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

The German school system doesn't take kindly to this, AFAIK. Maybe if we temporarily gave up residency, but as far as I know, the equivalent of CPS would have some questions.

The part for me was having to go to sleep early every night so the next day wouldn't be an early morning drag... I hated it even way back in my school days. Quitting a job is liberating, but it's also terrifying if you can't financially sustain a full or comfortable retirement into the future.

Getting a paycheck means surrendering your ability to wake up and live your life based completely on your own internal clock, and it can be a big drain on your mental health and physical well being. There are ways of charging your battery, but it's not always possible without risk and/or sacrifice if you weren't born rich or somehow otherwise financially lucky.

Health is wealth too though... We're usually born with a "glass full of water" that represents our health - mental and physical health. Over time we drink from that glass until it's gone... Once you burn out, you're toast. It's important to always be cognizant of where your water supply is, and to try to stop letting people drink from your glass before it completely runs dry... If you're lucky, you'll turn your water into a nice vintage wine.

27, stopped "working" a couple of years ago. (Some form of lean FI/RE right now: my current hobbies support my lifestyle, and I have sufficient savings). Life is simple, and I'm content, at least for the time-being. I know I could contract whenever I need to: something very flexible has fallen into place which I expect will start in the next couple of weeks.

Today so far: Mostly fundraising for an Olympiad (get in touch!), half an hour of open source work. Cutting weight for the next ~7 weeks, so aiming for 2 hours exercise/day. Weather isn't great, so did a few sets in my home gym, and spent the remainder of my time on Beat Saber (VR).

As for plans for later:

I haven't done enough Open Source today, I should do some testing and get a PR in. Might shelve it for tomorrow.

I'm working on a bilingual textual corpus for my local language with a few friends (colleagues?) (it's an uncommon revived language, and it's a reasonable goal to digitize every known work/manuscript which is out of copyright).

I'm prepping a .djvu of a book to upload to Wikisource for safekeeping. I've got a small backlog of texts that need a bit of proofreading which I'd like to clear. Long-term plans might involve getting the book republished (for fun, rather than for profit).

Afterwards? It's Friday night, probably off to the pub with friends for a pint.

I've chosen flexibility instead of money. I can meet friends whenever they're free. I'm living a purposeful life, and I'm truly content. Financially: it's a lifestyle hit, but that's an acceptable tradeoff for all the above, and I expect the income will continue to increase.

Thanks for answering :)

I could do all that, it's just that nothing "clicks" in the sense that I really want to do it, instead of doing it to pass time.

That sounds like depression and maybe it is, but I feel it's got more to do with the "I have achieved all I wanted in life, wife, kids, wealth, whoops, now what?" thing. When I was younger, every item of that list seemed like a challenge, and now that they are behind me, I realize I never planned for it.

Also when I was younger, I was just day dreaming when I wasn't busy and I was content. Now that I feel that I only have a couple of decades left, I feel the need to no longer waste my time. That kinda clashes with the lack of ambition.

Work helps in the sense that I have social interaction outside the family and some problems to solve, but I also feel I am just papering over a void.

Yes. A friend was homeschooling her kids in the US, and then her husband got an assignment in Germany for about a year. She took the kids and joined her husband in Germany for a few months. The rules were all different, and much stricter in Germany. I remember she was thinking of trying to continue to home school there, and keep her kids inside during school hours, and try to slide under the radar. I don't remember if she got away with it or not.