Downsizing to Early Retirement

The term downsizing is usually used in reference to trading a larger house for a smaller one. This makes sense to your average FI minded individual who sees both the economic and psychological benefits of offloading unnecessary space and cost. Having young school-aged children, I’m not quite at that place at this moment. Financial freedom, however, has given me another avenue for such thinking. As I reach the top of the accumulation phase, I have started to think of downsizing to early retirement.

I am not ready to retire yet. I still like being a physician and favor human capital as its own insurance policy against sequence of returns risk. Yet, given that I have more than enough, it no longer makes sense for me to front load the sacrifice anymore.

Over the last five years, I have been progressively downsizing my job.

Concierge Medicine

My first downsizing occurred in 2013. At the time, I was running a busy outpatient medical practice with over two thousand patients. My schedule was packed, the paperwork was piled on my desk, and my mobile phone wouldn’t stop ringing. Sure the money was good, but I quickly realized that if I didn’t change my ways, I would run myself into the ground over the next few decades.

The benefit of financial independence is that I was free to make drastic decisions without the dire consequences. I closed my practice and replaced it with a small home-based concierge model. This improved my life and decreased hassles in so many ways.

I no longer needed a large office space or much staff
I could take care of 200 patients instead of 2000
Paperwork decreased exponentially

By moving from a traditional to a concierge practice, I saw how downsizing to early retirement is a realistic alternative. I didn’t have to call it quits just yet.

Side Hustle

Over the next few years, I built up a number of lazy side hustles like medical directorships and hospice work. These often paid better on an hourly basis than seeing patients. Although my concierge practice was booming, I found that it was both time and energy-consuming. I was still often getting phone calls on nights and weekends.

Downsizing to early retirement made the most sense.

So I dropped the concierge practice in 2018 and confined patient visits to nursing homes only. This has greatly optimized my work day, and cut down on off-hours phone calls.

Happy Birthday To Me

Coming up on my 45th birthday this week, I promised myself to cut back further. Over the last few months, I have whittled down the number of nursing homes I visit. Starting this weekend, I will no longer round on Sunday morning as I have been doing for the last few years. This will mean that I essentially have the whole weekend off.

Since I am not ready to stop being a doctor, downsizing to early retirement is the best path. I get to have my cake and eat it too.

Final Thoughts

Retirement isn’t for everyone. Many of us either like our jobs or fear sequence of returns risk. We are caught up in the one more year syndrome.

While I first thought this was a negative, I have come to believe in the power of human capital and have let go of the time money continuum. I choose to entertain myself with work instead of other things. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t continuously downsize my way towards early retirement.

One step at a time.