What to Do, What to Do?

With all of this change that’s come about in the past couple of years, I figured I should revisit the “plan” since my retirement and savings got halved. I can’t say there are many complaints, considering how much we’d saved, so my half is a nice chunk of change. I guess my biggest complaint is finding out that the ex wanted to separate 10 months after we moved, and I quit my job and turned down a promotion to support her career. 10 months… 10 months… That seems like a time period where those feelings didn’t just pop up during those 10 months, but that’s more of a discussion for my therapist, which reminds me that I need to find a new one. To be fair, the ex did say, lets get a therapist and then if it doesn’t change, we should separate by the end of the year, which was 4 months away… So at least there was that concession, lol.

Since then, I’ve used my money to buy 5 acres, and a house. I was looking at building a house on that 5 acres until I heard from my ex that she could be moving to town, maybe in 10 years, maybe after she gets tenure, maybe sooner. Update, she moves to town in 3 weeks, so I’m glad I’m not in the middle of building a property 10 miles outside of town. I’m in the middle of getting a driveway built on the property and ultimately want to build an escape cabin out there. Nothing crazy, just a little log cabin or shipping container type home that I can go spend weekends in, and take the kids out to and enjoy time in the woods.

All of this to say, that things have changed significantly, so I wanted to see how well my retirement was looking. I like using cfiresim, for simulating retirement scenarios. When I researched some random retirement calculators back in 2017, Market Watch actually had a pretty decent one as well. I revisited cfiresim and this is what I came up with.

I’m Good

Based off my inputs, projected yearly spending and if I add nothing else to my retirement, I’ll be sitting pretty comfortable in another 10-17 years. I say 10 to 17 because if I get another oil and gas job, I could be even better and get to tap out in my mid 50’s. If I don’t get another oil and gas job, I’ll probably not add much to the retirement stash, depending what job I’m working that will probably be forced. One thing about oil and gas, they do compensate you very well. In my 6 years at Chevron I ended up with almost as much in my 401k as I got from my 4.5 years at Oxy. Just, wow… Thank you oil companies! So that’s it for this post. Any questions? How’s your retirement going? Let me know. I kid, I kid.

So, at this point, I’m basically at Coast FI, or my understanding of Coast FI. That was a term made popular by the Fioneers or maybe Stop Ironing Shirts but wherever it came from, it basically means that you don’t have to save anymore for retirement to meet your retirement target spending goal. If I am targeting a $60k yearly spend or less, then I’m there. Woohoo!! That’s awesome, but I still need to do something to earn money in the meantime. Which leads me to ask, what to do now?

Lots of Ideas

Since last Spring, I have been creating various business plans and workshopping ideas that could lead to a fulfilling life, cover my expenses and let me have more free time on my way to 59.5. Some of these have included, but aren’t limited to, starting a brewery, starting a cannabis grow operation, starting a child visitation center, starting a coffee shop (hello blog name, lol), and a few more. While working these plans up, I was hoping for a CASA, court appointed special advocate, supervisor position to come open, and when that didn’t happen I went to work for DHS, Department of Human Services. Yowza, was that rough. It lsated a solid 7 months and I’m on my last week there and hope I make it to Friday, or not, at this point, I’m checked out… I say checked out, but I’m also missing my FIRE Mastermind call tomorrow night trying to get one of my more difficult kids placed, and I worked on Saturday checking on one of my successful cases, so the finish line is close but I’m not there yet.

While working at DHS, I didn’t have the mental or emotional energy to pursue any of these things. Just, wow does that job take it out of you, in every way possible. So, I’m coming back to some of these plans now and ironically, a CASA supervisor position is opening up. While I’m not going to apply for that position, for various reasons, I am going to get back to figuring out what to do next. One of the things that has stuck around even though I don’t see how it would work, per se, is the Child visitation center.

Child Visitation Center

Last week, I was having a conversation with my girlfriend about this idea, mainly along the lines of, “After working at DHS, I’m even more convinced the child visitation center won’t be feasible, or possibly even get used. It would be too dependent on people having to come to that place, instead of Braum’s or a park, or some other public place that you can do supervised visits in, and I’ve only had one case that was local to Norman. I just don’t see it happening.” I kid you not readers, later that week, she calls me and says, “I was talking with my old boss at a non-profit and he said, you know where the real need is? Visitation Centers!!” She mentioned my ideas on the subject and the fact that while I’m not totally against it, I won’t be able to bankroll the whole thing, so besides grants, where would you get funding for an idea like that?

Well, I’ll find out more on Wednesday when we have a Zoom meeting to discuss this in more detail. So that’s exciting! And I’ll have time and energy to put towards this. This person is fairly well connected to the non-profit scene around here, having spent his career working in that space, so I’m really excited to see what he comes up with. I’d researched different grants that I could apply for when I was looking into this last year, and they’re out there, it’s just knowing which ones to apply for that would best fit that goal and support that plan better.

Other Ideas

This doesn’t mean that I’m giving up on other income ideas. I’m also communicating with the Pizza Truck CEO about the ins and outs of starting a pizza truck, because hey, I’ve got a restaurant background and am intrigued about the idea and possibilities with it. It seems like it could fit my lifestyle, provide income, and free time to still be creative and have time for the kids and volunteering. I’m also excited about that option. I have some other ideas in the works as well, and they’re at various stages, but most seem to be ruled out on the fact that I don’t have that much capital to put towards them. Much like this visitation center. I can’t bankroll it on my own, but if it could get carried by grants and other funding, I could definitely make it work with my life. I do have other things in the works, but I’ve written about those before and they’re at the stage that people beyond me can make the decision whether or not they move forward.

Inedependent geologist is another route I’ll put energy towards, but even before putting pen to paper and just doing back of the envelope, in my head calculations, s much as I’d love to do that, I also don’t feel like I’ve got enough capital to go down that route. Until I entirely rule it out, I’ll put energy towards that and if I can work up a package of wells on some affordable acreage, then it might be a go. Like I heard from my mentor in that area, “Finding funding for oil wells right now is about as easy as finding a petroleum geology job.” So that will be a hard one to drum up, but it’s very intriguing to me and I have others that have gone that route so I can also talk with them about the realities.

In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy getting back to being creative with woodworking, using the lathe again, painting, and playing music. It’s not a great list of things to do, but it will keep me more than busy.

How about you? have you had any significant life changes that have affected your retirement plans? How are they going? Are you still saving towards retirement, have you hit Coast FI, are you interested in erly retirement? I’d love to hear about your plans! Let me know below.