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Why Are 20-Somethings Retiring?

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Re: Why Are 20-Somethings Retiring?

#61

Post by SonicSoul »

cobaltblue wrote: post #53
SonicSoul wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of bullshit work assigned in a typical corporate job What jobs don't have that? As if startups magically solved this problem by giving employees nothing but innovative thought provoking problems and everything else is handled by worker elfs. No, every place has its share of bs work. the difference is that a portion (majority?) of corporate folks stopped caring to actually solve problems. Instead they do…

Almost every not-typical-big-corporate job has less bullshit work assigned than the lot of BS assigned to typical big corporate job workers. Startups and even mid-size companies don't magically solve the problem of having to do BS work, there's typically just a lot less of it. When what you do or don't do is all up to you, the portion of BS work goes to 0 because you don't want to do it so you don't. Companies fall o…

I've worked at larger co's (1k+ employees) where BS work was actively eradicated in order to have breathing space to move forward and innovate. This is possible but requires vigilant management and hiring the kind of people that want to make a difference. There's more red tape at corps which may be part of the BS you're pointing out but even that was actively fought. I see it similar to technical debt. It's easy to accumulate if you're not careful and easy to live with at first but will slowly come back and take you down.

Re: Why Are 20-Somethings Retiring?

#62

Post by a-priori »

jazzyk wrote: post #5
such_a_casual wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It shouldn't be called retirement. In personal finance it's called, "Financial Independence." Which basically means you aren't necessarily done working for the rest of your life, just that working has become completely optional. more info: https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence

"...you aren't necessarily done working for the rest of your life, just that working has become completely optional" Optional - as long as you live in your parents' basement and don't want to start a family. :-)

The premise of "financial independence" is that you save enough enough money and reduce your expenses enough that you can live for the rest of your life on your investments. Whether you choose to retire or not is up to you, but the point is that you are 'independent' of sources of income to fund your lifestyle. For example, you could reduce your working hours to spend more time on family or hobbies, or take long unpaid sabbaticals, or bootstrap a business, or just quit working entirely.

It turns out that you can safely withdraw 3% a year indefinitely (from a portfolio composed of a mix of stocks and bonds in low-fee index funds) without reducing the the value of the investments in the long run. A higher rate of 4% will decline on average over time but can be enough to survive multi-decade retirements, so that's often a more realistic target. There are tools (e.g. http://www.firecalc.com/, http://www.cfiresim.com/) to run simulations based on historical market data.

At 4% you need a portfolio equal to 25 years worth of expenses. Let's say you spend $60k a year in today's dollars. This works out to a monthly budget of $5k. If you can save $1.5M then that will pay your expenses for 30 years, without any other income, with a 94% chance of success. At 3% you need 33 years of expenses, or $2.0M, and that has a 100% chance of success. This is all based on past data of course (past performance does not imply future performance and all that).

These are large sums of money, but it's possible for most professional workers, and especially couples, to accumulate them if they are fairly frugal and make a decent income. The time required entirely depends on what portion of your income you can save (see http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-sim...). Assuming a constant income, as well as constant expenses while working and after, if you save 50% of your household income it will take 17 years to reach the 4% level. So start at age 30 and you'll be done by 47.

Re: Why Are 20-Somethings Retiring?

#63

Post by cobaltblue »

pc86 wrote: post #59
cobaltblue wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even worse, he said of 20-somethings (not out of the whole population, and not just 20 year olds) which leaves a start number around 45 million, or a mere 45 people in the USA. It's actually pretty easy to become financially independent before you hit 30 if you finish college on time (while you're 23) and get a 6-figure job out of college, and work for a few years with a small (sub-25k/yr) annual cost of living.

It's also "actually pretty easy to become financially independent" if you hit the lottery. Both our examples aren't really conducive to an actual discussion. 1. The number of fields allowing a new grad to get a six-figure job are very small. 2. The number of places offering the above while also allowing the new grad to live in an area where they can have a sub-$2k/mo footprint are incredibly limited. 3. Of the people…

It's far easier to do a CS degree and get hired as a software developer (while not blowing your income on insanely high rent in San Francisco city-proper -- yeah you'll have to suck up a commute, live with roommates, or live almost anywhere else with a tech scene) than it is to win a lottery sum over $500k-600k. And there are more options than software -- just because the number of fields is small doesn't necessarily make it any harder if those fields are in high demand and you have the ability to work in them. This is actually conducive to an actual discussion, on HN, because a lot of us here have done this, are doing it (may have passed 30 though), or are still in high school and looking to do it.

Re 4. it's only pointless if you foresee nothing afterwards. To me there's nothing wrong with wanting to have "fuck you" money (not just being "independent") without really knowing what you'll do when you get it, you can figure that out later and you'll have many options available to you -- a lot of us just keep working, with the added benefit of being able to drop unsatisfying jobs without any anxiety of not being able to find a new one.

Re: Why Are 20-Somethings Retiring?

#64

Post by eanzenberg »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #41
tinalumfoil wrote: post #19

> When you're in your twenties you should be spending that time really exploring and thinking about the things that give you meaning. Once you start growing up and living a life more you won't be able to do that again. -Digit CEO (from video) I hate the idea that once you leave college and get a job your life of having fun is over. As though fiscal irresponsibility is necessary for finding your life's "meaning" and y…

I hate the other end of that idea (reality) - that you have to grow up and be responsible and stop having fun or be spontaneous in your life, because from now on it's career, marriage, career, kids, career, retirement and death.

Which are all choices you make.

Re: Why Are 20-Somethings Retiring?

#66

Post by toomuchtodo »

jazzyk wrote: post #51
toomuchtodo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Optional - as long as you live in your parents' basement and don't want to start a family. :-) I think this is where there's a fundamental disconnect in cultures. I'm 33, my wife 31. We're about to have kids, and we've strongly considered moving in with my parents, not only to spend more time with them, but also to provide care when necessary as well as have their help watching and raising our children. Just becaus…

I come from a culture with close multi-generational ties, so I don't think there is anything wrong with your potential decision at all - if it is your _choice_, not _necessity_

I definitely agree it should be by choice, but that's only going to change in the US if workers start fighting for higher wages, more labor regulation, and other initiatives that value labor above capital.

Otherwise, prepare to move to the basement.

Re: Why Are 20-Somethings Retiring?

#67

Post by steve-howard »

eanzenberg wrote: post #64
TeMPOraL wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate the other end of that idea (reality) - that you have to grow up and be responsible and stop having fun or be spontaneous in your life, because from now on it's career, marriage, career, kids, career, retirement and death.

Which are all choices you make.

Career is certainly not a choice I make. It's a necessity. Hell, I'd probably enjoy it more if I didn't need it.

Re: Why Are 20-Somethings Retiring?

#68

Post by VLM »

xwkd wrote: post #54
PaulHoule wrote: post #33

Nothing gets in the New York Times unless it interests people over 50. Back when the boomers were young there were huge numbers of article about hippies, drugs and all that stuff because old people like to read about what young people are doing and try it out for themselves. It makes them feel young. Old farts have been obsessed with iTunes, iPhones, iPads, and all that i-stuff for Apple as long as they've been makin…

Funny. Faith in institutions created a great society. People worked together for the common good. Then, the corruption and abuses of power in those institutions left that society disillusioned; uncommitted. Everyone became disengaged and individualistic. What happens after that? It really seems like a pattern in large social structures. Maybe it isn't, though. It's hard to say without generational bias. Any sociologi…

In the old days culture would just transform to relieve old stresses (while planting the seeds of new stresses, usually)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformation_of_culture

In the modern era that can't happen because we've fine tuned mass media and marketing and educational indoctrination such that there is only one correct culture, that being the culture of the recent past. The one true life path was laid out for you before you were born, and if the world doesn't cooperate, you need to try harder.

In the long run you can't stop cultural transformation, but trying to hold it back via weird new artificial technologies means when it does snap it'll be a doozy, make the '60s look positively tame in comparison. Imagine trying to advance, say, 50 years, in a just a couple years. Things that work will be fun; things that crash and burn under the intense acceleration will not be so fun.

The snap will likely be fairly unpredictable. For example the dominant culture today is intensely progressive. The snap will almost certainly not be perfectly in phase or perfectly out of phase with progressivism.

Re: Why Are 20-Somethings Retiring?

#69

Post by cobaltblue »

SonicSoul wrote: post #61
cobaltblue wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost every not-typical-big-corporate job has less bullshit work assigned than the lot of BS assigned to typical big corporate job workers. Startups and even mid-size companies don't magically solve the problem of having to do BS work, there's typically just a lot less of it. When what you do or don't do is all up to you, the portion of BS work goes to 0 because you don't want to do it so you don't. Companies fall o…

I've worked at larger co's (1k+ employees) where BS work was actively eradicated in order to have breathing space to move forward and innovate. This is possible but requires vigilant management and hiring the kind of people that want to make a difference. There's more red tape at corps which may be part of the BS you're pointing out but even that was actively fought. I see it similar to technical debt. It's easy to a…

I would describe your experience as atypical, wouldn't you? Just like Valve's nearly-flat management is atypical and requires a certain mesh of personalities and pruning to work at all. Counterexamples exist, it's not a perfect correlation, but unless they're plentiful they don't really change the typical.
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