Comment by decebalus1 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by decebalus1 | Hacker News Reader

⌘+f 'health', ⌘+f 'insurance' - no hits.

All this talk about retiring early when living frugally is a bunch of horseshit. It's 'Fuck you money' or bust.

- Completely counterproductive to live frugally in order to retire early so that you can continue living frugally without working for 'the man'

- if you really want independence from your employer, it needs to be complete independence. Not the independence that risks bankrupting you whenever you or your family have a serious health condition

- 'Mr. Money Mustache' is so full of crap sometimes, I wonder if I'm reading /r/frugal_jerk and people often forget that 'Mr. Money Mustache' is a business in itself with different incentives than solely teaching you how to 'game the system' and 'escape the ratrace'

- sometimes the frugal part takes up so much time and energy it's counterproductive to go that way when you're really well paid. Not to mention the decrease in quality of life

After decades in this business, if you want a happy semi-independent life the following advice is what I can think of:

- work on yourself, cultivate your craft, become a specialist so that you call the shots whenever you need to change jobs and afford to pick jobs allowing you to work on what you really want

- work on side-projects and constantly learn new stuff. If you manage to get a passive income stream, good for you but don't necessarily make it a life goal

- screw corporate loyalty. Change jobs every 3-4 years, you'll learn way more and your income will be miles ahead of your former colleagues

- don't buy stupid shit you can't afford (including but not limited to: fancy cars, McMansions, travel for the sake of traveling, etc..) unless they are a central part of your existence

- follow some basic money management rules (max out retirement funds, keep emergency cash while investing your savings, etc..)

- keep good work life balance constantly so that you don't get burned out or daydream about your early retirement

I don’t think MMM is “full of crap” intentionally or that the whole thing is a scam. But I do think it is a bit misleading to claim you only need 25x your annual expenses to retire because of a 4% SWR. He does recommend those Vanguard index funds like most early retirement people but he has a free and clear rental property that covers the whole family’s expenses. And a free and clear primary residence. So a huge chunk of his portfolio is in real estate. Same goes for Financial Samurai or Frugal Woods.

The frugal path works for some personalities though. Myself, for example - I’ve lived on $1000 a month for seven years in a decent paying job. Everything went towards buying rental properties. When I quit I moved out of the US to avoid high medical premiums and high costs of living. (City center in Paris or Tokyo still cheaper than NYC.) I don’t plan on having kids or getting hitched, and I’m practically a hippie. So my opinion is that you need a combination of (1) Good salary (2) sustainably low expenses (3) major flexibility in lifestyle (4) updated skillset and social capital. I’ve lived in my car for fun. I plan to spend this summer sleeping rough on a beach, gratis. If the economy goes to shit I am not opposed to dumpster diving. Or offering my services as a live-in tutor.

I hope many people realize that early “retirement” is not just numbers - you’re still going to want to do something “productive” and you have to constantly be leveling up skills and relationships.

Yea, his owning real estate should be a huge asterisk. Financial advice: Step 1: Own your home free and clear. Yea, I’ll get right on that.

It’s like Ryan Gosling‘s dating advice: Step 1: Be as handsome as Ryan Gosling. Well no shit!

Also - he's a software engineer - one of the best paid careers at the moment (and in the US). I also work in IT (not in the US) and get paid 5x times what my former highschool colleagues make. But I don't rub salt in their wounds that I am able to save 60-70% of my income.

THIS. All the early retirees I know are either extremely rich (from their tech startups), or have a working spouse or immigrated abroad. No one has solved the riddle of healthcare costs while staying in the US post retirement on meagre income. This will especially hit hard when early retirees hit their late 40's / 50's, when health problems start kicking in but your resume starts looking rusty due to 15-20 years in retirement.

> ⌘+f 'health', ⌘+f 'insurance' - no hits.

This, if you live and work in the USA. I don't know how it works in Europe or Asia, but in America, unless you have F-U Money like OP says, you are just 1 major health issue away[1] from bankruptcy if you go the "frugal" retire early i.e. retire without F-U Money.

Source: My Manager's sister, in her early 50s, who had early stage throat cancer. Despite having insurance, it quickly maxed out, and hospital stays even for 3/4 days are in 1000s of $, and not all medical events are covered at 100% even by the best insurances. She (the sister) is now using my Manager's insurance to pay for some of it, and hasn't been at her job in 8 months, so also afraid of getting laid off.

I wouldn’t count on anything like healthcare always being free/cheap if I were in Canada, Europe, Asia, etc. Nothing is set in stone.

Sure but US healthcare is a vulture out to rip you apart in pieces. My plan, make fuck your money in US, retire in Australia. I also hope the economy crashes some time in Australia because the prices there are definitely in a huge bubble.

> because the prices there are definitely in a huge bubble.

Housing prices or Cost Of Living?

@dacebalus1

I am 23 and I read a lot from Mr Money Mustache, Early Retirement Extreme, Frugal Hackers, and many others. I fully agree with you but I still save close to 60% of my income (no debt, own my own car/house and have $45k invested in 401k/roth ira/hsa/taxable account) and live extremely comfortable.

I will be able to "retire" by age 33+ but I don't plan on actually quitting work. I am naturally minimalistic and frugal, but I live a very comfortable life on $15-20k or less (past 2 years I've lived on $10k in midwest US).

I am mostly doing this to secure a buffer of time to buy freedom and start-up costs for a small product I am creating.

The concern for health insurance is a huge issue for early retirement, especially when you have a family. I'm an eternal bachelor so that won't be a huge issue for me, so I can't truly comment on it.

I think all your advice is early retirement aligned but with the caveat to buffer for health insurance. I think early retirement has become so popular because the vast majority of Americans don't save for retirement and over-consume (which is not good nor bad but subjective to each person's internal purpose).

> become a specialist

Any suggestions for a specialization?

I've seen a lot of specialities become worthless or at least marginalized. I'd like some examples that stand the test of time. (For tech that's probably 10± years).

Ive seen plenty of niches were a few folks were able to cling like barnacles in Finance, Telco, etc but TBH their lives didn't seem that appealing. Lots of time on the road, etc.

Put your assets in a trust, if you go bankrupt personally, it's irrelevant.

Once my companies valuations + my net assets hit my magic number, I'll use my estate tax exemption and move 100% of it into a trust.

I will agree though, working for yourself is fantastic if you can afford to do so.

>Put your assets in a trust, if you go bankrupt personally, it's irrelevant.

Can you extrapolate on this? The more detail the better.

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