6 ms·

Why work part time your whole life when you can work full time and retire at 40?

dewey 7y ago
> Why work part time your whole life when you can work full time and retire at 40? How high is the percentage of people who work full time and are able to retire at 40? My guess: Not very I'm not sure what kind of biased view you have but that's absolutely not what's common.
- esoterica 7y ago
  If you get paid enough to work part time by choice, then you get paid enough to work full time for only part of the regular working lifespan.
  - dewey 7y ago
    Not everything in life is by choice. Maybe you have to work part-time because of kids, illness, no other jobs being available, location etc. and just get by through other support on top of your part time income. That's a very simplistic view of the world that's maybe true in a small bubble but definitely not in the real world.
    - esoterica 7y ago
      Re-read the top level comment again. The context of the discussion was that someone suggested that high earning professionals should work part time by choice.
m0zg 7y ago
Because you don't get to retire at 40 by working full time, and it's not even necessarily a good thing to be retired that early in life: cognitive decline sets in, skills atrophy, you just generally feel worthless. I know because I usually take a year off between major job changes. After about 6 months it's pretty clear it's too early for me to retire. For most of us peak earning power only _begins_ in our 40s. So what you're actually proposing is that people spend a quarter of their life (arguably the _best_ quarter) working 60 hour weeks for peanuts to make somebody else (and that someone is likely working part time) rich, and "retire" with insufficient funds as a burned out husk of their former self.
- esoterica 7y ago
  if you get paid enough to work part time by choice then you definitely get paid enough to retire early on a full time salary. If you double your income and don’t spend more where does all that money go?
zackmorris 7y ago
This is a fallacy. I'm 42 and have been working in tech since I graduated with my computer engineering degree in '99. I only just paid off my student loans 2 years ago. I have no retirement, and just burned through my savings over some health issues related to burnout. Things are going to be even worse for millennials. Seriously, anyone reading this should be thinking about what they want out of life and how we could/should organize an economy and culture so that everyone can work sustainably and thrive. If something doesn't change soon, and especially with looming challenges like whole industries being automated, I fear that we are headed towards a future of perfect wealth inequality and 21st century feudalism.
- esoterica 7y ago
  Millennial devs at least have it better than any other generation. At no other point in history has a 20-something year old been able to make a 1%er income writing code. But you can in the enchanted playground that is the modern Bay Area. There’s no telling how long this was last though; maybe at some point in the future there’ll be a reversion to the mean and programmers will go back to making 80k/year like all the other mid-skilled white collar office drones. Which is another reason to drink from the firehose and squeeze every last venture capital penny out of the system while you still can instead of worrying about work-life balance.
  - zackmorris 7y ago
    Location really is everything. I have a Bay Area idealism but I live in Boise, Idaho. Which for the last 20 years was more like the scenery of Napoleon Dynamite than say, Austin or Boulder. But it's been gentrifying extremely rapidly for the last 5 years or so. There's talk of it being the next Silicon Valley. But good news feels like bad news for me, and I'm in mourning about the loss of heritage.
    - boring_twenties 7y ago
      I wouldn't get too excited. There are many tech companies here in Salt Lake City, but they all pay shit. The last ad I looked at was offering $40-60 an hour... for an "expert" in both C++ and Rust. LOL
boring_twenties 7y ago
Many of the best things in life cannot be fully enjoyed after 40. I left tech at 33 and became a ski bum. It's simply physically impossible for me to ever get as much out of skiing as someone who starts in their 20's. Backflip? Forget about it. A 22 year old can land on their head and just brush it off. I'll be in the hospital.

> Why work part time your whole life when you can work full time and retire at 40? How high is the percentage of people who work full time and are able to retire at 40? My guess: Not very I'm not sure what kind of biased view you have but that's absolutely not what's common.

esoterica 7y ago
If you get paid enough to work part time by choice, then you get paid enough to work full time for only part of the regular working lifespan.
- dewey 7y ago
  Not everything in life is by choice. Maybe you have to work part-time because of kids, illness, no other jobs being available, location etc. and just get by through other support on top of your part time income. That's a very simplistic view of the world that's maybe true in a small bubble but definitely not in the real world.
  - esoterica 7y ago
    Re-read the top level comment again. The context of the discussion was that someone suggested that high earning professionals should work part time by choice.

m0zg 7y ago

Because you don't get to retire at 40 by working full time, and it's not even necessarily a good thing to be retired that early in life: cognitive decline sets in, skills atrophy, you just generally feel worthless. I know because I usually take a year off between major job changes. After about 6 months it's pretty clear it's too early for me to retire. For most of us peak earning power only _begins_ in our 40s. So what you're actually proposing is that people spend a quarter of their life (arguably the _best_ quarter) working 60 hour weeks for peanuts to make somebody else (and that someone is likely working part time) rich, and "retire" with insufficient funds as a burned out husk of their former self.

esoterica 7y ago
if you get paid enough to work part time by choice then you definitely get paid enough to retire early on a full time salary. If you double your income and don’t spend more where does all that money go?

zackmorris 7y ago

This is a fallacy. I'm 42 and have been working in tech since I graduated with my computer engineering degree in '99. I only just paid off my student loans 2 years ago. I have no retirement, and just burned through my savings over some health issues related to burnout. Things are going to be even worse for millennials. Seriously, anyone reading this should be thinking about what they want out of life and how we could/should organize an economy and culture so that everyone can work sustainably and thrive. If something doesn't change soon, and especially with looming challenges like whole industries being automated, I fear that we are headed towards a future of perfect wealth inequality and 21st century feudalism.

esoterica 7y ago
Millennial devs at least have it better than any other generation. At no other point in history has a 20-something year old been able to make a 1%er income writing code. But you can in the enchanted playground that is the modern Bay Area. There’s no telling how long this was last though; maybe at some point in the future there’ll be a reversion to the mean and programmers will go back to making 80k/year like all the other mid-skilled white collar office drones. Which is another reason to drink from the firehose and squeeze every last venture capital penny out of the system while you still can instead of worrying about work-life balance.
- zackmorris 7y ago
  Location really is everything. I have a Bay Area idealism but I live in Boise, Idaho. Which for the last 20 years was more like the scenery of Napoleon Dynamite than say, Austin or Boulder. But it's been gentrifying extremely rapidly for the last 5 years or so. There's talk of it being the next Silicon Valley. But good news feels like bad news for me, and I'm in mourning about the loss of heritage.
  - boring_twenties 7y ago
    I wouldn't get too excited. There are many tech companies here in Salt Lake City, but they all pay shit. The last ad I looked at was offering $40-60 an hour... for an "expert" in both C++ and Rust. LOL

boring_twenties 7y ago

Many of the best things in life cannot be fully enjoyed after 40. I left tech at 33 and became a ski bum. It's simply physically impossible for me to ever get as much out of skiing as someone who starts in their 20's. Backflip? Forget about it. A 22 year old can land on their head and just brush it off. I'll be in the hospital.