FIRE (Financial Independence/Retire Early) is now a popular goal among the young. If you retire early, however, you're going to have to figure out what to do with all the leisure time. It would perhaps be better to have people working fewer hours, but over more years - a longterm 3-day workweek would allow for plenty of leisure as well as work.
>you're going to have to figure out what to do with all the leisure time
Not an issue for me, nor anyone else I know who has retired early. Maybe the same sort of energy that supports early retirement also leads to a fully engaged post-retirement life.
As long as you love to learn or create (or both) you will have a shortage of free time, even in retirement.
Off the top of my head, I spend time on: foreign language, guitar, writing, blogging, photography/videography, programming challenges, fitness, meditation, cooking, history, math, politics, biking, kayaking, hiking, golf, travel, volunteering, reading books/magazines/news, watching movies/shows, surfing the web, home improvement and repair, investing.
And that's just the fun stuff. There's still bills, taxes, paperwork, repairs, laundry, dishes, on and on.
Honestly, I still don't have anywhere near enough time and am annoyed by how much time sleep steals. I have no idea how I went 30 years with 50 hours lost every week to work, not to mention raising a family.
It's a trite saying, but true: you won't be bored unless you're boring!
I can only speak for myself, but I know a lot of people with similar goals to me - I've worked a full-time job since I was 17, and upon leaving college, have always worked 2 or more jobs (typically one-full time, one entrepreneurial venture or part-time internship to gain experience - currently I just work two full-time jobs, one of them my own company, and do some sporadic consulting as well).
I'm in my late 30's and plan on "retiring" in my early 50's. I had kids in my late 20's, so we're good there (it's been tough of course). I doubt I'll stop working and will probably switch to working 2-3 days a week for a few months at a time, or getting on a few boards of directors and being an advisor/consultant, or something like that.
I work 70+ hours/week on average and have done so for over a decade. I know this pace isn't sustainable; I'm falling behind every year that passes me while I watch 23 year olds put in the hours I used to. So for people our age, we have to put the work in now if we want leisure time later.
America is turning into a winner-takes-most society and I don't see that changing anytime soon. It will become harder and harder to be a "punch the clock" person and retire at a normal age, especially as life expectancy continues to get pushed out.
Feel free. Different strokes. I spent 3 years of my life professionally gambling as one of my full-time jobs and lived more in those 3 years than most do in a lifetime, and founded a company with an eight-figure valuation that is a lot of fun to run. If I worked some boring desk job that I hated, sure.
Besides, my best years are ahead of me. I'll be in great shape in my 50s with nothing but time and options. The idea that your 20s and 30s are the best years of your life is a very antiquated concept.
Plenty of us here founded companies with eight-figure valuations. Not that uncommon on hacker news.
I did and I’ve never worked-worked more than 30 hours per week except for short bursts at a time. The more critical your work is, the more time you should dedicate to being at your best.
I don’t take any umbrage at your chosen path nor do I disagree that america is a winner take most society. But when most is a bunch of unnecessary consumer faff, maybe enough is better to shoot for.
These days I work 15-20 hours per week. I spend as much time as I want abroad/surfing/screwing around on the internet. I’m 35. I don’t care to fly first class or buy Vuitton. But I do have all my meals and my bed made for me.
Well I work two jobs plus consulting, so it's like 30-35 hrs/job if that works!
I agree RE: consumerism. I save / invest most of my money and spend it on services like you (though I cook most of my meals since it's a hobby of mine; but same idea with a nanny, housekeeper, etc). I wear mostly free clothing from vendors and my suits (such that I need them) are all from Indochino; I drive a 12 year old used SUV around and live in a modest townhome in a not-great area of my city.
I have "enough." I enjoy work, a lot. I get the feeling a lot of people don't like working, or like their job, or something. It's not a chore. 70 hours a week producing and working is indeed a hell of a lot of fun. Especially for those years when it was gambling... but hey, what I do now is still almost as fun.
EDIT: Well, I have enough for me. Not for my family. To retire at age 40 requires a hell of a lot more money than I have now for obvious reasons, even if I don't plan on giving my kids a ton of money to live off of.
It sounds like your priorities are on track. There are far worse things to do in life than to accumulate generational wealth and save your kids from the drudgery of meaningless jobs. How much money do you think you’ll need to be comfortable?
That said I still have a problem with the idea that working 70 hours out of every week is good - even if you feel energized, certainly you can’t be operating near your peak.
Take the world’s best in the world’s most star-driven market, Ronaldo. How many hours does he work every week? 10 real work hours, plus 10-15 of preparation? Would we expect him to be a better footballer if he also took a shift doing data analysis at McKinsey nights and weekends? Or is it better that he focus on being close to 100% of his potential on every match?
I’m sure you’re extremely good at what you do and I’m genuinely thrilled to see what you’ll produce when you can afford to be better-rested (if you don’t burn out before). I’m sure it will be your best work.
Ronaldo most certainly "works" more than 25h a week.
I think it's very difficult to become world class working <40h a week. At the same time I don't think this is something everyone should strive for. If you want a nice relaxed/balanced life, there's nothing wrong with that.
However the world would be a much sadder place without the obsessive-compulsives that spend an inordinate amount of time on their craft.
Well my company and my other job are both pretty important mission-driven things to me. It's not like I am a founder and then work at McKinsey, heh. That would not be worth it to me. I've been fortunate enough to have full-time jobs that I've mostly enjoyed, well, when I get out of software development anyway.
Both jobs, as you can probably surmise, have significant overlap. So being good at one makes me good at the other.
I think I'll be a good consultant. I actually might teach junior college or high school when I'm all done "working." That'll be a blast when doing it for the mission, not the paycheck.
It sounds like you're enjoying what you're doing so this doesn't necessarily apply to you, but the suffer now to enjoy life later mentality assumes you'll make it to your 50s.
Tomorrow isn't guaranteed so we should make time to experience life and live our values today.
Yeah, if you get a 4-day week job or a remote job you can work a lot fewer hours and it’s much easier than FIRE. Other people are ‘hustling’ or scrimping and saving nonstop so they can have leisure time later. Why not skip the hustle and go straight for the leisure time? Like the old story about the fisherman and the businessman. Works great for me.
I agree, but it's difficult to find a part-time technical job. Which is why some folks opt for the work-like-mad until they've saved up enough to retire early approach.
What I do instead is work for a year or two and then take six month or so off between the gigs.
