The Let's-Sell-Our-House-And-See-the-World Retirement
online.wsj.com
online.wsj.com
Or at least a slightly modified version, where you fly back to the US to do a short on-site contract gig from time to time, or (more recently) just work remotely when you need to.
Naturally, if you do this 40 years earlier than the folks in the article, you have a much higher tolerance for cheap living. I notice the article mentions nothing about living in a little hut on the beach in some random backpacker paradise for months on end to stretch out the finances. Or of hitching across the sketchier parts of those countries the State department advises you not to go to (though if they did, they'd probably get a lot fewer worried emails from their parents, so maybe that's an upside).
But yeah, as tech folk, we get the ridiculous three-fold advantage of being able to do 100% of our job remotely, being able to deliver measurable results from short (ie., sub-3-month) engagements, and commanding a somewhat higher rate (ie., 3-10x) than pretty much anybody else with the same amount of flexibility.
I find myself dangerously close to slowing down in my old age. (I actually bought a couch yesterday.) Hopefully some of the rest of you lot will get out there and take my place!
This year I've managed to hit Australia's East Coast for a month, do central America for a month and take the best part of a month off for the Olympics. I call it itchy feet syndrome!
Being able to remotely work from anywhere with an internet connection really opens up the travel opportunities. It also means that you can start traveling now, as opposed to waiting until retirement age when you have a bunch of cash saved up. This also lets you travel more cheaply, and do more physically challenging activities, like say, climbing mountains, scuba diving, running marathons, or whatever.
On the flip side, being in the software industry (with relatively high levels of income) also means that you're not forced to travel cheaply when you don't want to, and you can splurge on interesting once-in-a-lifetime experiences, or spend time in more expensive countries, without wrecking your travel budget.
We're very fortunate to be in an era (and industry) where this kind of travel is possible, and I hope more folks decide to take advantage of it, particularly while they're young.
I found that constantly being on the move is difficult to keep up for weeks at a time. So now I have a base from which to explore the surrounding countries.
There's a surprising number of expat tech workers in the city (Chiang Mai) but now I can sit in a cafe without overhearing social-local-mobile startup pitches.
Have you had any issues? Do you pay cash up front rather than arrears?
The two most useful tools I've found when doing this is Tripadvisor and Airbnb, you can usually haggle a room from either of these longer term.
If possible try to avoid English-speaking property agents as they charge a premium. The best approach, at least in this country, is to drive around with a native speaker and spot 'For rent' signs.
There are ways round it though. If you take a 'Learn Thai' course at an accredited institution you get a year long visa. A little more expensive though.
It's astonishing that they could spend as much as they do (the picture has details) but I suppose requirements for a retired couple in their 60s is different to a 20-something serial relocator!
17 days from Rome to Miami in October, with stops in Florence, Provence, Palma, Barcelona, Funchal, & St. Thomas, for $2738(balcony room).
With an 70 year old white female and a 66 year old white male, they have about the same life expectancy - around 13 years. With no growth / interest that's ~$936,000, with a reasonable return it's around $100,000 less.
Life on the road seems cheaper than life in London, but I don't get as much good work done because I'm not self-disciplined enough.
That'll change when I settle in one place for a month or more (right now I'm spending a few days each in various towns in Spain..)
We've just completed 2 years of a digital nomad lifestyle, having previously spent between 1 to 11 months each in Madrid, Buenos Aires, Tulum (Mexico), Portland (Oregon) and Edinburgh. Of course those are bases from which we've also visited Mallorca, Granada, Lisbon, Uruguay, Santiago (Chile), Mendoza, Mérida, Dublin and Paris. This is done while working on average 7-8 billable hours, 5-6 days a week, with some gaps in between for "touristy stuff."
All of the advice in the article about settling in to a new place rings true, particularly the internet connectivity situation. We've had difficulties in about half the places we've lived, but have also had the good fortune of incredibly considerate locals who have bent over backwards to assist.
Because we're both working, we decided to keep our house in Los Angeles and rent it out. We started with my friend acting as a property manager, but have since found that as long as we have a handyman, plumber and various other maintenance and repair people, the middleman only causes delays in communication. It's pretty amazing what can be done from the other side of the world.
We'll be in Europe until the end of January (as Americans, the Schengen agreement is a continual thorn in our plans), and haven't yet determined where we'll head next. Financially, the expensive part is hopping from place to place. If you can find somewhere whose tourist visas allow 6 months (UK, Mexico) or where you can pop across the border for a day and get it renewed (Argentina), you can cut down on a lot of expenses (and stress) by planting yourself for longer.
All that said, I highly recommend it. The opportunity to experience other cultures, learn a new language, and gain a different perspective on life is invaluable. Even for the process of winnowing your "stuff" down to what you're willing to carry with you while traveling for months on end.
It also has the side benefit of making you one of the more interesting people at any gathering you attend.
It was me working in some internet cafe somewhere in SE Asia versus the guy that can be down to their office for a face to face in 30 minutes. While there are successes on rentacoder and odesk these are the exception. Mostly you'll be competing against some guy with much lower overhead in a developing country.
After a while I realized that my objectives were orthogonal to the clients. I wanted to travel first and work second. They wanted the work done on demand and didn't care if you were 2 days away from your next port of call.
If you want to be a nomad, be a nomad first. That means taking whatever job you need to raise money. I've done app dev, translation, babysitting, bartending, ushering, and electronic repair. I've met ex-developers from the dotcom bubble who were now working as crew on a yacht.
The great parts are flexibility, ability to travel, and low costs.
The much more difficult parts tend to be socially-focused rather than business-related.
Also I'd really appreciate if those of you who work remotely at a good level of income could share how you go about finding gigs. Repeat customers? Retainers? Short term project to short term project?
TIA
It'd be interesting to see if the idea of "retirement" gets disrupted and the economy moves from a primarily labor intensive (and physical ability oriented) to knowledge intensive (and mental ability oriented).
We're already seeing people work longer, but I wonder if the notion of retiring will go away or if people will keep working as long as they can keep thinking clearly & feel they can create something of value.
For a variety of perverse sociological reasons, companies measure people on their decline curves and bad-case performance. Investment banking analyst programs exemplify this. You don't have to be smart or socially suave to succeed. You have to be average-- after a double all-nighter (and most people aren't).
This is twisted because if a company's well-managed, no one sees the right side of the decline curve. Ever.
Older people retain their general capability, and have a lot more insight and experience, so normal-case capacity doesn't decline for most, but they lose the ability and desire to participate in shared suffering for 14 hours per day.
Sixty-year-old blue collar workers can still keep going. It gets increasingly painful to do the work, but no one fires them until their bodies can't handle it any more (on average, around 70). On the other hand, sixty-year-old white collar workers who haven't played the game well will have to deal with younger bosses (a sign of career failure) and mounting age discrimination.
I don't see someone giving up coding just because they hit an age limit.
I can see how typical older white collar workers might run into issues, but I'm wondering if engineers would still fall into that category.
Why would you even need to sell a house when you get so much money monthly?
You would need huge investments to generate that per month though without drawing down on the capital.
Basically, their health will most likely fail before their money does. It's sad that biology currently dictates such things, but it looks like they're enjoying every minute of the time they have left.