Let the Withdrawal Games Begin!
Amelie’s French Bakery is a local institution in Charlotte. There are now several locations all over the city, but the OG was in Noda- one of my favorite neighborhoods.
Prior to meeting Ryan, I would go there with a novel, with grad school homework or later- with papers to grade. I’d pick out something delicious from the pastry case and settle in amongst all of the other folks who needed caffeine to get through their online tasks.
When we started dating in 2012, we’d end most of our dates with a trip to Amelie’s. Back then, he could drink coffee late at night and still fall asleep (!) and we both wanted to extend our conversations a bit longer. So he’d order french press and we’d find a place out on the covered outdoor patio.
With all of this history, Amelie’s was obviously on our “things to do in Charlotte before we leave” list.
So, we headed there yesterday with a task: using our current net worth, calculate our spending guardrails for the next six months and then WITHDRAW money from our brokerage account.
Now. If you are new to the FI community, withdrawing money instead of saving it forever and ever amen may not feel like such a big deal.
But if you have been around for a minute, soaking up financial independence content and figuring out more and better ways to save save SAVE! then let’s get out the smelling salts and fainting couches, friends, because this is a big moment.
These people, our FI friends, know exactly what I’m talking about.
Things have progressed a bit since the early days of FI content, but even as recently as a year or so ago there was a great debate amongst popular FI podcasters around whether withdrawing principal (not just accumulated interest) was a thing that should be done at all.
Think about that- working 10, 20, 30+ years, saving diligently and then deciding you were never going to use any of that money that you saved? That instead, you were only going to spend the interest that money made out of fear of running out? Or so you could pass on ALLLLLLL of your money to your heirs? Or to a charity? Or, if you didn’t create a proper will, to the government?!
Not spending the principal means that you are agreeing to hand over YEARS more of your life to a job that probably doesn’t light you up, all in the service of principal preservation.
This was not a trade we were willing to make.
However.
When it came to actually withdrawing money from the pot of money we’d been working so hard to grow, I felt a twinge of fear.
Even though I know that when the market is up (like right now) you sell, I was still planning on using our cash bucket to fund these first six months… just to let that pot of money grow a little bit more. Even though I know the math and know the FI principles work- I was still feeling fear.
This is normal.
Ryan challenged me on it, we talked about it for awhile and then I came around. And then we did it. The transaction is processing as we speak, and we will be funded for the next six months.
Next Financial Steps
Apart from withdrawing from (instead of depositing to) our brokerage, there will be another big reversal in the way things are done: I won’t need to look at our accounts in any real way until August, when Ryan completes his retirement account rollover and we rebalance our funds.
After that, I won’t need to look again until December, when we make a spending plan for 2027.
If you’ve read any of my scarcity posts, or if you are a spreadsheet nerd/optimizer too, you’ll know that not looking at accounts can be… nerve-wracking. But this not-looking is a promise I’m making to myself, to go out and enjoy the things that we’ve been saving for- adventures in nature, time together, hobbies, family and community.
Here we go!!!