FIRE? Unless you hate or are bad at your job, isn't work the best part of life?

zagfles

eastcorkram said:

mgdavid said:

RogerIrvine said:

.........

Acknowledged that us in the middling MSE crowd don't have that leverage, still, isn't it better to have the focus of a job? I may be wrong and obviously no disrespect intended  but get the impression that tax-considerations or, even worse, a failure of imagination lies behind this FIRE goal.

Complete opposite. I call it a failure of imagination to think there is nothing you want to do more than work / be a wage slave / /salary servant / call it what you will. The saddest and least inspiring people I know are those who don't know what to do with themselves after retirement.

That'll be me then 😃. I have no idea, and I'm already 62. It's not as though I love my job, it's just what I do. 

 Apart from doing some sort of voluntary work. Pretty much all of the usual things that people talk about doing when they retire , sound awful to me. I wouldn't be doing them even if I was getting paid to. Kind of sad, I know, and I've no idea how I've ended up like that, but it is genuine. 

What do you do when you're not working, at weekends, when on leave etc? I think most people just do more of what they already do in their spare time, rather than embark on something completely new.

Albermarle

That'll be me then 😃. I have no idea, and I'm already 62. It's not as though I love my job, it's just what I do. 

I was the same , I did not love my job, but I did not hate it either . It was flexible and paid well and critically I had a good boss who lived hundreds of miles away in a foreign country .Also I do not have a lot of hobbies ( not ones that take up loads of time anyway ) or a busy social calendar, but I seemed to have settled into retirement ( same age as you) quite well . Also it has given my OH some more free time from family duties , so it is not always just about how retirement  affects you, but its wider impact .

Complete opposite. I call it a failure of imagination to think there is nothing you want to do more than work / be a wage slave / /salary servant / call it what you will. The saddest and least inspiring people I know are those who don't know what to do with themselves after retirement.

On the other side you could say spending most of your working life  thinking of yourself as wage slave , is not very productive/happy use of the many years spent at work .

RogerIrvine

"They fear that once they are free of that guidance they become lost among a sea of possibilities and they will have no idea where to start organising their own time, or how to manage themselves." - ChloesUnc. Well, a little bit, I suppose, but what about the good side of work culture- office intrigues, the feeling you get when you achieve something together, the Christmas parties!!? 

Mainly, though, "early retirement" just seems a wan aspiration. One can picture Edward VIII making the case.

Dazza1902

The majority of the workforce are wage slaves, very few make a real difference. Its hardly surprising that after 40 years it comes as a shock to have the choice not to work. Retirement will be a challenge, thankfully we rarely hear posters talk about being miserable  and depressed when they leave work, it must happen though?

Albermarle

Dazza1902 said:

The majority of the workforce are wage slaves, very few make a real difference. Its hardly surprising that after 40 years it comes as a shock to have the choice not to work. Retirement will be a challenge, thankfully we rarely hear posters talk about being miserable  and depressed when they leave work, it must happen though?

Posters on here are only a very small , almost self selected group.
You can not read anything into how the wider population thinks about retirement from a few comments on this forum .

Dazza1902

Albermarle said:

Dazza1902 said:

The majority of the workforce are wage slaves, very few make a real difference. Its hardly surprising that after 40 years it comes as a shock to have the choice not to work. Retirement will be a challenge, thankfully we rarely hear posters talk about being miserable  and depressed when they leave work, it must happen though?

Posters on here are only a very small , almost self selected group.
You can not read anything into how the wider population thinks about retirement from a few comments on this forum .

Very true, the majority of posters are in a better position than most. Generally posters are financially prepared for retirement. It also seems that most posters have had careers as opposed to 'jobs", not too many miss working.
 My guess is for people totally unprepared for retirement they would miss the money and not the work. 

Phrygian

bostonerimus said:

Nebulous2 said:

zagfles said:

ex-pat_scot said:

MallyGirl said:

Probably best that I don't elaborate on the greenhouse I went to look at last week !

We are all different and the have to do what works for us as individuals

The key (in my opinion) is to know yourself and to spend intentionally.
That's not the same as "cheap", but differs from person to person.
I do spend on high end stuff, for certain matters.
I can't ever have enough money to satisfy all my "wants", but more than enough for my "needs".

You can by cheap functional greenhouses, and beautifully-made ones that are robust, add value and give more years of service. If you have sufficient, and will make use of it, then there is no reason to deny yourself.
You can't have the best of everything you want, but you can certainly have the best of the things that are most important to you.

F'rinstance - mountaineering fleeces. 
You can buy cheap <£10 ones.
I spent a large part of my student grant on a Patagonia one, justified at the time by the Alpine adventures I was up to. I'm wearing it all week this week.  Bought in 1988.

The point isn't "cheap" or "expensive", it's getting value!! If a fleece costs £300 and lasts 30 years whereas a cheap one costs £10 and lasts less than a year, clearly the more expensive one is better value. Or if you buy a £2000 bike which you use every day for 10 years then spending an extra £1800 on something you get slightly better enjoyment from on a daily basis is probably good value.

But with a lot of stuff, there is minimal value from paying sometimes considerably more, as per some of the examples earlier. As discussed a lot of people fall into the trap of thinking they need costly additional fluff which doesn't really add value, and as a result they don't achieve FI. We're probably all guilty of this to some extent with some products and services, but some people do it with practically everything they buy! And as a result, can't achieve FI when they want, or even ever.

Lifestyle choices - people may well be frugal in some areas and not in others. I've probably had more cars below £1000 than over it in the course of my life. I've few financial ambitions and we have brought up a family on one relatively modest salary. By comparison with others on here - though it was relatively decent by comparison with most people working in care, which is where I've spent my life. 

I started cycling around 10 years ago however, and it changed my life. Spending on that has gradually increased, from budget equipment to higher end stuff as our finances improved. I'd now regard a £2000 bike as a moderate one. My new titanium one, which should arrive tomorrow, was more than twice that. 

In some ways I may be too late to benefit from it.

I remember somebody in my local selling his business, retiring and buying himself a fancy new car. The regulars were split between envy and scorn.  The barman's comment was: - "God gives us nuts when we're too old to crack them." 

I'm a n+1 bike owner too. My frames are either steel or carbon. My holidays usually consist of strapping camping equipment to my Specialized Diverge and heading somewhere exciting. I've ridden across the USA and Canada, Iceland and plan to ride the length of the UK once Covid has quietened down.

Been there, done that.

I'm now n-1 with bikes. Going down the basic/moderate level components designed to fit and perform exactly how I like it, so extremely wide gear range, high bars (bad back) etc, all tinkered with from older components I had.

That said, I like the idea of building a shed full of rat bikes salvaged from the tip etc. (retirement pottering)

For me I get more enjoyment that way, as I can be more crazy and experimental with things. Stock bikes leave me cold, cost a fortune and never have the fit/gear range that I'm after in the first place.

I'm the same with guitars, tinker with older cheaper ones rather than buying the latest one rave-reviewed on YT.

CloesUnc

RogerIrvine said:

"They fear that once they are free of that guidance they become lost among a sea of possibilities and they will have no idea where to start organising their own time, or how to manage themselves." - ChloesUnc. Well, a little bit, I suppose, but what about the good side of work culture- office intrigues, the feeling you get when you achieve something together, the Christmas parties!!? 

Mainly, though, "early retirement" just seems a wan aspiration. One can picture Edward VIII making the case.

Hmmm...each to their own I suppose. But I don't need to rely on work for intrigue, achieving something together, or enjoying Christmas parties. But if you feel you have to then please fill your boots. 

zagfles

RogerIrvine said:

"They fear that once they are free of that guidance they become lost among a sea of possibilities and they will have no idea where to start organising their own time, or how to manage themselves." - ChloesUnc. Well, a little bit, I suppose, but what about the good side of work culture- office intrigues, the feeling you get when you achieve something together, the Christmas parties!!? 

Mainly, though, "early retirement" just seems a wan aspiration. One can picture Edward VIII making the case.

The retired guys still come to our Christmas parties, it's good to catch up with them!

Having gone part time/semi-retired and in a position where I can afford to retire I get the best of both worlds, I now "don't have time" for the boring stuff at work and concentrate on the enjoyable stuff, as there's no need to try to impress anyone to climb the greasy pole or avoid redundancies.

RogerIrvine

CloesUnc, I'm retired (just) . And there's a lot about work that I miss.
"Best of both worlds" is a nice thought, zagfles, but I'm not sure reunions really work like that, after the polite stage. When it's over, it's over.