Is this guy crazy or what

[Kabekew]

I get a newsletter from the Berkeley Greater Good Science Center and this is one of their articles:

Happiness is Being Socially Connected

"The upshot of 50 years of happiness research is that the quantity and quality of a person's social connections—friendships, relationships with family members, closeness to neighbors, etc.—is so closely related to well-being and personal happiness the two can practically be equated. People with many friendships are less likely to experience sadness, loneliness, low self-esteem, and problems with eating and sleeping."

That's the crux of the issue I see with both the OP guy's and Grocery Store Guy's decisions to keep living like a college student the rest of their lives (they really have no option by RE'ing that young with that little): after their peers move upward beyond bachelor apartments, I think they're going to end up really isolated. Grocery store guy can probably get away hanging out with the unmarried 20-somethings for a few more years, but once he's in his 40's, he becomes the weird old guy. Meanwhile his middle-aged peers have all moved on with their lives, moved into the suburbs and are raising their families in the usual middle/upper-middle class lifestyle. They will have nothing in common with a middle-aged man still living like a college student in a cheap apartment.

I really think you need to have enough before you RE to at least live the lifestyle of your peers after they get older, so you can still socialize with them and feel connected.

 

[FUEGO]

Meanwhile his middle-aged peers have all moved on with their lives, moved into the suburbs and are raising their families in the usual middle/upper-middle class lifestyle. They will have nothing in common with a middle-aged man still living like a college student in a cheap apartment.

I really think you need to have enough before you RE to at least live the lifestyle of your peers after they get older, so you can still socialize with them and feel connected.

Hmmm... get new friends? Most of my friends today live "the college student lifestyle" but they have kids and live in single family 3 bedroom houses. They also don't work a lot (flex schedule, work from home, stay at home spouse, sabbaticals, artist/self employed, etc) which makes it convenient to hang out in the middle of the week.

I find the upper middle class crowd that moved out to the "good" neighborhoods to be pretty boring (no offense to those that live there ). Instead of golf, we play tennis at the neighborhood park. We trade video/PC games with each other, provide tips on being cheap, trade childcare, and generally have a great time for very little (though one set of friends decided to go to Japan for the summer ).

As hard as it is to believe, some people live it up pretty well on $30-50k per year.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

That's the crux of the issue I see with both the OP guy's and Grocery Store Guy's decisions to keep living like a college student the rest of their lives (they really have no option by RE'ing that young with that little): after their peers move upward beyond bachelor apartments, I think they're going to end up really isolated. Grocery store guy can probably get away hanging out with the unmarried 20-somethings for a few more years, but once he's in his 40's, he becomes the weird old guy. Meanwhile his middle-aged peers have all moved on with their lives, moved into the suburbs and are raising their families in the usual middle/upper-middle class lifestyle. They will have nothing in common with a middle-aged man still living like a college student in a cheap apartment.

I really think you need to have enough before you RE to at least live the lifestyle of your peers after they get older, so you can still socialize with them and feel connected.

He may already have friends who live like this. Or maybe he'll make new friends. Most people's friends change over the course of their lives anyway. So maybe grocery store guy develops more friendships with the people at the grocery store, or people he meets from hiking groups and volunteer work or whatever activities he spends his new found time freedom on. We making new friends who are older and retired because most of the people we know our age are still working full time.

There's a whole movement of people these days interested in less consumerism, working less, leaving a smaller environmental foot print and having more time for leisure and community involvement, so I doubt he would have a hard time finding friends with similar interests if he doesn't have some already.

 

[marko]

Grocery store guy can probably get away hanging out with the unmarried 20-somethings for a few more years, but once he's in his 40's, he becomes the weird old guy.
.

+1
As my aforementioned uncle said of his daughter who ran away with her "artiste" BF: "it may be romantic to be living on Ramen and love when your 20. When you're 40 and still living on Ramen in a studio apartment, it's just sad."

 

[Big_Hitter]

I find the upper middle class crowd that moved out to the "good" neighborhoods to be pretty boring (no offense to those that live there ). Instead of golf, we play tennis at the neighborhood park. We trade video/PC games with each other, provide tips on being cheap, trade childcare, and generally have a great time for very little (though one set of friends decided to go to Japan for the summer ).

As hard as it is to believe, some people live it up pretty well on $30-50k per year.

my friends are extremely interesting as they all have graduate degrees in various fields: pilots, attorneys, doctors and small business owners. Oh, lots of FAs.

We play golf for free and enjoy hanging out at the club, the ski hill and at each others houses. Maybe that sounds boring but I dig it.

Grocery store guy can have his water, meditation and extreme frugality. I'm not into subsisting.

 

[Big_Hitter]

There's a whole movement of people these days interested in less consumerism, working less, leaving a smaller environmental foot print and having more time for leisure and community involvement, so I doubt he would have a hard time finding friends with similar interests if he doesn't have some already.

well good for them. Hopefully they can find a way to be productive members of society once they find themselves.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

well good for them. Hopefully they can find a way to be productive members of society once they find themselves.

It never really occurred to me to think that people who worked at grocery stores were not productive members of society. In fact, these days they probably are a lot more productive members of society than I am.

 

[Big_Hitter]

It never really occurred to me to think that people who worked at grocery stores were not productive members of society. In fact, these days they probably are a lot more productive members of society than I am.

He's subsisting. He has a lot more to offer society than stocking shelves.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

He's subsisting. He has a lot more to offer society than stocking shelves.

So if he volunteers at a soup kitchen or animal shelter on his days off, writes poetry, volunteers for a political campaign, leads hikes for an environmental group, plants a garden, joins a community theater group or spends time with his parents that doesn't count as productive? Only things he does for money count as productive?

We have links to articles here frequently on how many people in the U.S. work full-time, have good incomes, live paycheck to paycheck and have no savings with retirement looming. This guy has a low enough overhead living on SS might not be too challenging, plus he will have been semi-retired for many years.

 

[FUEGO]

my friends are extremely interesting as they all have graduate degrees in various fields: pilots, attorneys, doctors and small business owners. Oh, lots of FAs.

We play golf for free and enjoy hanging out at the club, the ski hill and at each others houses. Maybe that sounds boring but I dig it.

Grocery store guy can have his water, meditation and extreme frugality. I'm not into subsisting.

A pilot, an attorney, and a doctor walk into a bar.

Just kidding, they're too busy working!

 

[redduck]

my friends are extremely interesting as they all have graduate degrees in various fields: pilots, attorneys, doctors and small business owners. Oh, lots of FAs.

A pilot, an attorney, and a doctor walk into a bar.

I think the joke goes like this: A guy who lives on a golf course, lots of FA's and a part-time grocery clerk all walk into a bar...

 

[highlow65]

That's fine in your 40's or 50's (BTDT), but some of us find it to be less than ideal in our 60's and 70's. Often those of us older retirees find that our joints start to hurt a lot more than they did in our 50's, and it becomes harder to sleep on a floor, or to get up from the floor, the older we get. So, you might want to keep that in mind for your longer term plans.

my joints already hurt and im only 50 so no floors or sleeping in car for me

 

[Just_Steve]

If I could convince my wife to sell this albatross of a house I would be perfectly content in a one bedroom oceanfront condo on the outer banks. Maybe one day. Nothing wrong with minimalist living.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

We play golf for free and enjoy hanging out at the club, the ski hill and at each others houses. Maybe that sounds boring but I dig it.

I'm glad to hear you have a lifestyle you enjoy, but overall both golf as a hobby and country club memberships have been in decline in the U.S. for some time. It is not a lifestyle everyone is interested in.

 

[aja8888]

I'm glad to hear you have a lifestyle you enjoy, but overall both golf as a hobby and country club memberships have been in decline in the U.S. for some time. It is not a lifestyle everyone is interested in.

Really? Maybe in some select areas where golf courses were overbuilt, but...Getting a good tee time around here requires calling a week in advance. And that at private courses where you are a member. The public ones are jammed all the time also.

Our club just upped its membership fee to $50K as there is too much demand from the influx of new people with new jobs in the area. And one very exclusive course in our township went private (members bought out the developer/owner) to limit the number of members.

I've been playing golf seriously for decades and have belonged to private courses in three states (CA, MI, TX) and all I see is crowded courses and more and more people playing the game.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Really? Maybe in some select areas where golf courses were overbuilt, but...

No, statistically in the U.S. as a whole:

Why Americans Fell Out of Love with Golf
"The number of young people, aged 18 to 30, playing the game has sagged nearly 35 percent over the last decade. "Every macro-indicator that we've been looking at for the past 20 years -- rounds played, number of minorities playing, women coming into the game -- all of these things that we tracked says that there's less people playing."

Why Golf is in Decline in America - article from the Economist

 

[Mulligan]

I live in a more rural area with smallish 5k-10k towns nearby in a non retirement area. But quite a few golf courses within 50 miles any direction. Green fees havent changed much in 10-15 years. I do not see many younger people playing. I think golf the rap of being "expensive" and "takes too long to play" hurt it. Our frequent twice weekly "senior scrambles" which may entail a 45 min. drive, can pretty much piss away almost an equivalent to an 8 hour work shift leaving to coming home. So I can see the time factor as a negative. And most people around here do not have a lot of discretionary income. The local course a mile from my house isnt a high quality course, but for $350 a year, I can play whenever I want with a cart and no traffic.


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[aja8888]

No, statistically in the U.S. as a whole:

Why Americans Fell Out of Love with Golf
"The number of young people, aged 18 to 30, playing the game has sagged nearly 35 percent over the last decade. "Every macro-indicator that we've been looking at for the past 20 years -- rounds played, number of minorities playing, women coming into the game -- all of these things that we tracked says that there's less people playing."

Why Golf is in Decline in America - article from the Economist

People aged 18 to 30....(good group, although not all golfers).

All those folks are at work! Do you really expect them to be playing golf? And on weekends, they are doing stuff with their toddlers.

 

[aja8888]

I live in a more rural area with smallish 5k-10k towns nearby in a non retirement area. But quite a few golf courses within 50 miles any direction. Green fees havent changed much in 10-15 years. I do not see many younger people playing. I think golf the rap of being "expensive" and "takes too long to play" hurt it. Our frequent twice weekly "senior scrambles" which may entail a 45 min. drive, can pretty much piss away almost an equivalent to an 8 hour work shift leaving to coming home. So I can see the time factor as a negative. And most people around here do not have a lot of discretionary income. The local course a mile from my house isnt a high quality course, but for $350 a year, I can play whenever I want with a cart and no traffic.


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Hey Mulligan, I know where you live (You told me) and it's mostly farmland and woods. $350 is better spent on a chain saw! (just kidding, some of those rural courses are a lot of fun)

 

[daylatedollarshort]

People aged 18 to 30....(good group, although not all golfers).

All those folks are at work! Do you really expect them to be playing golf? And on weekends, they are doing stuff with their toddlers.

I just put one quote in as a sample. You can Google searches like "golf on decline" and see all the articles and additional statistics on people leaving the sport and golf course and club closures.

Here is a quote from the Economist article in the link above:

"In 2006 some 30m Americans were golfers. But since then golf has hit a rough patch. And it is now struggling to attract a new generation of American players. In 2013, 160 of the country’s 14,600 golf facilities closed, the 8th consecutive year of net closures. The number of players has fallen to around 25m."

From a Bloomberg article, Golf Market Stuck in Bunkers as Thousands Leave Sport

"The golf industry is in the rough. Once the go-to activity for corporate bonding, the sport is suffering from an exodus of players, a lack of interest among millennials and the mass closure of courses."

 

[Mulligan]

Aja, I was hearing a few chainsaws yesterday. Storms blew a few trees down and the owners had to get rid of them. Luckily I only have leaves all over my yard. The area courses always need the money, so one guy will be in charge and call an area course each week and negotiates $20 green fees with donuts, coffee, along with sandwich, chips, and drink for lunch promising about 100 players showing to play.


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[Big_Hitter]

No, statistically in the U.S. as a whole:

Why Americans Fell Out of Love with Golf
"The number of young people, aged 18 to 30, playing the game has sagged nearly 35 percent over the last decade. "Every macro-indicator that we've been looking at for the past 20 years -- rounds played, number of minorities playing, women coming into the game -- all of these things that we tracked says that there's less people playing."

Why Golf is in Decline in America - article from the Economist

it's declining because new players find the game too difficult and requires too much effort to learn

i.e. quitters

 

[Big_Hitter]

Our club just upped its membership fee to $50K as there is too much demand from the influx of new people with new jobs in the area. And one very exclusive course in our township went private (members bought out the developer/owner) to limit the number of members.

the woodlands or bentwater?

 

[Mulligan]

it's declining because new players find the game too difficult and requires too much effort to learn

i.e. quitters

Its unlearnable that is why they don't play!! Yesterday, I hit a 7 iron 165 yard par 3 to 6 inches of cup, easy birdie... Next hole I drive the 309 yard par 4 green, two putt easy bird. Next 3 holes...Off tee box....unplayable, OB, lost in the woods...


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[Big_Hitter]

Its unlearnable that is why they don't play!! Yesterday, I hit a 7 iron 165 yard par 3 to 6 inches of cup, easy birdie... Next hole I drive the 309 yard par 4 green, two putt easy bird. Next 3 holes...Off tee box....unplayable, OB, lost in the woods...


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no turkey?

that's the price you pay for two tweets in a row lol