FIRE = Financial Independence Retire Early
"People keep trying to ask me like what I do because they, they wanna know who I am, what I'm like, and stuff like that. And I, I don't even know myself because like I don't really have an identity. I don't think I, and I'm okay with that."
He was telling me that he doesn't really have an identity and he's working towards being proud of that. Like, he's rebelling against the idea that you have to be one thing, you have to be a noun or two nouns or different things that you do. And he is almost kind of defiantly saying he's nothing, he's not any of these things. He doesn't want to be. I thought that was really interesting because a lot of other people in the FIRE movement also feel this way too when they retire. Like they don't wanna define themselves. And the whole idea is very subversive, right? Like the overarching credo of FIRE is that you don't belong to work, you belong to yourself. So you don't need work to define yourself. You're not a former software engineer who is now a gardener or whatever it is. You're just, you, you're a good person who has interests and relationships and is beloved and loves.
"I don't believe that I, I need to have any identity. I don't, I don't need to be known for anything. I don't feel like one thing should describe a person. You know, they, I feel like they, they're made up of all their actions, not just one thing that they do."...
ADDED: I blogged about FIRE here, in 2018. Excerpt:
"Your Money or Your Life" had the idea of becoming independent from paid work so you could pursue causes or art — some work that wouldn't pay a living. That made the book less hippie. The hippie idea that I think is still meaningful... is freedom. Reclaim your time. Don't sell it so you can buy things. If you radically rethink what you need and what you want, you may want a lot more of your time and not very much more stuff....Here's another old book, one that's not mentioned in the NYT article... "The Tightwad Gazette." I read those "Tightwad Gazette" books when they came out. I read them for sheer entertainment and also for inspiration. It's so obvious that not spending money is more effective than making more money....
AND: "The Tightwad Gazette" wasn't about early retirement but the single-earner household. I wrote about that in 2012, here. Excerpt:
If the single-earner household movement were to flourish, we wouldn't need so many jobs, and we wouldn't need to drive ourselves so hard. Then there are taxes. If you're living alone, filing as an unmarried person, you've probably noticed how much less you would pay if you added a spouse. And what about feminism? If the woman stays home, maybe the man will leave her some day — leave her for a younger woman! — and then what will she do, not having developed her career? The women's movement made a big deal out of warning us about that danger, but something I want to examine — not here, but in later posts — is the way this women's movement came along just when we Baby Boomers in the 1960s were inspired by the hippie movement, which tipped us off that life might be about freedom and not about taking one's place in the conventional workworld. Wouldn't it be a kick in the head if it turned out feminism served, above all, the interests of commerce and not individual liberation?
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76 comments:
I retired on my 69th birthday because I loved what I was doing and enjoyed the people I worked with. I’d have retired a month or two sooner but the guy at the retirement planing office told me that by waiting until my birthday I’d make $19 more a month in my pension. Of course Joe Biden’s self-evident goal is to make $19 the cost of a fast food hamburger, but hey! A hamburger is a hamburger.
Luxury beliefs. No wonder there's a chasm between the blue collars and the elites.
Are they the ones we are paying off the student loans for??
They left out ShitFIRE and LayaboutFIRE…
It’s hard to imagine the personality that has both the discipline to earn a retirement by 35 and the indolence to want to.
There's a website called HumbleDollar which was my first exposure to FIRE. Today the proprietor announced he's just learned he's dying of cancer at age sixty-one.
For decades now I've been conflicted about this idea of living a life of service. Makes a lot of sense in theory but the rule seems almost exclusively observed in the breach. Admiring religious people mitigates but only so much and we can't all find a cure for cancer or even have what it takes to try.
Thurgood Marshall said he wanted his epitaph to read: He Did the Best He Could with What He Had. That's a good one. Admirably humble.
And a kind of service to others, come to think it.
i retired early.. (56), so that i could be a trout bum..
couldn't imagine retiring earlier..
number one, that's be a LOT of health insurance to pay for
number two, there's 24 hrs in a day, and 7 days in a wk (and 52 weeks in a yr): That's a LOT of fishing
social "security"* is based on like your top 5 years pay. My last years were making pretty good money (for iowa).. But, since they were 7-12 years ago, because of inflation; they're not so impressive now..
If top pay years were in your 30s.. how much are you going to get in social "security" when 62?
of course.. IF you're in your 30s now.. WHY would you think that you'd EVER see ANY social "security"
social "security* Merle Haggard -- Big City
'm tired of this dirty old city
Entirely too much work and never enough play
And I'm tired of these dirty old sidewalks
Think I'll walk off my steady job today
Turn me loose, set me free
Somewhere in the middle of Montana
And give me all I've got comin' to me
And keep your retirement
And your so called social security
Big city, turn me loose and set me free
Been working everyday since I was twenty
Haven't got a thing to show for anything I've done
There's folks who never work and they've got plenty
Think it's time some guys like me had some fun
So, turn me loose, set me free
We live in a different time. Today’s workers have never lived off of beans.
And they’re not about to start now.
"It’s hard to imagine the personality that has both the discipline to earn a retirement by 35 and the indolence to want to."
It's not hard for me to imagine at all. It's someone who values their time and their freedom far above anything material that could be purchased and can lean into frugality.
A guy I used to occasionally follow online has been preaching this lifestyle for almost 20 years - "Mr. Money Mustache" he calls himself.
(replying to self) Ah, I see indeed he is mentioned in the article
Where does "indolence" come into play? You sound as though you don't have ideas about what to do with your life if you didn't have a paying job! That's what "they" want you to think. They don't want you to drop out of the work-for-pay, buy-consumer goods world.
"I don't believe that I, I need to have any identity. I don't, I don't need to be known for anything. I don't feel like one thing should describe a person. You know, they, I feel like they, they're made up of all their actions, not just one thing that they do."...
Whatever you choose to do with your time on earth, work or not, says a lot about you. If you don’t need to be known for anything, that’s something. What is an identity, anyway?
"who am I without work?"
In my experience, you're nobody. Among the Mingling Class, The first encounter begins with The Question, "What do you do?". Any version of "Whatever pleases me," marks you as weird, if not downright creepy. Maybe, if you have that magical twinkle in your eye, are devestatingly handsome or known to have more spending cash than Scrooge Mc Duck... but, seriously. You might as well go straight home and watch funny pet videos on Youtube.
All is not lost, though. Just like in Work World, you can make it by faking it. For just a couple hundred $$, you can get a biz license and order some cards... "Editorial Consultant", "Location Scout", "Chief Researcher"... Use your imagination! If you feel the mojo working, put up a simple website.
Re: Tim Maguire:
It’s hard to imagine the personality that has both the discipline to earn a retirement by 35 and the indolence to want to.
I think it's a variant of what you see quite often in law -- someone graduates law school, works for 5-10 years to pay off debt and build a nest egg, and then quits to do something else much less lucrative. For a lot of people, a job or career is nothing more and nothing less than a means of making money, and once they have the money they need they can walk away without a second thought.
The other thing is if you have a high salary, you can build up sufficient retirement basically on autopilot. My expenses are extremely low, low enough that I could easily cover my annual expenses with my starting salary from ~20 years ago, not even adjusted for inflation. And the excess was mostly just dumped into index funds (or piled up in my checking account). After I had a stroke I looked at whether I could retire if I needed to (at 40), and when I ran the numbers I had already hit my "FIRE" number. Not by 35, but probably 38 or so.
Did these FIRE people take into account Joe Biden’s ruinous inflation?
Big shift in attitudes among Millenials, Gen Z as opposed to their Boomer and GenX X counterparts is that the youngins prioritize time over money. This is a huge transformation in our society.
Retired at 62 - Social Security and my (not-big-enough-to-live-on-by-itself) Navy pension allowed us to live at the same level without having to withdraw from the 401K. Would have done so earlier if I could have. I very much enjoyed my work, but not nearly as much as I enjoy being retired.
I see serving your fellow man is no longer a motivation….I thought of tightwad gazette. Those people did some freaky cheapskate stuff. More power to them….I’m suspicious of the live off the compound interest people. Dido they factor in historical market corrections? We stopped having them because govmint helicopter money has become the new normal. Should we have market corrections again some plans will probably be messed up. Hope they’re prepared to go back to work..
I’m an entrepreneur. There will never be a time I’m not working. I love traveling and doing projects. Next up Berkeley. For a week. As long as I make it out of the airport that is. The absolute best part is now I fish wherever I go. Fort Bragg on this trip!
Tightwad Gazette. Back when we had 3 kids under the age of 6 and my wife wasn't working (for a paycheck), she did the Tightwad thing (even though I was making good money) rather obsessively. 50 pound bags of oatmeal. Ugh.
With T-bills earning 5%, someone with, say $1 million in cash savings earns $50k in annual income. It provides the illusion of being set for life. But when prices are rising a 7%, you are actually seeing purchasing power slip away.
I believe the first interest anyone has when meeting someone new is "What can he/she do to benefit me?". If you got nothing, if you're not even a name worthy of dropping, why waste my time with you.
I believe there's an even higher level of "nobodyness" than retirement and that's age, itself. I own a successful business, do interesting things, never turn down a request to help write a speech, an article or eulogy. I am well-known, respected and even liked in my community...
BUT, starting about five years ago, I began to "disappear". Social relationships became more difficult. All but one of "my age-group" friends have battened-down the hatches and care only about fresh batteries for the remote.
Younger people still enjoy talking, laughing, hiking with me and coming over for dinner (I LOVE to cook). But, clearly, they are wary of personal relationships. I don't think the problem is me - the problem is there's no future in me. Why bond with someone who's likey to abruptly leave sooner rather than later.
Re: Money Manger:
With T-bills earning 5%, someone with, say $1 million in cash savings earns $50k in annual income. It provides the illusion of being set for life. But when prices are rising a 7%, you are actually seeing purchasing power slip away.
The FIRE strategy didn't emerge in a period where Treasuries were earning meaningful returns and I've never seen a FIRE portfolio that assumed significant income from T-bills. Rather, the strategy is dependent on returns from equities or rental income from a real estate portfolio, with cash or treasuries just serving as an emergency fund to help bridge significant market downturns, e.g. $500K in bonds, but $2.5M in index funds/etfs. Frankly, even conventional retirement strategies where one switches from equities to all bonds after retirement seem a little foolhardy when we don't know what inflation is going to look like, and people live longer and longer.
A better life strategy is to find a career that you enjoy. Then you wouldn't want to retire.
social "security"* is based on like your top 5 years pay.
No it's not. It's based on top 35 years indexed for inflation.
You're thinking of NYC cop pensions or something.
I recently retired early, at age 59. One of the most appealing aspects of my current living, is arranging my finances to minimize the amount of taxes I pay to the federal government. Especially when said federal government tax dollars are paying for weapons being used in Ukraine and Gaza.
Balfegor said...I think it's a variant of what you see quite often in law -- someone graduates law school, works for 5-10 years to pay off debt and build a nest egg
I’ve known plenty of those people. It was a common path when big law jobs were easy to come by. They weren’t driven to retire early, they were driven to build a solid foundation early so they could pursue the kind of legal career they wanted.
It took me a minute to decide how to think about this. Work is integral to human beings - almost all of them, it seems to me. It gives us a sense of direction and purpose.
But it doesn't have to be for money; working for actual money (which is kind of an oxymoron, since money is an abstraction - a very useful one but nonetheless not a real thing like wheat or fish or wool) is a pretty new innovation in human endeavor. That's where I was getting hung up. (Kind of ironic as I haven't pulled a paycheck in at least ten years - though skippy-doo, I'm up over $100 in royalties on my totally unmarketed self-published novel.)
May I recommend the excellent British comedy from the '70s, shown in the US as The Good Neighbors? (I see it's on IMDB as The Good Life. It starred Richard Briers, whom I've never seen in anything else, but also Felicity Kendal and the inimitable Penelope Keith.) The story is that Tom Good, a middle-aged engineer working for a corporation in London, feels deeply dissatisfied. He thinks about why, and decides that what he needs to do is become self-sufficient. The problem is that he and his wife live in Surbiton, a tony suburb.
His wife Barbara considers the proposition at some length and decides that she's up for it. So they turn their yard into a subsistence garden, he designs and builds a methane collection system in their basement for generator electricity, they acquire some chickens and I think goats and at one point a pig, they barter for things they can't make, and they learn how to do just about everything else themselves.
The comedy comes in as their very conventional neighbors Margo (that's Penelope Keith) and Jerry struggle to understand what they're doing and to navigate a social life that centers on these rather embarrassing friends. A favorite scene: Tom is going house to house with a wheelbarrow, collecting people's food scraps for methane production. He stops at Margo and Jerry's and asks Margo for her scraps. She says, "We have no food waste. I have a waste disposal unit." Tom: "Well, you could just give us what you would normally put down it, couldn't you? Then we can use it." Margo, rather distraught: "But I have a waste disposal unit!"
It's only 30 episodes, but it gives an interesting picture of how... well, how our present Search For Meaning™ is a luxury belief. Tom and Barbara have never worked harder, but everything they do has a purpose - there's no time for anything useless. Tom's rudderlessness disappears; Barbara adjusts well to a life of doing the necessary. The neighbors come to accept that their weird friends are still fundamentally just their friends.
The author of the NYT article has a previous mention on the Althouse blog -
https://althouse.blogspot.com/2023/04/as-it-turns-out-rich-are-drawn-to.html
Anyone who retires early or works just enoufh to qualify for taxpayer bennies, primarily to get the absurdly cheap, "platinum" Obamacare for next to nothing and based solely on current income should remember that you're the new welfare queens. You are taking our tax dollars to live fat and happy while we self-employed or self-paying serfs struggle to afford inadequate and insanely expensive medical insurance while living on a middle-class salary.
At least use some of your free time to educate yourself and lobby to change Obama's incredibly punitive scaling of health insurance that hands premium care for pennies to anyone skating along in life -- being a bum, an artist, underworking -- while forcing hard-working working class and middle class people to spend 1/3 of their income or more just to buy substandard care with massive deductibles -- and subsidize you.
For those of you living on government job healthcare, of course all of this is just a fun intellectual exercise: we have been subsidizing you all along. Also welfare queens.
Ditto Medicare, which is our biggest taxpayer-funded (yes, payroll taxes are taxes) welfare program: look at the data tables to see just how fast most people burn through "what they paid for this, including interest" then spend the rest of their lives also sucking off the public teat.
Also welfare queens. Do the math.
Comparatively, our taxes for foreign wars, though I do agree with opposing paying for them too, are pennies. Just 1% of our tax dollars. So don't flatter yourself.
wild chicken said...
No it's not. It's based on top 35 years indexed for inflation.
my mistake.. The social "security" web site only lists the current decade's years individually,
The previous decades are clumped together.
i retired in 2017.. so i saw SEVEN (i made as much in EACH of those 7 as i did my first TWO decades)
None the less..
If top pay years were in your 30s.. how much are you going to get in social "security" when 62? How many years (out of thirty five) do you have accrued IF you retire in your 30s?
of course.. IF you're in your 30s now.. WHY would you think that you'd EVER see ANY social "security"
If someone had done this in 1969 or 1970 and were depending on savings for any significant part of their future, they would have been wiped out before 1980. Inflation is relentless, once it’s allowed to start.
Jamie said “ May I recommend the excellent British comedy from the '70s, shown in the US as The Good Neighbors? (I see it's on IMDB as The Good Life.”
Found it. It’s on BritBox. Thanks.
here a SERIOUS QUESTIONS for you old smart people..
WHY would someone wait until 70 to start receiving socal "security" payments?
WHY would someone wait until 66 to start receiving socal "security" payments?
Please Include Your Math
Also, how does Mandatory 401k withdrawals affect this?
It looks to me, that IF i start payments today (which by the way, is my 62nd bDay)..
assuming (for the sake of argument) the interest on my 401k is 6%..
Then the money that i WOULDN'T take out over the next year would earn VERY SLIGHTLY MORE money than the amount extra in payments i'd get by waiting one more year. The same seems true for Each year.
So it seems like a wash..
Gilbar,
Taxes can be a consideration- especially if you have non-social security income that exceeds the SS payments at age 62- delaying until 66 or later is a way "invest" that age 62 payment without incurring a tax liability.
I have run these calculations before because it is a question I will need answer in another 4 years if I live long enough- I came down on the side of taking it at age 62 because most of my income is in my IRAs still and will still be true at age 62. The confounding factor is that I also have a pension I can take at any time between now and age 65 where delaying does make a pretty big difference in the monthly income- my plan right now is to take both at age 62 and I am unlikely to change that plan.
Are these the new 'Boomers'? I don't object to someone living like an impoverished bum, as long as they're not doing it as someone else's expense, but therein lies the rub. If their student loans are being paid off by a politician's largesse (with our money), and their medical insurance is being subsidized, then - get a job.
I know a few 'Boomers' with side gigs to augment their retirement income - Starbucks seems to be a favorite, great insurance - and even more Boomers that have a genuine life of service and won't retire until they're forced to. I don't know any that have been retired for more than a few years, and I think I might be the only one that retired before age 60.
Since this seems to be becoming a societal feature, shouldn't this category of young person have their own designated name? 'Sooner' is already taken - so is 'Slacker', too bad.
Well, what if you love what you're doing? What if it seems more like play than like "work"? And better yet, you can (and do) do it from anywhere in the world. With no office, no set schedule. And they just keep paying you to keep doing it because they need what you know, not just what you knew.
Life is sweet when you learn to find that sweet spot.
For me 65 and Medicare was the magic moment.
I actually waited until 65/6 months which happens to be right now.
I made decent money, we own our home and are completely debt free. I could have easily worked longer, however the level of disfunction was so great at my company I had come to despise everything about it.
They say it can’t be done, but my wife and will live predominantly on combined social security benefits. Not that we don’t have investments. People who retire in their 30’s will never have substantial social security benefits to rely on as a base for living when they actually become old. Doubtless they will expect the broader society to pitch in and help them just as if they had worked a full career. In much the same way they believe their college debts should be forgiven.
Good luck to them.
@gilbar on the SS issue, deferring a year grants you a guaranteed ~6% increase for each year that you wait. This is generally thought to be worth the deferral, from a return-on-investment perspective. Retirement age at present is 66+ years for full SS benefits, and this is set to continue increasing. If you chart the different payouts, you'll see that the lines for earliest SS full retirement at 66+ and at full retirement (70) will cross at about 80½ years of age. IT's even more pronounced a difference compared to early retirement at 62. If you think you'll live longer, then wait. If your genetics predict you'll won't, then maybe don't wait. If you have a spouse, don't' forget the survivor's benefits are tied to whatever you decide. It might benefit you to speak with an advisor, preferably someone with a fiduciary's financial planning credentials.
Note to the younger community: Do not retire in your 30s or 40s unless you have tens of millions banked.
At that early age, there are things you're not thinking about. Your health. The overall economic waves- the rises and the falls (or collapses) yet to come. And they will. The Black Swan event(s). That is, things not even on your radar that will affect the world- and you. Plus, you will need income for decades more if you retire early. Whatever you think it will cost to retire, you'd better figure more. Much more. Just a helpful note.
But mostly this: Humans have a need to be productive. To do something. And 'by something' I don't mean being a barista. No offense to any coffee makers out there. I loved bartending once in my life, but it was not my raison d'etre. Happy humans are still 'doing things' humans. And I don't mean shopping. I mean, producing something. Or servicing others.
But...your prime earning years are your 30s, 40s, 50s. Make the most of those. Anyone telling you to cut it short and just play is not helping you. They're just looking for clicks. Don't base your life on clicks.
I saved aggressively so that I could retire early, but in my mid-fifties found I was so wrapped up in my work that I probably would have kept working if nothing intervened. But a medical diagnosis did intervene, and my frugality allowed me to retire early (56) after all. I'm 68 now and have loved retirement from the onset.
30-year olds thinking they know how their life will unfold are foolish. Build up your resources now so that you have options down the road.
Re Gilbar's comments on why a 30 year old believes there will still be social security when they are 62, I would add "why would someone who only worked for ten years believe themselves to be entitled to collect?"
Temujin is right: we're happiest when we're producing something. That doesn't have to be a ton of money with which to buy a ton of things, but work should give life more meaning than it has without work. Just outside of Houston we have a community for disabled adults called Brookwood, and they were at the forefront of the idea that disabled people wanted and needed to work - everyone has something important to contribute. Their "citizens" have a plant nursery, make pottery, run a cafe - it's a truly amazing place. When you look a work from their perspective, and try to apply it to your own life, it makes a lot more sense. I don't love my job, but I like it. It's a good job that pays well, I'm good at it, I'm fortunate to have it, and the money I've earned has greatly benefitted my family over the years. I will do it until I either can't do it as well as I'd like to anymore, or I am called to do something more important (grandchildren? would any of my kids like to get married and give me grandchildren? Bueller?). Then again, if I had those grandchildren, maybe the best thing I could do is keep working to help pay for their education. Who knows? Maybe the real answer is to stop thinking about working and living your life solely for your own benefit. How many of these "retire by 40" people have family they're responsible for?
Happy birthday, Gilbar. I too was born on this beautiful day. May God grant us both many years!
I've encountered these FIRE people on reddit and they seem to be an annoying bunch who live to boast about their cleverness. That said, I fully intend to be an old slacker who lives off of rental income in my advanced years. I currently work every day, but not very hard. At some point I will cut that back to strictly intermittent efforts managing rentals and move to a very cheap EU country with subsidized health care. Mostly, I plan to stay healthy until I die, whenever that may be.
I used to think when my posts mysteriously vanished that I must have been inadvertently rude somehow. Now I feel certain that they just vanish randomly, and I can quit second guessing myself...
I wonder about people who think answering the question "what do you do" defines them. It's just an easy conversation starter. When I ask the question it isn't to 'define' some one, it is to get some information that easily serves up a topic of conversation with a stranger. Even if the answer is "I'm retired" it eventually gets around to "what do you do" because even retiree's spend their time doing something whether it's a hobby, or volunteering or traveling. Your job (or retirement) only defines you if you let it.
The comments are better than expected. Usually these sort of posts draw the "Boy, look at how smart I am" crowd. Y'know bragging about how "I saved and invested and retired at age 14 and I'm a zillionaire".
Its like health fitness posts. They also attract braggarts who claim at age 85 they bike 100 miles a day, bench press 500 lbs. and weigh the same they did at age 20. Remember: NO one is short, fat, or ugly on the internet. We're all above average.
In any case, some people keep on working because they don't have much going on upstairs. I don't mean low IQ, I mean they just exist. So they keep on working. One woman I worked with came back at age 60 to resume her career. "What was I supposed to do, just sit around and wait to die?" is what she told me. I held my tongue, and just nodded. But there are lots of things to do besides work.
The problem is high inflation.
You might get an inheritance of save a couple of million in your 30s, but even as you're earning 5% guaranteed, inflation is 12%.
You can't keep up.
People like me who are retired are getting killed with inflation.
Inflation *IS* killing a lot of seniors. That 50K pension isn't going as far as it used to. I don't see much chance of it getting better. Especially since people refuse to hold their political leaders to account.
I know people doing this, they are not attention whores who come to the attention of writers for big media, though. Lots of their lore can be found on YouTube, however.
And the thing about Biden's inflation is that it left a 10% gaping wound in a lot of people's retirement income that will never be recovered, even if inflation went to zero 'til they shuffed their mortal coil.
I got no problem eating beans.
I like working. Retirement planning for me is for when I cannot work, not for when I want to quit. Because I don't.
People don't like being told that they'll get old, but they will. Retirement planning used to be about what to do when that happened. Now people want to retire super early, which I suppose is fine, if you can swing it. But don't run out of money at the end when you can't do anything about it. Then you're too old to work.
Conversely, don't plan a retirement for when you are too old to do anything. Or when you might be dead. I've seen that happen.
The best solution is to work at a job you like and at whatever it pays. Instead of doing some Calvinist flagellation so you can retire early, just do what you like the whole time. The future is never what you expect, and may not happen.
Temujin-
What is good in life?
Ann Althouse:
Where does "indolence" come into play?
From thinking that accumulating money is the be-all. Plenty of those out there and they like to bark. It is beyond their comprehension that other things can have more value than the numbers at the bottom of the column.
NKP:
"Editorial Consultant", "Location Scout", "Chief Researcher"...
My favorite is "Life Coach".
Used to be friends with this guy in my town who became one. Then I asked him what the hell made him think he was worth listening to.
That's why "used to be".
Reflecting the recent discussion about near death:
I like to bring up the fitness guru who croaked at 28(?) mid-step whilst jogging for his health.
NKP:
I believe the first interest anyone has when meeting someone new is "What can he/she do to benefit me?".
If and only if you take it to the pedantic extreme of finding an interesting conversation as a "benefit to me".
I'm 70 and still working my career full time. Not sure when I'll retire because I'm having too much fun. My job as a design engineer is interesting and challenging. And the youngsters really don't know what to do so I get to mentor them which is truly a rewarding experience. And the money is good. Getting 3 paychecks at the moment - work, my SS and my wife's SS.
I never had any dreams of all the great stuff I was going to do when I retired. I've known people who did and retired as early as possible to pursue them. They seem quite happy. But so am I doing what I'm doing. There is no "right" answer.
Where does "indolence" come into play?
Well, we break children to the classroom by 3rd grade. They lose their self-learning and initiative. They are conditioned to having their "work" defined by others. Many can't overcome the handicap of their education and start to occupy their time themselves.
The whole idea that someone might spend time learning, weighing and considering it horrific to most. Even academics who feel they can only do that if they have a position at a college or think tank.
College students speak of a life of the mind, then become mindless in life since they stop learning when classes end.
"The evil is most serious with young children because of their youth. Many of them, while making good progress in the three R's, outgrow their tendency to ask questions and to raise objections, in other words lose their mental boldness or originality, by the time they have attended school four years. But all along, from the kindergarten to the college, there is almost a likelihood that the self will be undermined while acquiring knowledge, and that, in consequence, one will become permanently weakened while supposedly being educated. In this respect it is dangerous to attend a school of any grade."
--How to Study and Teaching How to Study (1909) by F. M. McMurry
Aggie said...
deferring a year grants you a guaranteed ~6% increase for each year that you wait.
Thanx Aggie, that's sure what it looked like to me..
If you chart the different payouts, you'll see that the lines for earliest SS full retirement at 66+ and at full retirement (70) will cross at about 80½ years of age.
yes this is what you ALWAYS HEAR.. BUT..
IF (assumming for the sake of argument) you can make 6% a year on your 401k.. Then..
IF you retire early.. HOW is it a benefit to wait and make 6% on your SS?
IF the option is WORKING AND EARNING vs Taking SS.. OBVIOUSLY you'll have more money WORKING AND EARNING
BUT! if the option is to live on your 401k.. It seems the 80 years cross over is for people that can't do math,
I'll LOVE (still LOVE) to hear someone show how it's better.
Vonnegan said...
Happy birthday, Gilbar. I too was born on this beautiful day. May God grant us both many years!
thanx Vonnegan! Happy Magna Carte Day (June 15th 1215) to you too!
Yancey Ward said...
Taxes can be a consideration- especially if you have non-social security income that exceeds the SS payments at age 62- delaying until 66 or later is a way "invest" that age 62 payment without incurring a tax liability.
THANK YOU Yancey! My rich brother inlaw (VP of Engineering for some company you've probably heard of) is waiting until 70 (or whatever's longest), which has just befuddled me.
He has accountants and CPAs and such, so i'm been ASSUMING there was something i wasn't seeing.
(he was working until last year (68)
Tax free income is something that poor poor pitiful me had not considered .
for ME, not making ANY income (except 401k withdrawals and darned few of them), taxes are largely irrelevant
Well, Oligonicella, if tapping on a person's "profile" is the online version of asking, "What do you do?", I would have to say there's no reason I might be interested in talking with you.
I exaggerate, of course. I speak to everyone I encounter unless they're soaking in some bad-ass attitude thing. Making strangers smile is almost an obsession. Good conversation is king (along with cash) in my world. I don't want to hear about your hemorrhoids or your cat, though.
One of the reasons I'm comfortable a long way from home is a willingness to approach complete strangers and ask questions - fuck language barriers. Don't let 'em get in your way.
Disclaimer: I am NOT touchy/feely. I am the absolute last guy who's gonna work the room, slap every back, shake every hand and hug every living thing.
Happy Birthday gilbar! You're still a kid. If I flirted with a girl your age, people would call me a pedophile. Have an imaginary taste or two on me!
I took the SS money the minute it was on the table. Break-even year is too far away. I day-trade financial markets and do better than 6 percent - some years by a lot.
BTW, I never associated Iowa with trout. You're not making that up, are you? One of my best pals in college was from Britt. He was an all-American wrestler at Wyoming (so many great wrestlers in Iowa, they have to ship a few away). Dave's likely reeled-in every trophy trout in Wyoming and Idaho about half a dozen times.
Cheers!
Bennies... beanies for babies, no? A step forward.
NKP:
Well, Oligonicella, if tapping on a person's "profile" is the online version of asking, "What do you do?", I would have to say there's no reason I might be interested in talking with you.
It isn't. A Blogger profile is no more truthful than a dating app profile. It's like the filters people use on those.
Don't let the date stamp fool you. I've posted here for two decades. The reason it's empty is those profiles are available to every-friggin-body, not just people who might be interested from here. They can ask me directly and I'll parse out my information as needed.
If you'd been around for that time, you'd already know about ~35 years in IT database design/telecommunications, a similar span in MA with a concentration on bladed weapons, a degree in biology, that I'm working on the last two books of a twenty-two book series concerning a mythological pantheon I developed, that I created and ran a stunt show, I paint preferring realism ala van Eyck and sculpt similarly, that I'm obviously conservative leaning, and raised my daughter as a single parent.
I happen to find lists of "favorite things" worthless as I've lived a decently long time and mine are as long as your leg.
The difference is that a week from now, inspired by some take of mine on a hot button issue some malevolent jackass won't know those things without investing the time to go back and read through the conversations gaining more than sound bites.
Nothing to do with you, that's just why I didn't find it worthful to put one up with any detail. Blogger made me create one but not fill it out.
You will have to hit a very long ball to retire comfortably at 30. You likely have 70 years ahead of you with many many unknowns. Less than many millions you will have ro live like a rat or revert to the beans that didn’t get you there.
Yahoo Finance estimates 10 million needed coupled with a moderate lifestyle. A lot.
I'm probably not FIRE but did bail from a very distasteful work situation in a career I really enjoyed at 61 and change December 2024. I'll probably return to some sort of 'pocket change' job in a year or two but for now I'm doing as much volunteer work and supporting my wife who is still working but has health issues. I lucked into a company that had a lucrative retirement package including good retiree health insurance to tide me over. Dunno how things will work out but no regrets yet.
thanx NKP!
i was fishing this afternoon (4pm, which was too early for the caddis hatch; but still landed 2 browns and one rainbow.. on my 7ft bamboo.. which is The MOST Fun, but i'm out of practice hooking them up with it (been using my graphite rod for too long), had Many strikes.
Trout's in Iowa are only in the "driftless zone" Northeast iowa
here's the Iowa DNR's Trout page
50 catchable-stocked rainbow trout fisheries on publicly-accessible streams
10 special trout fisheries with restrictive regulations
18 community trout fisheries
More than 50 wild, self-sustaining trout fisheries throughout northeast Iowa
here's a short video from Iowa Public TV Trout Fishing in Northeast Iowa
@gilbar - If you get to where you want to travel to trout fish, down here we have the White River and relatives. If you do, lemme know. Not really interested in standing in the water but I can float tour you from the Twin down towards Eleven Point.
I reached the fully qualified Social Security age of 66 in 2012. I had done the breakeven test for my account: I would have to live to well past 80 to do better by delaying for a decade. I’m thinking (1) No guarantees I live to profit from the delay, (2) the dollars I get today are more valuable than the dollars I get later.
I didn’t retire until 2018, so I paid tax on the SS income, but I didn’t need it and diverted it all to savings. I used most of it to help buy the house I live in now 2016 for cash.
It’s hard for me not to see this as a win.
Blogger Oligonicella said...
If you get to where you want to travel to trout fish, down here we have the White River and relatives.
my White river experience is Sorely limited.. I've only ever fished below the Beaver Dam
(which has to be the coolest name for a hydro plant, EVER)
I need to fish the Norfolk and area. it looks pretty good! will keep you in mind
The 1935 short story the Lotus Eater by W. Somerset Maugham is an interesting early take.
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