Today I’m very happy to bring you a live, in-the-flesh interview with Mike Tritt, a Denver-based climber who achieved financial independence and retired from his mechanical engineering job at age 35.
Mike now climbs full-time and supports his fiancée Suzanna in her career, which she has chosen to continue pursuing. In this interview we discuss how Mike juggled climbing with a career and then walked away from mandatory work in his 30s. We address how Mike is striking a balance between a home-based relationship and the desire for long trips on the road. Finally, we take on the subject of purpose in life without traditional work. Plus, so much more!
The podcast should now be live on all major podcast hosts, but I’ve provided the RSS feed below if you need to manually subscribe. Please let me know your thoughts!
Subscribe to the podcast (RSS Feed): https://feeds.simplecast.com/xNcSNki1
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Mike Tritt on Ultraperm (5.13d), Red River Gorge. (Photo: Kim McGrenere) 
Mike Tritt on Fun De Chichunne (5.13b), Kalymnos, Greece. (Photo: Cartoon Eddy) 
Mike Tritt on Omaha Beach (5.14a), Red River Gorge. (Photo: Kim McGrenere)
Links:
Relevant Financial Links:
The CC Family Investing Strategy, Part 1: Philosophy and Asset Allocation
The CC Family Investing Strategy, Part 2: Where Exactly Is Our Money?
Some Fantastic News on Health Insurance Costs
Market Timing: Why It (Still) Doesn’t Work
There’s No Way I’m Investing in this Economy! (on when to start investing)
The Wondrous and Fantastic Powers of Compound Growth
Financial Advisor: Who Needs One?
Get in Touch with Mike Tritt
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I really enjoyed the podcast! Great job! I’m looking forward to more episodes!
Excellent, glad to hear. Let’s do that follow-up interview soon!
Happy to do so. Just email me whenever to set it up.
I’d be curious to dig into the mechanics of what you are doing in your first year of retirement:
1.) Roth conversions to top of 12%?
2.) Harvesting as many cap gains as possible? Are you prioritizing those with lowest cost basis first? Or highest? It shouldn’t matter much, so long as they are long term cap gains. Perhaps prioritizing selling highest cost basis gains first would simplify recordkeeping down the road?
3.) Experience with ACA subsidies?
Not much new going on over here. We sort of hit “FI” this month at a 4% SWR, but I don’t trust that at all. I won’t claim victory until we’re at 3%. Also, I’m probably going to work for a decade post FI because I don’t want to disrupt the lives of my (many) kids. I’ll wait till they finish school. But it’ll be weird continuing to work post-FI. Working while not having to still seems like a pretty good gig. My job is probably the least bad job I can imagine.
All great questions! I’ll probably wait until year-end to address much of this. We’re waiting to see how income shakes out, then make moves on Roth conversions/cap gains late in Q4.
Congrats on “FI!” I’d definitely recommend staying on at your job if you like the work. Of course, I don’t think I could ever go back to standard working hours now that I’ve been sipping the “unemployed” Kool-aid for 18+ months, but if your work is meaningful, stick with it. It’s a tricky balance. I still find that folks really love that 20-hour sweet spot, if you can get it. Not too much, but more than zero work. YMMV.