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Early Retirement (2006)
251–260 of 308 posts
Re: Early Retirement (2006)
#252Earlier 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.
> The main benefit of employer purchased health insurance is that you buy with pre tax dollars. The main benefit is that my employer pays most of the premiums. As an example, I have a high deductible plan. The deductible is only about $3750/year. I pay 0 in premiums. The equivalent health plan from healthcare.gov is easily over $10K in premiums.
I understood the context of the discussion to be a comparison of obtaining healthcare with and without an employer, in which case an employer paying for it reduces to compensating you for working, which is obvious and not notable when discussing whether or not one can retire.
You can get the same healthcare, the only distinction is do you have enough money saved up to buy it from your savings or do you need to continue working to afford it, just like everything else in retirement.
Re: Early Retirement (2006)
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
If your property taxes are indexed to assessed value (which mine are), it also means your property value is going up. So double taxes would mean double value of home. It just means that at some point you may need to sell your home and downsize, pocketing a nice profit on the way out.
Unless prices fall in the future, in which case you’ve paid a lot in taxes every year and never get any benefit from the temporarily high valuation.
Very true
Re: Early Retirement (2006)
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. I don't think either setting can be considered highly productive.
I think the point was that for a lot of people the settings are more productive than if they were left to their own devices.
That largely depends on the value system. Set someone in a remote area and tell them they have to make it on their own with nobody coming to their aide, they'll work hard. Give them a salary that doesn't change based on work effort, then why would they try harder?
I get way more done for my self than when I'm working for an employer. I'm not dragged down by meetings and bureaucracy.
Re: Early Retirement (2006)
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 person…
It is unavoidable for the kind of article the author is writing. He is trying to give the perspective of a person who has 'been there'. This I imagine is very interesting to read for people who want to 'be there' or going to. For them, an article that doesn't deal too deeply into philosophy may be more appealing. This is possible only if the author makes a lot of assumptions. And of course, if you don't agree with those assumptions, you'll just move on.
Re: Early Retirement (2006)
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "Safe withdraw rate" is something like 4%. 1 million saved = 40k per year, adjusting with inflation. 2 million saved = 80k per year, adjusting for inflation. If you can live a life you want for 80k a year, then sure - 2 million can do it. And yes, there will always be a "what if the economy collapses etc. etc", but retiring doesn't mean you can never ever for any reason hold a job again or make money.
Don't forget that safe withdrawal rate assumes a 30 year retirement. If you are looking at a 40+ year retirement, the safe withdrawal rate is probably more like 3-3.5%.
According to MMM
https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/05/29/how-much-do-i-nee...
> Luckily, the math in this case is pretty interesting: there is very little difference between a 30-year period, and an infinite year period, when determining how long your money will last.
You should be fine at 4% forever. If you can spend a little less some years, or go make a few dollars somewhere hey, boosts your odds even more.
Re: Early Retirement (2006)
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
So if you don't invest, do you just save money in a savings account? Over a 50 year career S&P Index Fund vs stuff in a savings account is the different between... having 20k a year to pull from savings, vs having 100k a year to pull from investments. It's a pretty stark portfolio difference.
Ironically if you put the money in a savings account, someone much richer than you is going to be investing it on your behalf and taking the lion's share of the interest that you're leaving on the table.
Right. Can't really escape the game.
Re: Early Retirement (2006)
#258Re: Early Retirement (2006)
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
Living far away from your children and grandchildren is really sad, especially once you get old and need help and company.
Plenty of that happens in the US too though. I grew up in the Rust Belt but have lived my entire post-college life (more than 2.5 decades) on the west coast. By the time you need to get on a plane to visit, 2000 miles vs 5000 miles isn't a tremendous difference. (Assuming normal times with open borders).
Every time your elderly father gets sick are you going take the plane? Take him to the doctor? Wash him, prepare dinner.
Not everyone can afford retirement facility.
Re: Early Retirement (2006)
#260Wow; this is a really good article. I love how the author (I think rightfully) highlights that people use their jobs as an excuse for staving off goals they've created.