Most of these early retirement failure essays are from people with poor social skills. The number 1 thing that will make you happy in retirement is friends to talk to.
Early Retirement (2006)
191–200 of 308 posts
Re: Early Retirement (2006)
#192Earlier 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…
> why aren’t more workers “happy capitalists”
Uh, because capitalists are literally a different class within capitalist society than workers; from top to bottom:
capitalists (haut bourgeoisie)
middle class (petit bourgeoisie)
workers (proleteriat)
underclass (lumpenproletariat)
You might as well ask, of feudal society, why more serfs aren’t “happy aristocrats”.
Capitalism is the best system possible…for people who are both (1) part of the capitalist class, (2) concerned primarily with their own relative position within society.
Re: Early Retirement (2006)
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 Bear in mind that you have been the beneficiary of an exceptional bull market
I should mention that I started regular automated index fund investing in the mid 1990s. I have been through two _big_ market corrections: 2001 and 2008-9. Despite being nervous, I never once stopped my automatic investments.
I understand, but consider how different your situation might be if those corrections had occurred at the end of your career rather than the beginning.
Re: Early Retirement (2006)
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why can't your kids work for their own house? It builds character. My mom told me I had to get a scholarship if I wanted my college paid, so I got one. Nobody is going to hand me a house either so I sought (and received) exceptional return in Bitcoin
So you got lucky on a crypto-gamble and you think your situation applies to everyone? Help could mean a lot of things... it could mean $20K towards their down payment all the way up to buying the damn thing, the poster didn't really clarify. This whole "builds character" thing is a bunch of bullshit that people spout off to poo-poo those that have a leg up in life.
Its not a gamble. It's a sure thing that only people with the right mix of technical knowledge and Austrian economics can see
Re: Early Retirement (2006)
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 en…
> 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.
Yeah, inequality is a bummer, but it's a small price to pay to lift billions out of abject poverty. Further, we can do more to calibrate our capitalist systems to be more efficient which is to say we can reduce the amount of inequality and lift more people further out of poverty. That said, capitalism has allowed many of us have been able to lift ourselves out of the labor class and to begin to earn passive income even if it hasn't allowed all of society to do so in perfect lock-step. It's a centuries-long process (7+ billion people distributed through a lot of different cultures and political systems with varying degrees of corruption especially among the non-capitalist systems), but we can get there.
> 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
Far less than any other system known to man.
> 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.
Our system largely marshals this corporate greed to the benefit of all of society. Many of us believe it can be marshaled more efficiently (i.e., less inequality and less poverty, probably by steeper taxes on the rich), but we're talking about calibrating the existing system--not changing to a fundamentally different one. Indeed, we haven't found an alternative to capitalism that isn't utterly catastrophic, so complaining about capitalism seems horribly destructive (by all means, complain about the degree to which our system could be made more efficient, but complaining that capitalism is responsible for the constraints imposed by nature is ultimately counterproductive).
Re: Early Retirement (2006)
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the reality of the situation; until you're eligible for (edit) medicare, health is a significant expense. When paired with the "hedonistic treadmill" of spending, early retirement takes a lot more investment than many suspect. Even at a safe withdrawal rate of 4%, $2M is "only" $80k a year. You're not driving around in Ferrari's and eating caviar on that (parodying a rich lifestyle here). Of course there are…
I feel like I'd be happy enough just maintaining my current lifestyle more or less, but yes, we as software developers tend to be paid relatively well, so just matching that can be quite expensive. I also feel kind of uncomfortable with the idea of retiring without a little bit of extra safety margin in case of economic turmoil. If 2M is enough to retire, I'd probably want 2.5 just to be extra safe. My current job pa…
The low stress jobs are the key. If I have 2-3 million saved, do I really want to grind at a FAANG or equivalent? Theres low key startups and enterprise dev jobs that are much less stressful and still pay around 120-150K which keeps healthcare covered, CoL covered, and keeps your nest-egg intact.
Re: Early Retirement (2006)
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 e…
They are significantly different if you see the plans and the network you're in. Just look at the costs for the plans I linked above.
It's really not the same, or even close. Let's take one of the more popular plans on the exchange for Washington state.
https://www.insurance.wa.gov/rates/bridgespan-health-company...
https://www.insurance.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2020-09/bri...
Re: Early Retirement (2006)
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
My problem is, I'm kind of anti-capitalist, to make it short. Labor and capital and not just production factors, but they constitute a power relationship (and often a quite asymmetric one). I cannot bring myself to "invest" in something or believe that "my money works for me" - that's delusional. Money does not "work". People get all upset about the stance, but all I am saying is that everyone wants to profit off som…
"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…
> “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?
Uh, its not “abundantly clear” that its the best system there is, which is why it was mostly thrown out in the mid-20th Century in favor of the modern mixed economy, which mitigate its harms with elements of socialism that are hostile to the basic property relationships underlying capitalism, and the major subsequent debates in the developed world have been largely about fine tuning the balance of capitalist and socialist elements of the modern mixed economy; there is a strongly pro-actual-capitalism faction in modern developed world (e.g., adherents to Austrian school ideological economics), and they are naturally popular among the disproportionately powerful, but they aren’t the consensus, any more than the faction that thinks that the problem with the mixed economy status quo is retaining capitalist elements (the anti-capitalist faction) is.
Re: Early Retirement (2006)
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
If you mean “subscribe to the ideology of the Austrian school” when you say “understand economics”, the above makes some sense.
Re: Early Retirement (2006)
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's nothing particularly wrong with this mindset, but let's be explicit about your options: 1. Spend any extra money you make, knowing that you'll work 20 hours / week at least until social security arrives. If you start to hate work or having trouble finding work, you likely have very little to fall back on. Social security might not support your lifestyle, so expect a very pared back retirement late in life. 2.…
why does spending way less than you make imply hating your job and being miserable? i dont think the idea of spending money as a primary mechanism for life happiness holds up. if you're a happy person internally it doesn't really matter if you use cheap hand towels at home or silk ones- it doesn't matter if you're eating filet mignon or chicken legs. > hoping once you have a huge nest egg, you can make yourself happy…
> why does spending way less than you make imply hating your job and being miserable?
It doesn't! But some people believe that's their option. That you spend so little that you're miserable. And the job might only be something you endure to make money to someday retire.
We agree. I just may not have communicated that I was being somewhat "extreme" to make the point that "early retirement" doesn't have to be that way. If you re-read my #2 you can kind of see that I'm getting to the same point as you.