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Some possible solutions: 1) Ask for a 30 hour work week, or find a company that can offer this. Your salary should still be high enough to aim for a comfortabl

Some possible solutions: 1) Ask for a 30 hour work week, or find a company that can offer this. Your salary should still be high enough to aim for a comfortable retirement at 65. 2) Adopt a more frugal lifestyle and increase your savings rate. You need to save a few million dollars to retire with $40-$80k in investment income. It should be very possible to do this with a backend developer's salary over a period of 10-15 years, and then you should be able to retire in your 30s or 40s. You should also aim to increase your salary by changing jobs every few years (or get a job at a FAANG.) 3) Build side projects or a startup and try to get some passive income (or an exit) Write all your startup ideas down and keep looking for opportunities. It can be hard to build products in the evenings or weekends, especially if you're already burnt out from your normal job. So this option works best when combined with part-time freelance work: 4) Become a freelancer and work part-time while you work on your own projects Bonus: Move to a place with a very low cost of living. Working 10-20 hours per week gives you a lot of free time and much longer weekends. But it also gives you a lot of time and energy to work on your own ideas. Note that working 10 hours per week is a terrible idea if you just spend the rest of your time working on hobbies that don't make any money. If you do that, then you won't even be able to retire at 65, and you probably won't be able to save money for emergencies. Only do this if you spend the rest of your time trying to build a business. If you can't get anything to work after ~10 years of trying, then you should still have plenty of time to go back to a full-time job and save for retirement.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
> You need to save a few million dollars to retire with $40-$80k in investment income. You need a lot less than a few million dollars if you're willing to live at a more reasonable retirement income. I mean, you won't have to commute anymore, or buy all those services that did things you never had time for, or pay for daycare, or live in an overpriced city, etc. Hell if you move to a country with a lower cost of living, as you suggested, you'll need even less. You would be surprised how little of what you consider "necessities" of your lifestyle you actually need, or miss when they are gone.
- nathan_f77 8y ago
  A conservative "safe withdrawal rate" is about 3.5%, so you need around $1.1M invested in index funds in order to have $40k income per year. I'm living in Thailand, and $40k goes a long way. Many people would be happy with this lifestyle, but it's not quite enough for me, and I wouldn't want to spend the rest of my life here. I'd much rather have $80-100k and live somewhere like Toronto. But to each their own.
  - photoguy112 8y ago
    I'm in Japan. Last year I remitted $16k. My residence is paid for and I spent an additional $12k cash. In total, I live on 28k / year. Add in a residence if I had to rent, down where I am it's $500/mo for a 3 br "home". It's really a shanty by western standards but enough for me. On 34k if you rented, one can live comfortably in Southern Japan. Of course, this is not possible without a valid visa. I have lived in Midwest, California, Washington and visited most of US. I would still choose to live here than anywhere else. I think most Americans who have not done enough travel do not seriously consider living outside of their country (if they had the chance) just due to a mindset that America is the best place to be (hint: it's not).
    - rbatty 8y ago
      But you said it yourself: you need a visa. It's not simply a question of whether an American or anyone else finds it satisfying to live in another country. The government has to want/permit you to be there. And in the case of Japan in particular, that's a difficult situation to navigate, especially if you are looking for a place to live for your retirement years.
    - PascLeRasc 8y ago
      Can I ask what city in Japan you're in? I wouldn't expect it to be that cheap.
  - koheripbal 8y ago
    This completely ignores inflation. By spending that 3.5% on living, you are actually losing a portion of your wealth each year. In order to remain "flat", you need to be earning 7%, in order to spend 3.5%. ...but of course, this also completely ignores the risk. Assets don't give 7% for free. The investor is accepting the risk - that's the whole point. So in reality, you need to be earning closer to 10% in order to mitigate the risk of a default on those assets. Living off of investment income is almost never really winning battle.
pjc50 8y ago
"Average pension pot at 55. On average those aged 55-65 currently have £105,496 saved in pensions, according to research released by Aegon in June last year": hmm.
chrononaut 8y ago
> You need to save a few million dollars to retire with $40-$80k in investment income. It should be very possible to do this with a backend developer's salary over a period of 10-15 years, How would a few million be possible? What is your contextual salary for this position, and their expected expenses?
- Aeolun 8y ago
  3.000.000 / 15 * 2 (50% savings rate) = $400k That’s a bit on the high end, but I guess not SV/FAANG impossible.
  - underwater 8y ago
    I don't think the IRS would be impressed with that logic.
- goldenchrome 8y ago
  Earn 250k on average across 15 years. This is quite conservative for FAANG. In California, you'll take home about 150k. Each year, live frugally off 50k and put away 100k in index funds. Over 15 years, you'll gain 7% real annual returns from the stock market. In 15 years you'll go from $0 to $2.5m. At a very conservative safe withdrawal rate of 3.5%, you can withdraw about 85k per year for the rest of your life. If you're dual income for part of that 15 years, you'll have far more money, or you can retire a few years earlier.
  - underwater 8y ago
    You are describing an outlier of an outlier. To follow your advice our developer has to have well above average skills (250k salary would be relatively senior even at FAANG), be single and live in a share house for 15 years (50k would cover rent for a family in areas with high tech salaries, nothing else) and the tech sector has to remain strong for 15 years (looking back 2004 was 4 years before the financial crisis and generally not a great time to be staring a career in a big tech company).
plants 8y ago
I haven't looked into this recently, but are 30-hour work weeks a thing now? With benefits and all? Last time I checked they were being piloted by a couple of companies, but it wasn't so commonplace that you could just go out and find a company offering one. I feel like you could also be cast as "lazy" (at least in American culture) if you asked for a 30-hour work week. I dream about a 30-hour work week for all of the reasons listed in the parent article... I would take a 25% paycut for one without second thought

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago

> You need to save a few million dollars to retire with $40-$80k in investment income. You need a lot less than a few million dollars if you're willing to live at a more reasonable retirement income. I mean, you won't have to commute anymore, or buy all those services that did things you never had time for, or pay for daycare, or live in an overpriced city, etc. Hell if you move to a country with a lower cost of living, as you suggested, you'll need even less. You would be surprised how little of what you consider "necessities" of your lifestyle you actually need, or miss when they are gone.

nathan_f77 8y ago
A conservative "safe withdrawal rate" is about 3.5%, so you need around $1.1M invested in index funds in order to have $40k income per year. I'm living in Thailand, and $40k goes a long way. Many people would be happy with this lifestyle, but it's not quite enough for me, and I wouldn't want to spend the rest of my life here. I'd much rather have $80-100k and live somewhere like Toronto. But to each their own.
- photoguy112 8y ago
  I'm in Japan. Last year I remitted $16k. My residence is paid for and I spent an additional $12k cash. In total, I live on 28k / year. Add in a residence if I had to rent, down where I am it's $500/mo for a 3 br "home". It's really a shanty by western standards but enough for me. On 34k if you rented, one can live comfortably in Southern Japan. Of course, this is not possible without a valid visa. I have lived in Midwest, California, Washington and visited most of US. I would still choose to live here than anywhere else. I think most Americans who have not done enough travel do not seriously consider living outside of their country (if they had the chance) just due to a mindset that America is the best place to be (hint: it's not).
  - rbatty 8y ago
    But you said it yourself: you need a visa. It's not simply a question of whether an American or anyone else finds it satisfying to live in another country. The government has to want/permit you to be there. And in the case of Japan in particular, that's a difficult situation to navigate, especially if you are looking for a place to live for your retirement years.
  - PascLeRasc 8y ago
    Can I ask what city in Japan you're in? I wouldn't expect it to be that cheap.
- koheripbal 8y ago
  This completely ignores inflation. By spending that 3.5% on living, you are actually losing a portion of your wealth each year. In order to remain "flat", you need to be earning 7%, in order to spend 3.5%. ...but of course, this also completely ignores the risk. Assets don't give 7% for free. The investor is accepting the risk - that's the whole point. So in reality, you need to be earning closer to 10% in order to mitigate the risk of a default on those assets. Living off of investment income is almost never really winning battle.

pjc50 8y ago

"Average pension pot at 55. On average those aged 55-65 currently have £105,496 saved in pensions, according to research released by Aegon in June last year": hmm.

chrononaut 8y ago

> You need to save a few million dollars to retire with $40-$80k in investment income. It should be very possible to do this with a backend developer's salary over a period of 10-15 years, How would a few million be possible? What is your contextual salary for this position, and their expected expenses?

Aeolun 8y ago
3.000.000 / 15 * 2 (50% savings rate) = $400k That’s a bit on the high end, but I guess not SV/FAANG impossible.
- underwater 8y ago
  I don't think the IRS would be impressed with that logic.
goldenchrome 8y ago
Earn 250k on average across 15 years. This is quite conservative for FAANG. In California, you'll take home about 150k. Each year, live frugally off 50k and put away 100k in index funds. Over 15 years, you'll gain 7% real annual returns from the stock market. In 15 years you'll go from $0 to $2.5m. At a very conservative safe withdrawal rate of 3.5%, you can withdraw about 85k per year for the rest of your life. If you're dual income for part of that 15 years, you'll have far more money, or you can retire a few years earlier.
- underwater 8y ago
  You are describing an outlier of an outlier. To follow your advice our developer has to have well above average skills (250k salary would be relatively senior even at FAANG), be single and live in a share house for 15 years (50k would cover rent for a family in areas with high tech salaries, nothing else) and the tech sector has to remain strong for 15 years (looking back 2004 was 4 years before the financial crisis and generally not a great time to be staring a career in a big tech company).

plants 8y ago

I haven't looked into this recently, but are 30-hour work weeks a thing now? With benefits and all? Last time I checked they were being piloted by a couple of companies, but it wasn't so commonplace that you could just go out and find a company offering one. I feel like you could also be cast as "lazy" (at least in American culture) if you asked for a 30-hour work week. I dream about a 30-hour work week for all of the reasons listed in the parent article... I would take a 25% paycut for one without second thought