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Early-Retirement Update

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Re: Early-Retirement Update

#81

Post by ajkjk »

jacquesm wrote: post #14
Trasmatta wrote: post #11

This was a really refreshing and honest take on early retirement, especially among the FI blogosphere. > I looked at other FI bloggers who quit work and retired. They all appeared to be blissful. Stoic. Confident and without reservations. Since I ran into problems myself, I started to feel like I was defective. Like something was wrong with me and that’s why it didn’t work so well. Maybe it has to do with my personal…

But: he's still giving investment advice and he still doesn't realize just how lucky he got.

Sounded like he did, no?

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#82

Post by stocknoob »

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.

People seem to hyperfocus on RE when most of the joy is from FI. Keep working if you want to. That's different than working because you'll be under a bridge if you don't.

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#83

Post by hintymad »

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…

Well said. I'd also add that frugality does not work very well when you have kids. You would want to buy time if you don't want to spend all your time with kids. That means baby sitters, nannies, coaches, and classes for extracurricular activities. Besides, not every parent is good at coaching or tutoring their kids. Given the education quality of the US, you'd have to pay for additional education unless you're the lucky few who have self-driven kids. And what if your kids get sick? The cost just adds up.

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#84

Post by pinkybanana »

lutorm wrote: post #54
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…

Except "retirement" simply means "not having to work to survive". It doesn't mean doing nothing, it means having the freedom to choose to do things that are meaningful to you.

In common language it doesn't. Many people who choose to work don't need the job to survive. I know ridiculously wealthy people who just keep working the usual way. No one says those people are retired.

While retirement is cool, I think life goes better without thinking too much about it. Try to work at a job that doesn't suck ass, try to have hobbies and free time, focus on family etc, invest your savings, don't buy stupid stuff. The level of financial freedom will increase in your life just automatically if you live rationally.

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#85

Post by mcguire »

eric_b wrote: post #46

I really struggled with the author's tone. It dripped of condescension towards those who live a "normal" lifestyle. I enjoy working. I find purpose and meaning it. I do not let it dominate my life, but without it I would feel incomplete. I run my own business now, and that is very satisfying - but even when I was a corporate consultant I found a lot of enjoyment from spending time with my coworkers, solving problems,…

"...she had acquired, somehow, New Life Dreams, which had to do with Conspicuous Consumption and Keeping Up and being Visibly Awesome..."

I was thinking the same thing: geeze, isn't there anything between virtue signalling early retirement and conspicuous consumption?

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#86

Post by corry »

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?

Well, first let me say that being a parent is the best thing in my life (and there is a lot of very good stuff in my life), so don't over-index on what I'm about to say next. You'll be fine and better for it!

You might have heard the quote "To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken."

YMMV but the lowest of the low are the times when you feel the reality that you have become utterly, completely, impossibly vulnerable in a way that you've never felt before. Speaking for myself, I haven't loved anything in my life even remotely closely to how I love my kids. Closest thing is my wife (and I really love her).

You go from... not wanting your plane to crash because, you know, it would suck to die and your spouse would be wrecked... to... my kids will grow up without me there to teach them, keep them safe, show them love. The angst I feel towards that is about 10000x worse than in how I thought about dying before kids.

Heck even your understanding of "my parents would be sad if I died as a 30-year-old man" changes. No parent should ever have to outlive their child.

Every headline that right now seems like a "sad story" - a parent losing a child, a child losing a parent, kids in cages, a daughter and father who are estranged, etc -- becomes an absolutely wrenching sadness if you even FLIRT with the idea of "what if that happened to me/my child"? You develop sensitivities that you are surprised at. You realize you have inherited an impossible and awesome responsibility of providing for, protecting, loving little blank slates of humanity... in a chaotic and dangerous world.

There's no answer to it except to do your best, and hope/pray that you never have to face the unfaceable.

That feeling isn't always present. But that's the dark shadow that occasionally crosses the sun.

Oh and BTW - this love doesn't just magically appear for everyone right away. I know lots of fathers especially who don't feel much right away, but as you see your children go from blobs to little people, you fall in love with them. So don't sweat asking yourself if you're feeling it. Just let it happen. :)

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#87

Post by hogFeast »

sokoloff wrote: post #48
hogFeast wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work in financial services. I wasn't client-facing but because I had experience with financial modelling so I got roped into these discussions...in my experience, everyone gets this wrong. Advisers get it less wrong but I have still seen comical errors from people who should know better. But most people significantly overstate future returns (particularly now), they significantly understate the effect that…

Tools like cFireSim get this much more correct than what you describe above and takes literally just a few minutes to do basic modeling. They're still limited by historical returns, which is both good and bad, but certainly model very prominently the risk-of-ruin. https://www.cfiresim.com/ (no connection, other than very occasional user)

From what I can see, that doesn't look too good. There are likely issues with the data, which is not easily solvable given that complete databases are expensive. And there are likely issues with the modelling, it looks like the model is just scenario analysis. This is better than a misspecified parametric model (most advisers don't do scenario analysis either, so it is definitely valuable...although requires market knowledge to parse fully) but relies on good data...the data is not good.

The correct way to do it is a Monte Carlo simulation using either: a good parametric model (this is very tricky, something like a T distribution is least worst...but is still bad, the ideal is some kind of regime model, proper volatility modelling, and something that models expectation accurately between regimes...tricky), or using block bootstrap on good historical data (more robust quantitatively...but again, good long-term data costs $100k+).

So...it is straightforward if you have good data and understand how to build a proper event-based backtesting system (or code something good enough)...but, as said, 99.99% of advisers do not have the resources for this. In most cases, they are unable to buy software implementing this or even know they need it (I have seen this software but it is usually at advisers that require liquid wealth of $10m+...it isn't only the cost of the software but most advisers below this level have no quantitative skills/staff so don't understand why it is necessary).

Again, I would be cautious about any numbers that come out, and focus on the 5th percentile (and understand that it is a wild over-estimate if the data isn't good).

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#88

Post by utborin »

Pandabob wrote: post #24

He mentions MRIs costing 2-3k€ a pop. That seems really expensive. I’m guessing this is US? Doesn’t competition push down the price of these operations? We’ve got private clinics in Finland offering MRIs from ~230€ without any subsidies (AFAIK).

> Doesn’t competition push down the price of [MRIs in the US]?

Oh, you sweet, innocent babe.

Praise your lucky stars for every single day that you don't have to deal with our "health care" system.

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#89

Post by hogFeast »

regularfry wrote: post #60
hogFeast wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work in financial services. I wasn't client-facing but because I had experience with financial modelling so I got roped into these discussions...in my experience, everyone gets this wrong. Advisers get it less wrong but I have still seen comical errors from people who should know better. But most people significantly overstate future returns (particularly now), they significantly understate the effect that…

It's not "doing nothing" it's "choosing to do nothing for anyone else", which is very different.

It is the same. What is the point of being alive if you aren't providing value to other people? Just sitting on your mountain of gold, and count it all day long.

Re: Early-Retirement Update

#90

Post by boplicity »

marban wrote: post #44
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…

Kids, family and other obligations you opt in might define the meaning of life for you — For others it could be the exact opposite, or the beginning of the end.

Yes -- I agree. The specifics of meaning are idiosyncratic to the individual. We shouldn't assume that things that are meaningful to us will be meaningful to others!
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