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Comment by paulcole | Hacker News Reader

I "retired" in my mid-20s for about 3 years. I only went back to work when I ran out of money.

Describing complete freedom as "dull" is an insane concept to me. You can work out, read, watch TV, go to coffee shops, cook, or even just sit around all day with no commitments.

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I agree. I am 46, and my wife was joking a few years ago that we're living a retired's life. (I'm working from home, but at a rate that's about ten times the local average, so it's pretty much whenever I feel like it.)

Complete freedom is amazing.

Not everyone is like us. I'm a relatively successful software engineer currently and I still think back with fond memories to when I was tech support sitting there answering 30 minutes of calls per 8 hour shift. For some people that's torture.

You didn't retire, you just quit working until you went broke.

That's exactly what retiring is, only with the hope you die before your funds run out.

Ideally you die with $0 left. As the philosopher Karl Pilkington once said, "The only reason you need money is in case you don't die today."

It should be more than a "hope." If you really retire (and really plan to never work again), you should have some reasonable confidence that you will never run out of money. Having 25x to 30x current expenses saved and invested is a good starting point.

I did have ~40x my monthly expenses saved. I just spent them over the course of about 40 months!

I had no illusions about not working again, but I did do what retired people do: whatever the heck I wanted!

x is usually years, not months. I think that 3-4 years is closer to a long sabbatical.

I don’t think that changes my original point that if you find freedom to do whatever you want “dull” then you are the problem.

Sorry, I meant yearly expenses!!!!

I knew what you meant.

How does that differ from your definition of retirement?

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