Ever quit a career without a plan of what's next?

eastsideTim said:

RBCA said:

In reply to eastsideTim :

Also consider this: an increasing share of students are nontraditional, and as an older person you’d bring such perspective and, dare I say, a little wisdom to the classroom. We absolutely need more intergenerational interaction and understanding, especially since it’s another fault line we seem all too willing to crack along. If you need any help in thinking about going back to school in either a theoretical or logistical kind of way feel free to PM me as I’m a scholarship program manager and this is just where I “live” all day.

*When I say make sure your wife is on board, REALLY make sure she’s on board and not just capitulating to get you to shut up about it already. Also, make sure she knows what she’s getting into because you might be around the house annoying her a lot more than she bargained for. (Signed, a middle-aged man’s middle-aged wife.)

I've considered going back to school, possibly for something related to analytics, as that's been the focus of my testing work for a while, but I am frankly so burnt out that I am not sure I want to do anything even somewhat related to what I currently do.   I think the big problem with starting a new career that requires schooling is how close I am to theoretically retiring.  It feels weird to jump ship and spend large sums of money this late in the game to start over.

I do have a jump on being around all the time.  I work remote, so am pretty much always home.  I just might not be hiding in my basement office as much if I no longer have to be in front of a computer all day

i would just like to say that life is profoundly weird right now. but good.

look at what Bill is doing going back to school,

I know of people in their 60s and 70s going to school if even just to enrich themselves.  It is only too late if you convince yourself that it is.

The_Jed said:

Javelin said:

eastsideTim said:

procainestart said:

It's time to figure out what kind of work to pursue. I took a very good, inexpensive ($100), remote, career-transition workshop recently that lays out the process for figuring out what kind of work you can pivot to, then how to get a job. There's info about combating age-ism. Lmk if you're interested. 

 

Would definitely be interested.  Feel free to PM me a link if you don't want to post it on the thread.

Seconded!

Thirded!

Fourthed!

Edit: Found the link on the previous page

Great post and a lot of good input from the people. Another one of us in their 40's, have spent my whole career in some sort of machine build or manufacturing. I have thought about leaving a bunch of times, it is usually the cut in income that keeps my doing what I am doing. Don't get me wrong I do enjoy the actual job but all of the noise around it can be a little hard to swallow at times. My advice to anyone that wants to change careers is the same advice I give to kids that are looking to find a career path; Look at the whole situation, not just the plus side or the things that are better than your current situation. Look at required travel, salary, hours per day, stress, advancement, long term security, ability to switch companies or locations. All of these things add up to your overall work satisfaction. If you have a good job but feel stuck all the time that is tough. 

I will be mid to late 50's when my kids are out from my financial umbrella, at that time I may choose something different. I always thought being a dump truck driver was a decent choice, not gonna get rich but some other benefits that I find appealing. Not really possible at this juncture for me but I have kept my CDL for years just as a back up plan, I know that if I lost my job today I could have one right away and keep food on the table. 

NY Nick said:

 If you have a good job but feel stuck all the time that is tough. 

Exactly where I am. Part of the reason I stay, aside from the salary, is the health insurance. My fiance has an auto-immune disease and my health insurance is the only reason we can afford the horrendously expensive meds for it. 

 

RBCA said:

In reply to eastsideTim :

I've considered going back to school, possibly for something related to analytics, as that's been the focus of my testing work for a while, but I am frankly so burnt out that I am not sure I want to do anything even somewhat related to what I currently do.   I think the big problem with starting a new career that requires schooling is how close I am to theoretically retiring.  It feels weird to jump ship and spend large sums of money this late in the game to start over.

I do have a jump on being around all the time.  I work remote, so am pretty much always home.  I just might not be hiding in my basement office as much if I no longer have to be in front of a computer all day

I wonder if you are angsting about job-related identity? Like, “if I’m not [x job title], who AM I? What is my purpose?” Or, “if I don’t work full time with benefits, am I a loser?” (You’re not). Especially because your job has changed so much and you seem really unmoored by it, if that makes sense. (“Am I too old and stupid? Is this the beginning of the end?”) Just something to think about.

It sounds to me, based on what evidence you’ve presented, like you are in a good financial position and decent health, and you could benefit from six months or a year or whatever amount of time YOU feel like you need and can afford, just staring at the ceiling or puttering around in the garage or making ten gallons of lentil soup at a time to prove to the Universe that you WILL live on $100 a month out of spite.

You also don’t have to go back to school to do a whole degree program. You can take classes a la carte in something you might be interested in and if you’re not, no harm done and maybe you learned something useful anyway (I took a cheap one on UX design a few years ago and was like eh…not for me). You might find yourself sidestepping into something adjacent to what you do now that you find through serendipity. Keeping an open mind and staying fluid and curious about the world rarely fails you, in my experience.

(Honestly, the future of higher education is not going to look like formal four-year degrees soon, and you might find yourself ahead of the curve in adopting this mindset.)

And finally: if you’re rattling around the house more often, just make sure you both get your Crone Alone/Dude Solitude time because that is the secret to a happy DINK marriage, IMO (follow me for more relationship advice).

z31maniac said:

But I'm also in a weird spot. I've been a Tech Writer for 16 years at this point (I turn 42 in March). If I want to make more money I need to learn coding/API stuff and if I were to start over in a new industry (My degree is Journalism with a specialization in Public Relations) I don't think I could afford the pay cut.

As someone who's been doing coding/API stuff almost from day one I would only recommend this if your employer is offering you such a position on the condition of you getting a specific coding education. It can be quite difficult to get a programming-oriented job without either having just graduated with a relevant degree (if you want an entry-level job) or having a job history of formal primarily-programming work (as in your job title should've had programmer or developer in it and the meat & potatoes of your work day should've been coding). Also the whole IT industry seems to be entering a slump right now.

z31maniac said:

NY Nick said:

 If you have a good job but feel stuck all the time that is tough. 

Exactly where I am. Part of the reason I stay, aside from the salary, is the health insurance. My fiance has an auto-immune disease and my health insurance is the only reason we can afford the horrendously expensive meds for it. 

This phenomenon is called "job lock" and it is a huge problem in the way we do healthcare in the US, and it is making a great many people miserable, as I'm sure you're well aware.

I have spent many an hour out at the shop staring at the space and thinking "man...  if I could just use this space to do... uh...  to do...  *something!* I could just quite my stupid job and do..  whatever that is!".  I can't quite get past that point, though.  There's not a lot of options to switch tracks at this stage in life without taking a pretty big hit in the paycheck.  There's a guy I work with who's a couple years older than us and he had a plan to retire from his job as a sales overlay and do general handyman stuff.  He said the numbers worked out pretty well and that he was in with a Realtor and would be able to have all the business he wanted.  That was before the stock market took its most recent crap in its shoes, however, and he's still working for us, but I think he's doing his handyman thing on the side.  So maybe one solution is to start the next chapter as a side job?  If you know anything about ransomware recovery, you can probably start a pretty decent side-hustle consulting on remediation and/or prevention because that's become quite the hot topic.

I will say that the process of going back to school has been much different than what I expected.  I mean, yeah, it's still mostly the same bullcrap that made me quit the first time, but the colleges and universities all have "adult learner" departments that are pretty good about helping you to navigate school plus a job plus a life.  They've also got a lot of online delivery that can be done on your own schedule so you don't have to be in a class at a certain time in a certain place, which is nice.  And that's for undergrad and post-grad stuff.  The cherry on top is if you can get your employer to pay for it.  I think the IRS limit before you have to declare it as income is 5250 a year in tuition reimbursement, so worth looking into.

Maybe there's something else out there that can leverage your skillset in a slightly different job function?  Like if you've got knowledge about how your software product works, is there a consulting firm that you could go to or a facility that would need someone who can deal with the application?  Or if you have a lot of experience with Medicare drug regs, maybe that could be pivoted to another role somewhere?  It might even be worth it to look for postings for your existing job at different companies and seeing if you can score an interview.  Maybe you want a different field entirely, but maybe just doing the same job a different way is what you want.  It doesn't cost anything to submit a resume and go to an interview, right?

eastsideTim said:

porschenut said:

Personally I found leaving one career and entering another involves more stress and less cheese.

Definitely something I am thinking about.  I think this is also why I am more focused on the idea of either not working, or just doing some seasonal or part time work as I feel like it.  I'm not sure I want to be tied down to a regular job anymore.  A lot of it is trying to decide if I can adjust my personal living standards down, and give up on a few dreams.  I was planning on buying an RV and traveling heavily between the time my wife and I retire, and that would just not be feasible.  Nor would regular trips to attend or participate in motorsports events.

I'm in a similar situation. This is the 2nd time I've been hit with mass layoffs in less than 4 years. Very frustrating to be laid off at the whim of someone 4 levels above you. I'm just about done with it. 

Like you, I live below my means, am viciously frugal and don't necessarily need to work full time. I've been using my free time to do all of those "someday" projects. Stretching and meditating regularly, selling off or donating the small crap that clogs up my closets, taking a course at the local community college, actually hitting the gym, etc.

Nothing useful to add, except that now is a great time to deep dive into your hobbies & interests, see if you can find a profitable niche that intersects with your skill set. 

wae said:

 If you know anything about ransomware recovery, you can probably start a pretty decent side-hustle consulting on remediation and/or prevention because that's become quite the hot topic.

Ransomware recovery is just ordinary IT work. There are only a few ways to recover:

1. The Right Way: Wipe everything and restore from those backups you were keeping as a normal part of diligent IT work ...just like you'd normally handle a disk (or especially SSD) failure. A company I worked for had to do this a couple of times after upper management downloaded and executed ransomware that wasn't caught by antivirus tools or what many would consider common-sense precautions. In one case the reach of the infection was vastly worsened by a stupid and dangerous level of network share access that the same executive who ran shipping_invoice.pdf.exe demanded. Caused a good few hours of downtime and some overnight scrambling but it's pretty straightforward restore work. Luckily this happened in a much more innocent time of relatively primitive ransomware that didn't exfiltrate data.

2. Game Over: Wipe everything and start from scratch because you weren't keeping backups?

3. The Usual Fix: Pay the ransom for the decryption key (illegal in many jurisdictions but it seems nobody cares or gets caught) and hope they don't alter the deal by asking for more or selling off exfiltrated data. We only hear about the tip of the iceberg of ransomware infections, most are fixed in secret via methods 3 or 1. There's even a cottage industry of dummy ransomware/extortionware schemes where the attack is fictitious, there's only a threat of activating a fictitious infection or leaking fictitious data, it sometimes pays off.

4. The Prayer Method (not really IT work at all): Get lucky if the C&C server was seized by law enforcement and your decryption key becomes available for free. Happens occasionally.

5. The "I am Elliot Alderson" option (very extraordinary IT work): Be a vastly more l33t hacker than the people who hacked you, break into their C&C servers and liberate their decryption keys yourself. Has happened IRL at least once.

The only thing that's new about ransomware prevention is the HIDS/NIDS side of things, there is some software that can detect ransomware-like file modifications and take action to stop it, and detect ransomware-like network activity (although the NIDS side is kind of becoming useless as connections are getting proxied through the big hazy blobs of large CDNs and cloud providers these days that are hard to distinguish from ordinary web traffic).

GameboyRMH said:

z31maniac said:

But I'm also in a weird spot. I've been a Tech Writer for 16 years at this point (I turn 42 in March). If I want to make more money I need to learn coding/API stuff and if I were to start over in a new industry (My degree is Journalism with a specialization in Public Relations) I don't think I could afford the pay cut.

As someone who's been doing coding/API stuff almost from day one I would only recommend this if your employer is offering you such a position on the condition of you getting a specific coding education. It can be quite difficult to get a programming-oriented job without either having just graduated with a relevant degree (if you want an entry-level job) or having a job history of formal primarily-programming work (as in your job title should've had programmer or developer in it and the meat & potatoes of your work day should've been coding). Also the whole IT industry seems to be entering a slump right now.

I've basically just run into the point where when looking at job listings, the only experience I don't have is developer-focused API writing vs customer-facing docs like I've always done. 

I've also looked at proposal writing, but the thought of dealing with the government again like when I worked in defense......I don't think they'd pay what I would want to deal with that. 

This is my standard operating procedure.  I prefer the downtime.  When I worked for Home Depot, I got as far as department head position.  When I had enough, I walked in to the boss's office and said "I'm giving you my two minutes notice."  I had nothing lined up.  I was out of work for a few weeks while I casually looked for a job and found one.

Right now, it seems like every single business is pretty desperate to hire.  I realize it might not be preferred, but if I start getting low on money, I can always work at Starbucks for $18/hr until I find another career job.  I'm not proud.  Free coffee and a pretty green apron?  Sign me up.

I'm one of those people who just feels how they feel about things.  If I'm unhappy at a job, I'm unhappy.  It would be damaging to my mental health if I just sucked it up and stayed there while I searched for another job.  I'm more likely to quit or give 2-weeks notice without anything lined up because once I've decided I'm done, I'm done.

In reply to eastsideTim :

 I had planned on retiring at 55 (and doing a lot of expensive travel and car stuff), but unless the market seriously recovers soon, I'm going to have to tack on a few more years to that number.

Maybe you haven't noticed, but the market hit an all-time high today (still an hour before close as I type this). 

If enough people are convinced there will be a recession, it can become self-fulfilling... 

Regardles... I do know how you feel.  I work in engineering and get paid more than I ever dreamed of to do it. Despite the fact I went to school for journalism... I don't really enjoy it, but I seem to be good at it. Or good enough. Some days are better than others, but most of the time I try to keep an eye on the end goal of retiring at 60ish in Jan 2031. 

My dream retirement job is to design and build custom car interiors and wiring.  Starting with the four cars I have to learn/practice on. Maybe it will work out... maybe not.  But with any luck at least I'll have the cars to show for my efforts and enjoy.

Being rather financially risk-averse, I tend to lean towards the "stick it out for a few more years until retirement" side.  But there has to be some balance between planning for tomorrow and living for today. That balance will be different for everyone, so there is no right or wrong answer. 

to the OP:  Nope, never did.  I've never quit a job without already having another job, and i haven't changed careers since entering the auto industry 30 years ago.  honestly, i get anxious just reading the thread title.  best of luck to you, my GRM brother.  I hope it works out in your favor.

Almost did just a few months ago when I hit peak burnout and just *had* to make a change. Worked with the powers that be and managed to land somewhere better suited to what I'm good at and less of what I'm not. It's at least exploring what that may look like at your current gig, if you are at the berkeley it I quit stage already you really have nothing to lose.

Sorry, no reply to, since this is in response multiple people

In regard to work, I've mostly been a "work to live" person, not "live to work".  So, while I take pride in doing a job well, if I had a guaranteed safe retirement, I'd walk away immediately.  Been working since I was 14, only taking a break for college (engineering), and even then picked up some part time jobs. 

Burnout being what it is, I am really not sure what else I'd want to do work-wise.  I've wracked my brain for a while, but just can't come up with much.  CNC machining is interesting to me, but around here, they pay similar wages to working retail or fast food, it seems.  I think part of the problem is I just don't seem to have the mental space to figure it out, I'm using most of that energy just to get by at life and in the current job.  Maybe if I quit, I can find something else I'm interested in, but maybe it won't happen.  It is a risk I have to consider.

After some things happening this week, and a meeting I was in today, I have a feeling I'd be way more useful to the company in a product role again, so if I try to stick it out, I may see if I can switch departments.  There are aspects of the job I really don't like (some travel and dealing directly with customers), but they may not leave me feeling like I'm drowning.  First, I am going to have a talk with my wife this weekend, though, in case it is a moot point.

Which brings me back to some things I think I alluded to in my original comment.  Basically, I am concerned we are not living well healthily enough now, and have not been able to get positive momentum to change, and a lot of it stems from just being done with everything at the end of the work day.  I worry that even when we hit retirement, if we keep on our current path, we won't be in shape to enjoy it as much as we want.  I guess I am trying to find the balance of time versus money that gets us as good of a life as we can have.  I'm trying to work on my lifestyle (been exercising more, and cut out caffeine for the umpteenth time), but it's easy to slip when I am just trying to find some pleasure in anything.  My hobbies have mostly been frustrating me more than anything else lately, which is why over the past few months, I've gotten more done working with friends on their cars than doing anything with mine.  That way, I can walk away after a wrenching session, and not think about it, since it isn't in my garage.  My non-car hobbies, I have not engaged with much lately, either due to lack of time, or just lack of motivation.  By the time I'm done with work or study, I just want to sit on the couch and veg out.

I've pivoted a few times in my career:

- Financial Analyst

- Business Intelligence Developer/Architect/Trainer/Consultant

- Data Center Infrastructure Manager

- Project Manager - Data Migration to SAP

- SAP Infrastructure and Operations

- Data Architect/Project Manager/Enterprise Architect/RPA COE Lead

- Pre-Sales for Data Center sales

It's been a fun ride, but it's definitely made job searches more difficult. I've been lucky to find managers who see the value I offer, but not everyone does.

Project Management might be another area that you might be able to pivot into if you don't end up going into product. You can become a Certified Scrum Master (basically an Agile Project Manager) after two days of training. Happy to talk if you'd like to. Being a jack of all trades and master of none, I've seen just about every job in IT :-)

Yes, sort-of...

I started working in outdoor recreation retail at 19ish as a college student, not as a career plan, but as a fun job, and I was heavily into mountain biking, hiking/backpacking at the time. One thing lead to another, one convenience after another, and one promotion after another, and I ended up staying in the industry a long time.
 

I briefly tried to leave when I quit my job and moved cities  at 24, but ran out of money, so I got a new job in the same industry and enjoyed it. While managing a decent-sized, well-known successful bike shop at 40, I had a ton of events/plans I really didn't want to miss one summer, so I gave multiple months notice and left with plans to goof off for the first summer in my adult life, all while working on a career change as my next step. I found it really hard to answer that question, "What do I want to do?" I'm a pragmatist, so I find it hard to put energy into wild hypotheticals. I'd also been stuck in a rut so long, I didn't have a variety of experiences to draw on...I didn't know anything else. I read some books, talked to a career coach briefly, but didn't establish a direction. Word of my status got around and soon I had multiple juicy job offers in bicycle retail, so less than a year later, back I went...

3-4 years later I realized I REALLY didn't want to rehash the same challenges and seasonal retail schedule for the rest of my life. I talked it over with family at Christmas. They were supportive, but asked what approach/structure I would use to guide myself given the previous attempt to leave.

HERE'S WHERE I HAD A BREAKTHROUGH! I realized I didn't need a new career. Well, I did, but I wasn't looking for the be-all, end-all of jobs that would be a perfect fit, and a worthwhile reason to leave my career of 25 years...I just needed a different job to try out for a bit, and I figured it wouldn't be easy in my mid-40's, but it would be waaaay easier than making the same move at 50 or 55. Thinking that way took a lot of pressure off.

My strategy was good-old networking. Between Christmas and New Year I wracked my brain and made a list of everyone I knew who had shown interest in my career or personal development. I listed everyone I knew with an interesting job. I listed everyone I knew who was outgoing and well-connected. I listed everybody I knew who had a position of some sway or power. Neighbors, old schoolmates, friends-of-friends, connections from clubs/church/music, regulars at my usual coffee shop and bar...everyone who might be a lead. 
 

I started reaching out to all of them, letting them know I was looking, and dedicated to taking on something new.

Within three weeks, I started my current (awesome) job working in high-end automotive seating! I never would have picked it if I'd been brainstorming, but the interests/skill set needed nearly perfectly matched what I had to offer. 

TL;DR: I left my accidental career of ~25 years in my mid-40's by realizing the burden of finding a new career was too much, so I just networked with everyone I could think of to try and find a job, and found a great one I wouldn't have guessed. 

I've been downsized twice out of jobs. Not the same thing, but some of the things I learned may be helpful. And, I hate my current role, which was changed from a job I enjoyed by The Powers That Be. 

There are always jobs out there; they just may not pay as much. Being totally unemployed was never really a worry.

Last time I was downsized I jumped right into the first job offer I received, because I was (foolishly) worried about not having a job. It wound up being the Worst Job Ever. My life at work was wholly miserable, and I brought that home with me. Huge mistake. And then, because I was stuck there everyday, finding another job was more difficult.

I truly believe that one of my two most-hated jobs (this one for five years) is the reason I have high blood pressure today.

I took a roughly $10k pay cut to get out of the job above, and into a job I rated as my favorite. I did miss the money, but not painfully so. Totally worth it. Unfortunately, downsized two years later.

Working for a mom-n-pop was far better than working for a corporation or dealership, mentally. Financially, it wasn't very sustainable, though.

In my 50s I finally thought of something I'd love to do that would pay about the same as my corporate insurance job. Unfortunately, at my age the financial cost for the education would never be recouped before I retired. Make sure getting an education makes financial sense in a return-of-investment way. 

In reply to eastsideTim :

It reads like you need to recenter your body more than you need to change work.  I hit that point in my 50s and found an exercise program that worked then went a little off the deep end.  For 5 years I was more committed to working out than work, putting in 10-12 hours a week of hard exercise.  It cleared my head and made the rest of life much easier to handle.  It also started a habit that I have carried. I am retired now but get an hour long workout in almost every day.  I can't go as extreme as I did so the endorphin rush doesn't happen but it is a habit now and they are hard to break.

In reply to RBCA :

We always call that "Golden handcuffs" when the pay and benefits keep someone in a less than ideal job. 

In reply to tester (Forum Supporter) :

Motorola in Chicago back in the day was a good example of this term.  Benefits so awesome they've got you locked down for a long time. 

In reply to eastsideTim :

I hear you on the drastic transformation in most Corp Development over the past 5 years.  My company has gone from ASP.NET MVC / Web Svc / SQL Server all on-prem to Cloud First / AWS all the projects.  My skillset - as I was brought into a team leadership vs techical role - is now firmly in the realm of FORTRAN or punch cards, and that leads to a huge amount of stress were I to need to move companies / dive back into a tech role.

Our QA team members have also been feeling the change - from historically largely manual QA testing to now an expectation to write automated tests (unit testing w/ devs, API integration testing, front-end testing).  The more experienced, less coding-savy QA folks have the same concerns - what's the world look like?  Msybe projecting, but to me it sounds like you may be collateral damage in this tranformation.

Are there any internal opportunities?  Our longtime manual QA people may not be on top of current Selenium test scripting, but they have a long history in our industry, company, and products.  On our teams, the Product Owner has the deepest business understanding, but our QA people are right behind them - they test what the business wanted, not necessarily what the developer did.  One path we have for them is to take that institutional knowledge and move to a Business Analyst role facilitating new teams understanding what they're working with, or Product Owners helping drive forward the evolution of our systems.

I'm risk adverse, also well into my late 40s, and not interested in reinventing myself - I find my joy through my shop full of project cars, autocross, motorcycle trips, and track days.  As I've moved away from in-the-trenches tech role, I've been scrambling and working hard to find a way I can contribute, from my "used to be a Dev" point of view.  That let me pivot a bit, without leaving the industry I've been in for decades now.

I have some general advice, whether you stay or go: don't just wait for RetirementTim to get healthy, work on his hobbies, etc.. you will be better off now and in the future if you start carving out time and building habits now.  

I had a tech job and spent some happy time and some unhappy time in the job.  I decided about 15 years ago to get very serious about saving and working toward retiring early.  I wasn't going to make it my 40s (or 30s!) like some people I met, but I could optimize my life and not plan on working until death, like many people seem to.  I drove cheap cars, bought and fixed up crappy houses, rode my bike a lot, and tried to dial my expenses back and my savings (and investing) up.  Here's a link, food for thought:

https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/

I just retired at 57, I'm busier than ever, I am typing this after riding my bike for an hour.  Going out to work on the truck next.

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to eastsideTim :

 I had planned on retiring at 55 (and doing a lot of expensive travel and car stuff), but unless the market seriously recovers soon, I'm going to have to tack on a few more years to that number.

Maybe you haven't noticed, but the market hit an all-time high today (still an hour before close as I type this). 

If enough people are convinced there will be a recession, it can become self-fulfilling... 

Regardles... I do know how you feel.  I work in engineering and get paid more than I ever dreamed of to do it. Despite the fact I went to school for journalism... I don't really enjoy it, but I seem to be good at it. Or good enough. Some days are better than others, but most of the time I try to keep an eye on the end goal of retiring at 60ish in Jan 2031. 

My dream retirement job is to design and build custom car interiors and wiring.  Starting with the four cars I have to learn/practice on. Maybe it will work out... maybe not.  But with any luck at least I'll have the cars to show for my efforts and enjoy.

Being rather financially risk-averse, I tend to lean towards the "stick it out for a few more years until retirement" side.  But there has to be some balance between planning for tomorrow and living for today. That balance will be different for everyone, so there is no right or wrong answer. 

Don't want to veer off on too much of a tangent, but my retirement calculations are also including inflation, so the buying power of my investments is less than what I had planned for at this time, regardless of absolute dollar value.  Plus, sadly, while most of my stuff is in fairly safe funds, my international investment funds have been pretty much E36 M3.