GusLevy
Recycles dryer sheets
- Joined
- May 8, 2008
- Messages
- 98
"An inch of time buys an inch of gold, but an inch of gold cannot buy an inch of time..."
Hello. Like most of you folks out there the daydreams of ER and a life reduced of the stress that accompanies the "company man" in his professional career has been intensifying as I have been approaching mid-life. While it's great to further shed myself of the Ego which characterizes the bravado and ambitions of the younger man out to conquer the World I find myself now confused a bit by the philosophical questions that arise when we seriously realize life is precious - but very short.
I am a typical American Dream story: grew up poor in an immigrant family and worked hard in school and career to better myself. Fortune smiled upon me as I lucked into a career in Wall St in a stimulating position that allows me to trade and manage institutional money. Having said that, the job entails sitting at my desk by 5am and not leaving the chair for the next 10 hours staring at the screens – not bad hours in the aggregate but after making the morning call for almost 15 yrs on a daily basis it’s beginning to physically and mentally wear on me. The job is decent but I can’t take the hours for too much longer.
The decision that I have to make is to figure out how/when to pull the trigger. There are basic issues such as being in a career that has compensation curves that are basically logarithmic shaped: each successive yr the money is progressively better such that the decision to walk away is almost penal in nature unless the p.a. is really in the F.U. zip code (unfortunately mine is not). I am a LBYM person so I suppose that I can retire tomorrow and not worry about going hungry ever again but clearly the ER decision is never truly that simple…we all want more security, more $ to help friends and family, freedom to be whimsical, etc.
For those of you out there that are or have been in similar situations where it is absolutely penal to walk away in the near term how did you determine this calculus – and honestly it really is sophomoric to say that “life’s too short!” or something in that vain to suggest the optimal life decision is to immediately pack for retirement – and also what are the truly difficult issues to confront at this point in preparing for post-retirement. On the last point I refer to stuff like health insurance, tax issues, etc. that I may be presuming are simpler than they in fact are once I do pull the trigger.
Thx again and I appreciate the overall tone of this message board – thk god for sensible posters in an anonymous world.
My financial/personal basics:
1) 37yr old single male (girlfriend who lives in own place)
2) 2.5mm broker acct (mostly placed in financial pfds during this current mkt meltdown – I believe this is a 1 in 20yr mkt for these investments)
3) 500m 401k – balanced fund
4) house worth 1.3mm (zillow) with 450k left in mtge
5) 100m in company stock
6) 50m in commercial real estate investment
7) 1mm+ deferred comp that is on the carrot-stick vesting cycle…worthless today but grows over time as long as I stick around (can collect some each yr)
Hello. Like most of you folks out there the daydreams of ER and a life reduced of the stress that accompanies the "company man" in his professional career has been intensifying as I have been approaching mid-life. While it's great to further shed myself of the Ego which characterizes the bravado and ambitions of the younger man out to conquer the World I find myself now confused a bit by the philosophical questions that arise when we seriously realize life is precious - but very short.
I am a typical American Dream story: grew up poor in an immigrant family and worked hard in school and career to better myself. Fortune smiled upon me as I lucked into a career in Wall St in a stimulating position that allows me to trade and manage institutional money. Having said that, the job entails sitting at my desk by 5am and not leaving the chair for the next 10 hours staring at the screens – not bad hours in the aggregate but after making the morning call for almost 15 yrs on a daily basis it’s beginning to physically and mentally wear on me. The job is decent but I can’t take the hours for too much longer.
The decision that I have to make is to figure out how/when to pull the trigger. There are basic issues such as being in a career that has compensation curves that are basically logarithmic shaped: each successive yr the money is progressively better such that the decision to walk away is almost penal in nature unless the p.a. is really in the F.U. zip code (unfortunately mine is not). I am a LBYM person so I suppose that I can retire tomorrow and not worry about going hungry ever again but clearly the ER decision is never truly that simple…we all want more security, more $ to help friends and family, freedom to be whimsical, etc.
For those of you out there that are or have been in similar situations where it is absolutely penal to walk away in the near term how did you determine this calculus – and honestly it really is sophomoric to say that “life’s too short!” or something in that vain to suggest the optimal life decision is to immediately pack for retirement – and also what are the truly difficult issues to confront at this point in preparing for post-retirement. On the last point I refer to stuff like health insurance, tax issues, etc. that I may be presuming are simpler than they in fact are once I do pull the trigger.
Thx again and I appreciate the overall tone of this message board – thk god for sensible posters in an anonymous world.
My financial/personal basics:
1) 37yr old single male (girlfriend who lives in own place)
2) 2.5mm broker acct (mostly placed in financial pfds during this current mkt meltdown – I believe this is a 1 in 20yr mkt for these investments)
3) 500m 401k – balanced fund
4) house worth 1.3mm (zillow) with 450k left in mtge
5) 100m in company stock
6) 50m in commercial real estate investment
7) 1mm+ deferred comp that is on the carrot-stick vesting cycle…worthless today but grows over time as long as I stick around (can collect some each yr)