Yet another lifestyle article with pearls of wisdom like drastically reducing expenses by cutting maid service and weekly massages. Do these guys even know what real life struggle is for most people? Not sure why this is up on the front page.
He is able to retire at 32. Good for him. Let's move on and talk about something meaningful or at least fun.
Point taken. But I guess it was the tone of the article with bullet point realizations that irked me. Either there are way too many millennials with blog posts filled with trivial philosophy pretending to be Kant's second coming or I am too cynical. It is probably the latter and I am only 36, but get off my lawn..! :)
It may sound more glamorous than it is. May be just somebody coming couple of times a month to clean up the place, it is not uncommon thing in many places and not that expensive.
I feel for OP because I've gone through something similar. I was motivated by money because I was born poor and went through the stresses of work and starting up because I wanted to be richer than I needed to be. People struggle in their own ways and there really is no need to compare them.
I understand your sarcasm, but I think you may have missed what the author is getting at.
Looking at what the author uses as a definition for work, he's basically implying he wants to make money a secondary goal. In other words, instead of working for the sake of earning money, find something you enjoy and find a way to earn a living doing that. The difference comes down to whether you'd enjoy doing what you do as a job even if you didn't get paid. If you'd enjoy it even without earning money, then the argument is that it's not really 'work' (I'm using that term loosely as pursuing your interests may still take up a lot of time and effort).
That seems to be the basic gist of it. I'm sure we've heard similar messages before, but it's still good to see people learn from their experiences. I wish the author well with enjoying his new path.
> find something you enjoy and find a way to earn a living doing that
If that is what is called "retirement", I've been retired since I was 15! Thanks for finally opening my eyes to that! I guess I don't need those 401ks and IRAs now - I'm retired already, so no point in saving for retirement.
> If you'd enjoy it even without earning money, then the argument is that it's not really 'work'
I'm not sure redefining words to have weird meanings specific for one's argument is going to convince anybody in that argument.
Summary - OP works hard for money for some time and then decides that isn't fun. Now they work only on things that interest them and call that retirement.
As someone interested in financial independence and early retirement, this blog was not what I expected.
Assuming you have enough money to survive the rest of your life, then retire. If not, you'll be back. And understand it gets harder with age. Want a family? those 16 hr days to run that business get nearly impossible. Want to return to work 18 years later at 50 because you realize you have at least 30 more years, and not enough money? Good luck finding that dream job.
Of course this is all possible, but it's very easy to be shortsighted.
It's all about balance and tradeoffs. OP isn't really "retired" per se, since his projects have a positive monetary expectation. But he's decided to make tradeoffs and made following his curiosity and interest a priority, instead of putting money first.
The more relevant question is to ask ourselves what our priorities are, and if possible, be able to answer, what our #1 priority is -- the one we truly want to maximize. Once we know that, then we can look at the paths we have available to maximize this, and what sort of tradeoffs with other valuable factors (like money!) it would entail, and whether it's something that makes sense in each of our lives.
Deciding to give up some lavishness and to stop working after acquiring some passive income and a reputation to fall back on seems like a pretty straightforward if healthy decision for somebody who can afford the luxury.
Statistically, most of the people who say "I quit my job and so can you" are trying to effectively run MLM on selling the concept of quitting your job to others. It's hard not to be cynical.
It's possible, but it's difficult. In most cases luck ends up being a huge factor whether you want to admit it or not. For many in the Bay Area it just comes down to good timing: moved here 10 years ago, locked into a monthly payment less than $1,500/mo, spent the last few years making ~$200k. Sure, you put in the time. But someone else can put in the time today doing the same thing you did and they will have a completely different outcome. It's not reproducible, because the largest factor was good (lucky) timing.
The hardest thing to do is reduce you monthly housing expense. The best "advice" is actually playing the which-city-should-I-live-in lottery. Pick correctly and the 30% of your income that goes towards housing can increase by 200-300%. 10 years later, there's your retirement. Pick incorrectly and you'll be stuck with average gains like everyone else.
It's just a different kind of lottery. You can make a smart bet, but it's still a bet.
