There has to be a better system than this.
I don’t just work it’s not like nothing else happens. I get it’s tough and frustrating but life is good even if work sucks sometimes
Volunteer. The options are endless, you get to support your community and meet amazing people, and sometimes there’s lunch involved.
Enjoy life now and realise that the 65 of tomorrow isn’t the 65 of 100 years ago?
People live in good shape for at least 15 years after they retire, just stay in shape in the meantime and you’ll be both having fun while you’re young and having fun when you retire.
And retirement age is being bushed back using that as an argument.
Don’t think about it.
I found a job with a career track that I can retire from in 25 years max and I already have 5 years of service. The system you envision doesn’t really exist yet.
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I live in the UK, so I get 25 days off work, and I take full advantage of that, I rarely do staycations.
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I’m about to buy a property and I’m deliberately going to get a mortgage where my monthly payments are not as much as I can possibly afford, but a bit less. This means that it will take me longer to pay it off, and overall it will cost me more, but I will have more disposable income today to spend on life’s pleasures.
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I don’t have kids and don’t plan to.
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I stay physically active, just simple going to the gym 5-6 days a week. And I think this is really important. It will keep your body in shape and by the time your 60 or 70, you’ll be able to do much more than your average peers who spent their middle age doing office jobs followed by evenings in front of the TV. And here, instead of my 41-year-old self, I’m going to use the example of my mum. She’s turning 70 next year, but it was only when she was 68 that she started taking swimming lessons and she got to love it. It was also around that time that I floated the idea to her “why don’t I take you for holidays to New York”. She was all “no, no, I’m too old, it’s too much walking, you took me for a holiday to London when I was 55 and I was totally exhausted, I wouldn’t be able to do New York at this age.” Now that she’s had over 1.5 years of almost daily swimming (and cycling, she’s also a keen cyclist) - she said yes. She said she’s feeling perfectly fine doing long walks, she’s more energised, and she already gave me a list of what she wants to see in New York.
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Other than physical activity, scientists seem to agree that the other two pillars of long and healthy life are good sleep, and good diet. For the former, I recommend reading Why we sleep by Matthew Walker. And good diet means varied diet, vegetable-rich diet, and low-calorie diet (too many books agree on that for me to recommend a specific one).
I stay physically active, just simple going to the gym 5-6 days a week.
jesus fuck how is that simple?
Simple doesnt necessarily mean easy to accomplish. I took it to mean they just go and so something as opposed to some structured, unwavering plan or training so hard they cant walk 5 days out of the weak.
Could probably accomplish something similar with 100-200 squats and push ups a day, but going to the gym gives you more variety
Are you talking about time constraints? (again - no parental responsibilities here, so pretty simple) Or are you asking how I motivate myself?
Also, I meant simple as in, I don’t play any sports, or do some varied types of physical activity. Just gym.
Both?
Working a full time job leaves neither time nor energy for that, for example.
Your point about the mortgage eventually costing you more in the long run is exactly what I advocate for. So many moneybros out there advocate for living in squalor so you can both aggressively save for retirement and pay down all your loans.
But life is uncertain and even if you live a healthy life, you never know if you’ll just be hit by a car and killed one day.
Life is about maintaining a balance. Sure, save for retirement, but don’t do so so aggressively that you ruin your ability to be happy now.
Another way see a loan is that you’re buying time. When you see it for what it is then you don’t have to fall for heuristic thinking.
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First off, I’d try to find as much balance and joy as possible now. Don’t wait for retirement. None of us know if we’ll even be around at that point.
I also make sure to vote for people who want more work/life balance and more universal public services. Vacation time, family and parental leave, universal healthcare, affordable education, etc. Those are all things that free you mind to think about life and not just the basic necessities and surviving.
I keep finding myself trying to imagine how to make enough money so my mom doesn’t have to do this.
The key is to do your living now while you still can. Don’t waste your youth on a grind that will get you nothing.
I love my job. I have crippling depression, so I won’t live to retirement.
I hope you get through that.
Depression sucks, but it doesn’t last forever and there’s people who care about you, whether you think so or not.
I’ve got “30 and out” at my union factory, so I’ll retire at 56 which isn’t so bad. Course, I’ll lose my health insurance but it’s free til then 🤷♂️
Maybe this isn’t the answer you’re looking for: my job is my passion and the idea of retiring sounds horrible. I image it will only happen when I’m too senile to keep doing what I love, and that’s clearly not something to look forward to. But who knows… I know old people who are tired and just want to rest.
(I got lucky, since I happened to be passionate about computer programming. I know most other people don’t have the same option.)
Nicely done. Find a job you love and you won’t work a day in your life.
This is exactly where I’m at in the same type of gig. I do get a bit burnt by the end of the day but by 8pm I’m just counting hours until the next day because I want to dive back into the problems I’m working on.
I feel very lucky I’ve found a vocation that I love and pays handsomely. It’s also working for fed gov so the benefits and work life balance are insanely great. Also, work from home.
If I went into the private sector I could probably make 50k more but I’m very comfortable now and the chance of me hating my life and job working to try and make someone else rich is not appealing at all. And that’s all if the company doesn’t fold or get acquired.
Fuck that noise
(I got lucky, since I happened to be passionate about computer programming. I know most other people don’t have the same option.)
When I was in high school I was very passionate about PC stuff (I mainly used Linux) and while there were not many careers about this where I live the few related ones I stayed away from them because I felt like turning your hobby into your job would get rid of the fun of it (I still think it to a degree, I see it in many hobby type sectors, like gaming).
I kinda regret my decision nowadays though, but still I feel I wouldn’t enjoy my hobbies with timelines and crappy bosses, oh and making them rich in the process ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I love computing in general, it’s just fascinating that we put electric into a bit of sand and people can be as creative as making immersive worlds, or be as positive as making lifesaving machinery, or just make Fortnite porn.
I started my post-secondary school study at college, fucking about on a particular study topic with Visual C++ as it was at the time on a winter evening. The kind of evening where it got dark early, you got up in darkness and went home in darkness.
It was towards the end of a particular day, sat at a terminal on such an evening, and the lights were so bright that you couldn’t see out of the window but only your own reflection. I saw myself in the window, and honestly thought “fuck, do I really want to be doing this for another fifty years?”
…so I wrapped it that term, banked whatever qualifications I could, and fucked off into a different field where I’m out of the office at different locations most days. I get the benefit of both having a varied career and meeting people from vastly different backgrounds, while getting to go home and enjoy the nerdy tech life.
Admittedly, I have gone back to distance learning to tie off that loose end of working towards a degree in the field.
Here’s a hot take. Do what you want when you are young. Find a way. I spent my 20’s moving around, having shitty but fun jobs. I travelled. Saw all kinds of places and met all sorts of people. It wasn’t easy and sometimes it wasn’t fun. I found myself homeless even several times. I still wouldn’t change any of it. I found a wonderful partner and we moved together for a while before settling and having kids.
In my early 40s I was diagnosed with a really rare cancer that paralyzed me from the chest down for a year prior to surgery and left lasting disabilities following. Now in my 50’s with declining health I am so glad I lived. It means I don’t have a lot of things others have but I’ve never cared much for the Jones’ anyway. If Cancer taught me anything it’s fuck society and their expectations. Do you. Find a way. Be happy.
Would love to talk further with you. Mid 40s, narcolepsy, and some doubt that I’ll make it to retirement age in a way that makes SSA pay meaningfully.
Struggling thru the next twenty or so years seems like hell. Love my job, but doesn’t make up for the mess that is life for me.
On top of that, I made promises to my wife of fifteeen years, back when, and I’m bent on keeping them.
My disease is hardly akin to cancer, but I think you have some collected wisdom that would make a meaningful differentlce in our lives.
As a kid, I was traumatized by the idea that I’d need to work until I’m old and then maybe spend another decade or two being too old to do the things I wanted before I eventually die. I was so distraught over “the way things are” that I constantly fantasized about running away and building my own tree house in the woods to live in, à la Swiss Family Robinson style.
And this was a time before inflation and property prices got out of hand. We were still fed the idea that getting a college education and a good paying job would help us live comfortably, while still saving up for retirement.
Then I joined the US military, thanks to the advice of my uncle who was a retired Air Force Chief Master Sergeant. 20 years later, at only 38 years old, I officially retired and earned myself a pension equal to about half my monthly pay, which I will collect automatically for the rest of my life. Unfortunately, the military did away with the pension program about 7 years ago, so any newbies will have to do their new BRS program. (Basic Retirement System; basically the federal govt’s version of a 401K) I was lucky enough to be grandfathered into the old pension program when I retired 2 years ago.
On top of that, a bunch of physical and mental injuries accrued over 20 years (thanks to serving during wartime) has earned me the coveted 100% Permanent & Total disability rating with the VA, which means I get free medical and dental for life, as well as a monthly paycheck from the VA that’s bigger than my pension. I’m making more money in retirement than I did while serving! So I can be fully retired now.
My wife also served in the military, but she didn’t make it to retirement. She was medically discharged about 12 years into service. But fortunately, her medical issues also earned her the rare 100% Total & Permanent disability rating from the VA as well. So she enjoys all the same benefits as I do, including a sizeable VA paycheck every month for life.
While I was serving, I bought houses in 2 separate places I was stationed, and I rented them out when I left. I hired on a property manager to act as landlord in my absence (since they’re in different states from where I currently live) and they take 10% of the monthly rent as their pay, which incentivizes them to keep tenants in the house, as they don’t get paid if it’s empty. They literally take care of everything; I only get contacted if they need to make a financial decision, i.e. hiring a plumber, replacing a washing machine, etc.
I make sure to charge afforable rates for rent, not price-gouge like a lot of landlords do nowadays. I’m not relying on income from these houses, so I don’t need to squeeze every penny out of them that I can. I’m very quick to fix issues, too. These houses were in excellent condition when I lived there (one was a brand-new build when I moved in) and I want to keep them in immaculate condition, so I make sure to do quality repairs and not just cheap patch jobs. I charge just enough to cover my mortgage (which was really cheap when I bought them around a decade ago) plus the property manager’s share. When both houses are paid off, that rent money (minus 10%) is just passive income to supplement my pension and disability pay.
I’ve also been living in my childhood home for the past couple years, which my father owned until he passed away last week, so I will be inheriting the house and all 6 acres it’s on. Basically a free house. Oh, and the military paid me a separate monthly housing allowance to afford rent/mortgage payments while I was serving, so I didn’t have to spend any of my own money on the 2 houses I bought. The military covered my mortgage while I lived there and tenants are paying my mortgage now. So I technically own 3 houses that I didn’t need to spend any of my own money on.
Besides all this, I also have some investments going through my cousin, who works for an investment firm. I’m pretending those investments don’t exist until actual retirement age, so they’ll accrue in value over the next couple decades and hopefully be a sizeable retirement nest egg.
So through a lot of dumb luck (and some smart choices), I’ve managed to not only avoid working until I’m too old to enjoy life, but I actually have some decent income to live comfortably on. I’m not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m living cozy enough to relax and enjoy the second half of my life at my own pace, without a job to afford my way of life.
This is what life should be like for everyone. We’re not here to work for the rest of our lives, that’s just capitalist propaganda, fed to us since grade school. We only get one shot at life, so it should be lived! There should be plentiful options to make passive income in the second half of your life so you can enjoy living. But the capitalist machine doesn’t work if there are no workers to power it, so we’re stuck in this broken worker bee system for the majority of our lives.
It’s funny and sad at the same time that you had to expand so much on your landlord duties. I’m sorry this network has preconditioned you to this point.
Lemmy really has become an echo chamber of losers :(
landlord
You’re making passive income from disability, a pension system that no longer exists, and owning 3 houses you didn’t pay for based off of programs no longer available to anyone starting out now. While collecting “market rate” rent (which conveniently always increases).
The disability, I’m fine with. My buddy had the same thing from the Marines and he more than earned the 100% rating, as I’m sure you and your wife did.
However, this whole thing where you’re talking about with retiring off of passive income… that was a LOT of words to say:
I’m a landlord
I really wish you would have said this first, because your long winded story about houses and “passive income streams” gives me the impression that you know the house-related part all boils down to being a landlord, and I get the impression you buried that fact to obfuscate it. You’re making money from other people’s work, in the form of the rent they pay to you (minus a small fee to the property managers), while doing literally no work yourself, as you explicitly explained.
I hired on a property manager to act as landlord in my absence (since they’re in different states from where I currently live) and they take 10% of the monthly rent as their pay, which incentivizes them to keep tenants in the house, as they don’t get paid if it’s empty.
He’s actually even more of a dick it turns out.
The problem is not landlords, which have existed for thousands of years. The problem is that the first time homebuyer programs suck ass. They’re like “only 3% down payment! But you have to pay extra PMI, so it’s still expensive monthly.”
If the government really wanted to subsidize housing, they would subsidize home construction workers and materials. Right now old construction workers have to retire due to age or become contractors. So there are a ton of crappy contractors who have no business sense and a lot of construction experience.
Imagine if you could go to school for free to build your own house! Land in the US is almost free outside of major cities. The expensive part is workers and materials.
“Kings are not a problem, they’ve lasted for thousands of years.”
Just because landlords have existed thousands of years doesn’t make the situation right. There are lots of harmful things society has been doing or did for thousands of years. Feudalism isn’t one of the high points of humanity, to say the least.
If he lived in his primary residence and did honest, productive work (Or hell, even just collect disability, pension, SS, every damn cent the government will give them, I’m all for that!) There would be 3 more houses that families could buy as primary residences (in an ideal world). Yes, I know there is nuance, PE firms like Black Rock and speculators will probably buy some of them up, etc. etc. so you don’t need to “actually” me here, just work with me here on the ideal that those houses would be bought fair and square by primary residents.
Home prices would be lower if landlords weren’t hoarding them, and 3% + PMI would be lower as a result. It’s simple supply and demand, most kids learn about that in Jr. High School. And when certain people hoard supply, there is less supply to meet the demand, therefore higher prices on the demand side. They are sucking value out of society and not giving back or doing an hour of fair work. Providing housing for over-inflated prices without giving equity is not giving back, it’s just taking. When landlords talk high and mightily about charging “fair rent prices,” that’s code for “as much as the market will let me exploit them.”
It’s easy to see everything as fair when you’re out of touch on top of an ivory tower.
Live with underlying existential dread for decades. Watch as “doing what you love” becomes “hating what you used to love because you’re forced to do it so that there’s enough numbers in the computer to prove that you’re worthy of continued existence.” Contemplate the pointlessness of it all on a daily basis. Be reminded that your feelings are invalid because “other people have it worse” every time the topic comes up. Nod listlessly as “successful” people tout their own hard work while ignoring any factor luck and privilege played, then tune out when they shift into the dissonant duet of “I succeeded because I am exceptional” and “anyone can do the same if they just work harder.”
Wake up the next morning and realize there’s roughly 30 more years of this, barring a massive coronary or aneurism or something.
barring a massive coronary or aneurism or something.
Fingers crossed! 🤞
I need more therapy tbh
