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Comment by angarg12 | Hacker News Reader

It is exhausting. I get bombarded daily by a deluge of hustle culture paraphernalia. Start a side hustle. Monetize your hobbies. FIRE by 30 (I'm too late for that). Build the next big thing. Optimize your life. 10x your productivity.

Rather than inspiring, I find this content draining and anxiety-inducing. Instead of materially improving my life, it makes me feel inadequate compared to more successful people.

I'm becoming better at blocking and ignoring this content but there is still a long way to go.

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> 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.

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”.

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.

I think important part of these calculations is answering question “am I free?”.

It should most likely not be taken to extreme like retire at 30.

But for me it is answering question if I can quit job on the spot and don’t worry. Other question if I can afford health care in case of family tragedy that will require years of rehabilitation.

If having nice things is taking away my freedom and would put me in high stress situation - I don’t want nice things.

Having FIRE kind of money in bank makes life easier even if you still want to work.

I agree.

"If having nice things is taking away my freedom and would put me in high stress situation - I don’t want nice things."

The problem for many people is, your spouse needs to feel the same way.

If you don't mind me asking, what all parameters go into the math and what all do you account for? For context; I'm 23, just turning 24, just started working full-time at a well paying job, so have been recently exposed to a lot of things that I need to do in order to "adult" per se; taxes, insurance, etc. Would be really grateful to have some light shed on this great unknown.

This topic could literally fill a university library with prose, so this comment is just a tip of what to consider... I'm just going to try and give you pointers to search for on your own and things to consider which maybe a 23yo wouldn't normally consider. Oh, and don't feel bad if you can't afford or plan everything today, you're just at the start of a great and evolving journey.

At a super high level, retirement is just living off savings until you die or the pool of money dies. The goal is for the money to outlive your spending. Realistically, you'll probably invest that money (401k, etc) so it should be "growing" even as you draw it down. The goal most people aspire to is to have the same "income" in retirement as you did working, by having so much savings that the rate you withdraw is equal to your old salary. Thats hard to do, and when you retire you may need less money, but it's a useful goal. There are a ton of "retirement calculators" [0] that you can plug in your financial situation into and it'll output useful info... eg. if a 23yo makes 100k a year, and save 1K a month, you'll have 3.7M at age 67, but you need ~4M to "make" 100k a year for the rest of your life. I've found each calculator online makes different assumptions about stock market returns, inflation, etc, so play with a few or do some math manually. I think these calculators area great sanity check and first stop for any long-term financial plan. More concretely, you'll hear about the 4% rule - you'll be unlikely to run out of money if you only withdraw 4% a year from a pool of invested money. So if you want to retire early with an $X/yr salary, you'll need to save 25X that amount. If you're comfortable dying broke (you can't take it with you!) then you can retire with less money, but you should when it would theoretically run out.

This should give you a basic idea of your savings rate for retirement. It's just a start, but you're young so you can improve it with age as you understand your lifestyle and career, and your financials change. Oh and my advice is get as close to maxing out a 401k as possible. Its tax-advantaged, so you'll have more money than if you paid taxes on it, and since there is a yearly limit, in later years you'll wish you put more in earlier.

Beyond retirement, you'll have other expenses in life (new cars, houses, kids, weddings, etc). You should vaguely understand those costs even if you don't know which ones you'll incur and when. Weddings are expensive if you ever wish to marry (avg wedding in the US is $20k). Children are expensive too - even getting a child can be expensive if you're not able to do it "naturally" - IVF can be $25k+. At 23 you may not know if you'll want a kid or if you'll have medical trouble, but the scale of these costs would have blown away 23yo me. Then there's all the obvious childcare costs... The point is there are a lot of life milestones that a 23yo may not be thinking about but a 33yo or 43yo may wish the 23yo started planning for, so you'll want to consider saving for more than just retirement. Oh, and on top of this save for a bad day, whether thats getting laid off, or a car accident, or a sudden death, or whatever.

Thats basically it for a high-level planning - understand what your vague costs are across your life, and do the math to understand how long it'll take to save for them. You can do further optimizations for taxes, and consider the distribution of funds, or optimize the account costs structures or a million other things. First, learn the big-picture income/saving/spending trends in your life... premature optimization and all that. Personally, I think of everything in terms of the 4% rule - what can my net worth get me in terms of income via the 4% rule - eg. every 25k saved is 1k a year in forever-income.

[0] First result on google - https://www.nerdwallet.com/investing/retirement-calculator

For that 23 year old:

> Weddings are expensive if you ever wish to marry (avg wedding in the US is $20k).

Weddings are usually much less expensive. Average cost is misleading; median is more representative and much lower. Average 2020 wedding cost was 19k - 27k, while median cost was 11k. This reflects a few couples spending drastically more than average, and most couples spending less [1].

Also, wedding costs can be adjusted a lot. Unlike childcare costs, which are fairly inelastic, weddings can be much more easily tailored to lower cost. Fewer guests, outside venue, etc. -- these factors can be adjusted without life changes.

My wedding cost 5k in 2014. We had 15 guests -- parents, grandparent, siblings, and significant others. Ceremony was in a nice park, reception was dinner and drinks in a reserved section of a high-end restaurant in a metropolitan downtown.

> Children are expensive too

To clarify for the young: children are _much_ more expensive than weddings. It's like an expensive wedding every year. In my opinion, minimizing this cost while still having children is a very worthwhile effort in life planning for a 23 year old.

Consider a common scenario: childcare in or near a major city that would allow a dual-income household to work 9 AM - 5 PM with commute times factored in. In my experience, that's $15k - $30k per year, _per child_ [2]. Nanny care substantially minimizes marginal per-child cost for > 1 child, but still costs 25k - 40k per year.

Children are worth it! But do plan. Living near parents that are willing and able to help with childcare can greatly reduce costs. Choosing employers or careers that offer flexible or non-9-5 hours can also be a big help.

[1] https://silkstemcollective.com/median-and-average-wedding-co...

[2] https://www.epi.org/child-care-costs-in-the-united-states is the best estimator I've found, but still seems low for 9-5, 5 day per week childcare in or near a big city.

> Consider a common scenario: childcare in or near a major city that would allow a dual-income household to work 9 AM - 5 PM with commute times factored in. In my experience, that's $15k - $30k per year, _per child_ [2]. Nanny care substantially minimizes marginal per-child cost for > 1 child, but still costs 25k - 40k per year.

This is true, but some times when I talk to young people about children they imagine these costs extending forever. Childcare is an expensive, albeit temporary, expense.

It helps to map out which expenses would be incurred in which years in a spreadsheet. For many, childcare might come down to effectively consuming most or all of one spouse’s after-tax income for a few years, but maintaining career continuity can be worth it.

As I get older, I’m also seeing more of my friends decide that one of them will become a stay at home parent - and ending up happier because of it. I never would have guessed I’d see some of these people voluntarily choose to give up their lucrative careers to stay home with the kids, but then I look and see that they’re happier and less stressed than I am

> Childcare is an expensive, albeit temporary, expense.

It's $15-40k per year for 5-6 years, often per child. Consider 2 children born 3 years apart with no non-nuclear family childcare help, which means 8-9 years of 9 AM - 5 PM childcare needed for at least 1 child.

With a nanny in or near a big city at $25-40k per year, that's $200-400k total. With a childcare center in same scenario, it's likely similar in total cost, albeit with (to your later point) spreadsheet-worthy complexity.

This is great advice, but one more thing to remember is that $100,000 today is not the same as $100,000 in 30 years. It’ll be closer to half that if inflation reverts to the mean. Most calculators will factor inflation in (such as the one linked), but definitely worth considering it when planning your savings target.

You can get drowned in a lot of information on this, but the fundamental part of the typical advice (not advice in the more official financial sense) is this:

If you are able to save nothing for retirement, you can never retire. You'll never build up any savings.

If you are able to put away literally everything you earn, you already can retire - your expenses are already covered.

In between those is not a linear scale (as it goes from 0 to infinity). As you setup a life where you are able to save more of your income you do two things:

1. You are able to save more and you get to your target figure faster

2. You need to save less because your lifestyle requires less money

Those combine very powerfully. This can be impacted heavily if you earn well when you're younger because as you invest compound interest makes a big difference over time. Investing in boring index funds (I mentally categorise this as a broad bet on capitalism) and continuing until you have about 25-35x your annual expenses (depends on your risk, there's loads on this) is the overall picture.

To save me redoing the maths, assuming 5% return after inflation and 25x your expenses, saving 10% of your income means working for 51 years, 25% of your income means working for 32 years, 50% means 17 years, and 75% just 7 years. [0]

Before I get the usual responses "but I like nice things" - the point is being deliberate about your spending and your goals. I am in a very fortunate position with my income (as many of us techies are on this site) and could spend a lot more. I would get significantly diminishing returns for spending more however, and it would come at a cost of working more and spending less time with my loved ones.

"ah but you can die any time why live a life of cold beans from the can" - the idea that I can die earlier strongly suggests to me I want to be in a position where I don't need my job earlier - to have more time retired rather than dying at my desk. Also the point is to build a life around things I actually value, not avoiding spending altogether.

"I like my job" - great! Unless you'd work for free, there is something else you'd rather do. Before you're FI you also gain huge security. FI is just "I could walk away from this job and be fine forever" but before then you hit "I would be fine for a month" then a year, then 10 years, 20, etc. Having a decade of runway makes shaky job markets significantly less scary.

Build the life you want to live, and save for it. Spend deliberately on things that you value. If that's cars, find the best way of spending your money to have the most fun with them (a cheaper daily driver and regular track days might be more fun and cheaper than a car a few models up).

I'd check out the subreddits and the sidebars for the standard advice in the personalfinance and financial independence.

https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/commontopics

The UK specific one has the almighty flowchart https://ukpersonal.finance/flowchart/

The FI subreddit has good advice https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/ again check the sidebar for the must reads and key things there. Lots of the advice, particularly for someone your age, should be very generic.

[0] https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-si...

The biggest thing with FIRE is that they very rarely/almost never account for the expenses increasing over time, and they never account for the fact that you will have multiple emergencies in your lifetime. Someone is going to break something and need an ER trip, a stoke scare, a heart attack scare, a relative is dying, etc.

> (Retire by 30? I must read this article to understand how…)

I've met a few such people and unsurprisingly none of them did it by following such advice.

It was always a combination of talent, circumstances and willingness to take huge risks. Not everyone has that and not everyone actually achieves this goal even when they do.

"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.

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.

That only makes sense if you have an ever increasing workforce, which doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

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.

This is the kind of thing that makes me want to throw away all my electronics and move to a farm in the middle of middle America and have a farm.

The problem is, with property taxes of any kind, you have to have a "day job".

I just want a farm, a family, and to be left alone.

Property taxes are nothing compared to health insurance, though.

I’d totally be living in a backwater doing far less work if not for needing $20K / year for health insurance for my family (and $10K on in reserve for my “out of pocket maximum”).

Not sure that’s relevant if you have no actual income. That’s fully subsidized.

I'm not clear on how it's not relevant--Wouldn't you need some money for insurance no matter what?

I remember glancing at the medicaid qualifications for a friend and being stunned that you only qualify if you have less than $2k in assets, so I don't think that's a sustainable method for off-grid living assuming you have a house/cash reserve/whatever.

Most of the world doesn’t pay health insurance and has better outcomes.

Maybe not the rest of the world, but certainly the developed world. Hell, even some Eastern European countries have both lower taxes and better health outcomes (socialized healthcare) than America.

Medical mistakes in hospitals sits at #3 on the list of 'things that kill people prematurely'. [0] Note that's from 2016, and it doesn't appear the CDC has updated their reporting methods.

[0] https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/study_su...

I have 40 acres and a home, property taxes are under $300/year. Ozarks.

Farms are a money-pit of their own, and most 'farmers' these days have to have off-farm income.

Cabin in the woods, though...

>Cabin in the woods, though...

With, or without a flesh eating virus?

The problem with this rose tinted pastoral view is that you (likely) have zero experience in agriculture, so this just isn't a realistic goal. Not to mention that small farms are basically razor thin in terms of profit margins.

I was raised on a farm. I know what it is like and the kind of dedication it requires, as well as possess some of the knowledge to dive in head first.

Making assumptions is fine, just be wary that you could be completely wrong.

Agriculture has lots of “inside knowledge” which gets passed onto next generation. You need to intern first with another farmer. Ironically, Jeremy Clarkson is doing exactly right this time.

Perhaps if agriculture drifts toward tech solutions, more people would be able to quickly grow their experience.

Check out the open source field robot project by Twisted Fields: https://community.twistedfields.com/t/january-2023-update-ne...

Large scale agribusiness is already 100% tech solutions. This makes getting into the field and gaining experience harder, not easier. Even small scale farming requires a huge amount of tacit knowledge that can only be gained by doing.

Come to Ohio. There are acres around. You can have 3-5 acres and keep your day job as long as you've got a partner on board with ya.

https://twitter.com/ChrisJBakke/status/1638323074205614082

Your family’s gonna want things, though. And you’re gonna want things (eg. medical care) for your family.

Farmers have things.

The vast majority of farms in the US are now owned by giant conglomerates like ConAgra, not small family farmers, who barely exist anymore.

What are you talking about? "In 2020, family farms accounted for 98% of total farms and 87% of total production. 89% of those farms were small family farms"[1].

1. https://protecttheharvest.com/news/2021-usda-report-finds-98...

Right below where you stopped quoting:

“Likewise, the share of the value of production on small family farms declined from 26% to 20%.”

This and other resources keep pointing out that large scale family farms which are corporations at that point are nearly half. Then non family farms are another fraction like 20%-ish. Then not all of the “families” owning the farms even farm their own land. That’s only 51% of farmers doing that full time.

So 40%+ are landlords. Adam Smith the father of capitalism and Karl Marx and Engels all believed landlords are unethical and antithetical to capitalism or any economic system.

Even if the OP was wrong, your response is similar. Can we get some specifics of the actual finances?

Otherwise this is all propaganda for the US seeming more fair and equitable than it really is. Adam Smith would be rolling in his grave.

Except GP mentioned ownership and when presented with ownership stats we find ourselves talking about value production.

It comes across as a conclusion in search of evidence. What's happening is goal shifting.

I strongly believe that when a commenter makes an inaccurate claim, the bare minimum is pointing out the factual error. I'm under no obligation to speculate what the commenter really meant. I took them at face value - a completely fair approach. If they wish to clarify, or make a better argument, that's on them.

We are intelligent adults here. We don’t have to pretend my statements were these fallacies. A fallacy is a fallacy eventually.

It’s possible I’m too autistic to understand why you are behaving the way you are. Your behavior and defensive mechanism baffles me if it’s in good faith. When I got into politics I spent a long time looking over all sides and never ever thought things like what you wrote. I always thought looking for the truth is the best thing.

For me it doesn’t make sense in my world view to be pedantic the way you are behaving. It’s a rather traditional autistic behavior though. I know i spend a lot of time masking to seem more normal and not be so pedantic).

In my eyes class is the only thing that matters. Do you not believe in material dialectics? Your views sound very libertarian from my reading on those politics. I don’t believe in private property so we will have to disagree on caring about ownership.

Looking at supersize me 2 farmers either have an employer, debt, or are a megafarm themselves!

Not ones that threw away all their electronics.

Same here. We need a Homestead Act 2.0.

In the meantime, expanding my backyard garden is a decent alternative. I used to spend most of my free time browsing the internet or tooling around with code. Now I hardly touch my computer on weekends.

That does seem to be the dream of a lot of us.

Perhaps an Indian tribe will adopt us. Or Mennonites? I know I'm careening wildly into politically incorrect space but I think you get my (joking) point.

Being serious though, surely managing the farm to any degree will yield profits that will offset the property taxes.

>> It is exhausting. I get bombarded daily by a deluge of hustle culture paraphernalia. Start a side hustle. Monetize your hobbies. FIRE by 30 (I'm too late for that). Build the next big thing. Optimize your life. 10x your productivity.

You realize none of this is "real" right? I mean, a 31-year-old retired guy has got nothing better to do than send you spam? And if he's asking for money, then (surprise!) he's not retired. Almost all of these emails are self-evident - ask yourself "if this were true, why does need my money?" Ask yourself "if I were retired, would I waste my time sending out mails like this?"

>> Rather than inspiring,

They are not meant to be _inspiring_ - they're meant to be _profitable_. Seriously mate, it's a bottom-feeding hustle. It's not meant to inspire you. It's meant to separate you from some $. This is not success.

>> it makes me feel inadequate compared to more successful people.

Firstly, you are inadequate. You are insignificant. If you disappeared few people would notice, and after a week pretty much everyone won't care. In other words you're _just like everyone else_. You're not special. You're not special good, you're not special bad. You're just you. _Just like everyone else_. (I say this not to be a dick, but simply to state the obvious. Once you understand this, contentment is easier.) [2]

So some guy is more successful than you, richer than you, more famous than you. So what? I mean out of 8 billion or so, 8 billion-1 are "not the richest" - not the most successful - not the most famous? If you get anxious because there's someone ahead of you in the queue, well, good luck on that.

What about the length of the queue behind you? Ever notice them? You got food today? Shelter tonight? Income tomorrow? Man you don't know how good you got it - what da'ya want? A rocket into space?

Give yourself a break. You're doing fine. Live a life of gratitude and generosity. Give more money away [1]. And for goodness sake, don't measure your life by Spam. Seriously.

[1] - Giving money away is the best way to reduce the hold money has on your life. It might be $1. It might be $10. It might be whatever. Giving it away reminds you, you are in control of the money, not the other way around. And reminds you that whatever you have, there are folk out there with less.

[2] Z makes a real breakthough... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIv-FUarVWU

Thank you, I like your reply. Would that the internet served up more of that.

It's rare that people with real insight take the time to comment. Thanks, this is great.

> makes me feel inadequate

If you could sum up marketing in four words.

This “early retirement” obsession is a symptom of the meaningless of most modern day work.

I have never met anyone with a meaningful job who wants to retire, let alone retire early.

All the surgeons, social workers, artists I know want to keep working till the day they die.

Your sample on doctors at least is almost certainly off. Here [1] is a random recent report from Massachusetts but it's very much the rule and not the exception. All the following are on physicians:

- 55% showing symptoms of burn out

- more than 50% looking to reduce hours, 25% looking to leave medicine altogether

- 1 in 3 felt their work schedule allowed time for a personal/family life

And so on.

It's also not COVID. The reason I looked this up was personal anecdata from long before COVID. I have family in medicine and so was casually acquainted with a number of doctors, literally all of whom were less than enthusiastic about their jobs. You get paid a lot, but the hours are absolutely brutal, you spend an ungodly amount of time just filling out regulations related paperwork, and it's just generally a really painful career.

Part of being a good doctor is hiding all of this from the patient, and making it look like every day is a joy to be there doing what you love. In med school you literally study good bedside manner.

[1] - https://www.massmed.org/Publications/Research,-Studies,-and-...

Doctors have huge variances in job satisfaction and overall happiness based on specialty.

https://www.mdlinx.com/article/these-doctor-specialties-are-...

Not to nitpick there, but I wouldn't really call that much variance. That study showed a job happiness ranging from 24-43% by specialty. It's certainly a sizable range, but even the high end of 43% happiness is not what you'd describe as the sort of job people want to work till the day they die.

In addition to the sibling comment, social work is one of the highest burnout rate fields. Anecdotally, none of the LMSWs I know are still practicing, one I'm close with has changed careers to agriculture and prefers working as a farmhand to social work, despite having a MSW and state license.

We should promote an anti-hustle. Drink tea on the balcony! Don’t answer emails after 4PM! Grow plants on windowsills! Sketch in notebooks! Linger in cafés!

An artist friend of mine checks email/web in the early morning only; and then cold-turkey the internet for the next 23 hours.

I think he may be on to something.

When people start doing that the media and corporations will call it an epidemic of quiet quitting.

It's sad but society is truly diseased.

it makes me feel inadequate compared to more successful people

Don't get sucked into other people's vanity, greed, and envy cycle.

Why would you want to be like them? Life isn't a video game. We don't "win" by having the highest score tallied in dollar signs.

Yeah but those points are how people pay for food and medicine. Some of those suckers are greedy and some of them are desperate.

Many people that claim to be successful aren't. It's like stock traders that sell access to their newsletters and Discord channels, etc. They aren't making their money from their amazing stock trades; they are making their living from subscriptions. "Side hustle" people do the exact same thing. Certainly, there are people more successful than me or you, and most people on this board but they usually aren't the ones online making videos about it. When I was 20 or so I was pushing $250K a year in revenue on eBay and Amazon, which felt great at the time as a side gig for a college student; but I barely made a dime. This is an example of a scheme that is pushed all the time by people, and I know how difficult it is and how their numbers usually don't add up because I was there...even when seller fees were way less.

I don’t see stuff like that very often. I wonder what’s different about our filter bubbles or media consumption habits.

Somehow my old old email address ended up in a Helsinki Startup incubator’s investor list, associated with some Scandinavian venture capitalist. It’s been 10 years and I still get pitches emailed to that address regularly. At this stage if I’m ever in a position to find startups I’m going to fly over there and personally tell them to get fscked.

Guess what, you brought that vibe in this section too, now I have to block this post for me.

What is "FIRE" content?

financial independence early retirement. It’s the notion that you can work towards retiring early where your money makes enough money to live off of independently from any employer.

Thank you. I was aware of the concept but had never seen that acronym before.

When I was a tragically optimistic 22 year old in the 80's my plan was to be retired by 55, but that boat has long since sailed :)

Well, that's precisely how capitalism work. It doesn't work by making you feel good, otherwise it wouldn't sell you a product. It works by making you feel "not enough" and then pretending to sell you the solution

Reply on news.ycombinator.com