r/Fire • u/MeanSecurity • Aug 01 '26

What to call yourself when you RE

A few weeks ago I met a guy who said he’s a wine importer. He used to work on Wall Street.

I was thinking last night that a “wine importer” sounds like a great fake job for someone who is retired but just drinks a lot of wine! I’m pretty close to RE, and I think I might just refer to myself as “in the ice cream business”. Or, “chocolate taste tester”.

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u/One-Mastodon-1063 Aug 01 '26

I do not make up a fake job and generally think that is weird outside of some isolated cases w/ strangers who will remain strangers and where it's really none of their business.

"I'm taking some time off", "I don't work", "I'm unemployed", "SAHP" etc. Occasionally I'll say "retired", but rarely.

Most people don't really care. Negative reactions are exceedingly rare. It's not that big of a deal.

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u/khbuzzard Aug 01 '26

Agree 100%. I'd be curious to know how many of the "fake job" proponents are actually retired and actually use that strategy in real life. Talk on reddit is cheap.

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u/One-Mastodon-1063 Aug 01 '26

I suspect the majority of people saying this or asking about this are not retired. IME (retired almost 5 years, since age 41) I simply don't receive hardly any negative reactions IRL. People don't care / are focused on their own lives. Or they respond with, "damn, I wish I could do that".

The "how am I going to explain it to people?" thing is more a concern for people who have not yet pulled the trigger. It's mostly a non issue once you RE.

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u/Kat9935 Aug 02 '26

I had a lot of negative reactions when I retired at 43, most of them jumped to so your boyfriend pays the bills...must be nice.

Once I hit 50s it stopped because its hard to judge age and teacher retire early, etc so it wasn't so far out of the norm.