Thanks for this! One thing I noticed is there is an assumption you’ll continue to donate 10% of your current salary even after retirement—it would be worth having that as a toggle to turn that off, since the GWWC pledge does say “until I retire”. That may make giving more appealing as well, because giving 10% forever requires longer timelines than giving 10% until retirement—when I did the calcs in my own spreadsheet I only increased my working timeline by about 10% by committing to give 10% until retiring.
Admittedly, now I’m rethinking the whole “retire early” thing entirely given the impact of direct work, but this outside the scope of one spreadsheet :P
As another early retiree—at least, I was, for some time, before I un-retired (hopefully temporarily) to pursue an expensive startup project, as a funder—I think you underestimate the power of the FIRE’s income. By the time most of us are ready to “pull the plug”, the usual question is not, “How probable is that I never run out of money?”, but “How much time did I overspent working, since this safety margin is, with benefit of hindsight, obviously excessive?”. Thus, most FIRE types should have more than enough to maintain donation rate, and probably increase it.
Thank you! I question if the words “until I retire” is a steadfast rule or more of a guideline from the GWWC community simply because it’s easier for people to digest. I imagine it is easier to come up with a donation amount based off of your current and predicted active income, whereas it can be harder to predict that donation rate once you are an “early retiree”...which I know from personal experience as I don’t really have a true income to base my 10% on. So to me this seems more of a messaging point of friction. I guess the question then is, should early retirees continue to donate at the same rate once they retire? Or rather, should any retiree at any age continue to donate at the same rate once they retire? My perspective is this can be harder with unpredictable income, but if you can build it into your financial plan early on, then you are in a much better place to continue donating on a regular basis, even once you lose the active income. So, I’m tempted to not have the option to toggle it off, but there may be value in showing the difference in portfolio value and FI timeline. I welcome more feedback!
Thanks for this! One thing I noticed is there is an assumption you’ll continue to donate 10% of your current salary even after retirement—it would be worth having that as a toggle to turn that off, since the GWWC pledge does say “until I retire”. That may make giving more appealing as well, because giving 10% forever requires longer timelines than giving 10% until retirement—when I did the calcs in my own spreadsheet I only increased my working timeline by about 10% by committing to give 10% until retiring.
Admittedly, now I’m rethinking the whole “retire early” thing entirely given the impact of direct work, but this outside the scope of one spreadsheet :P
As another early retiree—at least, I was, for some time, before I un-retired (hopefully temporarily) to pursue an expensive startup project, as a funder—I think you underestimate the power of the FIRE’s income. By the time most of us are ready to “pull the plug”, the usual question is not, “How probable is that I never run out of money?”, but “How much time did I overspent working, since this safety margin is, with benefit of hindsight, obviously excessive?”. Thus, most FIRE types should have more than enough to maintain donation rate, and probably increase it.
See for example, https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2022/07/18/never-run-out-of-money/
Thank you! I question if the words “until I retire” is a steadfast rule or more of a guideline from the GWWC community simply because it’s easier for people to digest. I imagine it is easier to come up with a donation amount based off of your current and predicted active income, whereas it can be harder to predict that donation rate once you are an “early retiree”...which I know from personal experience as I don’t really have a true income to base my 10% on. So to me this seems more of a messaging point of friction. I guess the question then is, should early retirees continue to donate at the same rate once they retire? Or rather, should any retiree at any age continue to donate at the same rate once they retire? My perspective is this can be harder with unpredictable income, but if you can build it into your financial plan early on, then you are in a much better place to continue donating on a regular basis, even once you lose the active income. So, I’m tempted to not have the option to toggle it off, but there may be value in showing the difference in portfolio value and FI timeline. I welcome more feedback!