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

Thrugelmir

ajfielden said:

Thrugelmir said:

RogerIrvine said:

Sir Alex Ferguson is reportedly paid £1to £2 million per annum. For nothing too hard. 

Manchester United is a business with a New York listing. Image is everything. The Glaziers know nothing about football. 

They don't need to. It's a business to them. All they do is delegate running of the club and provide money to buy players. Then watch the profits come flooding in.
Don't get me started on the disgusting amounts of money involved in football though.

Premier League is collectively around £4 billion in debt. Tick, tick, tick.......................

msallen

Thrugelmir said:

ajfielden said:

Thrugelmir said:

RogerIrvine said:

Sir Alex Ferguson is reportedly paid £1to £2 million per annum. For nothing too hard. 

Manchester United is a business with a New York listing. Image is everything. The Glaziers know nothing about football. 

They don't need to. It's a business to them. All they do is delegate running of the club and provide money to buy players. Then watch the profits come flooding in.
Don't get me started on the disgusting amounts of money involved in football though.

Premier League is collectively around £4 billion in debt. Tick, tick, tick.......................

Without wishing to go further off topic ...

As a Derby County supporter (and was a season ticket holder at the time) after the game suddenly got overtaken by the money-men and we built a new stadium in the late 1990s I used to say - "at least when all this goes bang we'll have a new ground to show for it". It's now looking as though I was being overly optimistic to think we'd hold on to the ground!

Pollycat

RogerIrvine said:

Tenure to a paying post seems to be an invaluable perk. For example septuagenarian Paul Dacre has recently demurred from re-applying 

for the prestigious chair of the kingdom's media regulator to be parachuted into a more lucrative private sector post. In his 80th year, great football manager Sir Alex Ferguson continues as Manchester United's Global Ambassador, after a stroke. 

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.

Writing as someone who took early retirement 18 years ago, I much prefer to focus on the things that interest me - although I did enjoy my job, I enjoyed my hobbies much more.

Work was never the best part of my life.
Work enabled me to do the things I enjoyed.

Maybe we weren't as frugal as some people with FIRE goal, but we always lived within our means. But we lived well.
When work colleagues were holidaying in 5* AI resorts, we stayed in small hotels.
When colleagues were driving BMW or Audi, we had a Yaris.

nigelbb

QrizB 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.

I guess the question is, do you ever intend to retire? And if so, under what circumstances? Typically it's one of:

• When you physically can't work any more, or
  
• When you have alternative sources of income and have something you'd rather do with your time.
  

There's nothing special about state pension age other than you gain one alternative source of income (the state pension). Some people might need to work past SPA, others will be financially independent before SPA and so can choose to work or not.

A nice bonus of working past state pension age is that you no longer pay National insurance so you get an instant 10% pay rise which in combination with your state pension can allow you to reduce your hours.

barnstar2077

RogerIrvine said:

Tenure to a paying post seems to be an invaluable perk. For example septuagenarian Paul Dacre has recently demurred from re-applying 

for the prestigious chair of the kingdom's media regulator to be parachuted into a more lucrative private sector post. In his 80th year, great football manager Sir Alex Ferguson continues as Manchester United's Global Ambassador, after a stroke. 

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.

The people you talk of aren't working.  Try doing a job where you are on your feet all day, working in a factory, or moving heavy boxes, where your breaks are monitored and targets must be hit.  Or you could try working in retail, or digging up roads, or waiting tables, then tell me that chairing a board or telling someone how to kick a ball around is working.  No one should have to work in a factory into their seventies to make ends meet. 

The people you mention clearly have skills that others don't, but they are at the top of the food chain, and physically hardly doing anything at all. 

Dazza1902

zagfles said:

Once you've got yourself into the position of being able to afford to retire, then your job can become your hobby. That's pretty much what I've done, and I would imagine the likes of Alex Ferguson have too. I doubt he's doing it for the money. So plan for FIRE, but the the RE as an option rather than an aim. The FI is the the important bit, then the RE becomes a choice, and you're no longer a "wage slave". The pressure is off at work.I don't need to worry about appraisals, about redundancies, about pleasing the boss. I avoid boring stuff at work, I refuse to do some stuff I'm really meant to, they know the score, they need me so they're not going to sack me, and if do, I don't really care.

Totally agree, I shall feel different about work once I have sufficient means and choice .
 I was reading an article which suggested that with a declining workforce , older people will need to stay in work otherwise economies will suffer. So will retiree's be guilted into work?
 I'm interested to know what proportion of workers expect/ in the position , to retire significantly early ? It's the goal for most of us on this forum, but doubt that we are the norm.

Spreadsheetman

I enjoyed my work (mostly). I enjoyed it even more when I knew I didn't have to do it to remain financially afloat. I might even be still working, albeit remotely and part-time, if the pandemic hadn't flattened the industry I worked in.

The RE part of the goal is wholly optional, the FI part is the important bit. Even if a person doesn't make it all the way to full FI, being able to go several years without a substantial income is essential when over 50. Well-paid jobs become much harder to find from that point onward.

jamesd

RogerIrvine said:

...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.

Tax considerations aren't relevant to wanting to have the ability to live without benefits if forced to retire early, or just wanting to retire early. Tax considerations are part of planning because at younger ages money in a pension isn't available and the state pension is a long way off, so alternative tax planning tools are needed.

I suppose some people might value the focus in jobs like:
1. being a receptionist or junior secretary
2. putting sprinkles at the same quantity on the same cake design eight hours a day
3. collecting rubbish
4. serving in a holiday resort restaurant
5. handling returns for Amazon

That's one example each from 9.7% + 6.2% + 10.3% + 9.1% + 7.3% = 42.6% of UK job types.

I suspect that most people would be glad to lose that focus from their lives, along with the restrictions on when they can do other things.

It seems more likely that you're thinking of professional jobs, which only 21% of people were in in 2019 For such jobs there can certainly be enjoyment but there's also reduced freedom and reduced ability to pick exactly what you want to do, exactly when you want to do it. Not working increases the freedoms but decreases the ability to do certain things, which can only be done in practice by those in a specific job.

The 2019 breakdown was:
11.4% managers, directors and senior officials
21.4% professional
14.5% associate professional and technical
9.7% administrative and secretarial
10.2% skilled trades
9.1% caring, leisure and other service
7.3 sales and customer service
6.2% process, plant and machine operative
10.3 elementary (street vendors, door to door and telesales, shoe cleaning, domestics, caretakers & cleaners, messengers, rubbish collectors,sweepers)

One reason I sought financial independence was wanting the freedom to do useful unremunerated things, like the thing I'd done that established something just about everyone with an internet connection uses today.

CloesUnc

I once told a friend that I was thinking of retiring early and she said incredulously "But what will you do with all your time?"

Now, THAT is a lack of imagination! 

As far as I'm concerned my job has allowed me to build enough savings and pensions to retire early...that was the purpose of my job, nothing more. I enjoy bits of it, yes, but not all of it.

I look back at my life and see nieces and nephews all grown up because I spent most of my time staring at a computer screen, and only visiting family twice or so a year. Where has all that time gone? Working!

Albermarle

Spreadsheetman said:

I enjoyed my work (mostly). I enjoyed it even more when I knew I didn't have to do it to remain financially afloat. I might even be still working, albeit remotely and part-time, if the pandemic hadn't flattened the industry I worked in.

The RE part of the goal is wholly optional, the FI part is the important bit. Even if a person doesn't make it all the way to full FI, being able to go several years without a substantial income is essential when over 50. Well-paid jobs become much harder to find from that point onward.

I agree with this and Zagfles earlier post .
Instead of FIRE - it should be 'FI then it is up to you whether you retire early or not , as it is now your decision '

After a takeover of the company I worked for ten years ago , I survived but not happily. If I had been FI then I would have seriously considered retiring within a year or two at age < 55. 
Following a spin off into a new entity, I was restored to my previous position, with new management I knew and got on with.
So despite reaching FI  two or three years ago , I stayed on until earlier this year , because I wanted to .

It is FI that is the important bit , as it gives you the choice .