Need Advice: FIRE-d for 2 years
Disclaimer: Though I am way below the fat fire threshold of 20Cr, but posting here instead of regular fire India sub since I find the crowd here quite receptive, forgiving and mature. Would appreciate if mods allow this post.
Fire Status: Fired since September 2024. 48M with spouse (44F) and 2 kids (grade 6 and 9)
Financials: Total liquid NW= 15.5 Cr. Equity (mostly Indian mutual funds)= 8.5 Cr. Debt (mostly Indian debt mutual funds and some money in PPF) = 7 Cr. No International equity, no real estate, no gold. Parents are retired and not dependent on me. Own fully paid house and car. Zero debt.
Expenses: Last year, kids’ education= 4.7L, Everything else = 9.3L. Total = 14L
My problem: It seems I have been badly hit by SORR. Market was at peak when I quit and we all can see how things are now. Having no gold, USD, or International equity has made it even worse. Though I do not really need to touch equity investments (thanks to sufficiently large debt exposure), but it is severely affecting my ability to spend freely.
It seems I have become overly cautious. Though we lead a decent middle class life, but I have cut a lot of discretionary spending. We haven’t even travelled since I quit regular employment.
Since last 6 months, I have been thinking about going back to work. I made 4 attempts to start preparing for interviews, but it seems that the relaxed, stress free FIREd life has made me too complacent.
Last month, my 5^(th) attempt to start interview prep succeeded partially and I have been able to consistently spend some time daily on leetcode, system design etc. But it feels a bit ridiculous and frustrating to be solving dynamic programing problems or designing api rate limiter at the age of 48. I love my FIREd life but totally confused whether I should trust the Indian equity markets to recover or unwillingly continue with the interview prep. The job market is also super dry at the moment, thanks to AI.
So, whatever could possible go wrong, has gone wrong. There is a growing anxiety as well that now that I have been out of the workforce for 2 years, it will be difficult to convince recruiters and employers about this gap. With each passing week, the window to find a job seems to be getting narrower.
Am I being overly cautious? Any thoughts on my decision to go back to work? Do you see any risk if I spend another 3-4 lakhs annually? Has anyone been in a similar situation?