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Ask HN: People who cashed out early and stopped working: What is your life like?

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Re: Ask HN: People who cashed out early and stopped working: What is your life like?

#51

Post by eric4smith »

30 years programming and got sick of it. Started to travel around the world 2 years before Covid.

Was kind of semi retired but still CTO and directed the team on projects and issues.

Then Covid hit.

Now went back to work full time rebuilding systems but looking forward to jump into semi-retirement next year again.

The most important thing I learned?

Time.

I’ll do anything to preserve time freedom. Housekeeper, transportation, people to do stuff for me. I’ll do it all to save this precious resource.

And these are not things that cost a lot, but because I do them, I have more time to spend on myself.

Having the freedom of time is completely underrated and misunderstood and I reckon that most people do not know what to do with the extra time once they step back from the daily grind.

Re: Ask HN: People who cashed out early and stopped working: What is your life like?

#52

Post by throwaway6734 »

CapmCrackaWaka wrote: post #20
gibbonsrcool wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don’t listen to this. These are the words of someone who allowed work to destroy the part of themselves that had their own hopes and dreams. Only a shell that could take directions was left.

Do you know this person? Because I actually love my job, and I feel like if I retired right now it would suck. I would definitely be bored.

Likewise! Ideally I'd work my job 4 days a week, but if I had to choose between 40 hours or 0 hours, I would choose 40

Re: Ask HN: People who cashed out early and stopped working: What is your life like?

#53

Post by appel »

dsr_ wrote: post #32

Dad retired in his mid 30s. It went really well for him for about 30 years, and then he started to decline into depression. I don't think it was directly related to being retired. He built a barbecue out of cinder blocks, then rebuilt it out of bricks. He learned to knot in order to make hammocks. He took up painting with acrylics -- I wouldn't say he ever became good at it, but he liked it and that's the point. The…

> text adventures about our neighborhood

That sounds fascinating. Are those available online somewhere? I absolutely love text adventures, would love to try it out.

Re: Ask HN: People who cashed out early and stopped working: What is your life like?

#54

Post by gota »

gibbonsrcool wrote: post #27
CapmCrackaWaka wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know this person? Because I actually love my job, and I feel like if I retired right now it would suck. I would definitely be bored.

This is mind boggling. Bored? You have all your free time to literally do anything you want. You can explore the outdoors. You can learn ANYTHING you want. You could get to know more of the worlds 6 billion people and their cultures. Volunteer, start a new hobby, spend more time with family and friends, work on personal growth, exercise... you have Stockholm syndrome, snap out of it.

Not the person you're replying to, and not retired, but I can offer some perspective as someone that does indeed like the job.

If I retired I'd be able to learn anything I want - but If I wanted to tackle the challenges I have fun tackling, state-of-the-art and involving some nifty constraints and difficulties... I'd need whole teams around me, and a large infrastructure comparable to a multinational company.

That's what I get now - working. If I retired, I could only find it, I think, by getting the same job.

If I'm already working there, doing the stuff that I find fun, in a schedule that fits me and keeps me healthy and safe, and already relatively financially secure - to the point where I don't have to bother with focusing on corporate ladder or anything like that - what do I gain by retiring? At least on this aspect (there is obviously a tradeoff)

Not to mention I get to do some empowered volunteering from within the company itself. It helps that I actually have respect for the leadership, up to the CEO, as actual human beings. Not reverence - respect. Specially looking at some other companies out there.

I have a whole other perspective. But toss me into a meatgrinder job and I agree with you immediately.

Finally, I hope you see how your comment on Stockholm syndrome and snapping out of it was mean and ignorant towards the parent poster

Re: Ask HN: People who cashed out early and stopped working: What is your life like?

#55

Post by daxfohl »

willcipriano wrote: post #37
CapmCrackaWaka wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know this person? Because I actually love my job, and I feel like if I retired right now it would suck. I would definitely be bored.

I can see this for some jobs. Retire from the army and suddenly you are not jumping out of planes anymore, but programming? Nothing is stopping you from doing that post retirement, and you get to work on whatever you want.

But there's a difference between working on a product that impacts millions of people, versus noodling on a github project with zero followers.

Re: Ask HN: People who cashed out early and stopped working: What is your life like?

#56

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

My brother was a doctor and was able to take an extended hiatus for a long time. He gave me these words of wisdom that I have found true as well. “You need a job or you get weird.”

Humans are built for problem solving and the struggle and the adventure of challenge. I think we need it like we need food, water, sleep, etc.

I quit my job as a scientist and rolled over all my retirement into Bitcoin a few years ago. That has gone well. I started a business of growing medical marijuana and I love that. That has gone well too. Incredible amounts of work and 12 hour days and struggles, especially at first, but I love the challenge of trying to grow the best in the world and in my area. I will probably be able to quit if I wanted to soon. But I can’t imagine what I would do. I want to travel but I know that won’t last. I’ll probably just scale back my weed operation some but still concentrate on chasing the dragon of growing the best weed. I love it that much. I should also add that I don't even use marijuana. I just love plants and always have.

Re: Ask HN: People who cashed out early and stopped working: What is your life like?

#57

Post by lostmsu »

GnarfGnarf wrote: post #34

55 years programming. Much more interesting than retirement. I hope I'm writing code the week I die.

I am now programming for just over 4 years post early retirement. Much better than working for somebody else. But then I have set goals in life that are extremely unlikely to change and are as unlikely to be all reached. Though 50 or so remaining years might make even moonshots to be accessible.

Re: Ask HN: People who cashed out early and stopped working: What is your life like?

#58

Post by themdonuts »

martincmartin wrote: post #42
themdonuts wrote: post #18

I'm far from retiring, but I always take a break between jobs. It used to be only 2 months, then last time it was 6 months. I'm very happy to be in tech because it allows us for that. I don't decide beforehand how much time I'm taking, instead I just reassess myself "am I still productive? Am I still enjoying doing nothing?" When the answer is no that's when I get back to work. I love DIY so I've used that time to re…

the weekends are a pretty good picture of how we'd behave at retirement. Interesting, thanks for the insight. I've also heard that, your teenage hobbies are another source of where you might find your passion in retirement. What did you do for fun as a teenager, and how does that compare to what you do during your breaks?

Actually that might make sense. I started "wood working" when I was 10yo and later helping with construction stuff. This was not child labor, but I would spend a lot of time at my grandparents. Thanks to crappy tv channels and no internet, kids would be super creative to find stuff to do.

My DIY face then went into sleep mode for many years and came back when I started taking breaks from work.

What you said might be spot on.

Re: Ask HN: People who cashed out early and stopped working: What is your life like?

#59

Post by wahlrus »

baremetal wrote: post #41

I quit tech, moved to a rural area, and bought some farmland at the beginning of the year. got a couple different jobs to learn how to do things. first building polebarns and then framing houses. got to journeyman in framing last month and quit. finishing up my first barn and now i am getting ready to build a greenhouse over the winter. been preparing the soil. will be ready for planting next year. technically i didn…

I've been daydreaming about this for years.

How did you get into building polebarns? And then framing houses? Who did you convince to take you on? Did you have prior experience?

Re: Ask HN: People who cashed out early and stopped working: What is your life like?

#60

Post by fundad »

drclau wrote: post #5
jimmyvalmer wrote: post #2

It sucks to be frank. It wasn't quite my choice to take an early retirement. Despite what the pundits say, you are your job.

> you are your job I hope you don’t take it personally, because it’s not intended as such, but this is sad.

Being laid off and not finding new work so you’re forced to retire which is the opposite of choosing to retire early. And it’s sad, I hope that doesn’t happen to me.
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