This thread is gold! As a newer member of the FIRE community, I hadn’t even considered BaristaFIRE as a distinct strategy.
Question: how do you factor in the “optionality” of BaristaFIRE psychologically?
What I mean is—knowing you could quit and go part-time changes how you feel about your full-time job, right? Even if you don’t pull the trigger.
I’m 4+ years from even BaristaFIRE at my current rate, but just having that as a milestone on the horizon feels different than “work until 65.”
Has anyone here hit their BaristaFIRE number and decided to keep working full-time anyway? How did that change your relationship with work?
Also @finance_fred—would love to see that ACA optimization script! My Python skills are decent and I’ve been wanting to build more Beancount tooling.