Early Retirement (2006) • Hacker News Board

Re: Early Retirement (2006)

#171

Post by anyfoo » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 4:22 PM UTC

Domenic_S wrote: post #40

awb wrote: post #3

> Retirement forces you to stop thinking that it is your job that holds you back. For most people the depressing truth is that they aren't that organized, disciplined, or motivated. Maybe, but I don’t know anyone who’s less happy being retired. They might not be living their retirement fantasy, but the pressure and stress of having to work is gone.

I tend to believe the statement -- I don't know about the "happiness" aspect per se but regarding doing all those things you told yourself you'd do, yeah for sure. During COVID lockdown I saw hundreds of instances of a meme something along the lines of: "I used to think I just didn't have the time for all the things I wanted to accomplish; lockdown proved that isn't true!" Not exactly scientific, but I can relate to…

And I cannot relate. This is not to say that I don't believe you, just to say that the opposite experience does exist. Some of my hobbies are pretty involved and basically require studying (signal processing etc.), and during the COVID lockdown I was able to spend much, much more time on not just those, but everything else as well.

I think I will be fine once I retire sometime.

Re: Early Retirement (2006)

#172

Post by Bostonian » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 4:23 PM UTC

cfeduke wrote: post #29

The greatest expense for me in retirement is now health insurance so it makes sense for me to instead work for insurance coverage and put my wealth towards an inheritance for my children. I used to naively believe once I paid off my mortgage, had a substantial retirement account and savings - a couple million dollars - I'd no longer work. It's also very difficult to get off of the treadmill of spending a lot of money…

I know of people who have enrolled in community college to be able to purchase health insurance at student rates, which are relatively low.

Re: Early Retirement (2006)

#173

Post by 52-6F-62 » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 4:24 PM UTC

jt2190 wrote: post #134

52-6F-62 wrote: post #27

And people say studying humanities is useless... Before you can even begin to approach questions like this, you have to get a lay of the land at least... read an article on philosophy and religion in the encyclopedia. These aren't new questions. They've been dissected and applied to the furthest reaches of our understanding. It's all written down and at our fingertips 24/7. They underlie the primary question in the a…

> How can [the idea that in the past that the average person did not expect to be happy] even be proposed? Maybe I just read way too into this. Is it a joke? First off, the author continued: > Life could be a struggle for survival with hard work and adversity at every corner. Marriages were arranged by parents and if, after 20 years, the couple hated each other, there was no option to divorce. While I guess that part…

The author is making a lot of assumptions about fundamental matters of philosophy and human psychology.

For instance, before we escape the first phrase in the section you quoted the author assumed that hard work and adversity run contradictory to happiness—or even actively oppose it.

I left the Gordon Lightfoot reference for a reason: the pleading of people for more material resources as the only road to their personal salvation from misery is there in psalm as a "rich man's spiritual".

"If I only had more X I could find my happiness/peace/salvation". In this article Mr Greenspun appears to begin to make a departure from that notion, but seems to keep tripping over strongly-held beliefs justifying a lust for financial rewards. That's not an easy thing to get away from.

Hell, there are tomes upon tomes about that very struggle—confusing the idea that you may as well enjoy the material to your capacity (he references Camus in that manner) with the material enjoyment being a prerequisite for your happiness.

Re: Early Retirement (2006)

#174

Post by bitxbitxbitcoin » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 4:25 PM UTC

neogodless wrote: post #98

2sk21 wrote: post #75

I retired early recently - I am in my mid 50s. It's not anywhere as hard as people seem to think. With a disciplined approach to investing, I think that it's very much possible to reach financial independence with a typical tech salary in the US. I achieved FI without an extraordinarily high salary, stock grants or participating in an IPO. There is a treasure trove of information in the Bogleheads wiki: https://www.b…

Early Retirement communities are kind of a spectrum. Bogleheads, inspired by Jack Bogle, founder of Vanguard, leans towards topics of investing, having lots of money, and being able to afford the things you want. If you visit the forums, expect to be encouraged to amass a very large fortune to be able to handle anything. MrMoneyMustache.com has an environmental slant, and tends to attract relatively high earners like…

These “stratified” communities are also viewable on Reddit. One end is called /r/fatfire and the other is /r/leanfire. To match the three communities you talked about in terms of anticipated spending… fatfire is similar to bogleheads while leanfire is similar to earlyretirementextreme. Fire being financial independence retirement early.

Re: Early Retirement (2006)

#175

Post by goostavos » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 4:25 PM UTC

underseacables wrote: post #96

I’m terrified of retirement. I’ve got about 30 years to go, and I’m only just now seriously thinking about saving for retirement. My two greatest fears are that I will retire and have to take a part-time job to make ends meet, or worse, there’s a health crisis that completely wiped us out financially. Our plan is to slowly develop a small real estate portfolio of rental properties to bring in secondary streams of inc…

I completely share the medical fear. The cost of american health care is absolutely terrifying. I'm only in my 30s, but got a taste of a bleak future when I had to get a whole suite of tests done to weed out what my doc thought may have been a major illness (turned out to be nothing, thankfully!). Those multiple x-rays, an MRI, and visits with specialists basically deleted a chunk of my HSA savings (even with my "good" insurance).

fwiw, retirement wise (baring a health event deleting everything), I just do the "invest everything" strategy outlined in books like I Will Teach you to be Rich and Get Rich Slowly. I only keep 7mo of "emergency" cash liquid. All tax protected accounts get maxed out, and everything else goes into an index fund.

Re: Early Retirement (2006)

#176

Post by throwaway894345 » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 4:25 PM UTC

ok2938 wrote: post #152

_k9eq wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless your opposition to capitalism is based on idealistic notions of morality, you have to accept that it is the predominant mode of production that society involuntarily finds itself in. Marx was financed by Engels, a factory owner and capitalist, and if he had refused to do so on principle, he would have probably never gotten around to write any of his theory (regardless of what one things of it). Money disassoci…

Yes, true - many societies are using this configuration for hundreds of years. My issue is not based on morality, but on the fact that we as humans are capable of reflecting on our existence. And that each of our lives is determined by a large amount of luck. I could be born smart, ill, rich, poor and so on. Does some accidental property give me more rights and opportunities than others? My western net worth would al…

Virtually no one likes inequality, but we really really don't want mass poverty, starvation, disease, etc that accompany alternative systems. Capitalism is how we minimize for poverty by tolerating some acceptable degree of inequality (it's a tricky but necessary calibration endeavor).

Re: Early Retirement (2006)

#177

Post by throwaway894345 » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 4:27 PM UTC

_k9eq wrote: post #162

kansface wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Breaking out of the capitalist cycle seems quite difficult to do while still maintaining a decent quality of life. I would suggest that's because its capitalism that provides that quality of life.

I am not interested in descending into an idealogical argument here, but most (serious) anti-capitalist criticisms will acknowledge that capitalism has brought the hitherto highest quality of life, just that it is self-constrained by the necessity to produce for profit. Socialism is then understood as the overcoming of this constraint, but as always if you ask n socialists/communists you get m answers, where m > n. I…

> it is self-constrained by the necessity to produce for profit

That's a constraint imposed by nature, not by capitalism. Capitalism tries to optimize the amount of profit per unit labor so as to elevate society out of poverty.

Re: Early Retirement (2006)

#178

Post by ok2938 » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 4:28 PM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #147

Scalestein wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a fellow anti-capitalist I struggle with how to live in a clearly capitalist world. I'm currently on track to retire at an average age or earlier and cynically view it as buying freedom from the system. In reality it reminds me of the old company store at coal mines. Paying workers in currency which can only be spent at their own store. Breaking out of the capitalist cycle seems quite difficult to do while still m…

I don't understand anti-capitalism. I get that it sucks to work to provide oneself with "a decent quality of life", but the whole point of capitalism is to minimize the amount of work one needs in order to secure that "decent quality of life". I.e., capitalism is the most efficient system we've found to secure a decent quality of life for as many people as possible. The laws of nature require that food, shelter, and…

I see capitalism as a good system in the sense that it does not require any belief in anything - that's certainly a plus.

What is bad is that I capital can just work and earn money, those not lucky need to be creative and actually use and sell their abilities.

Also bad: while there is competition, there is just a huge amount of excess and waste work because everybody is determined to out-compete the others.

In the end, a capitalist company aims for perpetual growth and monopoly, because that's where you can set your price and maximize your profit.

Re: Early Retirement (2006)

#179

Post by throwaway894345 » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 4:30 PM UTC

ok2938 wrote: post #163

tryingtogetback wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"anti-capitalist" - how does one become an "anti-capitalist" when it's abundantly clear that, even though it's not a perfect system, it's the best system there is? It's the system that facilitates competition, social progress, scientific advancements etc etc I'm thinking "anti-capitalist" attitude is usually a result of the poor decisions in early adulthood (decisions regarding education, reproduction, career, social…

Let me ask you, why aren't more workers "happy capitalists" and praise this way of living? Why aren't the warehouse workers more happy? Or the people soon displaced by computers and algorithms? Why aren't they look forward to a life of less chore and more free time? Why do so many people protest against climate change? Why is it ok for corporations to externalize costs? Why is all the considered good? I'm all for com…

> Let me ask you, why aren't more workers "happy capitalists" and praise this way of living?

Many are. The others don't understand economics, i.e., they don't understand that capitalism minimizes the amount of work required to meet their needs/desires, not least of all because of the sheer amount of misinformation.

Re: Early Retirement (2006)

#180

Post by lotsofpulp » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 4:31 PM UTC

jorblumesea wrote: post #167

lotsofpulp wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current system is not healthcare via employer. Anyone can go to healthcare.gov and get the same insurance plans. The main benefit of employer purchased health insurance is that you buy with pre tax dollars.

Sorry, affordable healthcare. Sure, public plans exist, but most state exchanges are 2k a month. It's not the same, because the insurance pools are different. Check the coverage plans: https://www.wahbexchange.org/new-customers/coverage-basics/p... Except for a few situations, it's mostly bottom tier insurance pools. Meanwhile, my insurance PPO ranged from $0.0 month (high deductible) to max ~$50.

They are not that different in my experience. The same metal level plan on healthcare.gov are pretty similar to what employers will be offered by the insurance companies. There might be some savings for those working at white collar firms with younger employees like tech and finance and law, but that will not apply to most people in the US.

Your portion of the insurance premium was $0 to $50 per pay period via your employer, but the cost of your insurance was still much higher, probably the same as healthcare.gov. Check code DD in box 12 of your W2 to see how much your employer paid, and you can compare the actual price of your health insurance.

Edit: NJ puts out a nice document that anyone can estimate their premium for based on metal level and age. Note that $2k per month would be for family coverage of 2 old people, but for young people it would be a third. Also note that prices for young people are extra high due to subsidizing old people due to stipulations in ACA limiting premiums for old people to be 3x those of young people. See “age rating factors” box at bottom of pdf.

https://www.nj.gov/dobi/division_insurance/ihcseh/ihcrates20...