81–90 of 197 posts
The RMS lifestyle - get a $1m grant or two, then work for free!
Haha, he's a pretty impressive example of independence, although I don't think either the million dollars or the parrots are truly necessary!
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What is the point of retiring early, if you're stuck having to pinch-pennies, cut-coupons, all to living within a very modest budget? I have to do something with my time, so I might as well get paid handsomely for it.
> I have to do something with my time, so I might as well get paid handsomely for it. There's actually an interesting component to that. Likely since you first started working you've never actually been in a situation where you don't need to sell your time in order to pay your expenses. I sure haven't. But I've read a lot of stories from people who are currently in that situation, and the feeling of having to do some…
Actually that's not true. When I was 28 years old, I quit my job, "retired" and traveled. It got old quick. I missed the challenges of solving engineering problems, the comradarie I have with coworkers, and the shared sense of purpose you get with work. I also realized that the one thing I could spend hours and hours doing in one setting was writing code. So I rejoined the "ratrace" and decided that I wouldn't be so consumed about "retiring."
Instead I subscribe to the "don't wait till you retire" to do the things you want to do. I want to travel, so I travel.
I live my life the way I want to. That includes working for a paycheck.
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>>But even without owning a car, not having a child, etc. >>I don't get why the world thinks software engineers are so rich... Last year I lived in Austin TX, owned a car, ate healthy, lived 15 minutes from the city center and made 29000 before taxes. Of which I managed to save 15000. The world doesn't think software engineers are so rich, we think anyone above 50K is rich, because for a lot of us thats double what w…
What's happening is that upper-middle class families really do run out of money after saving for college, sending the kids to private school, both driving two new cars, and so on. They think of those things as basics and forget that those basics are unattainable to most.
And two cars (not necessarily new) because both parents are driving to work.
And property tax that pays for public school for kids of less real-estate-wealthy folks
Also marginal tax rate (Federal, state, social security) of ~30-40% on the difference in income.
This is actually exactly what I want to do, although I just started working so for obvious reasons it isn't a reality yet. How long does it take to save up enough money that you wouldn't need to work though? Also, it seems like eventually you'd run out of money unless you can just retire early, in which case, you have the issue of explaining why you've been out of work for so long and proving you still are up to the…
Someone in my area sold me an old Roland RD-500 in excellent condition, two amps, and a stand for $500. Total cost including van rental to move it, music stand, and a bunch of sheet music: $700-800. Not sure what an equivalent setup would cost new, but I'd wager somewhere in the $1.5-3k range.
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Switching is no problem usually, but if you are able to work but not 'willing' you'll lose your health insurance pretty soon.
not in most eu country's ok recent immigrants may have to have a short period of paying into the system. When I was out of work in the UK I signed on to keep my NI record up to date as they only account full years
Average for EU countries is ~50 weeks. That's not long if you do not want to work for money for the rest of your life.
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Yeah, the MMM manifesto would never work for me - it basically says that I would have to be setting aside over 90% of my income (given my salary range), which wouldn't allow for things like a newer car, owning a house over 300 sq. ft., or traveling to Arizona to visit relatives. Personally, I refuse to give up my life today for the possibility of a life tomorrow. There's too few guarantees that there will be a tomorr…
That's not really what MMM espouses, from what I've been able to tell (I've actually spent the better part of the last month devouring his blog and the forums). MMM's point is that, if you live well within your means and can save 50% of your income (however you choose to define that, but most people do after-tax), you can "retire" after a short number of years. "Retirement" is very much however you want to define it,…
The argument against work is that it's soul-sucking and meaningless. Well, you don't have to accept that. There's plenty of things you can do to make work fit into your life, rather than make your life fit into your work.
Engineers don't make that much money. Yes, I live a middle-class lifestyle. But even without owning a car, not having a child, etc. After saving for retirement and eating healthy food, I simply don't have that much savings to start any business that requires a decent amount of capital to get going - at least not without burning through everything fairly quickly. At most I could take a couple of months off and destroy…
...and if you want to talk global, $100k/year is beyond the wildest dreams of most everyone on Earth. (For that matter, so is starting a capital-intensive business.)
You can probably see where this perception comes from.
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> I have to do something with my time, so I might as well get paid handsomely for it. There's actually an interesting component to that. Likely since you first started working you've never actually been in a situation where you don't need to sell your time in order to pay your expenses. I sure haven't. But I've read a lot of stories from people who are currently in that situation, and the feeling of having to do some…
> Likely since you first started working you've never actually been in a situation where you don't need to sell your time in order to pay your expenses. I sure haven't. Actually that's not true. When I was 28 years old, I quit my job, "retired" and traveled. It got old quick. I missed the challenges of solving engineering problems, the comradarie I have with coworkers, and the shared sense of purpose you get with wor…
Paychecks are nice things, aren't they? You don't have to worry about when they're coming in or what's going to be on them, what you do for that paycheck is generally pretty fixed, they come with things like health care and employer 401k match. One could do a lot worse.
This is actually exactly what I want to do, although I just started working so for obvious reasons it isn't a reality yet. How long does it take to save up enough money that you wouldn't need to work though? Also, it seems like eventually you'd run out of money unless you can just retire early, in which case, you have the issue of explaining why you've been out of work for so long and proving you still are up to the…
Re: piano - for most use cases, mid-to-high range digital pianos are more than good enough nowadays. They don't require tuning, they fit in even fairly small apartments, and they can be moved with relative ease. It's not uncommon to see professional musicians using digital; the action and sound are at least comparable to the real thing. Someone in my area sold me an old Roland RD-500 in excellent condition, two amps,…
I actually have a digital. In fact I have something somewhat better than a digital: a hybrid (Yamaha N1). It has the action of a grand but I can still use it in an apartment.
I also thought this would be good enough, but after taking lessons it's obvious that it's really not. Even though the action is supposed to be that of a grand piano, the reality is that when I actually try to play on a grand I can't play it. My teacher has also said that I really need to get an acoustic piano.
I'm not entirely sure what it is, but I think the main difference is that even if the action feels like that of a real piano, it doesn't react quite the same. There are a lot more subtleties that you can get from a grand piano that's just not possible from a digital with the touch and especially with the pedal.
Note that this is for classical music, I don't know a thing about Jazz or pop music.
I really do appreciate your trying to help though!
I'm married with 5 kids. We live in rural Wyoming (no income tax, bought a comfortable house for $86k). We've always lived well below our income so we have no debt and sufficient savings.
I mostly choose to work on "products". That helps me focus on problems that people actually care about without any of the startup pressures. Although, I've also written several open source libraries that I thought the community might like.
I started by telling my employer that I would only work 4 days each week. I spent Fridays working on a cool idea my brother and I had. That idea proved useful enough to pay the bills so I quit my job.
I'm much more relaxed now and spend better quality time with my kids. In hindsight, it would be worth almost any sacrifice to get to this point again.