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Building a vision of life without work (2015)

livingafi.com

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Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#241

Post by sunshineforever »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #94
zoba wrote: post #67

I was 2nd employee at a unicorn startup and have been on a work-hiatus for almost a year. Now, I live amongst Amish people in the country. My biggest insight has been a mindset change. Previously my underlying approach to life looked like: "I will do X which will enable me to do Y so that I can finally do Z." I now approach my days with "What will make me happy?" This is an experiment I'm performing. A structured lif…

> Previously my underlying approach to life looked like: "I will do X which will enable me to do Y so that I can finally do Z." I now approach my days with "What will make me happy?" Great insight that is worth repeating. One of my biggest problems with FIRE discussions is how much they reinforce the idea that retirement is a prerequisite for achieving happiness. This leads a lot of FIRE-minded people to double down…

I would feel like a king with 20k a year and so I am trying to find the right degree to work 3, maybe 2 days a week to be able to achieve this?

Any suggestions?

Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#242

Post by sunshineforever »

nradov wrote: post #232
balfirevic wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they might be better off scaling back to a sustainable 40hr/week job 40hr/week is the unsustainable part.

That's only 24% of your time most weeks, even less on weeks when you have holidays or vacation. What's unsustainable? In fact many people have done it their whole adult lives, which makes it sustainable by definition.

The time of sleep does not belong to us.

Terrible at math (heh) but its something like multiply 24% by 2/3. Aka 24/3=8

Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#243

Post by thatfrenchguy »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #211
leftbrain wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did all that minus the video games while travelling in south and south east asia for a year and a half, and with a $20 daily budget. Gave up some of the comforts of western standard of living and got a whole lot of new friends and experiences. I have kids now and when they are old enough to move out, I’ll quit my job (programmer, and I love it) and get back out there because “The mountains are calling and I must go…

I'm curious what comforts you gave up. For me, I'd at minimum want a quiet, private room with AC if it's over 80F, and a 'non public' bathroom with a lockable door. I know that probably rules out a $20/d budget.

Even American bodies can get used to be inside at 80F :-)

Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#244

Post by UnpossibleJim »

xur17 wrote: post #234
UnpossibleJim wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will say this, if there is one thing I can do for my child (other than learning proper money management), when the time is right I will help them with the down payment on a home. Holy crap it's so much more important than renting. It seems like a hassle, I know, but building generational equity gives you such a leg up in the world.

I'm going to go ahead and disagree with you. A house is a form of forced savings, which is why it works so well for people, but you absolutely can build up wealth while renting.

It is for sure possible, no argument, but the actuality of it is relatively small, while the renters are putting in equity into someone else's pocket =/ Your "rent", as it were, goes towards something (even if a large portion of it is interest.. and extra payment a year towards the principal goes a long way).

Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#245

Post by jimbokun »

sunshineforever wrote: post #241
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Previously my underlying approach to life looked like: "I will do X which will enable me to do Y so that I can finally do Z." I now approach my days with "What will make me happy?" Great insight that is worth repeating. One of my biggest problems with FIRE discussions is how much they reinforce the idea that retirement is a prerequisite for achieving happiness. This leads a lot of FIRE-minded people to double down…

I would feel like a king with 20k a year and so I am trying to find the right degree to work 3, maybe 2 days a week to be able to achieve this? Any suggestions?

This is the case where it might make sense to earn $100k-$200k per year and plow the majority of it into savings until you can get a fairly safe $20k return.

Might only take a few years to save the required amount.

Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#246

Post by [deleted] »

CleverLikeAnOx wrote: post #199
dangus wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A comment like this is privilege in a nutshell. Money to a certain point essentially buys the ability to be free and happy, and that’s why most people are “in the grind” so-to-speak. Being able to even think about making the mindset shift you describe is impossible for most people in the country let alone the world. The lifestyle you describe is out of reach for the median American making $40-60k a year with a modest…

For those that this lifestyle appeals to, it is possible in America to engineer your life so that it happens. Sure the median American is no where close to financial independence, but financial independence is attainable for most Americans given a couple decades of work if they are willing to change their definition of "enough." Personally, I reduced my target to a mere fraction of the $5 million you mentioned. Final…

[deleted]

Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#247

Post by leftbrain »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #211
leftbrain wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did all that minus the video games while travelling in south and south east asia for a year and a half, and with a $20 daily budget. Gave up some of the comforts of western standard of living and got a whole lot of new friends and experiences. I have kids now and when they are old enough to move out, I’ll quit my job (programmer, and I love it) and get back out there because “The mountains are calling and I must go…

I'm curious what comforts you gave up. For me, I'd at minimum want a quiet, private room with AC if it's over 80F, and a 'non public' bathroom with a lockable door. I know that probably rules out a $20/d budget.

I also preferred private rooms, but AC was not an option usually since I avoided hotels completely and stayed in cheap guesthouses available almost everywhere. Sometimes I got a fan, sometimes there were no electricity at all in the room. Hostels usually had AC but those would be in the big cities, and I’d never stay too long because they are expensive. Hell, I could have my own bamboo hut with veranda, a hammock and the ocean breeze in a country side with the price of a hostel bunk bed in a big city or a tourist hot spot!

Private bathrooms I gave up on when I realized those attract many bugs I did not want to share my room with. Actually I could say you end up sharing the bathroom one way or the other. Common ones are fine as long as they can be locked and are cleaned regularly. Before I checked in at any place, I’d check the common bathrooms to make sure if I should…

I would pretty quickly get adjusted to the local way of avoiding heat, which is to get up really early in the morning, rest in the afternoon and then go back out during the evening.

Another pro tip that requires some planning ahead and available time is to go to the “south” during winter and to the “north” or the mountains during the hot summers.

Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#248

Post by CleverLikeAnOx »

and0 wrote: post #200
SavantIdiot wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This follow up is way more compelling because it deals with the reality. I'm jealous of the authors communication skills and their partner's: there are some very hard statements in there about feeling worthless and falling behind because of no job. I wonder of those words were spoken calmly, or shouted through tears. Here are their discussions: https://livingafi.com/post-fire-relationship-disconnect/ TL;DR: He has to…

Odd, I was going to comment on how poor the communication with his partner was in the updated post. I realize he'd written the 2021 update after their separation (hard to tell if these individual sections were real-time but even worse if so) but what was happening was so obvious when he first started to mention the issues, and he described her so harshly and without empathy, like she had some bug that needed to be "f…

In the post-FIRE relationships disconnect post, it was jarring how he went from having what I saw as a reasonably well communicated discussion to "she couldn't get her head around us being different." Seems like the understood each other, but had different priorities. Each also seemed to have a bit of disdain for the other's way of thinking.

He saw her desires as vain and felt like she didn't understand his ideal of freedom. She saw his freedom as stagnation.

Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#249

Post by sidlls »

sokoloff wrote: post #166
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Previously my underlying approach to life looked like: "I will do X which will enable me to do Y so that I can finally do Z." I now approach my days with "What will make me happy?" Great insight that is worth repeating. One of my biggest problems with FIRE discussions is how much they reinforce the idea that retirement is a prerequisite for achieving happiness. This leads a lot of FIRE-minded people to double down…

> For the average FIRE person working a $100-200K/year job, they might be better off scaling back to a sustainable 40hr/week job and making a point of taking vacations and doing activities in their off time. In software right now, I think it’s not difficult to have a sustainable low-six-figure job where you take vacations and have activities and off time to enjoy them.

That depends on the region and industry. Outside of "tech hubs" like the Bay Area, most software jobs paying close to six-figures are still more like "business casual, butt in the seats" than they are "WFH 2x/week, wear sandals and shorts if you want".

These jobs have things like accrued PTO, limited perks, and relatively inflexible time-off tolerance that is highly dependent on the manager's whim.

"Not difficult" is relative, really.

Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#250

Post by stouset »

monktastic1 wrote: post #176
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Previously my underlying approach to life looked like: "I will do X which will enable me to do Y so that I can finally do Z." I now approach my days with "What will make me happy?" Great insight that is worth repeating. One of my biggest problems with FIRE discussions is how much they reinforce the idea that retirement is a prerequisite for achieving happiness. This leads a lot of FIRE-minded people to double down…

> One of my biggest problems with FIRE discussions is how much they reinforce the idea that retirement is a prerequisite for achieving happiness. This leads a lot of FIRE-minded people to double down on jobs they hate that consume too much of their time and energy, only because they think it will better enable them to be happy later. On the FIRE subreddit, anyway, they're very clear that: 1. It's the FI part that rea…

"Build the life you want, then save for it" has become the mantra of these subreddits as of late, which I think is a much better approach than the "live and eat like a college student so you can live and eat like a college student for the rest of your life but without having to work" that it used to come across as.
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