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

61–70 of 443 posts

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#61

Post by Justsignedup »

boplicity wrote: post #22

In my early twenties, I had a business mostly on autopilot that let me work maybe an hour a day. I mostly spent my time writing poetry, hiking, making friends, etc. It was great. It was not sustainable, but it was perfect for a twenty something exploring the joys and freedoms of youth. Now, I work much harder, have kids, and responsibilities. That being said, I know the work I do is meaningful, and serves many people…

Both things can be true. I both enjoy the moments when I can be selfish and live for my enjoyment, and the moments when I focus my life and goals bringing joy to my child and family.

I also joke about wanting to do nothing for a year. About 2-3 weeks in I'm ready to take on a full workload again. I once was unemployed for 2 months, I thought it'd be a vacation. I hated it after the first month.

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#62

Post by samvher »

corry wrote: post #55

Kudos to people who go FIRE without state-provided healthcare - from a "typical brainwashed Canadian" POV you're one health mishap / one ambulance-ride's worth of unexpected medical costs to kill the entire dream. Also - no kids - huge variable for FIRE obviously, but perhaps less obviously ALSO a huge variable for life's purpose. Something I've seen in my friend and family group is that a lot of couples hit a point…

As someone who is about to get a first child - what kind of low lows should I brace myself for?

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#63

Post by hintymad »

jsdalton wrote: post #38
xwdv wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, financial independence is what matters in a world where returns on capital will greatly outperform returns on labor.

Out of curiosity where are you finding high returns on capital today? I just don’t see them. (As an engineer, conversely, I see very high returns on my labor.)

As an engineer, I see high capital gain from my labor by joining "blow-out" startups, as described by some article written by Wealthfront. Working for a blowing-out startup so far is the best choice for an engineer like me, who is not good at navigating dynamics of a large company nor good at investing nor interested in real estate as many fellow engineers are in Silicon Valley. I personally enjoy the following perks besides decent cash payment:

- Problems come to me instead of me fighting with other teams for fun projects.

- Abundant opportunities for career growth, be it tech leadership or managerial hierarchies.

- Surprisingly high cumulated chance of getting meaningful equity, as long as you switch company quickly when you no longer enjoy your work.

What do I have to do to get into such startups? Well, getting good at leetcode in the early years, and working hard to get a reputation so I don't have to do hard leetcode problems nowadays. I enjoy working on CS fundamentals and applying them, so working on leetcode is never an issue, and working hard is what engineers enjoy anyway.

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#64

Post by sidlls »

neogodless wrote: post #26
sidlls wrote: post #9

I always get a kick out of people who think they’re financially independent with such a small stash. Outside some regions with relatively extreme living conditions (e.g. undeveloped and underdeveloped countries), the amount he retired with was never going to be enough to sustain even minor shocks and last the rest of his life. He had a minor shock (breakup) and a major shock (health condition) and realized this error…

Even with the minor and major shocks in his life, he ended up with 20% more money than he started with. The main reason he wants more money now is that he wants to share it with his new partner, and enjoy some lifestyle inflation. So I don't think it makes sense to extrapolate "leanFIRE cannot sustain minor shocks" from his circumstances." It certainly cannot sustain a certain level of lifestyle inflation, or (more g…

He barely kept up with historical inflation rates (3%/year). Given the free availability of money in the last 2-3 years, it's hard to say a 20% appreciation on his capital is a success. In terms of real dollar value, he likely is losing year-over-year.

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#65

Post by bityard »

seibelj wrote: post #3

I "retired" for a month, first two weeks I was so bored just exercising and consuming content, then got kind of depressed, and wound up making plans to start a new business. Then I took a new role at a startup and went back to the grind. I came to the conclusion I just can't stop working. If it isn't for a company then I'd probably start a non-profit and build a new thing that is more idealistic. My dad was the same…

I like the quote from the neighbor in Office Space, "You don't need money to do nothing man, look at my cousin. He's broke, an' don't do shit."

I listen to a lot of FI podcasts and they acknowledge that the transition from $day_job to FI can be hard for a lot of people. They say the key thing is make sure you're retiring _to_ something rather than _from_ something.

I'm about halfway to FI and simply cannot _wait_ to start spending most of time working on all the gajillion projects that interest me but (probably) won't make much money.

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#66

Post by samvher »

afterwalk wrote: post #42
sidlls wrote: post #9

I always get a kick out of people who think they’re financially independent with such a small stash. Outside some regions with relatively extreme living conditions (e.g. undeveloped and underdeveloped countries), the amount he retired with was never going to be enough to sustain even minor shocks and last the rest of his life. He had a minor shock (breakup) and a major shock (health condition) and realized this error…

What interests me most about the FI community on reddit is how they split into two very different subgroups(leanfire and fatfire). Part of it is a difference in frugality, but part of it is is a fundamental difference in modeling risk.

Do you mean that fatfire folks calculate a greater margin to handle risk or the other way around?

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#67

Post by dfxm12 »

varispeed wrote: post #23

This is something I cannot understand. Why would you want to retire so early? I think that would impact my mental health negatively. I just love to work and I couldn't care less about FI. I mean it's nice to have money, but this will sound cliche it will not buy you happiness. However, it is certainly better to cry in a luxury apartment than under a bridge to your dog.

You don't need a job to work.

Do you love to work, or do you love something else about your job?

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#68

Post by PragmaticPulp »

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, possessions wear out and need to be replaced. Living frugally may be fun when you're in your 20s, but it's not so fun when as you get older and your friends want to do things that require money (vacations, hobbies, dining out). Even worse when your romantic partner has different goals in life, as happened here.

Many of the leanFIRE stories have their roots in people who hate their jobs so much that the only thing that motivates them is early retirement. They grind through the job the hate, counting days on their leanFIRE countdown until they can quit working and never look back.

Most of these people would be much happier if they simply invested time and energy into finding a job they enjoy, or at least one that doesn't make them miserable. Even if it requires a pay cut and a later retirement date, it's much better to spend your time doing something you don't hate than it is to grind out a bad job in misery just to reach dreams of early retirement sooner.

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#69

Post by biesnecker »

samvher wrote: post #62
corry wrote: post #55

Kudos to people who go FIRE without state-provided healthcare - from a "typical brainwashed Canadian" POV you're one health mishap / one ambulance-ride's worth of unexpected medical costs to kill the entire dream. Also - no kids - huge variable for FIRE obviously, but perhaps less obviously ALSO a huge variable for life's purpose. Something I've seen in my friend and family group is that a lot of couples hit a point…

As someone who is about to get a first child - what kind of low lows should I brace myself for?

Every low you have now, but dealing with it while responsible for the life of a tiny person you inexplicably love more than anything else in the world, on zero sleep.

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#70

Post by utborin »

> I feel sure that some of them also felt that they were, you know, continuing to move and shake and improve their lives whereas, from their perspective, I’d sort of given up — my life appeared to be a static thing, unchanging, and therefore pretty fucking boring

This is such a gross element of our culture—what's wrong with just living?—and I feel like it's not even really a matter of working vs. retired. I know folks who have worked the same job for decades, and they get the same harsh judgment from others as the author. But this used to be the norm! When did we switch into this thinking that we have to be constantly racking up gold stars in order for life to mean anything? Where did that idea come from?

Post reply on HN