30M, $4.7m, (and $15k/month post-tax income for a few more months)
Back then when I was pre-FIRE, I always told myself to do some weird lying about my occupation to avoid telling people that I consider myself wealthy enough to never work again.
- My closer friends already knew about my plans to retire so no point in suddenly making up something else for them.
- My more remote friends only knew me as someone who hardly has time for them due to work. Straight up telling them I am a lot more available now because I'm retired was the easiest way to let them know.
So far I didn't really encounter much negativity or envy, no one really asked me for money or whatever else I feared what could happen if I'm honest about my status. And it feels good to simply not lie about anything.
Now to the part I haven't considered: When I meet new people, one of the first topics that come up is work. Regardless of how you try to steer a conversation it's almost inevitable. Back then I explained my business, some were interested, others were not but now it's completely different.
Simply saying "I'm retired" with a little more information on what I did either makes new acquaintances say "I don't know what to say to that" and honestly I don't know what to say to that either because the situation is just as weird to me OR they put on this face of pity like my poor soul is gonna live off $1000 for the rest of this life - probably because frugality is the only way the average person can compute early retirement.
Surely if I had gold chains on my chest and presented myself differently people would rather assume "rich" than "frugal" but I'm not the kind of guy to go for looks or bragging like that. The only way one could tell is if they saw my car keys but that's a way of flashing I'm not into.
Some people ask "so what are you doing now all day" and maybe that's what I should simply start telling them myself without waiting for that question but apart from that I have zero ideas how to make that response less boring or pity-inducing.
So what do you do?
And I should add that I'm not giving everyone the "I'm retired". Met someone I overheard almost not being able to pay her car repair so I just told her about my general occupation without much detail but situations like this are an exception.