5 ms·

> FIRE by 30 (I'm too late for that) I feel like I'm struggling to be able to retire comfortably by retirement age despite feeling that I'm well ahead of a num

> FIRE by 30 (I'm too late for that) I feel like I'm struggling to be able to retire comfortably by retirement age despite feeling that I'm well ahead of a number of my peers.

EngManagerIsMe 4y ago
[flagged]
- LostLetterbox2 4y ago
  And then I hear that workers in China get one day off a month and companies will continue to talk about international competition... Without reintroducing tariffs (I'm based in Australia) to protect working conditions, and widespread protest at how poor median conditions are getting I don't see how this situation reverses. I'd love to see the logic of financial class applied back at them to at least reduce the number of direct votes they have at elections.
  - throwaway2037 4y ago
    No trolling: One day off a month is 12 days per year. Most people in the United States get 10 days or less annual leave.
    - kortilla 4y ago
      The fuck are you on about? In the US 2 days off per week is standard + additional vacation days.
    - CalRobert 4y ago
      And weekends.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > Most people in the United States get 10 days or less annual leave. After one year of service, the median is in 10-14 day range for vacation; the majority get 10 days or more, and only 39% get less. And this gets better with longer service. https://www.bls.gov/ebs/factsheets/paid-vacations.htm https://www.bls.gov/ebs/factsheets/paid-vacations.htm
    - imgabe 4y ago
      Most people in the US only work 5 days a week and get ~8 days per month off that are not part of annual leave. The "one day off a month" means literally, one day of not working per month, not one day of vacation time per month.
- throw__away7391 4y ago
  It isn't "capitalism" it's the beginning of the end of the baby-boomers' Ponzi-schema economy. The handful of billionaires who get all the press have absolutely nothing on the trillions that have been transferred into the pockets of this generation.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - serverholic 4y ago
    Yes. Capitalism.
    - cpursley 4y ago
      No, it’s quite literally the definition of crony capitalism: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - serverholic 4y ago
        [dead]
      - EngManagerIsMe 4y ago
        Yes. Capitalism, exactly.
giantg2 4y ago
"I feel like I'm struggling to be able to retire comfortably by retirement age despite feeling that I'm well ahead of a number of my peers." Same here. I don't know how most people will be able to support themselves at retirement age. I feel like there will be a massive collapse of the system.
- nradov 4y ago
  The system won't collapse. We'll just reduce benefits for retirees a bit and raise taxes on workers to bring things back closer to balance.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    That only makes sense if you have an ever increasing workforce, which doesn't seem to be the case anymore.
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
Social media FIRE content has become very weird. It started as an interesting take on lifestyle choices and personal finance education, but influencers took it and ran it through the social media optimization play book. Now a lot of it is hyper optimized to maximize clicks with exaggerated scenarios that make you wonder how they’re making claims (Retire by 30? I must read this article to understand how…) The outcomes are also increasingly weird. People are quickly realizing that, no, retiring by 30 (or 35, or 40) isn’t going to happen for most people without extreme reduction of expenses. So then it becomes a weird game of minimizing expenses to an extreme degree to make their FIRE spreadsheets look better. What they don’t realize is that while it’s easy to go 1 or 2 years without buying new clothes or 5-10 years without buying a new car or computer, you can’t use those short sampling periods to estimate your expenses for the rest of your life. I stopped reading FIRE blogs after seeing several stories from people who thought they had FIRE retired at a young age, only to discover years later that it wasn’t what they wanted or that their expenses were higher than expected, setting them on a path to failure. One particularly sad story involved a guy who FIREd with his girlfriend (or maybe wife?), but later she decided that she didn’t want to live an austere, childless lifestyle forever. They split up, and without combining housing and expenses he couldn’t afford to be retired any more. Now he had to rejoin the workforce having spent years doing nothing and letting his skills fall behind. It was a particularly sad story despite having done everything “right”.
- vineyardmike 4y ago
  I have the exact same take as you... > later she decided that she didn’t want to live an austere, childless lifestyle forever. They split up, and without combining housing and expenses he couldn’t afford to be retired any more. My partner and I are both DINKs working in tech. I did the math and said "hey we could retire by 30 if we cut our expenses and changed our habits" (or other extreme age). The response I got was "I like the nice things we buy and do and thats worth working longer. When I'm sick of working, we can do this math again". I think everyone should do the math, and understand how their finances interplay with future planning, because you may discover you can retire at 30 with changes, but you also may discover that you can't retire ever without changes.
jrochkind1 4y ago
In France, there were massive protests and dissension that threatened to change the party in power, because they raised the retirement age from 62 to 64. (I believe they did raise it nonetheless). The age at which you get a government benefit sufficient for many people to live comfortably. In the USA, they keep raising the social security age, doing it so only effects future people who reach it -- currently I believe it is 67. They (republican-backed proposals in congress) are currently talking about pushing it to 70. And will only give you enough to live very precariously and thriftily anyway. (They're also talking about pushing back medicare eligibility age). The USA is really not a great place to live unless you are very wealthy. But HN definitely has a higher percentage of very wealthy people than the population at large.

> FIRE by 30 (I'm too late for that) I feel like I'm struggling to be able to retire comfortably by retirement age despite feeling that I'm well ahead of a number of my peers.

EngManagerIsMe 4y ago

[flagged]

LostLetterbox2 4y ago
And then I hear that workers in China get one day off a month and companies will continue to talk about international competition... Without reintroducing tariffs (I'm based in Australia) to protect working conditions, and widespread protest at how poor median conditions are getting I don't see how this situation reverses. I'd love to see the logic of financial class applied back at them to at least reduce the number of direct votes they have at elections.
- throwaway2037 4y ago
  No trolling: One day off a month is 12 days per year. Most people in the United States get 10 days or less annual leave.
  - kortilla 4y ago
    The fuck are you on about? In the US 2 days off per week is standard + additional vacation days.
  - CalRobert 4y ago
    And weekends.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > Most people in the United States get 10 days or less annual leave. After one year of service, the median is in 10-14 day range for vacation; the majority get 10 days or more, and only 39% get less. And this gets better with longer service. https://www.bls.gov/ebs/factsheets/paid-vacations.htm https://www.bls.gov/ebs/factsheets/paid-vacations.htm
  - imgabe 4y ago
    Most people in the US only work 5 days a week and get ~8 days per month off that are not part of annual leave. The "one day off a month" means literally, one day of not working per month, not one day of vacation time per month.
throw__away7391 4y ago
It isn't "capitalism" it's the beginning of the end of the baby-boomers' Ponzi-schema economy. The handful of billionaires who get all the press have absolutely nothing on the trillions that have been transferred into the pockets of this generation.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- serverholic 4y ago
  Yes. Capitalism.
  - cpursley 4y ago
    No, it’s quite literally the definition of crony capitalism: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - serverholic 4y ago
      [dead]
    - EngManagerIsMe 4y ago
      Yes. Capitalism, exactly.

giantg2 4y ago

"I feel like I'm struggling to be able to retire comfortably by retirement age despite feeling that I'm well ahead of a number of my peers." Same here. I don't know how most people will be able to support themselves at retirement age. I feel like there will be a massive collapse of the system.

nradov 4y ago
The system won't collapse. We'll just reduce benefits for retirees a bit and raise taxes on workers to bring things back closer to balance.
- giantg2 4y ago
  That only makes sense if you have an ever increasing workforce, which doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

Social media FIRE content has become very weird. It started as an interesting take on lifestyle choices and personal finance education, but influencers took it and ran it through the social media optimization play book. Now a lot of it is hyper optimized to maximize clicks with exaggerated scenarios that make you wonder how they’re making claims (Retire by 30? I must read this article to understand how…) The outcomes are also increasingly weird. People are quickly realizing that, no, retiring by 30 (or 35, or 40) isn’t going to happen for most people without extreme reduction of expenses. So then it becomes a weird game of minimizing expenses to an extreme degree to make their FIRE spreadsheets look better. What they don’t realize is that while it’s easy to go 1 or 2 years without buying new clothes or 5-10 years without buying a new car or computer, you can’t use those short sampling periods to estimate your expenses for the rest of your life. I stopped reading FIRE blogs after seeing several stories from people who thought they had FIRE retired at a young age, only to discover years later that it wasn’t what they wanted or that their expenses were higher than expected, setting them on a path to failure. One particularly sad story involved a guy who FIREd with his girlfriend (or maybe wife?), but later she decided that she didn’t want to live an austere, childless lifestyle forever. They split up, and without combining housing and expenses he couldn’t afford to be retired any more. Now he had to rejoin the workforce having spent years doing nothing and letting his skills fall behind. It was a particularly sad story despite having done everything “right”.

vineyardmike 4y ago
I have the exact same take as you... > later she decided that she didn’t want to live an austere, childless lifestyle forever. They split up, and without combining housing and expenses he couldn’t afford to be retired any more. My partner and I are both DINKs working in tech. I did the math and said "hey we could retire by 30 if we cut our expenses and changed our habits" (or other extreme age). The response I got was "I like the nice things we buy and do and thats worth working longer. When I'm sick of working, we can do this math again". I think everyone should do the math, and understand how their finances interplay with future planning, because you may discover you can retire at 30 with changes, but you also may discover that you can't retire ever without changes.

jrochkind1 4y ago

In France, there were massive protests and dissension that threatened to change the party in power, because they raised the retirement age from 62 to 64. (I believe they did raise it nonetheless). The age at which you get a government benefit sufficient for many people to live comfortably. In the USA, they keep raising the social security age, doing it so only effects future people who reach it -- currently I believe it is 67. They (republican-backed proposals in congress) are currently talking about pushing it to 70. And will only give you enough to live very precariously and thriftily anyway. (They're also talking about pushing back medicare eligibility age). The USA is really not a great place to live unless you are very wealthy. But HN definitely has a higher percentage of very wealthy people than the population at large.