Posted by Tim Stobbs on May 12, 2010
So there is another round of thought running around the blog world about is early retirement selfish (see here and here)? The answer of course is: yes! Yet not in a bad way. I think everyone is inherently selfish to a degree. How much varies from person to person, but in the end we all are a bit. The issue with early retirement is people for some reason assume you are no longer a productive member of society and thus try to put that selfish bit in a negative light.
The issue of course is life isn’t so simple. Let’s examine a few things. Is buying a new TV selfish? Yes, I think we could argue no one would die without a TV so it isn’t a need. So if that is true then buying a big house is selfish, and so is buying a new car every five years. Yet when you choose not to buy the new TV, the big house or the new cars is that selfish by choosing to save the money instead? On the one hand is you are just keeping some savings for emergencies or regular retirement I think people would consider it more prudent planning than being selfish. Yet if that is the case, where is the line between prudent planning and being selfish? If you retire one year early are you selfish? Likely not, so why is doing it five, ten or even twenty years any different? In reality there is no difference other than the difference you build in your mind. So why do you feel there is a difference? I’ll take a stab at this, you feel guilty about retiring early.
Which brings us back to the concept of a productive member of society. I think for some reason people assume that early retirement means doing nothing and thus you are not productive. Yet that is a false assumption. People are never doing nothing. Kids who are five and under don’t attend school and don’t have a job, so in some people’s definitions of productive would be seen to be doing nothing. Yet in reality we know small kids are learning machines who are figuring out balance and gross motor control, fine motor control, language skills, defining their environment, learning object permanence and literally thousands of other little things that you take for granted every day of your life. There are definitely not doing nothing. The same applies to early retirees, they might appear on the surface to be doing much but the reality is they are learning gardening or a new language, helping others, starting small business, driving up your property value by picking up trash on their morning walk…you get the idea. If you try to call early retirees unproductive members of society you might as well extend that to small kids or even artists since they don’t produce things that people need or pay enough tax. The label of unproductive is really, again, just in your head.
So after deconstructing those two concepts it easy to see early retirement is only selfish (in a bad way) and unproductive if you want it to be. Yes early retirement will always be partly motivated by selfish goals, but that doesn’t mean it is a bad goal. Early retirees do have the difficultly of adjusting to find more meaning in their life than just their career. Most working people don’t have to think of how they contribute to the world, they just assume it is their job. Which is sort of silly when you consider how many useless paper pushing jobs there are out in the workplace. It’s entirely possible by retiring early you will contribute more to society than you ever did as a working stiff.
So in the end you need to find your own answer to: why do you want to retire early? I won’t judge the answer, but you will in our own mind. If you get it wrong, then you will feel guilty. So be honest with yourself and really think about the question.
So why do you want to retire early? In my case, I want more time to learn and write. How about you?
Posted by Dave on March 23, 2010
Have you ever read a book or website that has completely changed your way of thinking? I was thinking about this as I was reading the book “Good Calories Bad Calories, Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control and Disease”. Although I am not finished it yet, I have found it very engrossing as it challenges the majority of nutrition wisdom around low fat/low calorie/low cholesterol eating that North American health professionals adopted as gospel in the 1950s and have carried on to today. Although not necessarily a “game-changer” this book definitely has got me thinking about why I eat the way I do. Although there are many more people than I am going to list below, I thought I would highlight a few writers that have inspired me, personal finance-wise.
When I first graduated from University, seven years ago I had very little knowledge about money and what I should do with money. I had a bunch of student debt a decent paying job and really no plan. Enter The Wealthy Barber – for someone who had no plans or aspirations, the easy to read and understand story told gave me money goals and aspirations to strive for. I gained a basic level of personal finance knowledge that I followed over the next five years, where I paid off my student loans (approximately $25,000 worth), bought a car with cash (for which I got a lot of comments like “it must be nice to have that kind of money laying around”) and religiously saved 10% of my pay for the future. I will forever be grateful to David Chilton (the author) for writing this book. I own it, I bought my 21 year old sister a copy of it when she graduated from college (hoping she might have the same type of reaction as I did) and would tell anyone who needs a plan to read this book.
I followed the advice for several years, basically planning on leaving the workforce at around 55 or 60 like most people. About two or three years ago, I picked up a copy of Derek Foster’s “Stop Working, Here’s How You Can”. Although I don’t necessarily agree with the author essentially bailing on his iron-clad investment tactic in what seems a fit of panic during the economic downturn (when I believe his book states to look for these opportunities to boost your portfolio) in general his book changed my whole thinking on retirement. He offered a plan that would that would allow me to retire in around 12 years. For someone with around 40 years of work ahead of them, cutting that down by 75% is very attractive. I understand the riskiness of living on just the dividends from stocks promoted by his book, but there is a certain level of hopefulness offered by this book that gave me hope.
The final author, which eventually lead me to this site (it’s listed in his blogroll) is Jacob from Early Retirement Extreme. This author offers a method of leaving the workforce in around five years. I read every post he had on his site over a two or three day period – eating up what he was saying as it made sense to me. Although I don’t know if my spouse and I could live on $10,000 to $15,000 per year, he provides a method of doing so and has proven that it is not only doable (he did it himself) but enjoyable to be retired in your early 30s. Although I have gravitated more towards Tim’s site and his more “moderate” stance on early retirement, striving to copy Jacob’s method and discipline may shave a couple of years off of my retirement date.
So, these are the people that have lead me on my current financial path. Do you have any writers that have inspired you financially (or otherwise)?
Posted by Tim Stobbs on March 3, 2010
I recently borrowed a book from the library that focuses on the neurotic habits of writers. It is interesting to see that some writers like to write in empty rooms and alone, while others do it on ships, coffee shops and middle of living rooms with kids around. Then some people have quirks all the way down to writing a first draft in pen with a specific brand of pen and the colour of the paper (apparently yellow is often used for drafts). Of course while reading this I started to realize some of my own neurotic habits around writing. So in the interest of some entertainment of how things work to generate this blog I present: my neurotic head.
I keep a small black moleskin notebook with me most of the time to write down random ideas for blog posts. Everything from noting an interesting survey on TFSA’s where 92% of people didn’t get all five questions correct to wondering if the decay of the financial standing of the US will lead civilization’s downfall. Perhaps at best half of the ideas get used. The other half are often too short of a post or get lost in the idea bank. I consider writing for the blog more habit than difficult and generating ideas take no effort at all. Yet I will go out of my way and invent things to do avoid writing other things, but I will always write for the blog (unless I’m sick). Somehow I find the other writing more stressful than blog (even including the book based on the blog, ironic eh?).
To warm up some days for some writing I’ll open a file and just type what ever happens to come into my head for ten minutes. I often have a candle lit near me because I find the smell and the motion of the flame soothing. I prefer to write early in the morning because I enjoy the quiet of the house. Yet I can also write with the kids less than 10 feet away and playing.
I’m terrified at times at having success with my writing, like some how having a huge blog or a decent selling book would create expectations that I couldn’t live up to. I often wonder if I’m a fraud for having the readership I currently do on this blog. It’s like the feeling that you, the readers, can’t possibly be interesting my opinion of personal finance. I’m just some guy from the prairies with a wife, two kids and a crazy dream. I have often doubted that anything I’ve ever written was even good, despite the assurances of many others that at least parts of it are good.
I get downright bitchy if I don’t have some time to myself each week and it will even show up in my writing if I fail to get away for an hour. The post/page will lose a certain readability that occurs with my better writing. Interestingly enough I can handle negative feedback fine at work on my writing, but are more sensitive about my other writing.
So that’s a snap shot of my neurotic head. So if you have any doubts, yes all writers, including bloggers have their habits and odd beliefs around their work. It just comes with the job. So if you do any writing, what are your habits around it? Do you have a chair you love or an item near by when it do it? Or can you write on post it notes in the bathroom?
