When I first started Financial Samurai, I was proud of finally creating something. For too long, I had just followed orders. Yet, I couldn’t tell anybody about my hobby because I was still employed. I was afraid if my employer found out, they’d tell me to shut it down or at the very least, dock my bonus for being unfocused. After all, the site was started in the middle of the financial crisis and they were always looking for reasons to cut costs.

When I finally engineered my layoff three years later in 2012, I still felt it was unwise to tell anybody about my site even though I was internally beaming with pride about the site’s growth. I felt like a new parent who wanted to annoy the crap out of all his friends by cooing about every milestone their child hit.

But because I had five years of deferred compensation on the line, even if there was just a 1% chance my old employer would withhold payment, I didn’t want to risk losing years of living expenses. And so, I kept my mouth largely shut until I had a decision to make on 4/21/2017, when my last severance-related after-tax payment hit my bank account.

In a way, the five-year time period when I was collecting my deferred compensation was like a mental jail. Like Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption reaching for the stars as rain spatters his face, full emancipation only came years after leaving Corporate America.

With nothing holding me back in 2017, it would seem like finally, I could brag to everyone that I had created a website large enough to support a family in San Francisco. With some publicity would come growth. But alas, I felt it was much better to keep a low profile.

For those of you who are thirsty for attention, let me share some thoughts about being a nobody for so long and why it may be in your best interest to do the same. 

Financial loss creates stress. And given stress kills, your goal as a retiree should be to remove as much stress from your life to live as long and happy as possible.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about being OK with no longer making a lot of money from investments. With such huge returns in the S&P 500 and the SF real estate market since 2012, I kind of feel like Anthony Bourdain when he said,

“I should’ve died in my 20s. I became successful in my 40s. I became a dad in my 50s. I feel like I’ve stolen a car — a really nice car — and I keep looking in the rearview mirror for flashing lights. But there’s been nothing yet.”

I got in trouble the summer before starting college and could have easily given up on my future. But in college, I met my wife and landed a hard-to-get job for someone with my lack of pedigree.

Two months before likely being terminated at my first job as the internet bubble burst in 2000, I was able to find a new job in San Francisco for a raise and a promotion.

Instead of selling a home close to the bottom of the market in 2012, I was blessed that nobody took advantage of my uncertainty.

Instead of flaming out with Financial Samurai and having to go back to work a couple years later, this site has become a viable source of income to support my family.

Sure, there have been plenty of setbacks as well, but I’ve chosen to focus on the positives because life is better this way.

With low returns and a stable income, life becomes magnificent in retirement. All the worry about running out of money or having to go back to work full-time starts to fade away. 

Congratulations everyone! According to this chart below, everybody is rich in America! Our assets are at the highest level compared to our income in all of history thanks to tremendous asset price appreciation.

Anybody who bought stocks and real estate between late 2009 and 2015 is sitting mighty pretty. When you’re sitting mighty pretty, you tend to spend more frivolously and take on debt to buy things you don’t really need. But at some point, a percentage of the population gets carried away, commits financial suicide, and brings the rest of us down with them.

I’m really hoping the good times will last for several more years. After all, it’s more fun making money hand over fist than losing money. Alas, I’m worried that with cash-out refinances reaching pre-crisis levels, we’re bound to repeat our mistakes from the previous financial crises.