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by NSMutableSet 1211 days ago
I think I would need 1.2 million to retire, assuming I planned to not have a full-time job for 30 years afterwards. This is based on my annual spend being roughly ~$40,000, with interest and inflation (hopefully) cancelling each other out.

I don't see myself retiring unless I become unable to work in tech. Unless I somehow got rich.
2 comments
swatcoder 1211 days ago
> I don't see myself retiring unless I become unable to work in tech. Unless I somehow got rich.

Yeah, the classic vision of retirement is mostly a 20th century quirk from the era of pensions.

More generally, people just tend to do different work as they age, enjoy the growing support of people they were generous with or loyal to while they were younger, and eventually maybe get infirm and need full support for a little while.

If you worked yourself to death as a bureaucratic cog for forty years and need to finally reward yourself with a decade of full-time travel and golf, that’s fine, but there are other ways to have navigated the whole experience such that you don’t seed such a harsh transition (nor the giant stockpile of wealth that dream begs for).

For a lot of us “hacker” people that are careful not to burn ourselves out along the way, we’ll be tinkering on things that are valuable for people right up until the end and can expect some cash flow from that if we need it.

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jacquesm 1211 days ago
> enjoy the growing support of people they were generous with or loyal to while they were younger

Lucky them. This isn't the rule though. The rule is that they will be paying it forward to the next younger generation, not to pay it back to the one before.

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swatcoder 1211 days ago
It’s cultural.

But even among deeply Americanized families we’re already seeing a return to multi-generational households as independent living becomes harder for everyone. As that takes hold, you don’t see a lot of families throwing the old fella to the street just because he can’t pay an equal share of the rent anymore. Everybody’s just making it work together.

So we’ll see.

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sshine 1211 days ago
> I don't see myself retiring unless I become unable to work in tech. Unless I somehow got rich.

Assuming you get rich from working hard for many years:

With some probability, you really like your work.

My goal is to reach a point where not having to work makes me want to keep working.

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