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As long as I can Bill my hours, I don't care all that much. I find smaller or more experimental companies to be much more unstable, and in my thirties I just w

As long as I can Bill my hours, I don't care all that much. I find smaller or more experimental companies to be much more unstable, and in my thirties I just want something stable and nice so I can save money and retire with a bit over a million in the bank at 40. Just want to be done with it

fcardinaux 6y ago
I wish I had thought it that way when I was in my thirties.
- mmkos 6y ago
  How did you think in your thirties?
spurdoman77 6y ago
This is sane way to think. There are awesome workplaces out there. Whether you have a shot getting employed there is another question.
bravura 6y ago
If you retire at forty with a million in the bank, how do you make it if you live till 80?
- CabSauce 6y ago
  Interest and live on <$50k/yr?
- bawolff 6y ago
  A million in bank is like $35,000 a year in interest. Not an extravagant lifestyle, but certainly possible to live comfortably on that in a low cost of living area if you have low expenses.
  - atwebb 6y ago
    Where are you getting low risk 3.5% interest these days?
    - CleverLikeAnOx 6y ago
      I think the 3.5% number is not for low risk investing. Additionally, you would need to make something more like 5.5% to account for inflation. Still a fairly conservative number for investments in equities.
      - ptmcc 6y ago
        The oft-quoted 4% figure is accounting for inflation. The nominal average return of a balanced portfolio over time is more like 7-8%.
        dbjacobs 6y ago
        FYI, the oft-quoted 4% figure was derived using a 30 year retirement time horizon [1]. Using longer time horizons will lower that number. [1] - https://financiallyfinanced.com/posts/will-bengen https://financiallyfinanced.com/posts/will-bengen
    - ptmcc 6y ago
      It's an average inflation-adjusted expected rate of return over time of a balanced portfolio, not a guaranteed rate every year. Some years might be 10%, some years might be -10%. Historically, about 4% is the safe drawdown rate. FIRE folks tend to be a little more conservative than that, though, because of the even longer time horizon involved with retiring earlier. Check out a tool like https://www.firecalc.com/ https://www.firecalc.com/ that is designed to run backtested simulations to see if your drawdown rate from your starting assets would historically be safe for your time horizon. The UI is clunky but the math is good.
      - atwebb 6y ago
        That's fair, I'm pretty familiar with FireCalc and the withdraw rates, I wasn't in the right frame of mind (are any of us?) but that makes sense.
- CleverLikeAnOx 6y ago
  There is an idea called FIRE (Financial Independence / Retire Early). The first half is having enough money to not need to earn again, so you are not dependent on work or others. Once this is achieved, then you can retire early if you would like. The conventional wisdom in this community is that if you invest a sum of money in equities, you can withdraw a certain percentage annually without ever running out of money. That is, you mostly live off of the growth of your investments. Generally, 4% (inflation adjusted) is considered a safe withdraw rate. So if you have a million dollars, and you can live off of 40K a year or less indefinitely, then you can retire. Obviously this is a simplification and there are more considerations. Let me know if you have any questions. This is a topic I am passionate about and happy to give my 2 cents on.
  - war1025 6y ago
    I'm pretty well versed in the whole FIRE thing, and find myself more or less on that path. One conclusion I've come to is that after people "retire early", they almost never actually stop making money. It just tends to end up being more entrepreneurial stuff that they make money off. You don't "have to" work, but you "might as well", and all the sudden you may even find yourself in a more lucrative gig than you started with because you changed your focus and found a niche you can fill nicely.
    - offtop5 6y ago
      I'd love to have free time to pursue other hobbies like working on video games, and making music. If I had the million dollar cushion, and then maybe I only made like $500 or $600 a month with my hobbies that would be awesome. Life is too short to do anything else in my opinion. unless I guess I end up with a family but that's not really in my plans
    - stocknoob 6y ago
      Yep. The type of person who gets a high-paying enough job (and has the discipline) to save $1M usually doesn't have trouble getting extra work if they want. But now there's no pressure, they can take "fun" gigs that couldn't have supported them previously (musician, librarian, teacher, etc.).
- offtop5 6y ago
  Move to a country where I can live off the 40k -> 60k a year an interest or whatnot. This basically means either Southeast Asia, or some parts of Latin America. Asian languages tend to be extremely hard, and it might be a lot easier to sort of blend in with the populace in Latin America. The last thing I want to do in my retirement is draw needless attention to myself.
  - war1025 6y ago
    > Move to a country where I can live off the 40k -> 60k a year an interest or whatnot. You realize the median US household income is like $40k/ year right?
    - offtop5 6y ago
      Yeah but I'm not trying to struggle in America, so cómo estás ¿
    - pvarangot 6y ago
      With $40k a year you can live with the rich in some Latin American countries, if you can also spend 250k/350k on buying your own place in a high rise with private security or a gated community. You won't have access to Amazon and be able to buy all the top notch gear for your new hobbies in a week like as a tech worker in the US, but you can have a nice house with cleaning staff, a nice car or just take Uber or private cars everywhere, and do fancy dining two or three times per week. The median American household doesn't have all this luxuries.
  - groby_b 6y ago
    You assume that a million generates $40k to $60k, inflation-adjusted, for the next 40 years? I suppose that's one assumption to make. You know that the last time the US GDP grew more than 4% was back in 2000, right? And 2010 worldwide? Both with a continued downward trend since at least the 60's? (This obviously doesn't preclude >4% ROI, but that in turn means increasing income inequality, and at some point, there's a price to be paid for that)
    - 6y ago
- jandrewrogers 6y ago
  A reasonable investment portfolio (in the US) will reliably generate enough inflation-adjusted growth on average that this will afford a modest lifestyle in most parts of the US. $35-50k/year (today's dollars) without much risk, which is a fairly average wage. It is only unrealistic if you live in an expensive city with a lavish lifestyle. Anecdotally and ironically, many tech people that do this end up making a loads of money after they "retire". They don't sit on a beach and do nothing. The ability to be highly selective about what they work on, and to defer any compensation, often leads them to invest all their time on software projects they are passionate about, which not infrequently ends up throwing off a large amount of incidental income even though that wasn't the objective per se. I like the term "recreationally employed" to describe this lifestyle. I know many engineers who ended here and some of them make more money "retired" than they did work the 9-to-5 grind at a big company.
xienze 6y ago
> in my thirties I just want something stable and nice so I can save money Shoot, the article yesterday had me searching for how I can apply to Gumroad on top of my day job. They were claiming $50-250 per hour with as little as 10 hours a week. You want to save money? Have a stable day job and work at Gumroad for 10 hours a week. With such a short work week I can't imagine you'd be doing much more than simple bug fixes. I can swing 2 hours of that a day. > retire with a bit over a million in the bank at 40. You might have to set your sights a little higher. That's not gonna carry you to potentially 85 years old.

fcardinaux 6y ago

I wish I had thought it that way when I was in my thirties.

mmkos 6y ago
How did you think in your thirties?

spurdoman77 6y ago

This is sane way to think. There are awesome workplaces out there. Whether you have a shot getting employed there is another question.

bravura 6y ago

If you retire at forty with a million in the bank, how do you make it if you live till 80?

CabSauce 6y ago
Interest and live on <$50k/yr?
bawolff 6y ago
A million in bank is like $35,000 a year in interest. Not an extravagant lifestyle, but certainly possible to live comfortably on that in a low cost of living area if you have low expenses.
- atwebb 6y ago
  Where are you getting low risk 3.5% interest these days?
  - CleverLikeAnOx 6y ago
    I think the 3.5% number is not for low risk investing. Additionally, you would need to make something more like 5.5% to account for inflation. Still a fairly conservative number for investments in equities.
    - ptmcc 6y ago
      The oft-quoted 4% figure is accounting for inflation. The nominal average return of a balanced portfolio over time is more like 7-8%.
      - dbjacobs 6y ago
        FYI, the oft-quoted 4% figure was derived using a 30 year retirement time horizon [1]. Using longer time horizons will lower that number. [1] - https://financiallyfinanced.com/posts/will-bengen https://financiallyfinanced.com/posts/will-bengen
  - ptmcc 6y ago
    It's an average inflation-adjusted expected rate of return over time of a balanced portfolio, not a guaranteed rate every year. Some years might be 10%, some years might be -10%. Historically, about 4% is the safe drawdown rate. FIRE folks tend to be a little more conservative than that, though, because of the even longer time horizon involved with retiring earlier. Check out a tool like https://www.firecalc.com/ https://www.firecalc.com/ that is designed to run backtested simulations to see if your drawdown rate from your starting assets would historically be safe for your time horizon. The UI is clunky but the math is good.
    - atwebb 6y ago
      That's fair, I'm pretty familiar with FireCalc and the withdraw rates, I wasn't in the right frame of mind (are any of us?) but that makes sense.
CleverLikeAnOx 6y ago
There is an idea called FIRE (Financial Independence / Retire Early). The first half is having enough money to not need to earn again, so you are not dependent on work or others. Once this is achieved, then you can retire early if you would like. The conventional wisdom in this community is that if you invest a sum of money in equities, you can withdraw a certain percentage annually without ever running out of money. That is, you mostly live off of the growth of your investments. Generally, 4% (inflation adjusted) is considered a safe withdraw rate. So if you have a million dollars, and you can live off of 40K a year or less indefinitely, then you can retire. Obviously this is a simplification and there are more considerations. Let me know if you have any questions. This is a topic I am passionate about and happy to give my 2 cents on.
- war1025 6y ago
  I'm pretty well versed in the whole FIRE thing, and find myself more or less on that path. One conclusion I've come to is that after people "retire early", they almost never actually stop making money. It just tends to end up being more entrepreneurial stuff that they make money off. You don't "have to" work, but you "might as well", and all the sudden you may even find yourself in a more lucrative gig than you started with because you changed your focus and found a niche you can fill nicely.
  - offtop5 6y ago
    I'd love to have free time to pursue other hobbies like working on video games, and making music. If I had the million dollar cushion, and then maybe I only made like $500 or $600 a month with my hobbies that would be awesome. Life is too short to do anything else in my opinion. unless I guess I end up with a family but that's not really in my plans
  - stocknoob 6y ago
    Yep. The type of person who gets a high-paying enough job (and has the discipline) to save $1M usually doesn't have trouble getting extra work if they want. But now there's no pressure, they can take "fun" gigs that couldn't have supported them previously (musician, librarian, teacher, etc.).
offtop5 6y ago
Move to a country where I can live off the 40k -> 60k a year an interest or whatnot. This basically means either Southeast Asia, or some parts of Latin America. Asian languages tend to be extremely hard, and it might be a lot easier to sort of blend in with the populace in Latin America. The last thing I want to do in my retirement is draw needless attention to myself.
- war1025 6y ago
  > Move to a country where I can live off the 40k -> 60k a year an interest or whatnot. You realize the median US household income is like $40k/ year right?
  - offtop5 6y ago
    Yeah but I'm not trying to struggle in America, so cómo estás ¿
  - pvarangot 6y ago
    With $40k a year you can live with the rich in some Latin American countries, if you can also spend 250k/350k on buying your own place in a high rise with private security or a gated community. You won't have access to Amazon and be able to buy all the top notch gear for your new hobbies in a week like as a tech worker in the US, but you can have a nice house with cleaning staff, a nice car or just take Uber or private cars everywhere, and do fancy dining two or three times per week. The median American household doesn't have all this luxuries.
- groby_b 6y ago
  You assume that a million generates $40k to $60k, inflation-adjusted, for the next 40 years? I suppose that's one assumption to make. You know that the last time the US GDP grew more than 4% was back in 2000, right? And 2010 worldwide? Both with a continued downward trend since at least the 60's? (This obviously doesn't preclude >4% ROI, but that in turn means increasing income inequality, and at some point, there's a price to be paid for that)
  - 6y ago
jandrewrogers 6y ago
A reasonable investment portfolio (in the US) will reliably generate enough inflation-adjusted growth on average that this will afford a modest lifestyle in most parts of the US. $35-50k/year (today's dollars) without much risk, which is a fairly average wage. It is only unrealistic if you live in an expensive city with a lavish lifestyle. Anecdotally and ironically, many tech people that do this end up making a loads of money after they "retire". They don't sit on a beach and do nothing. The ability to be highly selective about what they work on, and to defer any compensation, often leads them to invest all their time on software projects they are passionate about, which not infrequently ends up throwing off a large amount of incidental income even though that wasn't the objective per se. I like the term "recreationally employed" to describe this lifestyle. I know many engineers who ended here and some of them make more money "retired" than they did work the 9-to-5 grind at a big company.

xienze 6y ago

> in my thirties I just want something stable and nice so I can save money Shoot, the article yesterday had me searching for how I can apply to Gumroad on top of my day job. They were claiming $50-250 per hour with as little as 10 hours a week. You want to save money? Have a stable day job and work at Gumroad for 10 hours a week. With such a short work week I can't imagine you'd be doing much more than simple bug fixes. I can swing 2 hours of that a day. > retire with a bit over a million in the bank at 40. You might have to set your sights a little higher. That's not gonna carry you to potentially 85 years old.