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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?

#101

Post by Kiro »

agent008t wrote: post #62
gibbonsrcool wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Except family and friends could become resentful of you, the 6 billion people may have no time for you, and you could end up alone and irrelevant. Enter association with other people and assume obligations and responsibilities? That's not too different from having a job or a career.

What kind of friends and family would become resentful?

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

#102

Post by pdrojack »

jepler wrote: post #39

What is early? What is stopping working? I semi-retired at 44, but I am still working as a contract programmer and bill for about 20-25 hours a week. I worked a ho-hum programming job for nearly 20 years (yes, just the one), feeling miserable for at least the last 3. There was no "cashing out", though when the company sold to private investors I got something like an extra 75% of a year of pay. It wasn't that money,…

How does working on open-source gets you paid ? I am new and curious

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

#103

Post by Jensson »

willcipriano wrote: post #69
daxfohl wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Sure there is. When millions of people use your software you have to consider what those millions want. I guess it depends on what you enjoy about software development. For me I enjoy the craft itself and only let users in because I have bills to pay. My best work is stuff nobody will ever use or care about. It's like being a pop artist VS a relatively unknown experimental jazz musician.

Many finds value in doing stuff other people wants. Work is the most efficient way to do that, you write something and now millions of people can use it. When you write your own pet project nobody cares about it is depressing in comparison.

Of course you can care about other things, but if you care about this thing then work is the easiest way to fill that fix.

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

#104

Post by lifeplusplus »

throwaway72722 wrote: post #91

I cashed out and stopped working around 37. It has been a very difficult transition for me. I have had 3 or 4 years of borderline depression despite having more money than god :-) The loss of structure, status, social interaction, goals hits hard. The problem is, I don’t want a job and probably lack the motivation to do another business. I need to build hobbies and friends outside of a work context, I know. My advice…

Just shutup

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

#105

Post by sriram_malhar »

Most excellent.

I started working in 1987, got burnt out in a couple of startups (but did well financially), went half-time in 2003 until last year (with a break for a PhD in between), and am now officially retired.

It is wonderful having the leverage to do whatever I feel like doing, or not committing to a long-term project. The more I act pricey, the more I seem to attract 'em!

I used to miss the camaraderie of office mates, but live interaction is gone anyway in these covid times. All days are weekends; my social calendar is dictated by others' schedules! We moved close to our aging parents and in-laws to be with them in their dotage, which has its pluses and some minuses, but no regrets at all on that count, for we must afford them some of the affection and happiness that they showered on us when we were yay high.

I code for fun, have done a bunch of ML courses and am now learning statistics in earnest. I am learning (Indian) music from two separate teachers, and cook a fair bit. 'Sall good!

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

#106

Post by moksly »

polynomial wrote: post #85
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…

And HR depts are just fine with that? (taking 2-6 months off) I get the impression They prefer those who stay on the wheel, as they don't have to worry you will just decide you need to take a break from working again.

I’m not American and maybe your HR culture is different, but I have worked in enterprise sized organisations for a few decades, currently one with 10,000 employees and a relatively large HR department, and I’m curious as to why HR would get involved.

If I had a valuable employee that could leave us for 2-6 months a year (without pay), without us having support issues from the absence, I wouldn’t much mind it, and if I don’t mind then HR would never get involved. My employees work for me, not for our HR department. The only time HR processes are forced upon me is in hiring situations, the yearly employee development plan review meeting or if someone logs a serious complaint, like bullying or sexual harassment, and, that’s not because of HR, it’s because the four CEOs have decided those are the organisation wise processes to follow.

If you mean hiring processes, nobody really cares about absence periods in my experience. Sure you’ll be asked, but it’s not like it’s really relevant in most cases. It’s like hiring a young woman around 30 with no children (I work in the public sector where there are fairly good maternity leave plans), you know there is a pretty big chance they’ll have one or two kids while working for you, but if they are good, then you’ll still want them.

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

#107

Post by munchbunny »

haswell wrote: post #67
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. I think this depends on how one’s current job is affecting them. If you’re near burnout or just work in a very stressful environment, the weekends are more about recovery from the week and might not be a good predictor of future choices when not stressed/burnt out. Basing this comment mostly on personal experience since I’ve had both productiv…

> Basing this comment mostly on personal experience since I’ve had both productive weekends and lazy/lost weekends and it generally depends on how the current job is going.

This resonates a lot. My partner is a startup founder, and fairly often their weekend is life maintenance and recovery because their work week allows nothing else. I spend much more time on side projects, but on some weeks I can tell on Friday that it’s not going to be a productive weekend by any standard except self care.

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

#108

Post by dsr_ »

h0p3 wrote: post #81
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…

I'd like to speak with him. We have some things in common, and I'd like to hear his perspective.

At this point he is quite depressed and anxious over everything. No offense, but I don't think it would be a good idea to introduce him to an Internet stranger.

I can relay his three best pieces of advice, though, all of which he related to me around the time I went to college.

1. Don't take a course where the professor wrote the book. If they knew any way to explain the material, they put it in the book, and won't be able to help you more than that.

2. People get excited about all sorts of things, and if you're reasonably friendly and available they will invite you to everything. That's not bad in itself, but you need to be selective about what you go to, or else you'll find that you never did the things that you needed to do, just the ones that you wanted to do.

3. There are lots of reversible mistakes, and others that are disastrous to try to recover from. Try to recognize your mistakes and back out of them before you hit the disaster point. Marriage is easily but painfully reversible until you have kids; then it's a disaster.

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

#109

Post by NineStarPoint »

Jensson wrote: post #95
NineStarPoint wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a counterpoint to your edit, personally work exhausts me to a level where weekends are mostly spent recuperating/doing chores and not being productive. It’s a week or two into the breaks I’ve taken from work where I start being productive in ways I rarely manage during my working periods.

The 2 weak break spurts you talk about are mostly temporary and happens because you do them so rarely. Long term it will likely look more like those weekends. Best case you keep your work habits and can continue working on your hobbies like you did work previously, but worst case it will all look like those weekends.

Two weeks is how long it takes me to be somewhat recovered from work burnout, I’ve taken a much longer break and kept up productivity for the duration. You’re not wrong about the need to be mindful of habits thoughts. They’re not quite work habits, but no longer needing to spend energy maintaining work habits creates the room for me to maintain other habits instead. I do still have to be mindful of what it is I want to be achieving over a period of time and work to maintain habits that will push me towards those goals, but it’s a lot more pleasurable to get to choose on your own what those goals and habits will be.

Edit: A side note being, between the changes to work culture and me gaining the experience to be more desirable to work places, I’ve managed to move to a more flexible remote position that gives me a fair bit of control over my day to day. This has definitely increased my ability to be productive in my off time, due to the lowered stress on my general energy levels.

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

#110

Post by robcohen »

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 literally did this too. Moved to Austin, TX and bought a farm after I quit my last full-time job. Went back to school to get an associates in construction management instead of actually learning the job (sounds like I should've gone your route). Anyway, graduating this semester then working full time to build up the raw land and get animals to keep my ag-exemption. Long-term I'd want to hire a farm-hand to keep everything going day-to-day so I can travel.

I've sort of conned myself into thinking I could start some solo projects on my own in the past 6 months, but it just hasn't happened due to classes and a myriad of distractions. Recently I've been beating myself up a bit for it, but I know that isn't productive. Once I solve a few ongoing projects in my life and I get things moving a bit faster for the farm I'll start keeping to a strict schedule of farming from 6-9am, then going to my coworkspace and code until maybe 3pm, then work out, then either socialize/read or go to a local hackerspace and work on side-projects.

Medium/long term it's important to me to not just live off of my savings and to generate enough value (not off investments) to maintain my quality of life.

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