There has to be a better system than this.
Don’t wait until retirement. Balance your life now. It’s going to be a long slog.
You don’t need to find an amazing career that you’ll love doing until you die. People who get that are extremely lucky, and it’s not the norm. You just need a job that will support you while still giving you time to do the things you enjoy.
Follow this: https://youtu.be/YHxwY3Fz2gU?feature=shared
Live with underlying existential dread for decades. Watch as “doing what you love” becomes “hating what you used to love because you’re forced to do it so that there’s enough numbers in the computer to prove that you’re worthy of continued existence.” Contemplate the pointlessness of it all on a daily basis. Be reminded that your feelings are invalid because “other people have it worse” every time the topic comes up. Nod listlessly as “successful” people tout their own hard work while ignoring any factor luck and privilege played, then tune out when they shift into the dissonant duet of “I succeeded because I am exceptional” and “anyone can do the same if they just work harder.”
Wake up the next morning and realize there’s roughly 30 more years of this, barring a massive coronary or aneurism or something.
barring a massive coronary or aneurism or something.
Fingers crossed! 🤞
I need more therapy tbh
Here’s a hot take. Do what you want when you are young. Find a way. I spent my 20’s moving around, having shitty but fun jobs. I travelled. Saw all kinds of places and met all sorts of people. It wasn’t easy and sometimes it wasn’t fun. I found myself homeless even several times. I still wouldn’t change any of it. I found a wonderful partner and we moved together for a while before settling and having kids.
In my early 40s I was diagnosed with a really rare cancer that paralyzed me from the chest down for a year prior to surgery and left lasting disabilities following. Now in my 50’s with declining health I am so glad I lived. It means I don’t have a lot of things others have but I’ve never cared much for the Jones’ anyway. If Cancer taught me anything it’s fuck society and their expectations. Do you. Find a way. Be happy.
The alternative is much worse. I don’t want to be poor and/or homeless. I want to be able to take vacations and not worry about surprise expenses. I want to actually be able to retire someday.
The alternative is a much harder life to live, in my opinion. For me, giving up 40ish hours a week for the peace of mind it worth it. Yes, work is not how I’d prefer to spend my time, but it allows me to spend the rest of my time doing as I’d please.
There are more alternatives.
Don’t hold on to things you haven’t done before you retire… It is a waste of time and regretting not doing stuff, which lasts for moments, is the folly of youth.
Also what/who you want to do changes as you get older…
/sauce greybeard who is 10 years off retirement.
Thank you HorseChandelier
Yep, your priorities will change, those big plans you had 15 years ago might not seem so important now, and that’s perfectly OK.
A pivotal piece of advice once shifted my perspective on work. It was put simply: ‘If the thought of retirement is your main motivation, you might be in the wrong job.’ This implies that if you’re constantly counting down the years to retirement, you’re essentially wishing for time to fly by quicker. But those years are valuable, and letting them slip away in anticipation of something else isn’t worth it. The key is to find a career that reduces your stress and enhances your life now, not just in the future. While financial security is undeniably important, it’s also crucial to recognize when you have enough and to prioritize your well-being and happiness in the present.
Its an interesting sentiment… but ultimately it just rings a bit hollow yeah? As if nearly anyone would work 40 hours a week if they didnt have to. You think if 100 people were given enough money to cover their housing/food/leisure/travel they would go to a factory job 40 hours a week? Or even a job they enjoyed or had fun at? Or would they spend their time with loved ones, doing things they enjoy, filling their lives with interesting experiences they can enjoy in the moment and reflect back on?
I enjoy my job quite a bit, It even has value to me in that it contributes to society in a fulfilling way, but 100% I am looking forward to not being obligated to do it
Plan the things you want to do into your life. Drop the notion “when I retire I will…” If you can fit the stuff you want to do into your Annual Leave then that’s a big win. If not then you’ll need unpaid leave. One good time is between jobs.
For me, I look to the past to see what life could have been like were I born 100 - 200 -500 - 1,000 years ago and try to find the positives that being born now has.
And the reality is that even as soon as 100 years ago life was much, much harder and worse in almost every metric. Brutal jobs, brutal hours, with safety of no concern, even if you were a child. Housing? You were lucky if you could heat your home in some way in the winter, and air conditioning didnt even exist yet. Physical labor jobs were a large amount of the work, so many people simple worked themselves into uselessness and then suffered the rest of their lives.
It doesnt get much better going back further than that really. Plague anyone?
Today we enjoy a massive, massive amount of comfort in our lives. Have amazing, tasty, and safe food at our fingertips almost without issue. Can travel the entire globe effortlessly when even a cross country trek could have been a multi-month brutal affair with a death sentence for half the travel party. Modern medicine eliminates so many of the issues of the past.
In reality very few people “just” work for 40 years and then retire useless husks and then die. I suspect you spend some time with friends and loved ones, perhaps even travel and engage in leisure time kings and queens of 200 years ago couldnt dream of during those 40 years.
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I live in the UK, so I get 25 days off work, and I take full advantage of that, I rarely do staycations.
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I’m about to buy a property and I’m deliberately going to get a mortgage where my monthly payments are not as much as I can possibly afford, but a bit less. This means that it will take me longer to pay it off, and overall it will cost me more, but I will have more disposable income today to spend on life’s pleasures.
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I don’t have kids and don’t plan to.
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I stay physically active, just simple going to the gym 5-6 days a week. And I think this is really important. It will keep your body in shape and by the time your 60 or 70, you’ll be able to do much more than your average peers who spent their middle age doing office jobs followed by evenings in front of the TV. And here, instead of my 41-year-old self, I’m going to use the example of my mum. She’s turning 70 next year, but it was only when she was 68 that she started taking swimming lessons and she got to love it. It was also around that time that I floated the idea to her “why don’t I take you for holidays to New York”. She was all “no, no, I’m too old, it’s too much walking, you took me for a holiday to London when I was 55 and I was totally exhausted, I wouldn’t be able to do New York at this age.” Now that she’s had over 1.5 years of almost daily swimming (and cycling, she’s also a keen cyclist) - she said yes. She said she’s feeling perfectly fine doing long walks, she’s more energised, and she already gave me a list of what she wants to see in New York.
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Other than physical activity, scientists seem to agree that the other two pillars of long and healthy life are good sleep, and good diet. For the former, I recommend reading Why we sleep by Matthew Walker. And good diet means varied diet, vegetable-rich diet, and low-calorie diet (too many books agree on that for me to recommend a specific one).
I stay physically active, just simple going to the gym 5-6 days a week.
jesus fuck how is that simple?
Maybe it’s just a 10min walk to the gym? Saves a lot of money for membership as well.
Simple doesnt necessarily mean easy to accomplish. I took it to mean they just go and so something as opposed to some structured, unwavering plan or training so hard they cant walk 5 days out of the weak.
Could probably accomplish something similar with 100-200 squats and push ups a day, but going to the gym gives you more variety
Yes, I guess whatever regular physical activity is good. But not gonna lie, during the pandemic when gyms were closed and all I had to stay active was my dumbbells at home, it was pretty much harder to motivate myself to do the limited number of exercises available to me in this set up. Gym does allow for some variety.
Are you talking about time constraints? (again - no parental responsibilities here, so pretty simple) Or are you asking how I motivate myself?
Also, I meant simple as in, I don’t play any sports, or do some varied types of physical activity. Just gym.
Both?
Working a full time job leaves neither time nor energy for that, for example.I work a full time job. 5 days a week, 8h a day. I don’t have many other responsibilities, so it’s not that hard. I would say that gym consumes 2h in one day, including traveling to and from (although my gym is like 1 minute off my route to work) changing before and showering after and that includes 60-75 minute workout. Days when I make plans with friends in the evening are trickier but if I stay disciplined, I make it work. Also, I start work at 7 and leave around 3.30, so I’m home around 6pm after a day of work and gym. And as for being drained after work, my job is mainly thinking (I’m a scientist). I don’t know what you do, but I can imagine having a physically demanding job can indeed discourage from the thought of lifting some dumbbells after a whole day.
As for motivation, don’t have much more to advise than: you just have to force yourself. I guess sticking with it for a few months and seeing the effects is indirectly motivating. Scientists say that will power itself is like a muscle: the more you exercise it, the more of it you seem to have. Every day is an internal struggle for me, fending off the thought “maybe just today… I can skip gym?” Sometimes I cave, but I do manage to make it 5-6 days a week.
Your point about the mortgage eventually costing you more in the long run is exactly what I advocate for. So many moneybros out there advocate for living in squalor so you can both aggressively save for retirement and pay down all your loans.
But life is uncertain and even if you live a healthy life, you never know if you’ll just be hit by a car and killed one day.
Life is about maintaining a balance. Sure, save for retirement, but don’t do so so aggressively that you ruin your ability to be happy now.
Another way see a loan is that you’re buying time. When you see it for what it is then you don’t have to fall for heuristic thinking.
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Existential dread. I am not here to be a wage slave but I can’t figure out how to get out. I just drink a lot
Dunno but I am hoping aliens invade in the following years and make our existence more enjoyable than this …
I slack. Oh boy do I slack. I’d work so harder if I thought I would actually get something for it. In fact, when I started my latest job, I was doing just that, because it seemed this company was different, and it’s something I’m naturally good at. Got commended by my boss about how much I was doing, how quickly I was learning, how in a year I had already surpassed the next most recent hire that had been there for 2 years… Then time came for my review, and it was a “meets expectations”. Like wtf do I have to do to exceed expectations? Then not long after, they started denying me time off, saying I had taken too much. Supposedly we had unlimited PTO, of which I had taken 2 weeks so far that year (1 week in March, the rest just single days here and there), and my request was for a week in July… Anywho long story short, I’ve pretty much figured out exactly how much I have to fake being busy to not get negative attention, and I do that. I milk cases for all they’re worth. And I’m still getting more done than half my colleagues. I hate it, but it pays decently, so I have a hard time throwing it away for something that might be more fulfilling, but doesn’t pay as well…
That is shitty. My heart goes out.
Hello twin
Maybe this isn’t the answer you’re looking for: my job is my passion and the idea of retiring sounds horrible. I image it will only happen when I’m too senile to keep doing what I love, and that’s clearly not something to look forward to. But who knows… I know old people who are tired and just want to rest.
(I got lucky, since I happened to be passionate about computer programming. I know most other people don’t have the same option.)
(I got lucky, since I happened to be passionate about computer programming. I know most other people don’t have the same option.)
When I was in high school I was very passionate about PC stuff (I mainly used Linux) and while there were not many careers about this where I live the few related ones I stayed away from them because I felt like turning your hobby into your job would get rid of the fun of it (I still think it to a degree, I see it in many hobby type sectors, like gaming).
I kinda regret my decision nowadays though, but still I feel I wouldn’t enjoy my hobbies with timelines and crappy bosses, oh and making them rich in the process ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This is exactly where I’m at in the same type of gig. I do get a bit burnt by the end of the day but by 8pm I’m just counting hours until the next day because I want to dive back into the problems I’m working on.
I feel very lucky I’ve found a vocation that I love and pays handsomely. It’s also working for fed gov so the benefits and work life balance are insanely great. Also, work from home.
If I went into the private sector I could probably make 50k more but I’m very comfortable now and the chance of me hating my life and job working to try and make someone else rich is not appealing at all. And that’s all if the company doesn’t fold or get acquired.
Fuck that noise
I simply work part time on purpose. I don’t have my own place (flatmates) so we all split the COL. It’s not truly freedom, but it feels a lot more free than when I worked full time. I usually have enough to save a little and also because of this I am able to travel a few times a year. But you have to be REALLY able to manage your finances to live like this. I have no credit card and prepay everything ahead of time. It leaves me with a lot more time to enjoy LIFE. and feel less constantly tired as well.
I got out!
Rented out my apt to others and the tiny difference to my advantage was enough to sustain myself in south America (working a bit and or volunteer or living in free housing(my ex’s)
I now got some more money (sold the apt) and do holiday rentals here, but even without that it’s just few hundred per month for food and going out, maybe 95$ extra for social local Healthcare (for 2!)
Don’t ever think you need to be a millionaire to get out. Government guaranteed bonds pay 9.5% per year.
So each 10k usd you put in a guaranteed usd account = 87$ free money each month. Need 50k for bit over 400$/mo which is the local minimum wage. 100% government guaranteed (if you split in 2 banks)
