New York Times article this weekend...

[aja8888]

I see the term "young wife" thrown around here from time to time. Since no one seems to throw out what that age difference is, I'll ask the question here (rather than make a new thread bout this) as to what exactly qualifies one's wife (or spouse) to be called a "young wife"?


Edit: maybe we should have a thread on this topic?

 

[griffithee]

Average retirement age here is around 55-57 years old. You will be fine......

Is it really? Dang, I thought it was much younger than that. I guess DW and I are very blessed to have FIREd at 41 and 44, respectively.

 

[braumeister]

what exactly qualifies one's wife (or spouse) to be called a "young wife"?

Self-preservation instinct?

 

[Fedup]

What about all of us on E-R.org?

Oh crap! It’s like in ‘The Matrix’; I’m not living in “real life”, it’s all a simulation.

I don’t know anybody from ER in real life, as far as I’m concern, it could be bots.

 

[Dtail]

I don’t know anybody from ER in real life, as far as I’m concern, it could be bots.

You gotta go to a meet up in your area if it exists. We had a really nice meetup in SW FLA, where we got to see the faces behind the posts.

 

[Dtail]

Is it really? Dang, I thought it was much younger than that. I guess DW and I are very blessed to have FIREd at 41 and 44, respectively.

That is MY unofficial calculation, but at 44 and 41, that is great and definitely fairly unusual even for this site.

 

[audreyh1]

Good point. I think they’ll be saying “ if only I had known SS would still be around, I would have kept working, maybe part time”. It’s been drilled into these folks that SS will not survive.

Not me. I didn’t count on it when I retired at 39, but now that I’m approaching 60, it looks like it could be fairly substantial esp at 70.

 

[MissMolly]

I see the term "young wife" thrown around here from time to time. Since no one seems to throw out what that age difference is, I'll ask the question here (rather than make a new thread bout this) as to what exactly qualifies one's wife (or spouse) to be called a "young wife"?


Edit: maybe we should have a thread on this topic?

I, personally, can't stand that term. It's right up there with "my bride". So condescending. Makes me throw up in my mouth.

 

[griffithee]

I, personally, can't stand that term. It's right up there with "my bride". So condescending. Makes me throw up in my mouth.

That is so interesting. I have never ever heard of anyone being offended because their significant other called the "my bride" or "my young wife". If my DW referred to me as "my groom" or "my young husband" I would certainly not be offended. However, never been a fan of "ball and chain" or "my baby daddy".

 

[NYEXPAT]

Ahh, where to start?

Average retirement age here is around 55-57 years old. You will be fine......

I retired at 33, one month before my 34th birthday.

I see the term "young wife" thrown around here from time to time. Since no one seems to throw out what that age difference is, I'll ask the question here (rather than make a new thread bout this) as to what exactly qualifies one's wife (or spouse) to be called a "young wife"?


Edit: maybe we should have a thread on this topic?

I use the term "young wife",although I should probably write "younger wife" as I do not know what the official ER.org cut off is for that? FTR, younger wife is 28 years my junior.

I, personally, can't stand that term. It's right up there with "my bride". So condescending. Makes me throw up in my mouth.

I think I might start referring to "the missus" as MMW (My Millennial Wife) as she is getting to that age where people might question, if she is young anymore as I have aged really well!

 

[redduck]

I use the term "young wife",although I should probably write "younger wife" as I do not know what the official ER.org cut off is for that? FTR, younger wife is 28 years my junior.

And, your other wife is how much older than your younger wife?

 

[FUEGO]

That can be a real issue. Most of us will be dead or out of it to find out, if this becomes a huge trend.

I wonder if FUEGO has commented on this issue? BTW, love FUEGO's thoughts and sharing here. At least he and his wife came up with a plan to release her from working a regular job.

My thoughts on the issue of Social Security? I doubt it's much of an issue for the typical 30-something early retiree. Gaining a new stream of income 30 years into retirement does very little for portfolio survivability. The first ~10 years of early retirement are make or break for long term survivability, and in general if you survive those with a mostly intact portfolio you're probably good even beyond 30 years.

Here's my personal take on SS and what I'll actually get as a 33 year old early retiree with only 10 "real" years of working history (plus another 8-10 junky years during HS and college). It works out to about $12,000 per year for me at regular retirement age, and my wife will get the same.

$24k/yr SS plus a paid off house will permit an acceptable bare bones existence if the worst case should come to pass (our portfolio drops to zero in the next 30 years).

However, sequence of returns has worked very favorably for us, and we're sitting on 50%+ more than what we started with. Many other very early retirees that quit in the 2010-2015 time period are probably in a similar position

Right now my budget discussions with myself revolve around how to spend more money so that I don't ruin my kids' work ethics with an excessively large inheritance.

 

[Amethyst]

Why not simply refer to one's "wife"? Unless one is very proud of the fact of being married to someone younger, and wants to remind everyone at all times, there seems no reason to mention age at all.

And, your other wife is how much older than your younger wife?

 

[MichaelB]

Why not simply refer to one's "wife"? Unless one is very proud of the fact of being married to someone younger, and wants to remind everyone at all times, there seems no reason to mention age at all.

What's wrong with using that term in an affectionate way? Is it any different than a small show of affection in public?

 

[Dtail]

My DGF looks much younger than me due to good genes. Nevertheless, I wouldn't refer to her as my much younger looking girlfriend.

 

[braumeister]

I had a friend once who always referred to his "child bride."

They were both in their 60s (he was a few years older) and everyone just thought it was cute.

 

[NYEXPAT]

And, your other wife is how much older than your younger wife?

Unlike some of my friends, I am only allowed to have one wife at a time. Are you referring to my EW (ex-Wife) or NW (next Wife)?

I do have a good friend that is married and lives with another women. All his assets are in the name of his live in (for tax purposes). They went to court here in Peru and were able to get some sort of official document that pronounced them as Domestic Partners of some type. With this document she was able to get a 10 year multiple entry visa to the USA, a few years ago. I bet it would not work again now!

 

[NYEXPAT]

Why not simply refer to one's "wife"? Unless one is very proud of the fact of being married to someone younger, and wants to remind everyone at all times, there seems no reason to mention age at all.

I see many people here post all kinds of abbreviations DD,DS,DGF (Is that grandfather, godfather or girlfriend?) DSIL among others. I think I use YW as opposed to others here (moderator or administrator) who IIRC uses young wife.

Although, I am proud of YW for many reasons (youth among them), in RL I do not use the term (as it is plainly apparent) and also have never used the term FIRE'd as nobody cares!

 

[YVRRocketSurgery]

I enjoyed the article, even if just from a FIRE porn perspective.

These articles would be much more interesting to me if they all didn't end with and then they wrote a blog or partner still works. So both situations have them continuing to make income the old fashion way (ie. working). So they actually switched careers, they didn't retire. For them, they found a better way to make money because a decent blog will generate $3K/month which if they are looking at a $40K/yr income covers almost everything so they can let their wealth ride.

I could do the same by joining a multi-level marketing gimmick. I could easily pull $2-3K/month just hanging around at meetups/gym and selling the lastest weight loss plan. To me its the same thing, your selling something.

I would honestly like to see how people in their 30s handle not having the extra income, dealing with ups/downs in the markets. How they have to deal with withdrawing income, taxes, buying large ticket items like a new roof/vehicle, etc. That I would read, but I'm not going to read how to make a living by working.

I get where you're coming from and have the same issues but I try not to get too hung up on it and take whatever concepts may be of value for my situation.

There are a few FIRE bloggers who seem to be fairly good about being transparent on compartmentalizing only living off of their FIRE savings while then only using income produced by their blog/notoriety for gifts and charity, which I think is quite fair.

WRT one partner still working, the discussion really turns to if your combined passive income can support your combined spend IMO.

What I do find sketchy at best are people like one early retiree who seems to support/supplement his retirement off of book sales and yet was an advocate of dividend investing but dumped his portfolio during the 2008/09 crisis.

 

[Fedup]

I see many people here post all kinds of abbreviations DD,DS,DGF (Is that grandfather, godfather or girlfriend?) DSIL among others. I think I use YW as opposed to others here (moderator or administrator) who IIRC uses young wife.

Although, I am proud of YW for many reasons (youth among them), in RL I do not use the term (as it is plainly apparent) and also have never used the term FIRE'd as nobody cares!

I think Gumby uses it often, my time of reading here, but I’m guessing his wife is not much younger than him, but she probably stands behind him when he posts.

 

[Dtail]

I see many people here post all kinds of abbreviations DD,DS,DGF (Is that grandfather, godfather or girlfriend?) DSIL among others. I think I use YW as opposed to others here (moderator or administrator) who IIRC uses young wife.

Although, I am proud of YW for many reasons (youth among them), in RL I do not use the term (as it is plainly apparent) and also have never used the term FIRE'd as nobody cares!

Bolded - see post #65 and it will be obvious.

 

[Alan]

I also refer to my wife as “the young wife”, even though she is only 9 months younger than me. She graduated High School early and went to University at 17 where we met and married. She was the youngest in our class and was the university’s first ever female graduate in EE. I have always looked a lot older than I am, and with her looking much younger than she is, plus being a foot shorter than myself we have always looked like an odd couple.

 

[Badger]

Since my wife is almost 2 years older I refer to myself as her "Arm Candy".


Cheers!