Why do people think we’re/I’m crazy? Lol

[athena53]

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Originally Posted by Huntnful I debated on working on my own for the freedom, but after realizing what my high wages, 401k and company match will do for me over a short period of time I felt much better about my current position and outlook!

I agree- I spent my entire career as a "wage slave" although a couple of jobs in small consulting firms were more entrepreneurial. I decided that I vastly preferred having someone else worry about having enough money to make payroll and pay the health insurance premiums.

As for why others think we're crazy- first, there's a part of the population in genuinely shaky, low-paying jobs for whom it will never be a possibility. I wouldn't be here (retired very comfortably at 61) if I'd spent my 39-year career as a cosmetologist or a clerk in retail. Then there's the segment planning on SS and whatever they manage to save (you've seen median savings stats for the near-retirement age group- pretty dismal). It takes some thinking and some discipline to forego all the fanciest TV and cell phone packages, the latest car, the 4 nights/week restaurant habits. If you're planning on SS being all or a major part of your retirement income, you can't retire before age 62.

Most of us are here through a combination of luck and smarts. From the whining I see on FB from retirees having a hard time making ends meet, we're in the minority.

[MRG]

I don't think many people have been exposed to ER. I remember a guy who started with me and a dozen others. He's out door in his 40s!

I was concerned as I hadn't seen the guy do anything outside of work except drink beer. I saw him a few years later and wow! Seemed like a great idea.

Every year I was asked to talk to my guys about their 401k contribution. Wow did I learn a lot. Most of it was really just denial of why they didn't save, but some was pretty original(it's my children's job to take care of me!).

Who's crazy the person who gets out early to enjoy life, or the person who dies at the office?

FYI: A couple of months it'll be 5 years since I retired at 56, I can't believe how fast it's gone.

[kcowan]

Dad worked until 65 and was retired for 30 years. Bro retired at 42 and was retired for 27 years. I have been retired for 15 years. I don't expect to match my Dad. Although I am planning for it.

[Meadbh]

I agree with bcclover that this is an American thing. I believe it has to do partly with the Puritan work ethic that went into the founding of the US, and partly due to the fact that healthcare insurance in the US is tied to work.

[Mdlerth]

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Originally Posted by Mr._Graybeard Also, lots of retired public employees seem to gravitate to this forum.

Sorry, didn't mean to leave anyone out. My DF was a government employee (an economist!) and without question the most conventional creature of habit ever to walk the earth. The epitome of "normal", his daily routine never varied a smidgen for 40 years...

...except once. He astonished everyone by taking early retirement at 60, dumping his house in the burbs and moving to a cabin deep in the woods of WV with DM. It sure seemed crazy and out-of-character at the time, but it worked out fine for many years.

[kcowan]

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Originally Posted by bclover The old saying "Americans live to work, while everyone else works to live"...

The Mexican word for retirement is jubilado (which is also jubilation). Nobody works if they don't have to.

And nobody cares what you did, only what you are up to now.

[JoeWras]

American robots plugging into the power socket of healthcare.

[athena53]

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Originally Posted by Meadbh I agree with bcclover that this is an American thing. I believe it has to do partly with the Puritan work ethic that went into the founding of the US, and partly due to the fact that healthcare insurance in the US is tied to work.

There are also many countries where you can collect a state pension after X number of years of working, typically well before age 60 if you've worked your entire adult life. Italy comes to mind. Countries are finding that, as there are fewer younger workers in the population to support payments to the retirees, these plans are becoming very expensive.

[skipro33]

People have a connotation about the word RETIREMENT. Instead, use the words Financial Independence when describing what your plan is. The logical conclusion to stop working if you don't need the money is what is obvious. Simply saying you are gonna retire early is very confusing to someone who hadn't considered retirement as more than just getting too old to work or just how little extra effort is involved to realize.

[GSMAN]

I always knew I was different from my co-workers, friends and family when it came to ER. For many reasons they didn't think ER was doable. Some are big spenders, others have no hobbies, others just need some kind of structure in their life like going to work and hanging out with people. I was talking about ER in my late twenties! I retired at 56 last year and it's been great. I saw an old co-worker at the car wash last month. He was washing his wife's mega mercedes benz car. He goes on to tell me that he buys her a new one every couple of years! None of my business but this guy is 67 and still working his butt off. I asked him if retirement was on the horizon and he said no he had bills to pay. Whatever floats your boat! I never really admired or was impressed by the movers and shakers when I was working in the mega corp. I was always more impressed by those who left early and called their own shots and said good bye to the daily grind. Yeah, I am a little weird but if being weird is wrong, I don't wanna be right!!

[akidagain2018]

Yes, some people can't fathom it, and the high math required. Some simply will never have the discipline to stop spending, start saving, and become independent. Some people would be uncomfortable with the idea. I have a friend who seems nervous about my plan, and more comfortable working her same old job (from which she could likely retire, or get in a better position to do so) and live in her tiny condo, and spend spend spend on clothes, food out, you name it. I used to do a lot of shopping, early in my career seeking bargains, and now I just can't stand it. And who needs so much stuff?!

[Mr._Graybeard]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mdlerth Sorry, didn't mean to leave anyone out. My DF was a government employee (an economist!) and without question the most conventional creature of habit ever to walk the earth. The epitome of "normal", his daily routine never varied a smidgen for 40 years... ...except once. He astonished everyone by taking early retirement at 60, dumping his house in the burbs and moving to a cabin deep in the woods of WV with DM. It sure seemed crazy and out-of-character at the time, but it worked out fine for many years.

Judging from forum posts I've read, retired public-sector employees seem to represent pretty big segment of this board, from bureaucracy to military to emergency service. Many if not most public-sector institutions have an "early out" provision that gives access to a fairly generous pension before age 65. Military and emergency careerists often can retire on full pension particularly early.

My father, a career postal employee, retired at 58 in 1980 using a "30-and-out" option. Same thing for my DW's BiL, who got out of the USPS at 60 a few years ago. I suspect that postal workers who hang on until FRA are the exception rather than the rule.

OTOH, I've mentioned them in other threads, but my sister and her DH have high-paying executive and technical jobs at a Dow 30 corporation. They live in a two-bedroom split-level they bought in 1980. They don't have to downsize because they never upsized. I recently asked sis (she turns 62 this year) if she was thinking of retiring. She said she was enjoying what she was doing and planned to continue for a couple more years. She may stick around until mandatory retirement. Her husb is 64 and gets into shouting matches with his bosses on the phone (I've overheard them). He's every manager's nightmare -- I think he gets a kick out of it.

So, w*rk can be a millstone -- or, if you're at the top of the heap, or feel liberated from the usual career pressures, it can be invigorating. My career was invigorating until it wasn't. That's when I got out.

[daylatedollarshort]

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Originally Posted by Mdlerth +1 Perhaps if this forum had more carnies and revolutionaries and soldiers of fortune then it wouldn't seem unusual. Those folks are expected to be abnormal. Alas, ER.org boasts a disproportionate number of engineers and actuaries and such, professions the general public stereotypically regards as nerdy and dull. We are the poster children for living predictable lives. "Retire early? Nonsense! Of course you'll w*rk till 65 because that's what you're supposed to do! Now, back to your cubicle and get on those TPS reports!"

I think it helps be in a STEM kind of job, but we're around plenty of two income STEM households and many are what The Millionaire Next Door authors called income affluent, not balance sheet affluent. A couple of our best friends retired early even though neither one had a big pension and they both had blue collar jobs their entire lives. They just had a lot of common sense with money. They've been great role models for us.

[Amethyst]

Yes indeed! And we are the ones usually stereotyped as sensible, vanilla, unambitious and boring! Tortoises, not hares, you know.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr._Graybeard Also, lots of retired public employees seem to gravitate to this forum.

[Amethyst]

I did not know that. How fun!

Quote:

Originally Posted by kcowan The Mexican word for retirement is jubilado (which is also jubilation). Nobody works if they don't have to. And nobody cares what you did, only what you are up to now.

[Amethyst]

You didn't say, but I think a lot of that "connotation" is that retired = old, and old = boring, and people don't want to think of themselves that way.

They like to think of themselves as continuing to make a contribution, whatever that is. Moving and shaking, whether in a small or larger sense.

Whereas my retired friends are probably making bigger contributions - some to their church and community, others to the cruise ship industry - than they ever could while devoting most of their time to work.

As for moving and shaking, Mr. A. took a great video of me dancing with a dozen little kids to the music of the African band at Disney's Animal Kingdom, but darnit, you mostly see his big ole thumb in the view. Now that is the kind of "moving and shaking" I was made to do.

Quote:

Originally Posted by skipro33 People have a connotation about the word RETIREMENT. Instead, use the words Financial Independence when describing what your plan is. The logical conclusion to stop working if you don't need the money is what is obvious. Simply saying you are gonna retire early is very confusing to someone who hadn't considered retirement as more than just getting too old to work or just how little extra effort is involved to realize.

[kcowan]

Well on my Facebook page, I have jubilado but I used to have independently wealthy. Is that not what FIRE is all about?

Of course, now it says "formerly independently wealthy"! Not sure what FB people will read into that!

[Meadbh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kcowan The Mexican word for retirement is jubilado (which is also jubilation). Nobody works if they don't have to. And nobody cares what you did, only what you are up to now.

The Mexicans get some things just right. 🇲🇽

[Winemaker]

Years ago while working in the bowels of mother earth in 1992, a coworker spoke to me about his daughter, who had just been hired as a corporate attorney for a national megacorp. She and her fellow new hires, were given 100 years of labor contracts for various labor unions, volumes of labor and ERISA laws. Their task, he said, was to find a legal way to terminate pensions and/or healthcare for their employees, because they said at the time, that the megacorp could not survive if it had to pay what was promised. That corporation has survived but is a fraction of its earlier size.

At that point, I realized if I was ever going to retire healthy and happy, that it would be up to DW and myself to achieve that goal. It was hard to swallow that "everyone was out to get us" but we truly believed it. So we stepped up our quest to amass assets, and accumulate we did. When it was announced that retirees would not receive healthcare benefits at my megacorp, we took it in stride. When the contractual language for DW's healthcare was parsed to exclude us, we took it in stride.

Call it crazy but we were/are ready. And we really didn't sacrifice that much to get here.
There may be other shoes to drop or kick us in the a$$ but we'll take it in stride, there is 99% more folks worse off than us. We have been truly blessed. And loco crazy.

[Johnora]

I retired last year at 52, at the time many friends were excited and wanted to know what and how I did it. My DW will retire on schedule in 2 years at 56. After they heard that this was a disciplined, intensive, retirement planning program that we put ourselves on, while living beneath our means, the excitement kind of waned and now we find it best not to mention to many of our friends how awesome it is to retire early unless they bring it.

Too many of my friends have never moved from the saving for retirement idea to the planning for retirement idea and give me the deer in the headlights look when we talk.