She did it. She finally did it! On September 1st Mrs. Root of Good formally resigned from her job.
After composing the resignation email at home the previous weekend, she lingered in anguish at her desk on the morning of September 1st with her mouse hovering over the send button. She was very nervous when it came time to email the official resignation letter to her bosses. Was it the right choice? Was it the right time? Will she regret the decision later?
SEND. If not now, when?
It is done.
The Resignation Letter
“Hi BossRaleigh and BigBossNYC,
I would like to inform you that I will be retiring effective October 15, 2015.
I have enjoyed working for The Company and especially in our team. I sincerely appreciate the support the team has provided me during my years as part of the company. Thank you very much for the flexible work hours, generous time off and allowing me to grow professionally.
Time is very precious and I want to spend more time with my family.
I will be happy to provide whatever assistance I can to ensure a smooth transition.
Thank you again,
Mrs. RoG”
The Discussion
Mrs. RoG’s bosses knew she was planning on quitting soon because she told them as much on multiple occasions over the last two years. Her formal resignation couldn’t have been much of a surprise.
An hour after clicking SEND on the resignation letter, Mrs. RoG’s manager asked her to join him in the conference room to discuss her resignation.
During the meeting, Mrs. RoG said “working five days per week just doesn’t work for me. Saturday is laundry day, and it’s depressing to have just one day off before going back to work on Monday IF you have all day Sunday free.”
The manager asked if there was anything the company could do to get her to stay. They discussed working from home as an option. Her manager suggested working three days from home and two days in the office. That still wouldn’t work.
Next up was a discussion of a part time work from home arrangement. The downside to this would be a reduction in salary and a loss of some benefits like the generous 401k match, nearly free family health insurance (though we can get it nearly free on our own), and a full allotment of 20 days of vacation on January 1 each year.
The Compromise
In the end, they reached a pretty sweet compromise. Mrs. RoG will work four “ten hour” days and have every Friday off. “Just work whatever it takes to get the work done”, wink wink, nod nod says the manager (with accompanying waving of arms around the “ten hours per day” part of the discussion). Mrs. RoG is the one in charge of doling out work to her team of nine, so those ten hour days might be shorter than you would think.
She’ll still be a full time employee with her full salary. She will keep her fat 401k match, nearly free health insurance, heavily subsidized dental, incredible HSA at Fidelity, and a full 20 days per year of vacation time. Other than possibly a few days per month, she’ll be ditching the hour or two round trip commute that costs over $10 in gas and tolls each day. Her new commute is 21 steps from bedroom to office. Her new schedule includes a three day weekend every week while still getting paid full time.
The benefits of staying on full time don’t stop there. By continuing to work, Mrs. RoG has a chance to get laid off and receive around 9 months of severance pay plus another $7,000 in state unemployment (if she decides to pursue new employment after a lay off). If, in some unimaginably bad stroke of investing luck we see a huge 50%+ prolonged downturn in our investment portfolio, the job serves as an instant back up plan to provide income during difficult times (not that I think we’ll need it).
In any big move it’s great to hold on to as much flexibility as possible. Mrs. RoG retains the possibility of going part time at a later date or quitting altogether whenever she wants to. This will happen some day, but probably not as soon as October 15!
Tilting the Scales
Overall, this is a really good compromise that tilts the work/life balance very far toward “life”. It’s not quite early retirement but it’s also not quite full time work. We could fancy it up and call it “semi-retirement” or something like that if we really had to find a label.
Here’s a snapshot of the first day of the new working from home schedule:
- Show up to work at 7:00 am
- Walk to school to drop the kids off 7:45-8:15 am
- A few minutes off around 11:00 am to make a salad and eat lunch with me while continuing to work and chat
- Break for (home) gym time at 12:00 to 1:30 pm.
- Return to work at 1:30 pm
- Walk to school to pick up the kids 2:45-3:15
- Work till 4:30-ish
That’s pretty close to ten hours if you round up. Her daily schedule will undoubtedly vary as the workload ebbs and flows throughout the month. The rest of her first week working from home followed a very similar schedule. So far it’s working very well.
The best part of the new schedule is that by Tuesday afternoon, Mrs. RoG is halfway through the work week.
Her schedule is getting closer to my weekly early retirement schedule since she joins me on the morning and afternoon walks and takes a long mid-day break. And since she is working from home most of the time, we are one step closer to being able to drop from two cars to one.
Having Friday off means more time for fun and adventure during the weekdays. On her first Friday off we spent the morning picnicking and hiking through a new (to us) urban park where we spotted fish, frogs, and a snake(!). Our three year old loved jumping from rock to rock in the creek bed. After picking up the older kids from school we spent the afternoon at the city’s indoor water park and swimming pool (it’s deserted during the weekdays because everyone is at work).
Mrs. RoG’s bold move to working from home status motivated another coworker to grab some work-life flexibility by getting a partial work from home schedule that lets her leave the office by 3 pm and finish the day at home. Mrs. RoG is now a work/life balance trendsetter!
It’s worth mentioning that you gain a lot of negotiating power to name your terms once you reach financial independence. If Mrs. RoG really needed the job for subsistence and survival (like the paycheck to paycheck big spenders), there’s no way she would have asked for a three month paid sabbatical and another extra five weeks of paid time off. And she wouldn’t have actually resigned and received the current work from home flexible schedule.
I wanted to give a shout out to the Mad Fientist who also managed to wrangle a pretty sweet deal out of his employer when he decided to quit and retire early. He’s still working but had no problem taking a few months off to travel the globe a bit and negotiated a permanent work-from-anywhere-in-the-world arrangement.
The Future
Last month as I celebrated my two year anniversary in early retirement, I mentioned Mrs. RoG would be joining me in early retirement in “a few more months”. Her plan to resign was foiled by an unbeatable counteroffer persuasive enough to keep her at it for “a few more months” and possibly longer.
Her employer bent over backwards and touched their toes with their flexibility and willingness to keep her on board. Eventually she’ll want to leave and enter the next phase of her life, but the timing is really uncertain at this point. The next few weeks will be an adjustment period to the new schedule and flexibility, but everyone is settling into the new normal very well so far!
Financially we are doing just fine. My blog income varies wildly month to month but so far this year it has more than covered our living expenses (including the seven week vacation in Mexico). Our dividend income also roughly covers our $32,400 per year retirement budget. Mrs. RoG’s net annual income covers our annual expenses two times over again. We’re in a weird predicament of being financially independent with enough income to cover our expenses four times over. We’re either making too much or not spending enough, and we’ll have to address one of those “problems” eventually.
The extra money we’re pulling in will go toward a few items:
- Additional margin of safety – more money in the portfolio means we have a much greater chance of successfully living off our portfolio for 5-6 decades
- Potential for significant future spending increases – we don’t currently have plans to ramp up spending but that’s always an option if our wants or needs change
- More to pass on to our kids sooner and later – we always planned on helping with college, and with more money comes more ability to help
- Charity – we don’t really give much away right now, but this could change in the future if we have way more than “enough”
It’s a great position to be in both in terms of finances and lifestyle, and we’re both peepee our pants giddy with excitement over what the future holds.
What would you do in Mrs. RoG’s shoes? Quit completely? Stick around a while longer?
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I was about to write “congratulations” but then I read further that the resignation email didn’t really work!
The apprehension you describe about sending the resignation email made me think of that (very old) Simpsons episode where Homer writes that nasty letter to Mr Burns. Obviously nothing bad happened in response to this email but I can understand any apprehension that Mrs RoG Jay have felt!
Well done on the outcome that Mrs RoG has secured – it’s a great compromise!
I remember when I put in the notice at my next to last job, it was like dropping a big weight. Lots of apprehension as I walked down the hall, opened the president’s door and said “Hey, do you have a minute? And can I close your door?”.
I am confused. The working from home schedule is 9.5 hours including break (gym) and bringing the kids to school. Are these breaks paid work time?
Yes, it works out to be paid work time. She has to work 10 hours per day, wink wink nod nod. Just as long as she gets her work done and takes care of the constant stream of emergencies that arise.
Wow her employer seems very flexible! As far as her schedule, it seems very awesome in terms of continued work.
I agree – it’s a big improvement over the old schedule.
As long as Mrs. RoG is happy, I think it’s a fantastic set-up! Commutes suck and so does dressing up to go to work. Plus the wasted time with office politics that don’t happen while you’re home.
That sushi looks awesome! I’ll have to try home-made sushi one of these days.
That’s one way of looking at it. 6-7 hours of actually working at home is probably equal to 10+ hours at the office for a typical employee. Between wasteful meetings, idle banter (fantasy sports or real sports anyone?? 🙂 ), water cooler gossip, walking around the huge building to get to the cafe and bathroom, and surfing on the net, there’s not a lot of work going on in the modern workplace.
Congratulation on the little step toward retirement! To me, your wife accepting the negotiation to work 10 hours a day with Fridays off and not quiting right away means she wasn’t ready to retire either mentally or financially. Perhaps you both need a few years longer and it’s ok. There isn’t a fixed age when you absolutely have to retire and you do what feels best for your situation at the time even if that means working a little longer.
Oh, I’m pretty sure she was ready. 🙂 That resignation letter was real. It was really sent and with full intention to carry through on it. Of course they returned with a really good offer and after some thought and discussion she decided to accept the revised employment arrangement.
Tree roots or rocks….
My vote is rocks with 95% certainty.
You got it. They do look a lot like tree roots don’t they?
It looks like a rock that was shaped by the tree roots wrapped around it over a few thousand years. Very cool!
That sounds like an amazing arrangement. Congratulations on excellent negotiating skills. I am a bit confused by some of your comments and previous posts on how you pay almost nothing in taxes, but still plan/hope to receive unemployment and government-subsidized healthcare on purpose. Wouldn’t it feel nicer to view financial independence as true independence, not taking money from the government (in reality, from those of us who actually pay those taxes)? I can’t deny that it feels really good to get a good deal and save money, but doing so at the expense of taxpayers who work hard for that money so that the pot is smaller for those who truly need the help (or so that taxes can be reduced/not raised) doesn’t seem right.
Sorry if my posts are confusing.
We pay almost zero federal income taxes (even on a $150,000 income while we were both still working full time).
But the remainder of our tax burden is still pretty steep right now. We pay:
-$1600 in local property tax
-$9000 in payroll taxes
-$2,500 in state income taxes
-$1,000-$1,500 in state and local sales and use tax
At the end of the day we’re still paying the equivalent of a full time minimum wage salary in taxes each year.
Is that amount “fair”? We could clearly pay more. But that’s a bigger question of tax policy than simply saying we pay very little in the way of federal income tax and receive government benefits to which we are entitled.
We’ll also likely pay hundreds of thousands in federal income tax when our required minimum distributions start up at age 70.5 since we probably won’t be able to convert all our traditional IRA and 401k assets to Roth status by then. I’ll be crying all the way to the bank on that one because it’ll mean our early retirement was a smashing success and we still have millions in our 70’s! 🙂
As for your question of “taking money from the government” – don’t we all? Tax breaks via the mortgage interest deduction, 0% LTCG’s and dividends (and reduced rates across the board), child tax credits, green credits, charitable contribution deductions, business loss deductions, etc.
Free education, free roads, free libraries, free healthcare for children in low and moderate income households, etc.
Even healthcare for working folks is heavily subsidized by the government. Mrs. RoG’s employer paid between $10,000 and $14,000 (it’s on your W-2 if you’re interested) for health insurance 100% tax free which amounts to a $2700-4000 tax break for our rather low tax bracket. Coincidentally that’s roughly the amount of ACA subsidies we’ll be getting. In other words, the government has long been in the business of subsidizing health insurance (in the past through making employer provided health insurance tax exempt). Now with the ACA it’s presented as a tax credit so it’s a little more explicit and looks more like a handout or welfare in some form.
In the grand calculus of our entire lives, will we pay more in taxes than we receive in benefits? No clue. We’ll probably come out ahead because we have 3 kids and education is heavily subsidized (ie free for 13+ years) while kids are huge tax write offs (at least at the federal level).
Good negotiation result! One thought I had while reading this is Mrs ROG shouldn’t be spending her Saturday doing laundry, her retired husband should be doing it during the week when the kids are at school.
That’s a good point.
I’ve discussed the laundry process back when Mrs. RoG was commuting to the office full time. For some reason the work clothes couldn’t be washed during the week because of availability issues during the wash day, and Saturday was the easiest day to do all the laundry so everyone has a full set of clothes for the coming week.
Maybe it’s worth revisiting this topic since Mrs. RoG is no longer going to the office (more than a couple times per month max). Like do darks on Monday, whites on Tuesday, pinks on Wednesday and towels/sheets on Thursday. Or switch to some just in time solution where I wait till there’s a full load of something then wash immediately. Mrs. RoG, when you read this comment, let’s discuss. 🙂
We just do the laundry every night or if we forget every other night. We don’t buy white clothes though. Our clothes haven’t been harmed by not separating them.
And it’s so much easier to have everyone grab their clean clothes out of the dryer when they get home from work/school. Yes it probably would save money to wait until the loads are completely full but I didn’t see the water or electric bill go up at all. And this way there is no sorting. :). I detest sorting.
It only takes a second to grab your clothes and put them up every day so laundry doesn’t tend to get behind like it did when faced with a mountain to do. We neither one would get the laundry going when there were many days worth so it would pile up. Lol.
Congrats!
She’s got to be amazing if they wanted her that badly, she should take that as a HUGE compliment.
Can’t think of a family that deserves more success. I have no doubt your FIRE (and hers, when it happens) will work out perfectly.
Thanks Joe!
I think she’s very highly valued where she’s at, and she feels genuinely bad that she’s whittling away her presence at the company because things don’t go as well when she’s not around (as evidenced by stuff that happened when she took the 5 weeks off in 2014 and the 3 months off this year). But eventually it’ll be time to call it quits.
This sounds like a classic case of one-more-year syndrome! I think some people are just wired to need a job to feel fulfilled at some level. Dialing it back slowly over time might cure it, though. That is a great deal for her, congrats! I also agree with Chris, seems like she should have a laundry helper.
I’d say she gets that feeling of fulfillment from doing a job well and it’s also become easy and flexible compared to the money they pay.
Another laundry comment. Ouch! We all pitch in, but it seems like Mrs. RoG ends up sorting and folding the laundry 90% of the time. I need to work on self folding laundry.
This makes me wonder if Warren Buffett folds his own socks and puts them away himself?
Wow — what a great offer she got! I’d still want to quit entirely, but I definitely understand why she agreed to stick it out and work a bit longer. Nice job negotiating!
You guys are our early retirement heroes, since you definitely do NOT seem worried about cashflow — if anything, things keep getting better and better for you. Let us all be that fortunate. 🙂
Cash flow isn’t a huge concern but something I still monitor. There’s always the Roth IRA Conversion Ladder to fuel our cash expenses once she does quit completely, however the dividend income and blog income is roughly enough to cover our full annual expenditures so the $30-40k of cash we keep on hand might last much longer than a year or two.
I also turned down a pretty lucrative and possibly enjoyable part time job this morning. But we’re trying to get to the point of less work, not more. And we don’t need the income right now. Good to know lucrative work opportunities find you occasionally in case we ever do actually need more income.
Congrats Mrs. RoG. I think the compromise buys her time to see if 3 days off per week allows her more time to do the things she’s been wanting to get to. If it doesn’t, she always has the option to fully resign. It sounds like she works for a great employer that highly values her efforts.
Yes, it’s a good compromise for now and so far it’s a big improvement versus the former full time with commuting schedule.
If laundry is such such a downer, why not outsource it with 4x cushion?
Good question! I googled and found a local provider that for $80-120 per week will pick up 2-3 bags of laundry and drop them off washed, dried, and folded (and shrink-wrapped!) later. $4,000 to $6,000 seems like a high price to ditch a chore that takes a couple hours per week.
And in an example of how outsourcing doesn’t always save effort, we would still have a significant amount of work to process the laundry coming and going. Collecting and bagging it on the way out the door then unwrapping it, sorting it, hanging up shirts and pants (and possibly ironing which we don’t have to do now), and putting it away. The parts that we can’t outsource (without hiring a maid) are some of the more time intensive parts of the laundry process.
That is a really good point about hiring someone for laundry. I keep thinking I need to hire a housekeeper but then hear that my girlfriends clean the house before the house cleaner shows up??!! What is the point of hiring them.
Same with hair coloring for me(not ready to go grey), the travel time(60 minutes, time for service 150 minutes, then cost $150). I can do it myself at home for $10 plus about 15 minutes of my effort tops. The hour of processing is spent with working on the computer or something with the kids.
That is a wild turn of events for Mrs. RoG. I can only imagine how much discussion you went through to determine that it was time for her to quit work. This is a nice interim step for her working from home on the early retirement continuum.
BTW – my wife’s employer just adopted a 4 day, 10 hour per day schedule too. She is enjoying 3-day weekends every week. I like it!
It’s a pretty good set up so far!
Glad Mrs. ROG is happy. Happy wife; happy life. I got a generous counter offer when I resigned as well but I couldn’t be tempted. haha.
Also, totes jelly you know how to make delicious sushi!
What can I say, we have skillz!
Kudos to Mrs. ROG. Impressive that she was able to negotiate even better hours from what she was putting in at work before. It is also an example of how much leverage you can have at work if you are a valuable team member.
Maybe she can try again to retire in a year? 😉
I’m taking bets on whether she will last a year. Any takers? 🙂
That’s huge! I’d love her schedule – even doing 4 10-hour days, not from home, would be awesome. It has to be a good feeling that she tries to quit, but they won’t let her haha. Maybe next time she tries to quit, they’ll drop her down to 3 half days, with a raise! Anyway, congratulations and good luck!
-DP
I bet she hopes they don’t keep offering her more because she might keep working forever!
I would say if she is happy working for the company, it is a pretty sweet deal to work from home and have Fridays off. What company she works for so that I can apply? I would stay a few years and just pad the accounts enough for all the financial goals you have, increase spending some, and give some away while you can.
That’s our approach for now. An extra 5 months of work equals another year’s worth of living expenses in the bank. Or looked at another way, we can double our annual travel budget for one year for each additional month of work she puts in. Might come in handy if we do a multi-month European vacation in 2016 or 2017 like we’ve thought about.
Wow, I guess Mrs. ROG is pretty valuable to the team if they bent over backwards and touched their toes to keep her on, even if she works from home most days and has Fridays off. I think that would be a hard counter-offer to turn down at this point.
For the past few years she always shows up on the annual audit as a “key (wo)man risk” for business continuity. That may change this year with the hire and training of another person but yeah, she’s valuable.
Honestly, I would have done the same thing that she did, and accept the flexibility.
I’m trying to ease my way into that now, but it’s mentally hard to make the switch from full time onsite to working from home more. I’m not exactly sure why.
Definitely consider it if your employer is willing. Worst case you can always go back to commuting and showing up to the office if work at home isn’t going well.
Nicely Done! Congrats for even better result. I would love to be in the position some day and I know I will. Thanks for sharing solid article as always. You don’t stop inspiring me!
Cheers!
BSR
Thanks, she’s a clever cookie.
I’m confused. Her work keeps paying her a full salary, to work less, and from home? They must really like her.
good for her, but personally, I wouldn’t be able to tell my boss, with a straight face, that I’m working “10 hours” when the schedule here clearly is closer to 7hours, really more like 6 if you take into account the time it takes to get “on and off” of each individual break time. Even with all the winks winks and nods nods in the world.
To me this would be even more stressful than shoeing up at the office, I’d only consider this for a transition period until my replacement is found.
Congrats though!
There were a lot of winks and nods exchanged.
And there is a lot of variability in the weekly schedule. Today, for example, it was closer to 10 hours (7a to 5:15p with breaks). Next week she’s taking off Monday and working Friday to ensure the work gets done. So there’s some give and take.
She’s in a position where an outright raise isn’t very feasible due to being near the top of the pay bracket for her classification. So they make soft compromises on working conditions by unofficially relaxing the number of work hours required. At this point they are paying for availability of her skills and knowledge more than actual production. They are of course free to replace her any time she wants and she’s made that clear all along!
I don’t think there’s any stress to maintain the current schedule. “Making sure the work gets done” is more important than clocking in 40 and walking away. She’s also thinking about solutions to issues while she’s taking a break and out walking or working out. There are some blurry lines but I think both parties to the deal are happy with the current arrangement (and both are free to terminate at any time of course).
Cutting the commute alone is a huge win in both time and money. Not to mention the extra time with you and the kids. Congrats Mrs. RootOfGood! Like many other commenters have said, if she’s not fed up with the job, it’s a great deal. Plus it’s one step closer to pulling the plug for good. Well done.
Axing the commute is great. Now we can jointly laugh about the horrible traffic updates on the radio at 7 am instead of me feeling sorry for her being stuck in that mess. 🙂 And I know exactly when she’s going to be home for dinner without unpredictable traffic delays messing up dinner plans.
A congrats are still in order! It’s the ultimate haggling experience! “Can’t bring the price down? I’m walking!” You have some great bargaining power, as you said, when you can actually threaten to walk away. What a sweet gig!
The less she needs the job, the more power she has to name her terms. That’s for sure! Great position to be in.
Congratulations! This is such an inspirational story and a true testament to the power of becoming financially independent/building up a safety net.
Unrelated: that homemade sushi looks amazing! You guys should consider posting a tutorial 🙂
I’ll assign the sushi making article to Mrs. RoG once she quits for real. 🙂
Hi there
I’d be curious as of what your wife’s true intentions were when she sent her resignation letter? Did she really want to quit? Or was she hoping to negotiate a better offer? Because in the end, what she got is better, but she is still working close to full time. Maybe her company is great, but a lot of companies I know got to keep their “leaving” employees by offergin them 4 fays per week and same pay, but the demands were the same and if an emergency arose on a friday they had to come in.
With the size of your portfolio and your withdrawal rate, I’d have for sure quit in a heartbeat. But I guess she likes working at her job, which makes her deal sweet. My priority is free time so it is different for all of us.
Congrats to your wife
She definitely intended to quit and wasn’t merely doing this as a negotiating tactic.
This week was one where she was close to having to work on a fifth day and she did actually put in at least one very solid 10 hour day. And next week she’s working Tue-Fri to make herself available for the busiest period the first few days of the month. It’s still a compromise between the job taking up free time and gaining more flexibility in her (and our) schedule. Just taking it week by week, month by month at this point.
Sounds like she gets a lot of the qualitative things she wanted while still working, so it’s not “retirement” but that flexibility is very nice, especially when you consider all the perks you get to keep. Plus you can always quit… sometimes you try and get something you can’t refuse. Awesome story. 🙂
The downside is a loss of 25-30 hours most weeks. Upside is pay, benefits, feeling of accomplishment when solving problems (“it’s like I’m doing forensic work” she says), and finally, the ability to quit or renegotiate terms of employment whenever she wants. Not a bad spot to be in at all.
On a different note, everyone check out Jim’s new blog Wallet Hacks. Some great quality content so far.
For sure it’s a good spot to be in.
And I appreciate the love Justin. 🙂
Thanks for the update. Is 4 ten hour days better than 5 eight hour days? I guess it gives her one more day off each week. Most people work close to ten hour days without really thinking about it. Go in early, work through lunch, stay late, then work from home later. It doesn’t take much to get to 10 hours.
If her goal was to retire early, she failed miserably at that. 🙂
She’s not working a full 10 hour day on most days so far (though there were a couple of 9-10 hour days this past week). Ditching the commute and only working 4 days a week is a big reduction in time spent away from home.
Yeah, I guess she screwed up at retiring early, but the failure is pretty sweet, huh? And a temporary failure (if she wants it to be). 🙂
Wow Wade! Jealous much? Sounds like you are a workaholic who will never retire early. So why do you come to Justin’s site again? Just to second guess and complain?
I took Wade’s comments to be light hearted and not jealous (see the smiley face, for example). Mrs. RoG did fail at the first attempt at early retirement after all. That doesn’t mean she’ll fail at the second or third or fourth attempts.
All I can say is WOO HOO! Fantastic flexibility, she gets to do work she seems to enjoy, and gets to spend more time with family. Aside from the full retirement what a wonderful compromise.
Thanks! Yes, it’s a good move toward full retirement.
Congrats to Mrs. RoG!
You make a good point in that financial independence gives you great leverage in conversations like these. Since walking away is a viable and compelling choice, the other side is far more likely to bend over backwards like the deal described above. There’s really no wrong choice when you have options like these.
Yes, we’ve worked ourselves into a beautiful spot!
Congratulations to Mrs. RoG!
I apologize if you’ve posted this before and I browsed through the comments and didn’t see it, but what does Mrs. RoG do?
I’m very jealous be the way. I’d love to have a job where I can work from home. Especially one where I can work from anywhere as long as I have an internet connection. I’d be doing all of my work from a beach somewhere!
She works in finance for a large investment bank. They go back and forth on working from home. Right now they prohibit it in the NYC office, yet encourage it in the Raleigh/RTP office because they are jam packed into their current facility and growing rapidly.
Congratulation on making it work. That’s an amazing deal. Mrs. RB40 would love to work out something like that with her employer. 4 days/week is a great compromise. Great job!
Tell her to go for it! It helps if she doesn’t need a paycheck any longer since you can name your terms or just walk away.
I realize I’m late to the party, but just wanted to say congrats! This sounds like an awesome balance for Mrs. RoG! Working out this kind of flexible arrangement is ideal for so many reasons and it really lets you have the best of both worlds. Glad you all will have permanent three-day weekends now! And, you’re so right about the flexibility that FI enables. It’s amazing what you can do when you’re not chained to spending every last dime of your paycheck.
It’s been a blast so far and makes working much less of a chore.
If both sides are happy then the solution is good.
One suggestion, having been there and done that, I would suggest Wednesday as the day off rather than Friday. Why you ask? Well I initially took Fridays off but eventually the work week was still the “work week” so I tried Wednesdays.
Much better 🙂 – the “work week” was now 2 days long being either Monday-Tuesday or Thursday-Friday and you really can not get stressed about anything in 2 days – so you are, on any given day, either coming back from time off or going to have time off.
Also scheduling appointments, activities etc. are much easier as Wednesdays are generally not busy.
Trick to making it work effectively is to enforce the Wednesdays off i.e. they are like Sundays- no slipping 🙂 – people initially go “What?” but quickly adapt.
Worked for me for over a decade – then retired full time.
Her solution is to go from four days with Friday off to zero. 🙂 No intermediate steps. Though I think I mentioned the split week to her with taking Fridays off. That way you’re never more than 1 full day away from a day off.