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I chose a similar route because of perks and pay. My only fear is this choice hurting my future employment when I'll likely be discriminated due to age. I would

I chose a similar route because of perks and pay. My only fear is this choice hurting my future employment when I'll likely be discriminated due to age. I would imagine having Google or Facebook on my resume would surely make getting a job at age 50+ much easier.

s3nnyy 11y ago
That might sound crazy but on a software engineering salary, you can retire before 50 if you get used to spending little on food, transportation and shelter. My most favorite online resource on how to live frugally is this: http://earlyretirementextreme.com/how-i-became-financially-independent-in-5-years-part-i.html http://earlyretirementextreme.com/how-i-became-financially-i....
- Tloewald 11y ago
  I think that retiring before 50 is not the solution to unemployment after 50, although the idea of living frugally so you can retire early seems great until you try it.
  - s3nnyy 11y ago
    I think this is very subjective. I am living on less than a thousand Swiss-Francs per month in one of the most expensive cities in the world (Zurich) and I do not feel that I am missing anything. I know, things will be very different when I have kids, but still.
    - Tloewald 11y ago
      You can achieve financial independence in: 33 * Cost of Living / (Salary - Cost of Living) Assuming for simplicity 3% real interest on investments once you stop working (which is close enough if you're trying to get out of the rat race quickly), and potentially infinite lifespan. So if your cost of living is $10k and you earn $100k you get: 330,000 / 90,000 -> less than four years. Great theory. I don't want to live on oatmeal and tuna for the rest of my life. (I actually don't think we should be eating tuna at all and have stopped eating it although I love it.) Now aside from obvious (e.g. kids, as you state) there's also: * At some point you'll get a $500 optical bill or a $5000 dental bill (or a $50,000 medical bill if you live in the US) -- and let's not even get into chronic conditions. * You may want to travel. * At some point there will probably be a major economic shock and you may be utterly screwed. (But hey, so will a lot of people, and you'll be used to it.) Finally -- you may enjoy working. I do.
      - Linell 11y ago
        Check out /r/financialindependence on Reddit one day. While some people go the route of eating oatmeal and tuna every day, there are plenty of routes to financial independence that don't involve living a life devoid of nice things. It's less about never working again and more about having the freedom to choose what you want to do -- whether that's work for yourself without worrying about paying rent or working full time for someone else.
        kd0amg 11y ago
        I wouldn't even call my life as a grad student "devoid of nice things."
    - lordnacho 11y ago
      How on earth is this possible? I live in Zug, and everything in this part of the world costs a fortune. How do you even get a place to live for less than 1500? You realise when you have a kid the krippe is 2500CHF each month? Have you ever eaten at a restaurant for under 50CHF a head (even a McDonalds meal costs 15CHF)?
      - s3nnyy 11y ago
        I rent a room for 620 CHF, I pay 220 CHF for the obligatory insurance, 200 CHF for food (if I am socially forced to eat out I tell that I had food before and get a beer) and around 90 CHF for transportation. That amounts to more or less 1100 CHF. 200 CHF for food might sound little but I actually eat way healthier than most of my colleagues. (The last thing you can afford in Switzerland is getting sick.)
  - tsotha 11y ago
    Think of it from another angle, then. Would you rather be unemployed after 50 with or without enough money to retire?
    - Tloewald 11y ago
      I think the point is that being employable (even for your own projects) is preferable to the alternative. Indeed having valuable skills is generally better than having money.
- radiorental 11y ago
  I've never understood the logic of giving up the things you enjoy in life to gain time in the future to enjoy life. I'm all for frugal but life isn't a dress rehearsal.
  - rthomas6 11y ago
    It makes more sense if you buy into the concept of hedonic adaptation [0], which I do. The gist is that your happiness is not influenced as much as you think by your standard of living, but rather by changes in that standard. Absent of changes, your happiness will return to around its baseline level, and this is true for both positive and negative changes. So if that is actually true, it's possible to have a significantly lower cost of living and the same level of happiness. Thinking long term, why wouldn't someone want that? In terms of life satisfaction, you lose almost nothing in exchange for a long period of increased freedom. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill
    - radiorental 11y ago
      I could not agree more. However, I will make the distinction between perceived happiness and experience. Put very simply: over a 10 year period I could invest in a BMW or flights back to Europe to visit family. I will spare no expense giving our parents time with their grandchildren before it's too late. I'm more than happy to drive my POS '04 Mazda 6. When I read 'to live frugally so as to retire at 50' I see a lot of lost experiences that can enrich both now and later. Find the right job and enjoy life now.
      - astrange 11y ago
        It's "retire at 30", not 50. http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/09/15/a-brief-history-of-the-stash-how-we-saved-from-zero-to-retirement-in-ten-years/ http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/09/15/a-brief-history-of...
  - TTPrograms 11y ago
    You slip that word "time" in there like it's secondary to the expenses that apparently are required to "enjoy life", but being able to buy time to spend how you like is pretty damn valuable to a lot of people.
- hwstar 11y ago
  I followed this advice as well. Squirrelled away as much as possible, became financially independent. I'm 54 and I was laid off in November 2014 after 26 years at one company. I would like to go back work, but the engineering job market in San Diego is awful. I can afford to be picky on who I want to work for. Needless to say this will extend your job search time with the current market conditions. It could be that I might just have to retire if conditions remain the same for a long period of time. So be it, I'll just direct my energies to my open source hardware and software projects.
  - mreiland 11y ago
    what open source projects are you working on?
- GVIrish 11y ago
  Another option is to retire early in a country with a much lower cost of living. You don't need to cut your costs to the bone for 20 years if you go to a place with a cost of living that costs one-third (or more) of what it costs where you currently live.
- bkeroack 11y ago
  Retirement is mainly appealing to those who don't like what they do for a living.
  - kamaal 11y ago
    That's a wrong way of looking at retirement. You having a job is dependent on many reasons beyond your own interest. Age related discrimination is quite common in our industry, recessions happen every 8 years or so, companies shut down, a person can have major illness, or disability. There are many reasons why you may not be able to do what you like, let alone doing it for a living. Being prepared for such things in the future not only saves you from all the trouble, it saves your family too.
  - jleyank 11y ago
    On the whole, there will come a time when one would like to do something else before checking out. There's a balance between doing good work and enjoying life - I recommend trying to do both while the all the pieces work well. Keep in mind that deferring things to a future time is a risk in that the future time might never arrive, or it might arrive in a way you can't use.
  - jazzyk 11y ago
    Retirement is mainly appealing to those who have other interests outside of work or want to do good/interesting things which don't necessarily produce income.
  - tsotha 11y ago
    That's a great attitude to take if you're at retirement age. But in order to retire you have to save decades before you know whether or not you still enjoy what you do for a living.
antoniuschan99 11y ago
Is that really true? Say it's 2015 and you take a job at google for 3-5 years and are 30 years old. 15-17 years later 1) would google still exist as the prestigious company and 2) would anyone care that you worked at google for 3-5 years a more than a a decade ago?
mikestew 11y ago
I'm 50+, I have Microsoft on my resume. Just like everyone else in the Seattle area. No one cares that I worked there 10 years ago. That's not to say that I have trouble finding work in my decrepit old age, but that's a different discussion.

s3nnyy 11y ago

That might sound crazy but on a software engineering salary, you can retire before 50 if you get used to spending little on food, transportation and shelter. My most favorite online resource on how to live frugally is this: http://earlyretirementextreme.com/how-i-became-financially-independent-in-5-years-part-i.html http://earlyretirementextreme.com/how-i-became-financially-i....

Tloewald 11y ago
I think that retiring before 50 is not the solution to unemployment after 50, although the idea of living frugally so you can retire early seems great until you try it.
- s3nnyy 11y ago
  I think this is very subjective. I am living on less than a thousand Swiss-Francs per month in one of the most expensive cities in the world (Zurich) and I do not feel that I am missing anything. I know, things will be very different when I have kids, but still.
  - Tloewald 11y ago
    You can achieve financial independence in: 33 * Cost of Living / (Salary - Cost of Living) Assuming for simplicity 3% real interest on investments once you stop working (which is close enough if you're trying to get out of the rat race quickly), and potentially infinite lifespan. So if your cost of living is $10k and you earn $100k you get: 330,000 / 90,000 -> less than four years. Great theory. I don't want to live on oatmeal and tuna for the rest of my life. (I actually don't think we should be eating tuna at all and have stopped eating it although I love it.) Now aside from obvious (e.g. kids, as you state) there's also: * At some point you'll get a $500 optical bill or a $5000 dental bill (or a $50,000 medical bill if you live in the US) -- and let's not even get into chronic conditions. * You may want to travel. * At some point there will probably be a major economic shock and you may be utterly screwed. (But hey, so will a lot of people, and you'll be used to it.) Finally -- you may enjoy working. I do.
    - Linell 11y ago
      Check out /r/financialindependence on Reddit one day. While some people go the route of eating oatmeal and tuna every day, there are plenty of routes to financial independence that don't involve living a life devoid of nice things. It's less about never working again and more about having the freedom to choose what you want to do -- whether that's work for yourself without worrying about paying rent or working full time for someone else.
      - kd0amg 11y ago
        I wouldn't even call my life as a grad student "devoid of nice things."
  - lordnacho 11y ago
    How on earth is this possible? I live in Zug, and everything in this part of the world costs a fortune. How do you even get a place to live for less than 1500? You realise when you have a kid the krippe is 2500CHF each month? Have you ever eaten at a restaurant for under 50CHF a head (even a McDonalds meal costs 15CHF)?
    - s3nnyy 11y ago
      I rent a room for 620 CHF, I pay 220 CHF for the obligatory insurance, 200 CHF for food (if I am socially forced to eat out I tell that I had food before and get a beer) and around 90 CHF for transportation. That amounts to more or less 1100 CHF. 200 CHF for food might sound little but I actually eat way healthier than most of my colleagues. (The last thing you can afford in Switzerland is getting sick.)
- tsotha 11y ago
  Think of it from another angle, then. Would you rather be unemployed after 50 with or without enough money to retire?
  - Tloewald 11y ago
    I think the point is that being employable (even for your own projects) is preferable to the alternative. Indeed having valuable skills is generally better than having money.
radiorental 11y ago
I've never understood the logic of giving up the things you enjoy in life to gain time in the future to enjoy life. I'm all for frugal but life isn't a dress rehearsal.
- rthomas6 11y ago
  It makes more sense if you buy into the concept of hedonic adaptation [0], which I do. The gist is that your happiness is not influenced as much as you think by your standard of living, but rather by changes in that standard. Absent of changes, your happiness will return to around its baseline level, and this is true for both positive and negative changes. So if that is actually true, it's possible to have a significantly lower cost of living and the same level of happiness. Thinking long term, why wouldn't someone want that? In terms of life satisfaction, you lose almost nothing in exchange for a long period of increased freedom. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill
  - radiorental 11y ago
    I could not agree more. However, I will make the distinction between perceived happiness and experience. Put very simply: over a 10 year period I could invest in a BMW or flights back to Europe to visit family. I will spare no expense giving our parents time with their grandchildren before it's too late. I'm more than happy to drive my POS '04 Mazda 6. When I read 'to live frugally so as to retire at 50' I see a lot of lost experiences that can enrich both now and later. Find the right job and enjoy life now.
    - astrange 11y ago
      It's "retire at 30", not 50. http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/09/15/a-brief-history-of-the-stash-how-we-saved-from-zero-to-retirement-in-ten-years/ http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/09/15/a-brief-history-of...
- TTPrograms 11y ago
  You slip that word "time" in there like it's secondary to the expenses that apparently are required to "enjoy life", but being able to buy time to spend how you like is pretty damn valuable to a lot of people.
hwstar 11y ago
I followed this advice as well. Squirrelled away as much as possible, became financially independent. I'm 54 and I was laid off in November 2014 after 26 years at one company. I would like to go back work, but the engineering job market in San Diego is awful. I can afford to be picky on who I want to work for. Needless to say this will extend your job search time with the current market conditions. It could be that I might just have to retire if conditions remain the same for a long period of time. So be it, I'll just direct my energies to my open source hardware and software projects.
- mreiland 11y ago
  what open source projects are you working on?
GVIrish 11y ago
Another option is to retire early in a country with a much lower cost of living. You don't need to cut your costs to the bone for 20 years if you go to a place with a cost of living that costs one-third (or more) of what it costs where you currently live.
bkeroack 11y ago
Retirement is mainly appealing to those who don't like what they do for a living.
- kamaal 11y ago
  That's a wrong way of looking at retirement. You having a job is dependent on many reasons beyond your own interest. Age related discrimination is quite common in our industry, recessions happen every 8 years or so, companies shut down, a person can have major illness, or disability. There are many reasons why you may not be able to do what you like, let alone doing it for a living. Being prepared for such things in the future not only saves you from all the trouble, it saves your family too.
- jleyank 11y ago
  On the whole, there will come a time when one would like to do something else before checking out. There's a balance between doing good work and enjoying life - I recommend trying to do both while the all the pieces work well. Keep in mind that deferring things to a future time is a risk in that the future time might never arrive, or it might arrive in a way you can't use.
- jazzyk 11y ago
  Retirement is mainly appealing to those who have other interests outside of work or want to do good/interesting things which don't necessarily produce income.
- tsotha 11y ago
  That's a great attitude to take if you're at retirement age. But in order to retire you have to save decades before you know whether or not you still enjoy what you do for a living.

antoniuschan99 11y ago

Is that really true? Say it's 2015 and you take a job at google for 3-5 years and are 30 years old. 15-17 years later 1) would google still exist as the prestigious company and 2) would anyone care that you worked at google for 3-5 years a more than a a decade ago?

mikestew 11y ago

I'm 50+, I have Microsoft on my resume. Just like everyone else in the Seattle area. No one cares that I worked there 10 years ago. That's not to say that I have trouble finding work in my decrepit old age, but that's a different discussion.