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Early-Retirement Update

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Re: Early-Retirement Update

#421

Post by pdimitar »

Sileni wrote: post #420
pdimitar wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would add "...if you weren't a good match in the first place". Your statement kind of tries to make itself universal. I absolutely will never subscribe to the BS notion of "couples love each other more when they don't spend much time together". I'm with my wife for 7 years now and I already worked remotely by the time we met. Our relationship is actually getting better with time. So what you say mostly applies to p…

I said it was an easy thing to have happen, not that it would happen. I'd argue that you took my statement in bad faith, looking for a flaw in it, and generalized more aggressively than I did.

Possibly. Sorry if it felt like it, there was no ill will.

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#422

Post by pcglue »

mettamage wrote: post #408
pcglue wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would absolutely love to find a software position with 24-32 hour week, but I have not heard of such a thing, short of going out on your own and freelancing. No employer I know of (in software field, I don't want to go work retail) would consider allowing employees to work part time. I have considered contracting or even freelancing too, but I've been a W2 worker my entire career. I'd have to look into how to do th…

For EU citizens, The Netherlands is totally a country where 32 hours per week is possible. The pay is also a lot lower ;-) Though, compared to a 40 hour work week, you only take a 20% pay cut (and probably get passed up on promotions, so there is an opportunity cost).

Work climate is much different here in the manic U.S. I'd gladly take the 20% pay cut and be passed over for promotions. I actively decline promotion to team lead/management anyway. Whatever extra benefits there are in pay/title is not worth the stress.

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#423

Post by prewett »

lostmsu wrote: post #192
mathgladiator wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to start blogging about FIRE from the other extreme end. I'm a principal engineer making serious dollars, and I'm writing down my playbook. I intend to "Fat-FIRE", and the only reason I don't retire now is to see how much I can leverage my position to do crazy shit at massive scale. Paradoxically, this sets me up for larger windfalls because I can take risks that my peers do not take.

You should do that. I am an early retiree, who sometimes thinks it would be nice to get back into the industry just to steer or at least nudge the projects I still care about very much into the direction I'd like to seem them to go. And because they are corporate-driven (hello, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google!) it is just too hard to do from the outside.

You might try contacting them, indicating that you are passionate about their project, and would they be interested in hiring you as a 1099 for six months (or 20 hrs/week or whatever) to implement {feature}. I'm beginning to realize that while everyone (workers, businesses) have a fairly one-track assumption of what employment/work would look like, a lot of times businesses are open to non-traditional ideas. A lot of places are fine with part-time if they know they can count on you to get stuff done. PMs seem to value predictability over throughput. Also I think the trend to remote work will help the process of being able work on just a piece of a project.

Anyway, you might as well give it a try, see what happens.

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#424

Post by therealdrag0 »

tjs8rj wrote: post #324
beambot wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon Musk's life is at the opposite extremum of "floating through life." The man works 90+ hours per week, gambled his entire fortune on two risky hardware companies, serves as a prominent public figure, and destroyed many of his close personal relationships (e.g. remarried numerous times). He's having tremendous impact; I respect him like crazy & would happily back his endeavors... But I wouldn't wish for his lifest…

I’d be very surprised if Elon consistently works more than 60 hours a week, and pretty surprised if it was more than 50. It’d be a waste of his position and talent if he did. He has the capital and influence to have others do almost all other tasks, his main focus is likely to be on longer term strategy and thinking. He’s also a dad of 5 or so kids. His health is far more valuable than working 2 typical work weeks ev…

I have a friend who works for Tesla as a factory automation engineer, and just a few years ago he told me a story of Elon working with him 1-1 keeping him up in the middling of the night editing car welds. I very much get the impression Elon is a workaholic.

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#425

Post by pcglue »

jjav wrote: post #363
pcglue wrote: post #184

2.8M nut, about 50/50 in regular/retirement accounts. I'm mid 40's, married with two pre-teen kids, annual expenses of $80K, live in HCOL area (Southern California). Would you FIRE in this situation? Would you take a year long hiatus? As much as I would like to FIRE, I can't/won't, even though the "numbers" say I probably could. But seriously considering a months to year long career break/sabbatical/hiatus, because I…

Realistically you can't retire, not with two pre-teen kids. But you can take a comfortable number of years off though and it is very nice to do that. Decompress, spend tons of time with those pre-teen kids while they still are that age. I took about 3 years off in my 40s when my child was starting elementary school. Spent all my afternoons playing with the kid and all mornings (school time) working on my personal pro…

> Realistically you can't retire, not with two pre-teen kids.

Yeah, I think I realize this deep down, and part of why I don't want to.

> I took about 3 years off in my 40s

How did your job search go when you decided to go back to work? What was your last job before taking a break and what was the new job that you found? Were they similar or completely different? Did you have any trouble with a 3-year gap? You obviously didn't have any major issues, like not finding a job. But were you questioned a lot about the gap? Sorry so many questions, but I'm intensely interested in how it went for you because I might be doing the same.

If I do take a year off, I figure I could explain it partly with the pandemic, and wanting to take care of my kids (not untrue).

I know my savings allow me a long runway and if I take a career break, I'm sure I could figure something out during that time. But still, actually stepping off that cliff is nerve-wracking, for me at least.

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#426

Post by jjav »

pcglue wrote: post #425
jjav wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Realistically you can't retire, not with two pre-teen kids. But you can take a comfortable number of years off though and it is very nice to do that. Decompress, spend tons of time with those pre-teen kids while they still are that age. I took about 3 years off in my 40s when my child was starting elementary school. Spent all my afternoons playing with the kid and all mornings (school time) working on my personal pro…

> Realistically you can't retire, not with two pre-teen kids. Yeah, I think I realize this deep down, and part of why I don't want to. > I took about 3 years off in my 40s How did your job search go when you decided to go back to work? What was your last job before taking a break and what was the new job that you found? Were they similar or completely different? Did you have any trouble with a 3-year gap? You obvious…

I had way less savings (but enough to live comfortably at least 5 years and maybe another 5 penny-pinching if I had to) and it wasn't stressful.

I suggest setting up a solo consulting business up front. I didn't think of doing that, did it in the third year and only after someone contacted me asking for some consulting help. I did then have a couple clients for consulting but I only worked a couple hours a week and not every month so it was minimal-to-none at best. But it did give me a legitimate entry in the resume as consulting business owner. Maybe that helped.

I was very worried about the gap but it was a non-issue. Most places didn't ask at all. The few that did, I told them I wanted to be a stay-at-home-dad for a while and spend time with the kid (true) and everyone was "wow, very cool!"

(I'm in Silicon Valley, culture might be different elsewhere.)

It's hard to say how long it took me to find a new job because I didn't exactly look for one. After setting up the consulting gig I started thinking it would be great to find enough consulting work to fill about 20hrs/wk and just keep doing that. So I started reading my linkedin messages instead of ignoring them. I'd respond to the recruiters saying I'm not looking for a full time role but I'd be open to part-time consulting for their project. No takers, I wish companies were more open to part-time help. One of those recruiters ended up being more persistent and convinced me to go in for interviews even though I didn't want a FT role. Ended up liking the team so took the offer. I was at a principal engineer/architect level before and after.

I obviously don't know your situation but given your high savings and the age of the kids, it's a great opportunity to spend time with them now.

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#427

Post by jjav »

neogodless wrote: post #225
pcglue wrote: post #184

2.8M nut, about 50/50 in regular/retirement accounts. I'm mid 40's, married with two pre-teen kids, annual expenses of $80K, live in HCOL area (Southern California). Would you FIRE in this situation? Would you take a year long hiatus? As much as I would like to FIRE, I can't/won't, even though the "numbers" say I probably could. But seriously considering a months to year long career break/sabbatical/hiatus, because I…

You can spend $80k a year for 35 years and keep your investment in any vehicle that just barely keeps up with inflation. If that nut achieves just 3% annual gain over inflation, you'll still have the same nut in 35 years... Can you explain the "can't" part of early retirement? The "won't" is of course your decision and no one else's. But why do you say "can't"?

80K in California for a family with two kids isn't really that much.

Probably we've all seen the articles on how 100+K income in Silicon Valley falls as "low income": https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44725026

And those pre-teen kids will be college kids later at which point OP will need far more than 80K/yr.

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#428

Post by _carbyau_ »

psychiatrist24 wrote: post #389
_carbyau_ wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much this. Everyone gets old. How can we not want a society that would take care of them, including some form of worthwhile employment? It is an inherently selfish setup as one day you too will be old. Edit: trying to clarify my thoughts/point.

But what kind of thing do you have in mind? Afaik actually taking care of old people is backbreaking work, probably not suitable for most retirees.

Well, that's the trick. I mean there are obviously a lot of details and varying conditions and possibilities.

But that doesn't mean they are all useless and should be in an old folks home.

To more directly answer your question.

Old people don't have to take care of even older people. I mean the whole point is to NOT cut them off from the rest of society.

It needs a social component and simplicity. However, simpler tasks are often more easily automated and people generally avoid social interaction it seems.

I get the feeling that people would rather a hot coffee vending machine than talking to ol' Carol or Bob at the mom & pop cafe.

Some random ideas: - Working the coffee shop on the ground floor of the corporate building. - corporate internal mail - storytime Reader at the local library - non-profit business pushbike/skateboard/scooter store - campus bus service

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#429

Post by dang »

hw_tw_03_22 wrote: post #205
mathgladiator wrote: post #93

The sad thing was the status grind on his partner; that's unfortunate but all too common. It seems he ended up with a more compatible partner in the end, so I'm happy for him. I recently learned there is this term called "Sigma male" where status is not interesting. Now, I don't know if it is real or just some label, but I do know people that don't care. I personally don't care, but this is after testing the waters o…

>I've come to the realization that most of my ideas are going to be seen harshly from many technical people, and they will not be taken seriously at first. No, I think your ideas on fatFIRE are right and should be copied by everyone who can.

Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=community%20identity%20by:dang...

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#430

Post by pcglue »

jjav wrote: post #426
pcglue wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Realistically you can't retire, not with two pre-teen kids. Yeah, I think I realize this deep down, and part of why I don't want to. > I took about 3 years off in my 40s How did your job search go when you decided to go back to work? What was your last job before taking a break and what was the new job that you found? Were they similar or completely different? Did you have any trouble with a 3-year gap? You obvious…

I had way less savings (but enough to live comfortably at least 5 years and maybe another 5 penny-pinching if I had to) and it wasn't stressful. I suggest setting up a solo consulting business up front. I didn't think of doing that, did it in the third year and only after someone contacted me asking for some consulting help. I did then have a couple clients for consulting but I only worked a couple hours a week and n…

Thank you, you've given me a lot to be optimistic about.
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