A "Real" Summer.

Sublime lied. Summertime, and the livin isn’t easy.¹ Or maybe they just didn’t have kids.

This summer was really challenging. I think it was one of the tougher summers I’ve experienced.

Tougher than last year when I was laid off.

I am semi-retired officially. My daughter finished kindergarten. She had 72 days before 1st grade starts.

This was my first “real” summer as a parent.

For the last 15+ years, summer was just another season. Living in San Francisco, I didn’t even have the weather cues from my Texas childhood to mark the change.

It wasn’t summer; it was just Q2/Q3, with all the Europeans on holiday at the end.

This summer was going to be real.

It turns out that “real” isn’t easy.

The summer did end on a very high note. School started back up! A sense of normalcy and routine returned. On top of that I moved an entire 1 mile down the street, but it is amazing how much a difference 1 mile in San Francisco can make. I can now walk my daughter to school. I have outdoor space. I have an oven vent that isn’t a microwave blowing air back in my face. I have a grill. I can garden.

I’ll have to re-do all my Enough in San Francisco numbers… but that will be a different post.

Let’s go through my first Semi-FIRE’d summer looked like.

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Pre-Summer Rookie Parent Planning

We kicked off our summer with uncertainty. In a rookie parent move, I missed the crucial summer camp sign up deadlines by mere hours. The non-rookie parents know that the key is to keep a close eye on the Facebook mom groups as spring begins to roll around. That’s where the real action happens—a master spreadsheet that gets shared from mom to mom with every camp in the area and all the important dates.

There is one big date when the city opens enrollment for all the camps the parks department runs. Getting a spot is like buying a ticket to Taylor Swift. Parents across the city smashing that F5 button across multiple devices. If you’re not on it early, you’re left scrambling. By the time I got there, the waitlists were already a mile long. I was number 100 on most of them and that’s if I was lucky.

Planning summer camps in San Francisco? It’s like roadmap planning at a FAANG. Parents here are in full tactical mode, mapping out every week of the summer months well in advance. But this time, I was late to the game.

So, we were suddenly without a plan, and as a parent, that felt like a failure.

I think there’s a kind of guilt that I felt with being the primary caregiver, especially when I’m not working full-time. There’s this voice that says, “Shouldn’t I be spending more one-on-one time with her? Why am I putting her in camp at all if I’m here? Isn’t this supposed to be fun?”

I am also a realist though. Solo parenting during the day is 10x harder than working at FAANG. It was as much about giving her a fun summer as it was about giving me some time to plan the move, and do whatever it is I do during the day. I knew I couldn’t survive the full summer without any plans.

We did get lucky early on, though. The San Francisco Parks Department called with a last-minute opening for a wetlands camp, and I jumped on it. It was perfect—a small group, lots of outdoor time, and a chance for my daughter to learn about the ecology of the bay. For two weeks, she was out there exploring, playing with crabs along the bayfront, and I thought, okay, maybe I could piece the summer together. At $329 it was a steal, now I understand why the camp sign up process is so competitive.

Amidst all the camp chaos, there was another change —we found a new place to live! Back in mid-May, I found what felt like the perfect home to rent on Zillow. It was in the exact location we wanted, where we could walk to school in less than five minutes. We had been looking for the last year and a half. This place checked all our boxes and then some—a single-family home with a garage, a backyard, and everything we’d hoped for. Compared to our old place in SOMA, where we had no outdoor space, a closet that leaked whenever it rained, and was next to a factory. It was a massive upgrade. It was also much more expensive, so be on the lookout for another revision of my “Enough to FIRE in San Francisco” numbers.

We signed the lease with a start date of August 1st, which is a lot of time to prepare, while also prolonging the excitement, and stress that came with it. The move was always in the back of my mind as the summer progressed.

After the wetlands camp, we had a week with her after-school program’s summer camp, which went smoothly, and then a more relaxed week around the Fourth of July. We spent time in different parks, just trying to enjoy the downtime, but the move to our new home was always in the back of my mind. We were trying to purge things, especially all the toys that seem to multiply when you’re not looking.

But things were looking good. Camps seemed to be working out. We would end the summer in a new place. I even got a call from the parks department about another camp opening that we were able to jump on. It sounded perfect on paper—an outdoor wilderness camp, bigger than what she was used to, but full of activities she’d love.

It quickly became clear that a larger, more open camp, was a bit too much for her. The size of the group, the noise, the new environment—it was overwhelming. By the second day, after a couple of incidents, the camp may have asked us not to come back for the rest of the week. That was a tough moment, especially when she asked me about shooting bow and arrows the next day. I had to explain that we wouldn’t be coming back. It was a hard lesson for her, one that I’m not sure she fully grasped at the time.

But then, in what felt like a small miracle, I reached out to a outdoor play based group we began working with to see if they had any 1:1 availability. Even better, they had an opening in an outdoor camp. It was a much smaller, more intimate environment with just five kids and professionals who understood what all the kids needed. She thrived there. It felt like we’d finally found the right fit—a place where she could enjoy camp without being overwhelmed, and where I could breathe a little easier knowing she was in good hands.

That camp was a definite bright spot. She still talks about the trapeze they set up in the trees, and we ended up setting up a little trapeze in our new backyard. It’s those small victories, those moments of seeing her light up with excitement, that make the tough days worth it. It also felt like a good balance of camp experiences, with her getting out at 1pm, so we were still able to spend time together.

The Move

And then there was the move. We managed to get everything done a little earlier than planned, which was a relief. We even got our full security deposit back from the old place—no small feat after living with a six-year-old for five years. I played with the idea of doing the move ourselves, then just laughed. That was not going to happen. I threw money at the problem. I hired full service movers who would pack and move everything for us.

Moving still sucks though. There are so many small things. Here are the different action items I was managing.

• Research & Book Moving Company:

  • Get quotes from multiple movers.

  • Select and book a moving company.

  • Confirm moving date and arrival window.

• Prepare Inventory List:

  • Create a detailed list of items to move.

  • Decide on items to sell, donate, or dispose of.

• Utilities Setup & Cancellation:

  • Schedule new utility services (Internet, electricity, water, trash).

  • Cancel existing utility services.

  • Return rented equipment (e.g., Comcast modem).

• Mail Forwarding:

  • Set up mail forwarding to the new address.

  • Update addresses with banks, credit cards, insurance, and other services.

• Cleaning & Repairs:

  • Schedule deep cleaning for both new and old residences.

  • Repair any damages at the old residence before move-out.

• Renters Insurance:

  • Set up a new renters insurance policy.

  • Cancel the old renters insurance policy after moving.

• Security Deposit Management:

  • Track the security deposit balance and any interest owed.

  • Ensure the refund is processed within the legal timeframe.

• Moving Day Preparation:

  • Confirm movers’ arrival time.

  • Pack essential items separately.

  • Prepare cash for tips.

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The End of “Summer”

August was filled with all the things that come after a big move. We are slowly chipping away at the piles of boxes. One recycling day at a time.

School started up. A little bit of a bumpy start, but I think after the 2nd week things are falling into a groove. Even though we are less than a 5 minute walk away… getting to school before the 7:50am start time is still a bit of a work in progress. Mornings are hard. I didn’t fully appreciate how during this first “real” summer, I was able to sleep in. Sure, we relaxed the “screen time only on weekends” rule. But getting to sleep in… that was nice.

Moving into our new home has been everything we hoped for and more. My daughter loves the new place, especially having a backyard where she can run in and out freely. The little things, like being able to reach the freezer on her own and making her own ice, have brought her so much joy.

Is this the part where the child induced amnesia starts kicking in? Where I start to forget how hard each day was? Where I only remember the good things? Probably. But I am definitely setting a damn reminder in the spring for camp sign ups. I am not making that rookie mistake again.

This summer was full of challenges—big emotions, big changes, and a lot of stress. It wasn’t the easy, carefree summer I might have imagined, but it sure was real.

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What’s Next for FAANG FIRE

During the summer I cut back significantly on my 1:1 financial coaching, canceled a number of projects, and I didn’t write as much as I had hoped. Thats ok with me though. My goal with all of this isn’t about turning FAANG FIRE into a job. It is about taking advantage of the optionality of FIRE and doing work that gives me purpose. Many times that will mean not writing. Not trying to do things that scale.

I am going to go into fall with renewed energy. While drastically increasing my expenses while drastically cutting down on my income is still perfectly within my FIRE plans… it does come with an extra bit of motivation.

I want to post more. Moving up from 2x per month to 3x at least. I want to refresh my free tools and dashboards. I want to explore partnerships that are good fits with this newsletters (thanks Frec for being the first of those). I want to think more about what a FAANG FIRE Community could look like. I want to dip my toes more into video. I want to go on more podcasts. I want to look for more opportunities to reach more FAANG workers to help them get on the path to financial independence.

Thank you for being here. The comments, emails, and messages are the ultimate motivation.

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Speaking of podcasts and videos. I had the opportunity to chat with Aakash Gupta about the 9 years I spent on Meta's Product Growth team.

So much about how I approach my own FIRE journey is shaped by the growth frameworks and methodology used to grow products at META.

If you want to learn more about how Product Growth at Meta works and my own journey, read, watch, or listen on the Product Growth newsletter.

1. Sublime’s Doin’ Time starts off with “Summertime, and the livin’s easy”. Originally sampled from a much older Gershwin musical.