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Why Are 20-Somethings Retiring?

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Re: Why Are 20-Somethings Retiring?

#41

Post by TeMPOraL »

tinalumfoil wrote: post #19

> When you're in your twenties you should be spending that time really exploring and thinking about the things that give you meaning. Once you start growing up and living a life more you won't be able to do that again. -Digit CEO (from video) I hate the idea that once you leave college and get a job your life of having fun is over. As though fiscal irresponsibility is necessary for finding your life's "meaning" and y…

I hate the other end of that idea (reality) - that you have to grow up and be responsible and stop having fun or be spontaneous in your life, because from now on it's career, marriage, career, kids, career, retirement and death.

Re: Why Are 20-Somethings Retiring?

#42

Post by forgottenpass »

tinalumfoil wrote: post #19

> When you're in your twenties you should be spending that time really exploring and thinking about the things that give you meaning. Once you start growing up and living a life more you won't be able to do that again. -Digit CEO (from video) I hate the idea that once you leave college and get a job your life of having fun is over. As though fiscal irresponsibility is necessary for finding your life's "meaning" and y…

I hate the idea that once you leave college and get a job your life of having fun is over. As though fiscal irresponsibility is necessary for finding your life's "meaning"

It's not necessary, it's just that the market forces have made it such that fiscal responsibility is tightly bound to spending most your productive time, energy and drive at working. People barely have time to for family next to work. Think the market allocates people time for existential searching? That doesn't make someone else money; so, no, it doesn't.

Re: Why Are 20-Somethings Retiring?

#43

Post by toomuchtodo »

jazzyk wrote: post #5
such_a_casual wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It shouldn't be called retirement. In personal finance it's called, "Financial Independence." Which basically means you aren't necessarily done working for the rest of your life, just that working has become completely optional. more info: https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence

"...you aren't necessarily done working for the rest of your life, just that working has become completely optional" Optional - as long as you live in your parents' basement and don't want to start a family. :-)

> Optional - as long as you live in your parents' basement and don't want to start a family. :-)

I think this is where there's a fundamental disconnect in cultures.

I'm 33, my wife 31. We're about to have kids, and we've strongly considered moving in with my parents, not only to spend more time with them, but also to provide care when necessary as well as have their help watching and raising our children.

Just because we're well off (we're financially independent) doesn't mean we need an expensive mortgage in the suburbs to raise our family, nor does it mean we can't live with family or have them live with us.

America is far more broken than I expected.

Re: Why Are 20-Somethings Retiring?

#44

Post by cobaltblue »

DINKDINK wrote: post #18
jophde wrote: post #8

Yea, I am sure the percentage of 20-somethings who are actually financially independent is less than .0001%. Everyone else inherited money or gave up all hope of finding a real job.

300e6*.0001/100 = 300 people in the USA. There's probably more than 300, 20 year olds who are living off private incomes.

Even worse, he said of 20-somethings (not out of the whole population, and not just 20 year olds) which leaves a start number around 45 million, or a mere 45 people in the USA.

It's actually pretty easy to become financially independent before you hit 30 if you finish college on time (while you're 23) and get a 6-figure job out of college, and work for a few years with a small (sub-25k/yr) annual cost of living.

Re: Why Are 20-Somethings Retiring?

#45

Post by SonicSoul »

hwstar wrote: post #2

It shouldn't be called retirement. It is probably more like a temporary hiatus. Also, it isn't just 20-somethings. US employment has been somewhat of a raw deal in the last 15 years for all age groups. Some people have realized that working to live just isn't worth it. There's a lot of bullshit work assigned in a typical corporate job, and this 'impedance mismatch' forces some people with financial strength to quit a…

There's a lot of bullshit work assigned in a typical corporate job

What jobs don't have that? As if startups magically solved this problem by giving employees nothing but innovative thought provoking problems and everything else is handled by worker elfs. No, every place has its share of bs work. the difference is that a portion (majority?) of corporate folks stopped caring to actually solve problems. Instead they do the minimum to keep their jobs. You can do the same thing every day, waste 30% of time chatting with coworkers, another 30% on the net, and then complain about how boring your job is. I've yet to see corporations that didn't have good problems to solve.

Re: Why Are 20-Somethings Retiring?

#46

Post by nostrademons »

loki540 wrote: post #13
krisdol wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're defining retirement as "you don't have a job and aren't looking for one", which is an egregious stretch of a definition. They're not financially independent or retired, they've given up looking for work worth doing.

No, that's not it - of the people 20-24 who "don't have a job and aren't looking for them", the number of people who said it was because they were retired doubled. Other answers were "disabled" and "staying at home". That being said, I don't see how anyone can retire at 20-24 - if it was 30-34 it'd make a lot more sense. . .

There's no category for "I believe that the notion of 'lifetime employment until age 65, upon which you get to enjoy the life you've saved up for if you still have the health for it' is outdated, and choose to take my retirement in chunks of a year or two interspersed by periods of productive, lucrative work."

One of the side effects of moving to a fluid labor market is that you can basically get a job whenever you want. Moreover, you're forced to, and you're forced to stay up-to-date with market conditions so you can get a new job at any time. If you have to make this bargain anyway, who's to say that those jobs need to be contiguous? Why not take a job paying $90K for two years, live as if you had a job paying $60K, and then take a year off to travel?

My wife and I both did variants of this (her: bond trader => Peace Corps, me: financial software => startup => Google => startup), but we took our downtime in socially sanctioned, labeled ways and so don't fit into the "retired" statistics. But what about, say, the friend of mine who interned on a salmon fishing boat, took a job in economic consulting, did a multi-year sex tour of Southeast Asia, and now runs a hedge fund there? Or the friend of mine who runs a profitable SaaS remotely and is now doing Hacker Paradise, traveling the world? Where do they fit into the employment statistics? "Retired" is a lot better descriptor than "disabled" or "staying at home".

The numbers in the BLS report were on the order of 1-2%; I could easily believe that 1-2% of 20-24 year olds are doing gap years, or have software businesses that generate passive income, or have worked for a year or two at a lucrative profession and now saved up enough to travel the world.

Re: Why Are 20-Somethings Retiring?

#47

Post by nickbauman »

Totally anecdotal: A few months ago a friend was down by the Mississippi river park in downtown Minneapolis where there were a group of young homeless guys drinking under a bridge trestle. Turns out these guys had undergraduate degrees with massive student loan debt. They explained they'd decided to become homeless because they didn't see any way to ever pay it back.

Re: Why Are 20-Somethings Retiring?

#48

Post by VLM »

The numbers involved are extremely small. Twice nothing is still roughly nothing. My suspicion is at least some young women married an (older?) guy and are doing the stay at home mom thing. Its not like the economy is booming, they're not missing out on anything. "Maybe when the economy is better, and my kid is in preschool, my art degree will really pay off"

Re: Why Are 20-Somethings Retiring?

#50

Post by salmonet »

tinalumfoil wrote: post #19

> When you're in your twenties you should be spending that time really exploring and thinking about the things that give you meaning. Once you start growing up and living a life more you won't be able to do that again. -Digit CEO (from video) I hate the idea that once you leave college and get a job your life of having fun is over. As though fiscal irresponsibility is necessary for finding your life's "meaning" and y…

I interpreted that as meaning that it's just easier to be a free spirit when you are younger. One you are married/have kids/get older, options start closing.
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