First of all, I do not hate my wife. By some miracle, I found a spouse who is supportive, shares my goals and puts up with my nuttiness. This is a gift.
Recently though, a friend forwarded me an article that discussed what to do if you actually do indeed, hate your wife. Hint: It has everything to do with NOT retiring early.
Last week, an article titled “The dark side of early retirement” arrived in my inbox. It explains how quitting early is just about the worst idea ever. Today, I’ll tell you what I think of this article.
Let’s get right into it. The author opens with this:
It seems like every few weeks I see some 20-something just out of college asking for advice on how he (and, yes, it usually is a he) can retire at 35. Watching the new movie, The Intern (something I recommend folks who want to retire early watch) reminded me of just how stupid this goal is. I had a cousin that effectively retired at 22. It cost him his marriage, career and self-respect. Now he mostly sleeps, gets drunk and is a burden on his family.
This part of the article makes sense. Just like my parents, the drunk cousin should be working. Retirement is an amplification of your free time. If you have no life outside of work, don’t quit, no matter what age you are.
To figure out whether early retirement is a good idea for you, think about what you do with your spare time now. If all you do is sleep, drink and watch dirty videos on the Internet, your work makes you a better person. Don’t quit. Ever.
On the other hand, if your weekends are filled with activities that you never have enough time for, perhaps early retirement is for you.
If you’re not sure, take a sabbatical. In six months, if you find yourself on the couch all day covered in Cheetos dust and you haven’t changed your underwear in a week, go back to work.
False friends and fake boobs (what to do when you hate your wife)
Later in the article, the author discussed what to do about false friends and miserable spouses:
…And it is fascinating to me the number of folks who look forward to retirement and then hate it once they arrive. The more senior they are in their careers, the bigger the problem they seem to have with retirement. A few years back I was reading a piece talking about how one of the most powerful retired venture capitalists from the Silicon Valley was extremely unhappy. No one would listen to him anymore, his “friends” enjoyed his wealth more than he did (he has a spectacular yacht that is also a spectacular burden, for instance), and he couldn’t keep a wife to save his life (he apparently was horrid to live with).
CEOs in particular have issues with retirement and often they can’t seem to transition from the waves of false friends that surround them hoping for some advantage who mostly disappear when they retire to develop real friends with common interests. Some of the loneliest people I’ve met are retired CEOs. They acquire this massive amount of wealth, surround themselves with pretty things including a trophy spouse and then discover that once retired all of this stuff becomes a burden, often including the spouse.
So let me get this straight. If your life is filled with false friends, you should keep your job so you can keep them too? If your trophy wife is a pain in the ass, you should keep working so you don’t have to be around her? Really?
I have an alternate proposition. Ditch your false friends and your chemical ball-breasted wife. Start working on getting a real life. Your time is too short to spend with bad people.
The best part of life is the relationships we have with others. Friends and family are everything. If you don’t have that, you have a huge hole in your existence and it’s time for a course correction.
Early death!
Next, the author relates a tragic story of someone who died before their time:
One of the saddest things I observed years ago was when one of my friends died suddenly. He was working incredibly hard to earn a rich retirement and spent much of his time on the road. As retirement approached, he and his wife anticipated the time they would finally get to spend together, but that wasn’t to be. He spent so much time on planes he developed a blood clot in his leg and when it migrated it killed him rather rapidly. Those moments they were living for never happened.
I’m not really sure what point the author is trying to make here, but the possibility of early death is a very good reason to plan for early retirement. Who wants to work their whole life and then die? No thank you, there is too much of the world to see.
Next, we learn about someone who was fired:
Earlier this week I got a call from an old friend who works, well worked, for one of the biggest firms in our industry. After 25 years at the company he was terminated effective immediately. No gold watch, no goodbye party, no thanks for all the hard work. And now they won’t even help the transition to private life. The firm has a bit of a rep for treating people poorly, but this exit takes the cake.
This is another great reason to plan for early retirement. You never know what’s going to happen. You might get fired like this poor guy. Your spouse (hopefully you like him or her) may get sick. You may discover a passion for travel. Even if you’re madly in love with your job, planning for early retirement gives you options. Options are very powerful and a worthwhile goal.
What smart folks do
The writer and I probably have more in common than it appears on the surface. He goes on to say this:
Rather than working to retire early, the smart folks tend to find work they enjoy so they don’t really want to retire. In a way that gives them a payoff that happens decades before someone working for retirement who discovers retirement often sucks.
Yes, enjoyable work! This is my whole reason for seeking early retirement. I want to work at things that I love. The issue is that those things may not pay me any money.
Deep down, my real goal is to decouple money from my life.
Heck, I plan on still writing code, but not having money in the equation frees me up to work on whatever code I want to work on. Not being bound or having to trade your time for money is a worthy goal.
Financial Independence is better
I hate the term “early retirement.” It has too many connotations. People hear “retirement” and think of shuffleboard, golf and laying on a beach. When I quit my normal job, I will have more leisure time. I also suspect that I’ll be working harder than ever; but doing what I truly love.
On another level, if you’re obsessed with stuff like trophy wives, yachts, Veyrons and 10,000 square foot vacation homes, the main motivator in your life becomes money. Is that healthy? I guarantee you that any rich 80 year old would trade his fortune to be 40 again. Time and options are what matter. I want to live as much of my life as possible on my own terms.
I’ll never have a mansion or a Ferrari or even a Corvette. However, I have options and I value them more than anything.
Oh, and I’m also happy that my friends and wife’s boobs are 100% authentic.
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I agree with you – I think the problem with this article is using “early retirement” instead of financial independence. As you said, whenever someone hears retirement, all they can think about is the traditional retirement of golfing and doing nothing. As people are shifting to the desire for financial independence, they are looking to do more fulfilling things with their time and do things because they want to, not because they have to so they can make their over-sized mortgaged payment.
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It is interesting, isn’t it? When people hear “retirement”, they picture an old wooden rocking chair on the front porch and some old angry guy yelling at the neighbor kids to get off his lawn. 🙂
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I’m young (relatively) and I yell at kids to get off my rocks. Does that count? 🙂
Ha! Technically…yes, yes it does. 😉
Steve @ Think Save Retire recently posted…Email from a reader: Your retirement account grew by $120,000 in 2015? Bull!
“If all you do is sleep, drink and watch dirty videos on the Internet, your work makes you a better person. Don’t quit. Ever.” Best line of the post.
It really does come down to the things that really matter in life. Money should be used a tool rather than treated as an idol like many people treat it as. They get caught up in the “if only” cycle where there’s always something bigger, better, shinier, newer…that would just complete their life but it never does. Instead use money as a tool to truly buy your independence and focus on things that you’re really passionate about. Whether that’s any hobbies that you have, focusing on your relationships, teaching or helping others. Really the possibilities are endless if you are able to take money out of the equation and the world would be a much better place for it.
I’ll try and find the blog post but I can’t remember who wrote it off the top of my head. Anyways it was about some rich millionaire or billionaire that has been super successful creating businesses and he was asked the question if he would trade all the money he had to be back in his 20s or 40s. His answer was no doubt because time is a finite commodity. This was a man that had everything and he would gladly give it all up for that “fountain of youth”.
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At the Berkshire meeting a couple of years ago, Buffett said the same thing completely unprompted. A young guy asked him for his best book recommendations or something like that. Buffett went off on a tangent, but finished up stating that he’d trade it all to be young again.
Early retirement does suggest dinner at 4 PM, and polyester clothes. FI suggest working on stuff you love without having to worry about the money. I’ll go the FI route and some occasional Cheetos dust.
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Cheetos aren’t bad. In moderation.
Mr. 1500,
Hard not to stare at that Carl Richards style fake/boobs diagram. I never understand the 63-year-old Fortune 500 CEO with no plans to retire. Maybe it’s the false friends and that keeps them working. I guess there’s not enough of those at the country club.
I work for a 71-year-old “CEO”/business owner. I asked him why he won’t retire and his answer was complicated. The business is his life and he doesn’t know what he’d do if he wasn’t working (and no one wants to buy it). He also doesn’t have a committed partner to travel or share his time with, i.e. no trophy wife. He’s spent so much time on the business over the years, he never developed any other relationships or interests. Hard to fathom, but I guess that happens.
-RBD
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Don’t stare at it too long or you’ll go blind!
The life of your boss is exactly what I’m trying to avoid. Once that happens with anything, that part of your life owns you!
We too have also shunned the ‘early retirement’ phrase for the most part. Instead we just call it FI or even better our ‘fully financed lifestyle change’… because that is what it is to us – the opportunity to move to a place we want to live, spend as much time with kids and family as we want, spend our days hiking or fishing, or maybe I’ll even get a job teaching – because who cares – we have enough money to do what we want!
But, I do hear too many stories of people I know, who worked hard their whole life and died either right before or after their retirement. Even in my family – I look at my mom who was diagnoses with breast cancer less than a year after retiring, and spent the next several years battling it and the treatment side effects. Only now, 5 years after retiring, is she really finally beginning to enjoy her retirement.
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Maybe we should invent a whole new word or term? I’m not creative, so I have no idea! SSL? Slowly Sipping Life? See, I told you, not creative.
It’s great that your mom made it through. While that is a horrible thing to go though, I’ll bet she’s that much more appreciative.
I think that the article has a specific notion of what early retirement means. And the people he references doesn’t seem to get it. Early retirement, for most of the blogs I read, isn’t about quitting to work, but as you said you get to do what you want to do and if it pays you money great…if not….go find something that you love to do. I also hate the word “early retirement” because I don’t know if I would retire (e.g. quit my career). Loving what you do is almost a form of financial independence. I bet when you “retire early” that within a year you will probably do a project or two for money (e.g. because you love to write code). Hell, maybe you will create a new app or something just because you can. That is the beauty of this blog and your journey.
Now I have to go read this article in full.
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“Loving what you do is almost a form of financial independence.”
Great point! I almost feel FI now because I do love to code. Yes! However, then we have a meeting and then, well you know how that goes…
Deep down, my real goal is to decouple money from my life.
I love this. It so expresses how I feel. I love my work, truly will want to keep doing it in some form for the long foreseeable future. But doing it on my terms, in my way, with breaks when I need them (be it 2 hours, 2 days, or 2 years!) is my ultimate goal.
Thanks for the great post!
Thanks Cath! Not having to worry about money is a very powerful thing. Very powerful.
Very good article Mr 1500 days. You have to retire to something, not just retire from a life you don’t like without an alternative.
Being FI doesn’t preclude you from working a job, as long as you enjoy what you are doing. I mean, Elon Musk is a billionaire, but he still works 70 – 100 hour weeks – he just has a blast doing what he loves doing. The money do provide some backup in case the job doesn’t work out.
If you choose a job you really enjoy, then you will never really have to work a day in your life…
Musk is a great example and one of my heroes. I love that he has good intentions too; getting the world off of fossil fuels is one of them.
I can’t wait to retire to my “something.” It will actually be a lot of something!
Awesome flowchart!
We have tried the “mini sabbatical” twice, and if that is any indication of financial independence/early retirement/permanent holidaying/etc., bring it on!
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Nice! I take it that you enjoyed them.
Actually, after the first “mini sabbatical”of about 10 weeks we decided to get started on the path to financial independence, as we enjoyed it so much. The second one (also about 10 weeks) was a result of moving and finding new employment, but we still enjoyed it non the less. Was really hard to get started at work again! Too bad we did not have enough assets…..
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Yeah that article has some points that don’t make sense for sure. Believe me I get it, people think when you retire early you’ll consume at least a bag of Cheetos a day and play Netflix shows on repeat. But I don’t see it that way. I have hobbies (gym, travel, visiting family/friends, personal finance) that take up a lot of time, and I have new things that I want to try which I just can’t cram in right now with a day (which trickles into the night) job. I want freedom to do things I enjoy, without the pressure of them paying me an income.
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“I have hobbies (gym, travel, visiting family/friends, personal finance) that take up a lot of time, and I have new things that I want to try which I just can’t cram in right now with a day (which trickles into the night) job.”
I wish I didn’t need to sleep! That would fix most of my issues!
I am definitely with you about preferring the term “Financial Independence” over early retirement. As you’ve accurately described, Financial Independence separates the NEED for money from your everyday lifestyle and enables us to do the work that we truly find value in, whether that be something that might resemble a traditional job, volunteer work or something entirely different.
I will most likely be busier than hell after retirement. I have too many plans up my sleeve to sit on the couch, dripping in Cheetos residue. Though I do enjoy a Cheeto or two. Maybe three.
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Oh man, I do admit to loving Cheetos as well. I especially love those unnatural looking, bright red hot ones. And truth be told, FI may increase my Cheeto consumption because I’ll have the time to work off those crappy calories.
Brace yourself for when you make it to Colorado: http://www.bustle.com/articles/89233-18-cheetos-recipes-that-prove-once-and-for-all-this-snack-food-truly-does-reign-supreme
Holy F! Those Cheeto recipes look dreadfully good. I’m a sucker for nachos, so I wanna try the Cheeto nacho one. Thanks for the link. 🙂
Steve @ Think Save Retire recently posted…Email from a reader: Your retirement account grew by $120,000 in 2015? Bull!
I know, right? Cheeto bar bar when you come to Colorado. Followed by a vigorous hike.
Why spend even time on this? Just hit the “delete” key (or close the browser tab).
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Ha! It’s too much fun to draw pictures of Venn boobies. Don’t take that away from me!
Very well articulated. I’ve heard it said that having more money merely amplifies one’s personality: whether you’re kind and down-to-earth or a total jerk, more cash just brings those characteristics to the forefront. You could probably argue the same thing about early retirement (or said differently, “more time”). If you don’t do anything productive with your free time today, having 10x more of it isn’t going to make you more fulfilled.
I agree with you that the article seems to argue against itself several times. You could get fired anytime or die young, so… keep working for another 30 years? Huh?
Yep, totally agree about money and personality. I see it in myself. I don’t hold back as much as I used to. Really, I think I’m finally getting to core of who I am. In my case, money makes me a better person (less introverted, not as much as a pushover).
I totally didn’t get the dying young or getting fired part either. Those are actually the two arguments that use on people who insist on arguing against FIER.
I read the article and you summed up most of my thoughts about it to a tee. I think the author is kinda missing the point, the point you so eloquently made: “Deep down, my real goal is to decouple money from my life.” I agree with the point he is making: don’t sacrifice your 20’s and 30’s just to reach an early retirement goal. But at the same time, why should everyone be forced to sacrifice their 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, and so on working?
On a side note, what language do you primarily use when you program? I do a little programming at work sometimes (in vba for excel based applications), but it is usually real basic stuff.
Hey Mattattack!
Yeah, the author isn’t stupid, but I cannot relate to much of what is in that article. I’d hate to get to the position where my life is that intertwined with my job. Just like money, I want to be VERY loosely coupled to my job as well.
Right now, I do C#. In the past, I’ve done Java, PERL, VB, Objective C (iPhone). As soon as I quit, my main mission will be to learn Ruby on Rails and Swift (new Apple programming language). So, let me know if you need any help with that VB!
My first language I used was java. I remember doing the “hello world” class. It was such a fascinating thing. It was like looking behind the curtain of computer software. My senior year of college I started to take a intro to game programming class as an elective. It was in C#. But I dropped it after about 2 weeks after realizing how overloaded I was in my other classes. sigh. That was the only class I ever dropped.
After the house remodel is finished, I was thinking about downloading the android sdk and dabbling in that. They have a lot of resources to get you started, so I think that would be a good spring board for me. Maybe I can write some little games or something. Should be interesting.
Java! Hello world! Ha!
I want to do some Android too. Mobile is where it’s at these days. There are also some tools that allow you to write code for iOS or Android and convert it to the other.
I f’ing hate Ruby. You either love it or hate it. I hate it. I’m so happy i’m back in Perl land.
Ha! I haven’t done much with it, so maybe I’ll end up hating it too. I’d be curious to see what you hate it so much.
It’s amazing that people want to believe that working until traditional retirement age is the right decision for everyone. For some people, it is. But for a growing number of folks, creating options for themselves through financial independence is a much better path. Financial Independence is really all about freedom. And even for those people who want to work forever because their job is the best: bosses change, companies change, circumstances change. Financial Independence gives you the freedom to change your situation if your situation changes on you.
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You. Get. It.
It’s the standard response from materialistic people. He assumes retirement means becoming a full time couch potato, when indeed pretty much all of us, like you, just want the ability to work on whatever we want whenever we want without needing to make money doing it. write code at something new and innovative. Tinker in the garage. dabble in carpentry or rebuild engines. Quitting our job isn’t always the goal, it just simply becomes a very luxurious option few can afford :).
This is common response though from materialistic people. they live for now and not for the future and buy whatever they want. These are delusions they come up with to make themselves feel better about their poor money management and wild spending habits. Some of my closest friends are like this and when we talk about money these are common excuses that pop up of why they need that brand new car and the nicer apartment, newest video games, corvette, new iphone, gaming laptop, xbox one, etc, etc. They know I’ll be retired in 10 years, but they can’t fathom restraining themselves that long.
I think it’s simply a catagory of people who live for the now and people who plan for the future. I think all of us striving for early retirement are obviously futuristic minded. People that live in the now usually destroy the world for tomorrow, for themselves and others.
“write code at something new and innovative. Tinker in the garage. dabble in carpentry or rebuild engines.”
“retired in 10 years.”
I hope you do make it out to Colorado. We could do some fun experiments in the garage. Yes, there will occasionally be fire and explosions.
Well said! The guy who wrote this article about the dark side of retirement must live in a world where people do what they love, in a nice work environment, they make a lot of money and are able to take time-off anytime they need to. Please ask him where is this planet!!! 🙂
This is not today’s reality, unfortunately. So the only way to achieve this kind of happiness and freedom is to retire early 🙂
Ha ha! The way I see it, according to him, your job is your entire world. No thanks to any of that. In my book, that is called giving up control.
YES! Decouple money from my life. That’s exactly the goal. Of course we won’t stop doing things! We’re not crustaceans. This is actually hilarious because my dad is nearing retirement and my mom is freaked out about it. She’s worried about him being home all the time. We think this is hilarious because that is exactly what we’re trying to achieve… being together all the time! Mindset shift!
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Nice!
I hope your parents are able to make the adjustment. I can see this being a big stress on some people. Again, if they get along OK on the weekends, they should be OK in retirement. If not, do you have a spare bedroom? 🙂
I thought this was going to be about the dumb arguments that couples have and how you can be so angry over something really small one second and forget about it the next. This was way more interesting!
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That is next week.
Financial Independence is better.
I almost entirely stopped using the term early retirement, some of this is to avoid conversations about ER and how in their minds it cannot be done and some of this is because I don’t know exactly what I will be doing in 10 years, but I will certainly be financially independent.
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What I have seen is that many people are defined by their job and have no real interests outside of their jobs. This tends to be a trend that is seen in many people who reach the CEO level, to reach that position they usually give up their life to the company or job. This is not to say all are like this but I’ve seen it in many. I’ve had the opportunity to talk with a few and it can be difficult sometimes as the only thing they seem able to talk about is work. Try to get them to talk about life outside work and the conversation becomes very shallow and hollow.
I also read an article once that also talked about how the language has changed over the years from trying to entice people to retire to now trying to convince people to stay in the work force longer. This change happened because of the changing demographics. With the baby boom there were many workers to fill jobs, however, with the boomers getting out of the work force there are far fewer people left to fill those jobs so the talk has switched to keep people in those roles longer. Until I read the article I must admit I hadn’t picked up on these little changes but if you look you can see it all around you. When I was younger you use to see all the ads for freedom 55, now that has changed to how to enjoy working into your 60s and 70s.
A few years ago I was let go from my previous employer and was out of work for about 5 months while looking for new employment. This time off turned out to be great as it gave me a chance to see that not working a traditional job is not the end of life and that there is much more I want to do than spend 9 – 5 Monday to Friday sitting at a desk. I was reminded of this yesterday when I heard that an friend who worked for me at my last employer past away earlier this week. He was only 52 and spent all his life working and although he did have enjoyment in his life, there was so much more that he could have had.
I use to program in COBOL but decided it would be easier to find employment as an accountant so studied accounting instead. Little did I know at the time the demand for programmers, the demand just didn’t exist where I lived at the time.
COBOL! That was the first language that I ever learned to code in. It was very simple compared to newer languages. Still fun though!
I think it’s wonderful if people truly enjoy their jobs and want to work forever. I just don’t want to have to do it.
Great post. I was thinking along the same lines recently when I wrote a post Why You Shouldn’t Want To Retire. (http://www.worldofwealthblog.com/?p=390) Of course I DO want to retire, but the point is not to hate your life no matter what state of working/productivity/leisure you are currently enjoying.
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Ha, thanks for the mention on your post! One recent development is that I’m officially going part-time in 4 weeks. CANNOT WAIT!!
I totally agree with what you say and it’s a major flaw with me. I don’t enjoy “today” enough because I’m always looking at the future. Some day, when there isn’t much future left, I hope that I don’t regret the past.
So much hate for fake boobs 🙁
It’s mostly hate for the fake personalities that often come with fake boobs!
Amen. I worry about expressing my true feelings that “I don’t want to work” because I fear it comes off lazy, when the truth is it’s not that I don’t want to do anything, it’s that I want to do ALL THE THINGS instead of one thing for 40 (aka 50) hours a week ad infinitum.
Yeah, people misunderstand it. Perhaps they are looking at it from their point of view: “He/she just wants to sit around and watch TV for 80 hours per week.”
If you have a rich life already outside of work, it will get richer when you work less/live more.