I would. Imagine getting paid to be outdoors in the sun getting exercise. Imagine not having to spend an extra hour each day in a crowded gym doing boring repetitive movements because your sedentary job would ruin your body otherwise. Imagine not having posture and back problems at age 30. Imagine having the output of a hard days work be a physical object you can point to your son and say “see? I made that”.
> Imagine getting paid to be outdoors in the sun getting exercise.
Combine that with - imagine being outside when it's cold, windy and raining - and you still have to do an 8 hour shift in those conditions. At minimum, it sounds like a fast-track to arthritis (a painful and non-curable condition that will plague you for the rest of your life). Or, imagine doing hard, physical labor for 8 hours in sweltering heat, which makes other human people avoid going out at all.
If you are an American SWE or have a corresponding salary, you pretty much only have to work for 10 or so years before retiring, assuming you learn how personal finance works and learn to live without a fancy car or any status-related possessions.
Heck you could do it in 5 years if you are a FAANG employee.
I’m not sure you could do it in 5 years at a FAANG even if you saved every penny (literally zero living expenses.)
Because if you start a career at 22, that means you retire at 27, and have to have enough saved up for something like 40 years before social security kicks in. That’s a long time to be living off of savings. Can you have enough that you can live off the interest in your investments? Depends. You’d need near-zero-risk investments because you don’t want to get wiped out at the next recession (they happen every 10-ish years) and those tend to have low yields.
Source: I’m 10 years into a faang and I have a bunch saved up, but I’m still in my 30s. There’s no way I could retire now with my wife and kids depending on me, the amount I make on the interest of my investments isn’t nearly enough and is too risky.
I'll admit 5 years was hyperbolic and unrealistic, perhaps something reserved for the most promising workers at those FAANGs. But if you are 10 years into your FAANG career, you should be earning at minimum in the 300K net/210k take home range, and have done so for years. At this point you must be trading freedom for creature comforts or status goods if you are not financially independent.
What’s financially independent mean at age 35? Say you saved 200k every year (which isn’t even technically possible given that the typical tax rate for 300k means a smaller net than that.) You have 2 million in the bank. Can you live off 2 million for 30 years (social security age) while supporting a family as the sole earner, for that long? You gotta be really confident in your investments to take that plunge.
Well it depends on your personal circumstances. As per the 4% rule, you can definitely live off $80K with a family. That's above the US median wage by a large margin. You could live on $40K too, which is terrible if working but completely different if not. Again, this will depend on what you value in life.
Think about what not having to work actually means. There's a list of advantages that is too large to properly enumerate. Being able to see your children. Eating correctly and cheaply. Engaging in intimate relationships with vigor, time and energy. Being in great health. Fixing maintenance problems yourself. No career forcing you to live in a particular place. Traveling inexpensively when you want. Less obesity, stress and copium. Have hobbies and self-actualization. All of this in years that still qualify as your prime instead of when your body is failing you. The same salary when not working is like operating in a different world.
And ironically this would also give you the time to pursue entrepreneurship or any number of money-making ventures if you are so inclined. Heck, just go part-time if you miss it. If you are a FAANG person you can have a higher salary than people's full time.
Most people will not have that opportunity. I certainly won't, barring some miracle. But you have it. What will you do when you retire at 55 and realize that pretty much all of the really healthy years of your life have been spent in an office? Great, you've got a comfy retirement but it's too late.
The premise is you only need about 20-25 years of expenses saved up and have like a 90+% success rate given history. That's what the FIRE ideology started with. Anything beyond 25 years is security/luxury. For a single person not having others depend on them and willing to locate away from any expensive mega-/metropolis, FAANG did make that doable in 5-10 years.
> The premise is you only need about 20-25 years of expenses saved up
What happens in 20-25 years, if you’re 35 now? Your net worth hits zero right when you turn 55-60, and have years left until you get social security? All so that you can live with zero luxuries for the best years of your life, and have no family to pass anything onto?
I’m sorry but it just seems like a huge misplacement of priorities to me, to forego so much potential to retire that early.
To me, the priority is the ability to simply say “fuck off” to my boss if I’ve had enough one day, and have enough saved up to absorb the mistake, if it turned out to be one. Having that fallback in the back of my mind means I’ve basically already won, I’m just racking up the score until that day comes. But until that day, there’s zero reason not to continue banking everything I have. Deciding “that’s probably enough, I should walk away now” at age 35 seems like one of the biggest mistakes you can make. 50? Maybe. 45? Maybe not. But 35? Huge mistake IMO.
I'll walk back on the five years FAANG claim as I was venting a bit. But let's say you earn $200K (you'd start with less but end up with more at the 5 year mark), $135-165K take home, $105K if you save 70% of your salary. If we count compound interest, investments, stocks, healthcare savings due to generous SWE contracts, you could definitely achieve freedom if you wanted to with the 4% rule. It would require abandoning some luxury, but even on 30% of your take home salary you would have a decent lifestyle, more than most make total. And then you'd be in a position to do what you want, be as healthy as you need to be, no longer a need to buy things to make you forget about your servitude. You could travel on the cheap with longer flights because you would have time to do so.
Let's say I'm wrong, and it's more like 15-18 years. Well, that's still much much much better than what most people get. You can have decades of your life back. How much of your freedom are toys and consumption worth?
Ok, but then you'd have spent your entire unrecoverable youth working for a FAANG. I realize this doesn't bother some people, and I don't understand that.
