Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Early-Retirement Update

livingafi.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 443 posts

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#241

Post by tartoran »

RankingMember wrote: post #234
eagsalazar2 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just FIRE people, but 99% of all retirees at any age end up doing nothing of note with their time. But, and I think you aren't saying otherwise, this is also true of everyone who still has to work, while they are working. Your job is just the thing you have to do (if you are lucky you actually enjoy it). Bottom line, most people don't actually have a purpose or strong passions in their lives. Being retired young…

> Not just FIRE people, but 99% of all retirees at any age end up doing nothing of note with their time. This is exactly why I think FIRE is a great thought exercise even if you don't actually care to do it. Given enough money to live for the rest of your life without the need for a job, what would you do with your time?

I don't see FIRE as literal retirement but as 'taking the bull by the horns' in terms of doing what you really are passionate about without having to worry you'd end up old and destitute. If I could FIRE I'd still do software development but I wouldn't do boring digital plumbing work and go through corporate cringe culture. And no, right now I could not do that because I have responsibilities that need me to slave away at a corporate job. It's sad when I think about it but I think I adapted and just go forward with it. FIRE seems like a liberation from all that.

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#242

Post by pcglue »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #207
pcglue wrote: post #184

2.8M nut, about 50/50 in regular/retirement accounts. I'm mid 40's, married with two pre-teen kids, annual expenses of $80K, live in HCOL area (Southern California). Would you FIRE in this situation? Would you take a year long hiatus? As much as I would like to FIRE, I can't/won't, even though the "numbers" say I probably could. But seriously considering a months to year long career break/sabbatical/hiatus, because I…

> because I'm extremely extremely burnt out How often do you take real vacations? Your scenario comes up a lot in FIRE forums: People lead unsustainably stressful work lives and think the only antidote is to quit. Then they decide they're not ready to quit, so they continue working the unsustainably demanding job. The real solution is to work on refactoring your career. You need to teach yourself how to work sustaina…

Pre-pandemic, I'd take 3-4 weeks a year. I've only taken a 2 weeks off this past year, mainly because there's no where to go, so I've taken the 2 weeks just for mental health.

Everything you say makes sense and I am considering all of it, especially taking a lower paying, lower stress job.

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#243

Post by ghaff »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #68

I had to quit reading any FIRE (financial independence, early retirement) blogs because they were full of people headed down this same path: Extreme frugality, bare minimum savings, assuming their lifestyle would never change and nothing would ever go wrong. Retiring at 30 sounds great, but no one's life goes exactly to plan for next the 30-40 years until traditional retirement age. People change, expectations evolve…

Furthermore leanFIRE is at least somewhat irreversible. Not literally, but if you retire at say 35 with a bare minimum nest egg and you decide 10 years later that this isn't how you want to spend the rest of your life, it will be at least more difficult to insert yourself back into whatever career track you were on.

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#244

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

pdimitar wrote: post #203
Sileni wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As many people learned last year, it's easy to gloss over the parts of someone you don't like when you're both actively working towards a goal. When you start spending too much time together, it's easy to have the relationship die from a thousand cuts.

I would add "...if you weren't a good match in the first place". Your statement kind of tries to make itself universal. I absolutely will never subscribe to the BS notion of "couples love each other more when they don't spend much time together". I'm with my wife for 7 years now and I already worked remotely by the time we met. Our relationship is actually getting better with time. So what you say mostly applies to p…

You take exception to their generalizing and then generalize yourself which I'm taking exception to. I love my wife deeply, but work time apart makes our time together better. It takes all sorts.

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#245

Post by labcomputer »

neogodless wrote: post #213
labcomputer wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe he took those FI blogs seriously and dedicated himself to reaching that goal, and he did. And then people who never tried say "he got lucky". My problem with most of the advice from FI and FIRE blogosphere is that it essentially boils down to "be the 1% (where you live) and live frugally". It's not wrong , per se, but it isn't actionable advice for 99% of the population[1]. In particular, while anyone could b…

With advice, you have to read it, decide if it works for you and then utilize it or discard it. You do not have to decide if it works for everyone and discard if it doesn't. There are aspects of MMM's that anyone can do, but obviously the huge income he got after retiring from the MMM blog is unique to him (and the few really successful FI bloggers) and for many, just having insufficient income compared to the cost o…

> You do not have to decide if it works for everyone and discard if it doesn't.

First, I am not discarding the advice. I was responding to the idea that successful practitioners didn't get lucky.

Second, my assertion is that the advice is useful for only a small segment of the population. The goalposts have moved to the opposite end of the field if we are now talking about advice for everyone except for a small segment of the population.

> I mean if you want everyone to have the same opportunities, you are welcome to give up the advantages you might have so that others get better opportunities.

Nowhere did I say that everyone should have the same opportunities.

Finally, your link does not seem to refute my point (I've seen it before).

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#246

Post by BlargMcLarg »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #68

I had to quit reading any FIRE (financial independence, early retirement) blogs because they were full of people headed down this same path: Extreme frugality, bare minimum savings, assuming their lifestyle would never change and nothing would ever go wrong. Retiring at 30 sounds great, but no one's life goes exactly to plan for next the 30-40 years until traditional retirement age. People change, expectations evolve…

>Most of these people would be much happier if they simply invested time and energy into finding a job they enjoy

Many people reach FIRE without much energy, it's an incredibly easy "set and forget" style of life. Many use its concepts to get in a position where they can find a job they enjoy.

This skips over the part where the individual might want to be entrepreneurial and needs the funds to be in a position to take such a risk. Or the job they love is inherently in a shitty position (passion industries teeming with bad conditions), so it's a "pick your poison situation" until they have leverage, and in many cases, both poisons make them feel miserable anyway.

The idea that there's a job out there for every person they'll enjoy doing as long as they put in the energy, is an incredibly idealistic and even privileged mindset we should be getting rid of.

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#247

Post by pcglue »

neogodless wrote: post #225
pcglue wrote: post #184

2.8M nut, about 50/50 in regular/retirement accounts. I'm mid 40's, married with two pre-teen kids, annual expenses of $80K, live in HCOL area (Southern California). Would you FIRE in this situation? Would you take a year long hiatus? As much as I would like to FIRE, I can't/won't, even though the "numbers" say I probably could. But seriously considering a months to year long career break/sabbatical/hiatus, because I…

You can spend $80k a year for 35 years and keep your investment in any vehicle that just barely keeps up with inflation. If that nut achieves just 3% annual gain over inflation, you'll still have the same nut in 35 years... Can you explain the "can't" part of early retirement? The "won't" is of course your decision and no one else's. But why do you say "can't"?

I fully admit the "can't" is mostly in my head. Need to work up the courage to do so, due to many reasons. Societal (what a bum!), family (what kind of role model would I be for kids?) and just fear of running out of money due to black swan event. I wouldn't say my fear is completely irrational, but it's not all rational either.

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#248

Post by pdimitar »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #244
pdimitar wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would add "...if you weren't a good match in the first place". Your statement kind of tries to make itself universal. I absolutely will never subscribe to the BS notion of "couples love each other more when they don't spend much time together". I'm with my wife for 7 years now and I already worked remotely by the time we met. Our relationship is actually getting better with time. So what you say mostly applies to p…

You take exception to their generalizing and then generalize yourself which I'm taking exception to. I love my wife deeply, but work time apart makes our time together better. It takes all sorts.

Not at all, I said what I don't subscribe under and cited my anecdotal evidence. My "generalization" is actually putting people in groups, which by itself admits that a generalization is impossible.

But it could possibly be offensive to some people that I call their couples "good roommates" which is a fair reaction -- I still have the right to my opinion however.

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#249

Post by j7ake »

One thing that came to mind while reading was how sensitive the "financial independence" path was to unexpected changes in life.

If ones model financial independence is so fragile that "comfort spending" is not included in the analysis, then I am not quite sure one can call that strategy financial independence.

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#250

Post by npsimons »

jbn wrote: post #148
CogitoCogito wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US healthcare system isn’t really a very good model of market competition.

on the contrary (and to your implied point, if i'm not mistaken), it's more like a cartel bent on extracting the most value out of the "consumer"...

Oh yeah, it's working very well, for the shareholders.
Post reply on HN