m mostly careful with my money.
I was “forcibly” thrown into retirement through redundancy at work at the end of last year. I’m fifty, so I’m not that young, but I soon stopped telling people I’d retired partly because of some the comments above, partly because I worried I was coming across as smug and partly because of the social pressure to be in work is enormous! One of the most difficult things I’ve found is coming to terms with the fact that I might never work again and being comfortable with that thought. I receive weekly calls and questions from colleagues and friends asking me what I’m doing and how the job hunting is going? I have to take quite a few of these calls on the golf course, in the gym, out walking with the wife, while I’m cooking (non-lentil dishes), reading a book, contributing to blogs, while out on my bike….
I do find it difficult explaining FI and RE to family and friends. I was (and am) a big fan of Jacob Fisker, Mr Money Moustache et al, but you have to recognise you really are in a minority over this. As I think Monevator once said, people who aren’t interested in personal finance REALLY aren’t interested in personal finance and they are in the majority (although everyone wishes they had more money!) After six months of this I now keep quiet about my situation and tell everyone who asks that, yes, I’m looking for work. It’s just so much easier that way.
Same as everyone above, I tried bringing the subject to family and friends a couple times, people either call it off as boring (“What will you do all day long?”) or impossible. I agree with Jim McG’s comment on the huge social pressure to “work”
It’s interesting so many people are “in the closet” about FI. I wonder if it has anything to do with the stigma associated with discussing money in general or if it’s just easier (and probably smarter) to not tell people that you are “rich.” I will say that once people know you have money, they definitely expect you to spend more.
Great write-up, thanks for sharing!
I think alot of it is the traditional stigma of not discussing money. I’ve even had emails from people saying how shocked they are that I publish my finances each month. It’s a good point though about not wanting to tell people if/when you are rich.. especially if you’ve got to that point by being frugal in the first place.