Many of us will face this issue. What's the fix? What should we do now to prepare?
Assuming the above, best case, you work as long as you want to work (until retirement and/or death). Worst case, you're not in poverty when you're no longer able to find work. "It is what it is."
This was among the best advice the man who raised me ever offered.
Decades later, I still live (alone, thankfully!) in a shithole rental without health insurance in a mid-sized USA metro, for less than $2000/month (all expenses). No contracts, cash only; I own my car; no cell phone/email/subscriptions.
My savings grow silently and (immensely &) although my current living arrangement isn't ideal, it is easy. Money unfortunately is among few door-openers for strangers in new cities, you just have to know how to live lesserly.
Previously, my IBEW data center experience allowed me to save/invest enough that I don't have to work any more than extremely part-time, which is how I continue choosing to live. Needing benefits will eventually bring me back into full-time employment, which I dread, existentially...
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This isn't a lifestyle that anybody with dependants nor romantic interests could easily manage – I've dated two women in the past decade, and they were both eccentrics (as well). But I live well (to my own enjoyments): haven't set an alarm clock in many many many many years...
Us crazies ("I'm on the fun side of crazy," I like to profess) rarely stumble across one-another. Write me a postcard: I'll let you squat in the flat next door for a week; if you get chased out, I also have a shed (air conditioned, but 100sqft).
I've been dying to visit Slovenia (or other poorer EU countries). I'll write back – used to couchsurf before endless eternal septembers.
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Would love to read a blog post about your EU travels after you make it there. Come back with stories and experience to share.
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It starts in Oakland, decades ago, after dropping out of medical school to grow marijuana in abandoned warehouses and taken-over houses – with occassional farmed drug muling, to pay bills – eventually discovering the rewards and consequences of blue collar livelihood.
Years later, I'd meet a longlost supplier (after serving time) and eventually work at the local charity he helped found after his imprisonment.
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Still writing chapters, hopefully. The world is certainly weirder than anybody can voluntarily choose to make it.
[Chapter 9: impulsive EU vacationing with internet strangers]
Thanks for the midday distraction; hope your sun sets well (looking forward to your eventual postcard). I have nothing else to offer but time, words, and (possibly) a squat =P
The last several folks I've dated have been very odd people, mostly living in vehicles.
I don't have health insurance, either. Or indoor plumbing.
But I do play a lot of music, have time to volunteer, and only take work that requires an alarm clock when I feel like it.
It was the simplest of women whom I enjoyed partnering with, most (a mail carrier, a SF bartender that lived in her van and my grow shed). My last two attempts were with an attorney and then a stripper (both women lied professionally for a living... so not much difference IMHO; I met them both as neighbors).
As I enter my seventh year of celibacy, I am strengthened by finally having gotten my earlylife sexuality under control – maybe it's just aging, but I suspect that Tinder-like dating is what ruined courtship (for me, and many others). After a single 2014 "netflix & chill" hookup, I have never utilized such a meat-market app again (happy for the majority that now do; I just think it's devalued both genders, the "fairer sex" more).
/ramble
I have no plans, and hope I can keep this charade ongoing (for at least another decade). After leaving medical school (almost) two decades ago, I have no plans to die within the mercy of our $American $Healthcare $System™. Wishing you continued simplicity in your mountainous adventures (OR and CO are my top US destinations).
I unwillingly ended up doing the same: M34, fully paid flat in a fairly large city, no car, no ex wifes, no kids, no debt of any kind. My monthly fixed expenses are just bills (electric power, natural gas, internet), public transportation and groceries. Everything else (very little) is a monthly subscription i can stop paying if something goes wrong.
I save most of my paycheque (around 60-70%).
Can confirm that after splitting up with my last girlfriend my monthly expenses went down dramatically.
I am not F.I.R.E. myself ("financially independent, retire early"), but their general rule is that if you save 2/3rds of your paycheck (and don't change your expenditures), you can retire after about a decade of working.
Congrats on your achievement!
>I unwillingly ended up doing the same
I consider myself among the luckiest people I've ever met, however strange life has been (and simple mine seems, to outsiders). Are you happy or sad about your current simplicity (I cannot tell from your wordchoice "unwillingly")?
Yeah I’m around that saving rate but it’s a fairly new thing for me, to which i’m still getting used to. I guess if all goes well i might be able to retire in ten years.
I’ll be honest, i don’t really count on that. I don’t have hard evidence but i have a strong feeling/intuition that advice was valid in the old world but might not be valid in the future world.
> Are you happy or sad about your current simplicity (I cannot tell from your wordchoice "unwillingly")?
I wrote “unwillingly” because my initial plans on how to use the flat i live in and how to employ my current earn rate was radically different than what I’m doing right now. Life took a different turn. Such is life, I guess.
I am not unhappy. I am acutely aware I am moderately successful (i don’t call myself “privileged” or “lucky” - i built my current situation) and that there are a lot of people in much worse situations than i currently am (heck, that was me ten years ago).
I am old enough to understand things come and go. This is a somewhat flat (but stable) part of my life. Happier times will come, sadder time will come, more tumultuous time will come, more exciting times will come: such is life.
>advice [that] was valid in the old world but might not be valid in the future world
Nor even now.
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>"When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game." –Toni Morrison (Nobel Author, for Beloved (a novel) [1987])
...quoted with no shade to you...
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>"Just remember Neo, all I'm offering is the Truth" –Matrix
>"They hated him because he told the Truth" –Galatians 4:?
Also, huge swaths of the younger populations can't do this at all because lots of them are not even given the opportunity to work a job (either any job, or a job that will allow them to have any noticeable amount of savings while remaining housed). This will only get worse, the door is already shut for some people.
> Also, huge swaths of the younger populations can't do this at all because lots of them are not even given the opportunity to work a job (either any job, or a job that will allow them to have any noticeable amount of savings while remaining housed). This will only get worse, the door is already shut for some people.
Strong agree. Either policy will fix this or a generation will be lost. It's terrible, tragic, and I/we have little control over this. Do what you can, where you are, with what you have.
"When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.” -- Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison (i am doing my part, to the best of my ability, to free and empower others, ymmv)
There's nothing wrong with self-cultivation and education, but such breaks are risky even if you're doing them as part of an approved sabbatical. You need to go into them with a backup plan just in case the job market collapses while you're out (switch careers, lean on a strong social network, FIRE, etc.)
Fir most fire gurus the FI part of FIRE mean a bunch of stocks and bonds and etfs in their portfolio. But how would that work if/when the market collapses?
The reality is the author worked in PR and Comms in the UK.