There's definitely an argument for making hay while the sun shines. But retiring early exposes you more to future bear markets since the value/returns of your investment portfolio will go down. Being employed seems a lot more resilient in that case.
Being employed or running a business (or being in school, in a sports team etc.) also means you're part of the general actively synchronised life. Might sound fuzzy but it boils down to being in touch with society around you. Then again, there is plenty of society all over the world where that means working strange hours, strange jobs, or not at all.
Everyone needs a way to plug in to the world around them. It doesn’t have to be a full time job or even a job at all. But this is something everyone needs.
Indeed. There are many ways to have that (some people want to be part of a group or club, some people want to be around but mostly just as a passive observer, some people want to consume, some want to produce), it's just a matter of finding out what works.
In tech I'm seeing more combinations of low-hour steady jobs, combined with passion projects, entrepreneurial things, being in/around nature, teaching things to other people, and also very 'low complexity' stuff like running a few shifts at a non-chain espresso bar, just for the change of scenery while still being connected and active. Heck, I've had someone do that, enjoy it a ton and then flip around (owns an espresso bar, does some DevOps engineering on the side, both working out great even in the pandemic).
It's mostly that attempting to peak for the sake of peaking or retiring for the sake of retiring usually ends up rather disconnected and hollow. Perhaps it's some sort of genetic thirst for tribalism.
What you've said is correct but if you take what you've said and apply it to the point of retirement it gets a bit depressing since you do indeed lose all those things. People have a lot of trouble accepting retirement because of that loss of routine and of connection.
So what's the best outcome? My point of view is that the answer is to find something right now that provides that connection to society without causing you harm in other aspects. So it's an argument for quitting.
The original poster in this thread says to push through pain now to early retirement. But lets think about that. You'd be working your ass off now merely to hit the issues of a loss of routine and connection later in life.
Instead find something now that you wouldn't mind doing past retirement age and you'll never have those issues.
Yep, and having something to do is sometimes all you need to keep "plugged in". It doesn't even need to be a job or a money maker. That said, when (commercial) value is created, it's usually a good idea to make sure that value isn't given away for free (but it doesn't have to be top-tier pricing either). Besides income, money is also a signal and a valuation method for the parties involved.
It’s not an either/or. Having a good nest egg gives you the option of working less or working on something more fulfilling (that still generates income)
That is true. But following some 'masterplan' that involves "Get a PhD, get a crappy bonus-oriented job that you hate in a place that you hate, quit everything to retire" is just another variation on the other general flows ("go to school, get a job, find love, get kids, get a house, get the kids to go to school, become a grandparent"). None of those are going to suddenly 'buy' you happiness. It also doesn't mean going 'against the flow' or 'doing the opposite' is therefore 'better', it's just that there is no guaranteed plan that makes life meaningful and nice.
If you are following some common flow and it turns out you're not happy doing that, try and modify instead of 'keeping your head down and powering through' or some nonsense like that. Especially if you have options.
> There's definitely an argument for making hay while the sun shines.
Forgot that phrase, but that's exactly what I'm getting at. Also, make that hay in the morning. Because of compounding interest/returns, dollars (or pounds) that you save in your 20s are far, FAR more valuable than dollars you save in your 30s which are more valuable than dollars you save in your 40s. The advice you sometimes hear to go traveling and backpacking in your early 20s to self-discover is total financial lunacy. Every month you don't earn money in your early 20s probably results in extending retirement six or more months.
You can have other goals apart from increasing the balance of your investment portfolio or retiring early. It's not all about optimising this one aspect of your life.
It's a real shame that spending your youth fixated on money and a nebulous future retirement doesn't have a price tag attached to it.
You can calculate the opportunity cost of a dollar spent vs a dollar invested, but you cannot so easily calculate the cost of squandering a chance to have a memorable experience while you're still young and unencumbered.
> you cannot so easily calculate the cost of squandering a chance to have a memorable experience while you're still young and unencumbered.
Do people who do the whole "frontload a big hedonistic experience before you start working/living as an adult" actually end up with memorable experiences that often?
It's def good to sprinkle in a few periods or jaunts where you go out there and have a good time. Go for a Euro-trip with some bar crawls, go through a techno rave phase, etc.
Otherwise I'm pretty sure 80%+ of those who don't do it end up being squares in their 30's married to some girl who missed out.
I do know that maybe 20% of people aren't really in to the big party hedonism thing, and that's fine.
> The advice you sometimes hear to go traveling and backpacking in your early 20s to self-discover is total financial lunacy.
And life isn't only about min-maxing your financial situation at all times. Playing this game leads to a pretty bitter life, some are fit for it and thrive by squandering every cent they can during their younger years, others will simply be miserable.
Financial lunacy or not I don't believe that your life should be completely dictated by maximising your financial prospects when you are 40 or 50, each decade is a completely different life you live and missing out on your 20s while you are at your healthiest and less tired self is a personal development lunacy.
When you retire you aren't young and dumb anymore, you won't have the same experiences, you won't meet the same people, you will just coast into your later years. Might be successful by the metrics of the rat race but are you, as a person, really much better if you didn't experience much just to save money for later?
Everything is a trade-off, min-maxing your retirement funds on expense of your life experiences is just another option, financial lunacy or not, I'd love for more humans to not have to be trapped into lives based on what's financially sound or not.
This isn't so much every month not earning money but every month not putting money into a retirement account/savings. If you make a bunch of money in your 20s and don't adequately do these things (like, work for a startup that has no 401k and you don't open up and contribute to a Roth IRA to make up for it, for example), then it's not much different than going backpacking through your 20s.
3% withdrawal rate has a ton of cushion built in, surviving all historic scenarios including the Great Depression. If we do experience something worse than the Great Depression, it’s not a particularly safe assumption that your job would still exist either, but having whatever was left of your savings would put you in a better spot than most to forge a new life in this new post-apocalyptic world.
