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Cicero posted:This makes it sound like there's zero chance you're gonna get a significant raise there, then, since a raise for you directly translates into a pay cut for him, right? Ah, no I don't think so... at this point I think that he would negotiate a raise with me and the company paying my salary. We'll see what happens in the review, since the feedback I've received this year has been really good. But I don't think I'll get a significant raise regardless. One FI question I've personally been wondering about (Not a Children reminded of it) is how you should handle an IRA and 401k when you're going for early retirement?
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Feb 27, 2015 02:03
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Knyteguy posted:My boss has pulled in $350,000 a couple years as a consultant, and of course less than that other years, and he definitely doesn't have much. Constant expensive lunches, luxury vehicles (Mercedes M SUV), RVs, a house maid, an investment house that has been losing money every month for 2 years, etc. I imagine it goes quick. I have a house maid. It's a friend from college who likes to clean on the side for cash, and my outlay for her per year is a lot more than obviously if I cleaned for myself, but 1/3 to 1/2 of getting a professional service to do it (and it's well under the annual federal requirement for calling myself an employer of a domestic worker), and since I know her I trust her with my stuff more than a stranger with a service. Bad with money, good with leisure/stress.
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Feb 27, 2015 02:03
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SpelledBackwards posted:I have a house maid. It's a friend from college who likes to clean on the side for cash, and my outlay for her per year is a lot more than obviously if I cleaned for myself, but 1/3 to 1/2 of getting a professional service to do it (and it's well under the annual federal requirement for calling myself an employer of a domestic worker), and since I know her I trust her with my stuff more than a stranger with a service. Bad with money, good with leisure/stress. A maid is like $100 every 2 weeks or whatever. It's such a drop in the bucket I'd have to presume that guy was talking about a live in maid. Although if he has a huge house I guess it's probably much higher.
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Feb 27, 2015 02:10
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Knyteguy posted:One FI question I've personally been wondering about (Not a Children reminded of it) is how you should handle an IRA and 401k when you're going for early retirement?
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Feb 27, 2015 02:12
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Knyteguy posted:Here's a little thing I made some time back for some quick FI withdrawal calculations: http://www.frugaltoolkit.com/tools/early-retirement-withdrawal-calculator/ Vomik posted:A maid is like $100 every 2 weeks or whatever. It's such a drop in the bucket I'd have to presume that guy was talking about a live in maid.
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Feb 27, 2015 02:51
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Dr. Eldarion posted:Nice and basic, but would be nice if you had one additional field for "amount already saved". It is for this family that was making $700k
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Feb 27, 2015 02:52
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Vomik posted:A maid is like $100 every 2 weeks or whatever. It's such a drop in the bucket I'd have to presume that guy was talking about a live in maid. $100 every two weeks? That's $2600 a year you're spending just to live in a clean house you irresponsible maid clown. You could buy a perfectly good 20 year old used car with 300,000 miles or less for that kind of money. To put that largess into context, if you cleaned your own house and saved the money you would have spent on a maid for only 1.5 billion years, you would be able to put as much as the entire $3.9 trillion annual budget of the US government in your Roth IRA!
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Feb 27, 2015 02:58
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BEHOLD: MY CAPE posted:$100 every two weeks? That's $2600 a year you're spending just to live in a clean house you irresponsible maid clown. You could buy a perfectly good 20 year old used car with 300,000 miles or less for that kind of money. To put that largess into context, if you cleaned your own house and saved the money you would have spent on a maid for only 1.5 billion years, you would be able to put as much as the entire $3.9 trillion annual budget of the US government in your Roth IRA! lmao
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Feb 27, 2015 03:00
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BEHOLD: MY CAPE posted:$100 every two weeks? That's $2600 a year you're spending just to live in a clean house you irresponsible maid clown. You could buy a perfectly good 20 year old used car with 300,000 miles or less for that kind of money. To put that largess into context, if you cleaned your own house and saved the money you would have spent on a maid for only 1.5 billion years, you would be able to put as much as the entire $3.9 trillion annual budget of the US government in your Roth IRA! $2600 is actually quite a bit to spend on someone else cleaning your house for most people. Yeah if you're pulling down 350k it's not a big deal as long as your tastes aren't similarly expensive in other areas.
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Feb 27, 2015 03:01
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Radbot posted:Let's be honest, the big divide is how much you make. For a family, saving 50% on $250k a year means I still get to have a nice place and a new car every few years, saving 50% on $32k a year means drying used paper towels and stocking up on condiments at Burger King. You're missing the spending half of the equation, and that's what MMM harps on so much. A person saving 50% at 250k will reach FI at exactly the same time as a person saving 50% on 32k. The difference is in the lifestyle each person wants to live. That's also the source of derision, because in both cases lifestyle and savings rate are matters of want and prioritization rather than raw ability.
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Feb 27, 2015 03:09
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Cicero posted:Remember when goons lambasted zaurg for multiple pages for having the audacity to use paper plates? Good times. No, I don't remember that, but if you want to talk about the one single correct sensible way for humans to eat food for several pages, I buy 350 lbs of chicken breasts and beef offal at Costco on my rotating schedule of rewards credit cards (paid off in full every month obviously) , then spend 14 hours on my day off pan simmering and slow cooking 6 weeks of meals while listening to free podcasts (no cable or Netflix subscriptions obviously)
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Feb 27, 2015 04:29
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I just thought it's funny how we've gone from a goon consensus of berating a guy for a pretty small financial indulgence into the recent trend of overexaggerating frugality oneupsmanship, which you have been so nice to demonstrate for us.
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Feb 27, 2015 04:38
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Cicero posted:the recent trend of overexaggerating frugality oneupsmanship I have been thinking about making a thread just for this kind of bragging. If it didn't overlap with this thread so much it would have been: The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask / Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Frugalier Than Thou: The Martyrs of Money Megathread ex: I do dishes by hand to save on the utilities even though our rates are quite cheap. Vegetarian rice/stir fry leftovers are delicious. MrKatharsis fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Jul 8, 2015 |
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Feb 27, 2015 05:42
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Devian666 posted:Banks use various "tools" like 3-4.5 times gross income as the maximum lending limit and so on. This caps what they will lend. The fact that you might have large book write offs that decrease gross income but in reality decreases the amount of tax paid. A lot of lenders inside the bank understand this but are still bound by the lending rules. The frustrating part is despite showing that we have consistently made 2-5x mortgage payments they have no flexibility to alter what kind of loan we can "afford". The first one we got they basically barely squeaked us into approval, and we never paid less than double payments before we refinanced (and now pay even more above the minimum). And yes, Iceland currently has currency controls, which is why rather than invest in index funds we have been slowly accumulating rental properties and paying them off aggressively. Best way to plan for retirement here.
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Feb 27, 2015 17:35
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poopinmymouth posted:The frustrating part is despite showing that we have consistently made 2-5x mortgage payments they have no flexibility to alter what kind of loan we can "afford". The first one we got they basically barely squeaked us into approval, and we never paid less than double payments before we refinanced (and now pay even more above the minimum). It's unfortunate but until requirements loosen up you're stuck with that situation. Of course by investing and generating more revenue from rent you're making it easier for them to lend to you. More income means more borrowing capacity because of the multiple they apply to income.
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Feb 27, 2015 22:54
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MMM did an interview with Vox so he's getting some coverage in the blogosphere. http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/03/what-if-everyone-lived-like-mr-money-moustache.html quote:From an individual point of view, my worry is that happiness may not go up much in this early retirement and in fact it may go down; people seem to enjoy working, which is good for their health and their social involvement. Perhaps Mr. Money Moustache derives a sense of purpose from spreading this gospel, but most people would end up bored and indeed frustrated if they retired at age thirty as he has (apparently) done.
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Mar 1, 2015 16:23
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RussianBear posted:MMM did an interview with Vox so he's getting some coverage in the blogosphere. I agree with this part a lot quote:my worry is that happiness may not go up much in this early retirement and in fact it may go down; people seem to enjoy working, which is good for their health and their social involvement I was very sick and had to go on short term disability at work for almost three months and when I first got sick I thought "Awwww yeah 3 months of just playing vidya games hanging out and just recovering" but I went stir crazy after the first couple of weeks and was fighting my doctors to let me go back to work every time I saw one of them, about once a week.
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Mar 1, 2015 18:12
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Well, news flash you can't just hang out and be worthless and think that you're going to have a meaningful life. MMM doesn't do that, and most people don't consider what he does "retirement."  I don't think that most people derive much coherent purpose from their jobs, though. And I work with teachers.
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Mar 1, 2015 18:24
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tuyop posted:Well, news flash you can't just hang out and be worthless and think that you're going to have a meaningful life. MMM doesn't do that, and most people don't consider what he does "retirement." Right, I guess it's all semantics but he appears to be basically a multi-profession freelancer for his living
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Mar 1, 2015 18:27
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tuyop posted:Well, news flash you can't just hang out and be worthless and think that you're going to have a meaningful life. MMM doesn't do that, and most people don't consider what he does "retirement." Yeah, kind of true. I was unable to walk or really use either of my hands. I was getting paid 100% though and everyone thought I was nuts to try to push to go back to work asap
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Mar 1, 2015 18:27
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tuyop posted:Well, news flash you can't just hang out and be worthless and think that you're going to have a meaningful life. MMM doesn't do that, and most people don't consider what he does "retirement." Blogging full-time or even part-time about FI is a catch-22 when it comes to this subject. Would his opinions on being FI change if he didn't spend a lot of time writing about them (as a sort of job)? Possibly. That's why getting a diversity of opinions from non-blog writers is important if you're seriously considering going the FI and retired route. A common recommendation is that you can and maybe should keep working, but a job that is less stress/hours, and probably less pay.
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Mar 1, 2015 18:28
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BEHOLD: MY CAPE posted:Right, I guess it's all semantics but he appears to be basically a multi-profession freelancer for his living Sorta. It's not for his living. It's for his work. By being financially independent he has separated the two. The true benefit to that is what you make of it.
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Mar 1, 2015 19:08
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BEHOLD: MY CAPE posted:Right, I guess it's all semantics but he appears to be basically a multi-profession freelancer for his living
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Mar 1, 2015 19:20
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Cicero posted:Right, the main point of being FI is that you don't HAVE to work, not that you aren't actually going to do any work. MMM obviously does work, he just does whatever he wants, whenever he wants, for as long as he wants. Exactly. Remember that question, "what would you do if money was no object?" If you don't have a 9-5 that you *must* show up to and lick the bosses rear end to not become homeless, there are a great many things you can do, from volunteering, to being more involved with your kid's schooling, to random jobs that you might not have risked when you needed a steady paycheck. My husband and I are on track to be financially independent before 40, and we aren't going to lay around all day doing nothing.
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Mar 1, 2015 20:37
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Has anyone here experimented with a gap year before making the leap to FI? I'm saving ~70%, and I'm considering 2016 for a gap year. I've got a personal project I've been doing for like 2 years, and I love it, and I'd work on it 6-8 hours a day if I could. I figure that, for the cost of ~6 years of interest on a year of spending, I could both test out FI and work on my own stuff now + be an autodidact more than just evenings and weekends. Tax wise, would it make sense to take the gap year July->June, rather than Jan->Dec? I figure yes, because I could max out 2 401ks and 2 IRAs, and because I'd be in a lower marginal tax bracket for year 2, I'd do a roth 401k. My biggest concern is getting a job afterwards - but I also figure I can afford to be choosy, and hopefully won't feel the same stress of an unemployment-driven job search. Thoughts?
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Mar 1, 2015 22:38
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Mofabio posted:My biggest concern is getting a job afterwards - but I also figure I can afford to be choosy, and hopefully won't feel the same stress of an unemployment-driven job search. Thoughts? People often wonder what you've been doing if you haven't been working. If you are FI and worked on completing various projects for a year that shows a considerable level of self motivation which sounds good. Working because you want to work would sound better. I work with two people that don't need to work. One tried retirement for a month and gave up on it. The other is past retirement age and admits that he really does like feeling useful. If you have a lot of creative projects that you want to work on FI is a useful way to do things.
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Mar 1, 2015 23:59
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It always amazes me that people say, "oh, without a regular job I would have too much free time/wouldn't know what to do!" Really? There aren't, like, a million things you want to try but don't have enough time to get to? I'd love to travel more, learn languages, learn more instruments, get better at badminton, get in better shape, spend more time with my family, learn to be a good cook, become handier around the house, make video games instead of just playing them, etc. I have no illusions that I would spend ALL my free time in FI/ER productively, of course, but I'm pretty confident I would be able to pursue at least a few of those at a time.
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Mar 2, 2015 00:31
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One of the things I've been working on lately is how much money it would take to be FI and be able to build large sub orbital rockets on a large piece of land. Really what free time. Even my mother who is retired has complained about not having enough spare time.
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Mar 2, 2015 00:42
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BEHOLD: MY CAPE posted:$100 every two weeks? That's $2600 a year you're spending just to live in a clean house you irresponsible maid clown. You could buy a perfectly good 20 year old used car with 300,000 miles or less for that kind of money. To put that largess into context, if you cleaned your own house and saved the money you would have spent on a maid for only 1.5 billion years, you would be able to put as much as the entire $3.9 trillion annual budget of the US government in your Roth IRA!
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Mar 2, 2015 01:35
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Cicero posted:It always amazes me that people say, "oh, without a regular job I would have too much free time/wouldn't know what to do!" Really? There aren't, like, a million things you want to try but don't have enough time to get to? I'd love to travel more, learn languages, learn more instruments, get better at badminton, get in better shape, spend more time with my family, learn to be a good cook, become handier around the house, make video games instead of just playing them, etc. I just tweeted this in an attempt to sound insightful regarding the whole early retirement debate: "People's inability to imagine freedom from nine-to-five: a greater commentary on our self-induced slavery I cannot imagine." This is something I've been thinking about for a while, because you always hear it as a rebuttal to "early retirement" - "What would you if you didn't have a job?!". And it really is the saddest commentary on how enslaved most people are (enslaved by free-world standards). Maybe there really are people out there who couldn't imagine having more time to spend with their family, or education, or fitness, or any number of worthwhile activities other than consumption (TV). Well I don't think I'll ever call it "retirement" again. It's too loaded. But financial independence sounds weird. Maybe just "Three-Day-Work-Week-Ment" ?
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Mar 2, 2015 02:35
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Rick Rickshaw posted:This is something I've been thinking about for a while, because you always hear it as a rebuttal to "early retirement" - "What would you if you didn't have a job?!". And it really is the saddest commentary on how enslaved most people are (enslaved by free-world standards). Maybe there really are people out there who couldn't imagine having more time to spend with their family, or education, or fitness, or any number of worthwhile activities other than consumption (TV). I think some people would become lost or would have to find something else that they enjoy doing other than their work. There's also a proportion who would end up spending too much time with their family. I know of one guy who had a job painting fire sprinkler pipes red. He won lotto (over $1m so plenty to retire on) and gave up working. After spending a few weeks at home with his wife he went back to work again. Not sure how much doing nothing or spending time with his wife weighed on that decision. Some people just don't have that creative interest that would keep you busy if you weren't working.
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Mar 2, 2015 02:51
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Devian666 posted:Some people just don't have that creative interest that would keep you busy if you weren't working. This, plus if you're a very social person who goes stir crazy if there aren't other people around, most of your friends and family are going to be working or in school during the day, which doesn't leave you with much to do.
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Mar 2, 2015 04:02
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Dangit Ronpaul posted:This, plus if you're a very social person who goes stir crazy if there aren't other people around, most of your friends and family are going to be working or in school during the day, which doesn't leave you with much to do. That's quite important to consider. I really like when there's no one about but anyone vaguely extroverted in nature would notice the lack of social contact.
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Mar 2, 2015 04:09
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Rick Rickshaw posted:I just tweeted this in an attempt to sound insightful regarding the whole early retirement debate: "People's inability to imagine freedom from nine-to-five: a greater commentary on our self-induced slavery I cannot imagine." Hmm, maybe it's not them that lacks imagination, but you? And I don't mean you personally; let me see if I can illustrate. Today, Sunday, I went into the office for about 11 hours. It was 20 degrees and snowing outside. Again. Yesterday was similarly cold, and I just kicked around the house all day, reading and browsing the web. I figured today I'd go into the office and get some stuff done. I did. A whole lot. In fact, I nearly finished a huge project that was a bit of a stone around my neck. Now, when I go into work tomorrow, I can work on VBA coding, which is something that I've been teaching myself and improving for the last few years (and something I love doing). I'll also have time to study for the CFA exam. (My boss lets me do that during work hours because, hey, I get my poo poo done, even if it means going to the office on a Sunday.) When I talked to my parents this evening and told them where I was, they asked if I was taking care of some kind of emergency in the office. When I told them no, they asked why I was there. They couldn't understand. My brother told me that if I was going into the office on a Sunday when I didn't need to, it meant that I lacked imagination. It's kind of presumptive and patronizing. I mean, to call what I did today "self induced slavery" is pretty insulting. You're suggesting that my enjoyment of my work is either some kind of delusion, or maybe I'm just not intelligent enough to imagine all the amazing things I could be doing outside the office. FWIW, I spend an awful lot of time with my parents, who are all the family I have right now (outside of my sister in Chicago and brother in Asheville). You also say that I should be spending my time on education, aside from the CFA studying I'm doing, I'm also studying for my FINRA Series 7 and 24 tests and teaching myself VBA scripting (which I hope to expand to compiled programming eventually). I'm also playing in two indoor soccer leagues and an ice hockey league, and in the summer, I play softball and race sailboats. I'm sorry to flip out a bit, but do you see how I might find the suggestion that I'm some unimaginative corporate drone a tad insulting? I don't show up at work to lick my bosses rear end, okay? As an aside, I've alway found the things people say they're going to do when they achieve FI to be vapid and a bit obnoxious, and not all that different from how trust fund kids and the idle rich think they spend their time. Volunteering? Learning languages? Traveling? Writing? Nothing, and I mean, nothing is preventing you from doing those things while you have a full time career. I mean, as long as you're not an unimaginative rear end licker like me spending weekends in the office, you get 104 weekend days and typically at least 20 odd holidays/vacation days. That's a third of the year. To me, FI is less important than having real agency in your career. When the financial industry collapsed in 2008, I lost that agency, because there were no firms hiring for about 5 years. I think FI can be a very useful tool during a time like that if you end up with a boss that is abusive and hostile, as I did. But under normal conditions I think it's quite possible to have a fulfilling and satisfying career and life, even if you never manage to save double digit portions of your income.
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Mar 2, 2015 04:16
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That might be a strawman. The unspoken premise of Rick Rickshaw, as I understand it, is that the people who aren't in favour of FI or early retirement also hate their jobs but can't imagine a life with meaning without those jobs. Hence, they're financially and existentially enslaved to someone else's dream. This is not you or me. I mean, I worked literally 80 hours last week for absolutely no pay because I love my vocation. That love also makes me care a lot about my savings rate because I never want anyone to force me to work against my morals. Nobody is saying that working=slavery. If I read them correctly, the poster you're arguing against is saying that identifying with your job=slavery. Even if you're being paid to do something you do want to do, it behooves you to save and have a strong, independent conception of yourself in case that ever changes (and it only takes a bit of creativity to imagine something like that. Say, a change in your duties or falling in love with some new, unpaid or lower-paid hobby like MMM's carpentry). When I start to look for teaching jobs in June, I know that the "sacrifices" I've made will allow me to tell anyone who wants me to, as I see it, abuse children and call it education, to gently caress right off. Or I could decide that I just want to travel for a bit to recharge. My occupation would be much better if everyone rolled this way.
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Mar 2, 2015 04:41
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Blackjack2000 posted:I'm sorry to flip out a bit, but do you see how I might find the suggestion that I'm some unimaginative corporate drone a tad insulting? I don't show up at work to lick my bosses rear end, okay? If you want to really flip out read the 4 hour work week. It's mostly superficial and not about reducing your time spent working. There are also 4 hour work week failures where people went on a big mission to run a business only to go back to being an employee because they didn't want all the stress and problems associated with running a business.
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Mar 2, 2015 04:45
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quote:As an aside, I've alway found the things people say they're going to do when they achieve FI to be vapid and a bit obnoxious, and not all that different from how trust fund kids and the idle rich think they spend their time. Blackjack2000 posted:Volunteering? Learning languages? Traveling? Writing? Nothing, and I mean, nothing is preventing you from doing those things while you have a full time career. quote:That's a third of the year. Your post reminds me of this: quote:I have always been a big proponent of following your heart and doing exactly what you want to do. It sounds so simple, right? But there are people who spend years—decades, even—trying to find a true sense of purpose for themselves. My advice? Just find the thing you enjoy doing more than anything else, your one true passion, and do it for the rest of your life on nights and weekends when you’re exhausted and cranky and just want to go to bed. Cicero fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Mar 2, 2015 |
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Mar 2, 2015 05:30
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tuyop posted:That might be a strawman. The unspoken premise of Rick Rickshaw, as I understand it, is that the people who aren't in favour of FI or early retirement also hate their jobs but can't imagine a life with meaning without those jobs. Hence, they're financially and existentially enslaved to someone else's dream. This is not you or me. I mean, I worked literally 80 hours last week for absolutely no pay because I love my vocation. That love also makes me care a lot about my savings rate because I never want anyone to force me to work against my morals. Yeah, but my point is, how do you know who's happy and who's not? There are lots of happy 9 to 5 ers, and there are lots of miserable people with plenty of money to never have to work. To be clear, I am totally on board with achieving FI. I want to do it, and I've changed my spending patterns to reflect that. I just get really tired of seeing wage and salary workers portrayed as sheep and cattle. There's more to workplace satisfaction than just being able to walk away from a bad situation. Cicero posted:How are any of those 'vapid' or 'a bit obnoxious'? You think it's obnoxious when people learn other languages or travel, or volunteer? What? I think it's obnoxious when people think they are full time occupations. "Learning" a language (25 hours of Duolingo) followed by a trip to Paris where you stammer at waitors is not an occupation. Getting a job with the foreign service that requires fluency in a foreign language, going to through their immersive program, and then working in an embassy for a few years is an occupation. Volunteering is not an occupation. Writing some aimless prose about your newfound freedom is not an occupation. Drafting dozens of pitch books or proposals with real deadlines and technical subject matter is an occupation. Jobs require us to do the things we don't want to do. They force us to get up early and get ourselves into the office. They make us stick with it when things are frustrating or not working the way we want them to. quote:Sure there is: it's called a job. Between working and commute, that consumes 45-50 hours of my week, so nearly half my waking time. Between that, normal life things/chores, and having a kid, I don't have a ton of free time. As it is, I can spare enough to do one hobby at a time (currently Starcraft). I might be able to do one more if I pushed it, but I'm not the most self-disciplined guy. I like having some relaxing time reading on the internet or reading books too, which is what would have to go. Are you sure that's what it is? Are you sure the reason you're not making games is because you're not required to? You admit that you're not the most "self-disciplined guy" and that's good, neither am I. But doesn't that make you wonder what you would do with all that extra time if you really had it? I mean, would you really write games, or would you play them? I laughed at the Onion article, but the problem with that attitude is that people get all worked up thinking that they're missing out on their passion. Do you really only have one passion? I mean, I love soccer, sailing, coding, reading, writing, traveling, seeing my niece, and a whole bunch of other stuff that I work into my spare time and my weekends.
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Mar 2, 2015 06:24
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Blackjack2000 posted:To be clear, I am totally on board with achieving FI. I want to do it, and I've changed my spending patterns to reflect that. I just get really tired of seeing wage and salary workers portrayed as sheep and cattle. There's more to workplace satisfaction than just being able to walk away from a bad situation. I think this is important to note. You wouldn't all be contributing to this thread if you weren't on the same level about this. You can love your job or hate it, but no one actively desires a dependence on their job. Give a million to two different people and one will happily retire while the other will work the same job 'til they drop dead. What I think is important is simply raising consciousness around personal finance - literally raising it into focus, because it seems like a lot of people just work and spend without really thinking about where their actions will take them. If you take that conversation and split it into a debate about 'BUT WHAT WILL YOU DO ALL DAY' it muddies the water and less people will truly take the time to understand the concept of financial independence and what it could mean for them personally.
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Mar 2, 2015 08:18
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Rick Rickshaw posted:I just tweeted this in an attempt to sound insightful regarding the whole early retirement debate: "People's inability to imagine freedom from nine-to-five: a greater commentary on our self-induced slavery I cannot imagine." I think a lot of this boils down to your attitude towards work. I am sure I've mentioned this before, but my partner is very set in the mindset of working a nine-to-five and retiring in his sixties. I can't fault him for this because he has found his ideal job and gets a lot of satisfaction from it. That's not to say he will never pursue financial independence, just that he sees no need to go down the path of "maddening frugality" because working Monday to Friday is not a burden to him and he feels his job is very secure. That said, his savings rate is probably higher than mine simply because he's on a higher income, so it is entirely possible he will reach financial independence before me. Conversely, I'm the sort of person who doesn't particularly desire to have a career, and becoming financially independent would mean being able to allocate time for things I would like to get involved in but currently can't due to work commitments. For example, I'd like to spend a few weeks or months of the year interstate caring for aging relatives, which is really hard to do when your income is entirely dependent on having a job. Financial independence gives us room for changing our minds - I could possibly FI for a few years then find my dream job, giving my partner the opportunity to leave his job. That scenario is unlikely, but it does demonstrate the flexibility FI would give us. What I'm trying to get at is that one's attitude towards work isn't necessarily static, and that financial independence would help if you ever lose interest in your field or want to try something new.
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Mar 2, 2015 08:23
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