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They don't see hiring someone to do the housework so they can go to a job they don't like as buying their time back. I would personally see that as a higher paid slave hiring a lower paid slave. Kind of a pecking order of slavery. Neither one really has much free time or control over their time. Most likely, neither one is really doing work that they enjoy doing.
I personally couldn't hire anyone to clean or cook for me for this reason. Also, too, the routines are very manageable with my more minimalist lifestyle. Making dinner or getting the house cleaned gives me a sense of accomplishment and instant gratification, which, as you know, tends to be eschewed in the FIRE community. In this context instant gratification is perfectly reasonable and desirable. I guess I feel quite fortunate that I don't need much stimulation to experience contentment. It means I don't struggle to live a FIRE lifestyle.
I like my career. Do I like it as much as my free time? No. But my free time is enhanced by my career because of what I’m able to experience because of it.
I can relate to the financial independence people. I think most jobs/careers are BS, to be honest--and many people in the financial independence crowd feel the same way. Even the more honorable and noble jobs/careers are rife with inefficiency, politics, and other nonsense that make them inefficient, ineffective, unnecessarily stressful, or all 3. (I'm thinking of things like health care and teaching, but there are plenty of others). Other people are ok with squeezing stuff in on the weekends and vacations. The FI crowd typically isn't, though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thatsright19
Whose to say I don’t also have 100k in my 401k too?
The specific account balance wasn't the point. The point was that the savings rate as a percentage of income is a more important metric than the gross account balance. It was also about translating that balance into something tangible--in this case--units of time. For people who want more independence/control over their time (and location...you can live in more places if you don't have to work for money). They see a rising account balance not just as a number on a screen or piece of paper, but as a means to get the life they want most. And for the FI crowd, that means having a level of flexibility and freedom that you just don't get with a typical full time job/career.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thatsright19
Slavery? Really...? I guess we’ll agree to disagree.
Yes, we do. That's the crux of the matter. It's a values thing and you really can't argue your values. People value what they value. They want what they want. It's really more a question of making a conscious choice. A lot of people--even higher income people--don't even know that there are other possibilities besides working until age 65 if they make a conscious choice to live life differently.
That's great if you can do what you really love (at least most of the time) and earn a good income at it. A lot of us aren't wired that way, unfortunately. But I think it's great for people who can pull it off. The only caveat is you may not always be able to work for active income, so saving a decent chunk of your active income from a job you love is still essential.
My income is almost entirely passive, outside of my company. So I admit to being extremely fortunate in that regard, as it does allow me to pursue my passion as a career without the same risk of failure. I mean, the risk is still as far as I'm concerned immense because I'm simply not happy with the little things in life. Well, I don't know, "happy" is a complicated word. Somewhat happy, I guess, but not content. I don't find it's enough, I suppose is how I'd put it.
It's like someone else here just said, we're all wired differently. Purely making money for the sake of it hasn't ever really interested me, it was more about making money for using it as a tool to pursue what I really want. For most of my life, all I really care about is movies and filmmaking, that's my passion, so a life devoid of pursuit at least in that regard feels like peaceable mediocrity. Sure, I can enjoy my time with friends, my hobbies (of which I have many, too many really), nice meals, all kinds of other things. I've just never been the kind of person who is really all that happy with that. I'm achievement-oriented, so what brings me true joy is accomplishment. Even then, it has to be accomplishment at my chosen path and nothing mundane (ahem, cleaning a house doesn't make me happy lol).
I don't know if there's a purely diplomatic way to put it, but it's best summed up by some sort of "hierarchy of needs," whichever one you're consulting. If someone is struggling just to survive, just the very basics, then a steady career path of ANY sort that puts food on the table and a roof over your head is a big step in the right direction and absolutely will bring real happiness (for a while). If someone has a steady career but little of life's bells and whistles, like not even money for simple vacations, or a nicer TV or maybe just cable with HBO, then a big step up would be a higher paying career to enjoy life a little bit more. Then maybe a step up from that is a very well paying career that provides almost all of life's bells and whistles, the luxurious that make the Joneses keep up with YOU.
At some point, that terminates in, "I have all of the money I will ever need to live life at a high level, doing whatever I want, whenever I want to do it" and I'm sure that to anyone else on the lower rungs of the ladder that sounds like amazing bliss, like the greatest thing in the world, and like anyone who couldn't be happy with that is just a sad person who doesn't know how to enjoy life. I'm sorry to say, though, that's just not true. It's not enough. You can wake up every day, do whatever you want to do, but if you're motivated by achievement then you have a need to accomplish bigger goals, to find your "purpose" or calling. That could be whatever, but that's the highest level of achievement, where you work because you WANT to work, doing what you love doing, and if what you really love doing is retiring at age 40 having done nothing but save money, I would be really surprised if you could show me a winner who would be happy with that life.
I worry that if your only goal is "to retire" or "to be financially independent," you're missing out on thinking, "What do I really want from life?" Because it's a purely negative desire to "not have to work anymore," rather than a positive desire like, "I want to do meaningful work on my own terms that brings me recognition, happiness, and fulfillment." Most people who are extremely wealthy still work, and it's not because they're too stupid or naive to understand there's "another life." It's because they love what they do. I can only tolerate about a week of doing nothing but hobbies or having fun or going on vacation before I'm itching to work toward my goals.
I think this is the same reason that you will see someone who is, say, a teacher living an ordinary middle class American lifestyle but absolutely LOVES teaching, because it was always their life dream, and they're happier than the dude pulling down $500K a year on Wall Street or whatever because one person pursued their dreams and achieved them, and they're living the dream every day, the other person is still trying to find what makes them really happy. Those same people can get almost resentful, and you see the results of that. They could, for instance, be kind of a jerk to other people making far less money, almost like they simply must cling onto the idea that they're superior because of their income, because they feel less happy inside and it drives them crazy. They might even think, "Why am I not happier than this simpleton?! I make ten times as much money, I went to Southern France last summer for two weeks! My life is amazing!" But your life isn't amazing unless you're living YOUR dream, not someone else's dream, not making the most money possible, but pursuing your goal as a human being to the maximum extent possible.
My best friend's dream was to be a police officer, and in our area at least, it's a very selective, tough path that took him years to achieve (and he ended up having several college degrees before he got the job!). With his majors in business and accounting, who knows, maybe he could have made more money doing something else with his life. But he didn't want to do those things, he wanted to be a police officer, and he loves it. Every time we hang out, he has interesting stories to tell, he can't believe he gets paid for driving around in a squad car and playing with cool gadgets, and he isn't the kind of guy who needs a huge income to be happy. He bought a house after one year, it's a nice place for a single guy, and he is very frugal, saves more than half of his income. He'll be that kind of dude who retires after 30 years with a huge sum of money and people won't believe he was a police officer, because his savings rate is enormous. He likes the OT he works, he asks for it. For him, he's living the dream. I just think it's silly to judge someone else based on how much their dream pays. If they love what they do, they've achieved at the highest level as far as I'm concerned.
That's probably the biggest reason people say money doesn't buy happiness. Because money doesn't buy a life purpose or life goal; only you can do that.
I don't know if there's a purely diplomatic way to put it, but it's best summed up by some sort of "hierarchy of needs," whichever one you're consulting. If someone is struggling just to survive, just the very basics, then a steady career path of ANY sort that puts food on the table and a roof over your head is a big step in the right direction and absolutely will bring real happiness (for a while). If someone has a steady career but little of life's bells and whistles, like not even money for simple vacations, or a nicer TV or maybe just cable with HBO, then a big step up would be a higher paying career to enjoy life a little bit more. Then maybe a step up from that is a very well paying career that provides almost all of life's bells and whistles, the luxurious that make the Joneses keep up with YOU.
At some point, that terminates in, "I have all of the money I will ever need to live life at a high level, doing whatever I want, whenever I want to do it" and I'm sure that to anyone else on the lower rungs of the ladder that sounds like amazing bliss, like the greatest thing in the world, and like anyone who couldn't be happy with that is just a sad person who doesn't know how to enjoy life. I'm sorry to say, though, that's just not true. It's not enough. You can wake up every day, do whatever you want to do, but if you're motivated by achievement then you have a need to accomplish bigger goals, to find your "purpose" or calling. That could be whatever, but that's the highest level of achievement, where you work because you WANT to work, doing what you love doing
All of this is really spot on and well said.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JonathanLB
and if what you really love doing is retiring at age 40 having done nothing but save money, I would be really surprised if you could show me a winner who would be happy with that life.
This gets talked about a lot in the FI community. It turns out a lot of FI people want to be FI because they want to do something else without the stress of having to earn an income to put food on the table. Others just want the freedom, but once they get it, they find it a bit disorienting and disappointing. Having a lot of free, unstructured time without a sense of purpose is not a healthy thing...so you definitely do need to have a plan/purpose for what you're going to do once you become FI.
This is also where the Internet Retirement Police come in. They accuse anyone who actually does anything that earns any money after FI of not being retired / FI. What they don't get is that the point of being FI isn't to sit around all day and do nothing and/or only do things that don't pay anything. The point is, as Mr. Money Mustache said in a talk a year or so ago "Work gets better when you don't have to do it for money.". Looking at my own life, I see this is true. I'm not FI yet, but I'm quasi-FI. I know if things got really bad, annoying I could leave. It might be a pain, and at this point it would still come at significant cost. Butt barring something extreme, I could live a basic lifestyle for more than a few years without a paycheck. If you get paid to do something you like/love doing and you have the freedom to walk away if you change your mind without worrying how to pay the bills...that's a great life, IMO.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JonathanLB
I worry that if your only goal is "to retire" or "to be financially independent," you're missing out on thinking, "What do I really want from life?" Because it's a purely negative desire to "not have to work anymore," rather than a positive desire like, "I want to do meaningful work on my own terms that brings me recognition, happiness, and fulfillment." Most people who are extremely wealthy still work, and it's not because they're too stupid or naive to understand there's "another life." It's because they love what they do. I can only tolerate about a week of doing nothing but hobbies or having fun or going on vacation before I'm itching to work toward my goals.
I think this is the same reason that you will see someone who is, say, a teacher living an ordinary middle class American lifestyle but absolutely LOVES teaching, because it was always their life dream, and they're happier than the dude pulling down $500K a year on Wall Street or whatever because one person pursued their dreams and achieved them, and they're living the dream every day, the other person is still trying to find what makes them really happy. Those same people can get almost resentful, and you see the results of that. They could, for instance, be kind of a jerk to other people making far less money, almost like they simply must cling onto the idea that they're superior because of their income, because they feel less happy inside and it drives them crazy. They might even think, "Why am I not happier than this simpleton?! I make ten times as much money, I went to Southern France last summer for two weeks! My life is amazing!" But your life isn't amazing unless you're living YOUR dream, not someone else's dream, not making the most money possible, but pursuing your goal as a human being to the maximum extent possible.
My best friend's dream was to be a police officer, and in our area at least, it's a very selective, tough path that took him years to achieve (and he ended up having several college degrees before he got the job!). With his majors in business and accounting, who knows, maybe he could have made more money doing something else with his life. But he didn't want to do those things, he wanted to be a police officer, and he loves it. Every time we hang out, he has interesting stories to tell, he can't believe he gets paid for driving around in a squad car and playing with cool gadgets, and he isn't the kind of guy who needs a huge income to be happy. He bought a house after one year, it's a nice place for a single guy, and he is very frugal, saves more than half of his income. He'll be that kind of dude who retires after 30 years with a huge sum of money and people won't believe he was a police officer, because his savings rate is enormous. He likes the OT he works, he asks for it. For him, he's living the dream. I just think it's silly to judge someone else based on how much their dream pays. If they love what they do, they've achieved at the highest level as far as I'm concerned.
That's probably the biggest reason people say money doesn't buy happiness. Because money doesn't buy a life purpose or life goal; only you can do that.
Yes, I agree with all of that. Great example with your cop friend.
Haha I don't even know much about MMM, well outside of what I've read here. Great points though, mysticaltyger. I think work only sucks if it's something you don't want to be doing and you feel it's pointless or not contributing to your own development, but just someone else's.
I personally wouldn't want to retire, I'd always like to be creating, because as long as I'm alive I have a desire to create. I would only "retire" if I couldn't actually work anymore. I'm a bigger fan of just taking breaks throughout life, which works well enough for me to recharge. Sometimes, it's good to have a few months where you take it easy, do some work, but not all out all of the time, and you let the hunger grow again.
So many things are much better when you don't have to do them. School manages to suck the fun out of a lot of learning by making you recite specific pieces of information and being nervous you'll forget some obscure fact for "the test." It's a really lame way to learn, whereas being an adult I'll sometimes find myself lost on Wikipedia for an hour just reading stuff that interests me. But if someone forced me to read it, it would not be as much fun.
Haha I don't even know much about MMM, well outside of what I've read here. Great points though, mysticaltyger. I think work only sucks if it's something you don't want to be doing and you feel it's pointless or not contributing to your own development, but just someone else's.
I personally wouldn't want to retire, I'd always like to be creating, because as long as I'm alive I have a desire to create. I would only "retire" if I couldn't actually work anymore. I'm a bigger fan of just taking breaks throughout life, which works well enough for me to recharge. Sometimes, it's good to have a few months where you take it easy, do some work, but not all out all of the time, and you let the hunger grow again.
So many things are much better when you don't have to do them. School manages to suck the fun out of a lot of learning by making you recite specific pieces of information and being nervous you'll forget some obscure fact for "the test." It's a really lame way to learn, whereas being an adult I'll sometimes find myself lost on Wikipedia for an hour just reading stuff that interests me. But if someone forced me to read it, it would not be as much fun.
OK at this point you guys are pretty much plagiarizing MMM.
It's not plagiarizing as long as we give him credit.
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