eg, let's simplify and assume spherical cows, no inflation and no ROI. If you save 50% of your income, 1 year of work is 1 year of retirement. If you save 25% of your income, 3 years of work is 1 year of retirement.
So you should probably read bogleheads, live below your means, and max out your 401k/403b/roth ira/etc with low-cost index funds. or just yolo it on stonks and hope for diamond hands.
This is the correct base from which all plans for "retirement" should start from.
1) Eliminate/Simplify/Lower all your "wants". You will be surprised as to how much you can save.
2) Focus only on your "needs" for existence i.e. what you actually need to live when you are 70.
3) Modify your lifestyle immediately; specifically Diet and Health in the light of the above two goals viz. proper work/life balance, proper diet, proper sleep, proper exercise. Health _is_ Wealth when it comes to old age since much of your retirement money will go to healthcare when you are older. Control/Plan-for/Manage this now.
4) Get your entire family to understand and buy-into the above.
I don’t suggest people put off everything until they are old. Enjoy life today. Take the vacation, enjoy the concert, etc. It’s about balance. Of course you should save/invest.
I am not saying buy the expensive house, cars etc.
The idea is to make sure that you can guarantee (barring unforeseens) the absolute minimum that you need to live before anything else. Once this is done everything else becomes a choice and you can indulge (or not) as you please.
Life is all about Risk Management and given the uncertain world we live in, you need to ensure that you are not totally dependent on the future performance of the Economic System. "Enjoy Life Today/YOLO" etc. should not become an excuse to not think realistically and plan for your own/family's future with definite guarantees.
Nassim Taleb's ideas about Mediocristan vs. Extremistan, Power Laws/Pareto Distribution, Barbell investment strategy, Black Swan events etc. are all relevant here.
Two ways come to mind re: retirement. Luck/skill into a big payout via startups or tailor a series of jobs to get you a paid-off residence someplace you'd like to live. Carrying a mortgage into retirement is just too much of a financial restriction for most folks.
You need retirement savings that will cover expenses over any government pension you might get. I assume you're in the US, so there's little chance of a company pension... Basically, save as much as you can while living a reasonable lifestyle. And the killer question is whether or not you have kids - which, usually, suggests a partner having similar decisions. DINKS have more financial flexibility but less populated lives.
In a way, you should "burn the candle at both ends" while younger. Deferring everything until later puts you at risk to not having the physical or mental means to do what you'd like. Or, not having the people you'd like to do them with. I guess you could say "don't waste time". You only get so much and it grows valuable as you age.
And store up memories when you're young. You'll spend them when you're old.
The best thing to do is to be prepare to switch your career at some point. The tech industry is notoriously ageist so don't expect to retire working in the same type of job you have now.
I am 51. I got my first job in BigTech at 46. When I got Amazoned in 2023, within the first two weeks I had three offers.
I was out looking again in 2024, I responded to a recruiter and had a job offer within two weeks.
I am still an IC and half my job as a staff consultant is pushing out code onto AWS, the other half is leading projects, supporting sales, talking to customers.
You are the exception not the rule. Go to any tech shop and you the will see that the majority are in their 20's and 30's and mid 40's. Sure there are a few that are older but they are the minority by far.
There's a survivor bias, you see the older techs that are employed and people think "oh, there's no problem." But people don't take into account all the other techs that could not continue their career because they could not get a job as they got older.
There's also a large number of folks moving to management as they age. Yes, the tech industry tends to skew young for engineering, but management doesn't. There's also a relatively decent chunk of people retiring in their early 50s (I plan to). There's also a decent number of them leaving to create their own companies, or to join friends at their early stage startups.
I don't think it makes sense to say they're the exception. I'm also mid-40s and have no issues finding employment. Most of my friends are mid 40s/50s and also have no issues. The vast majority of them have switched into management, though. Myself and the other older engineers I know are staff+, though, which helps a lot. I can't imagine being this age as a senior engineer trying to fight an army of equally qualified people in their 20s (who are also having issues finding employment right now).
The HN bubble is real. Most developers are boring old enterprise developers who toil away at writing LOB apps spending their entire career in corp dev if they don’t move onto management.
They live in second tier cities and retire at the same time everyone else retires.
If you are 40 years old and still competing with 20 something’s based on your ability to reverse a b tree on the whiteboard, you have made some poor life choices.
I do not plan on living until retirement given the current state of things and my age. Most of my age cohort seem to be similar -- we will never be able to afford a home, we will never have a pension.
Only way out is jackpot -- lottery, startup sale, AI slop millionaire.
Your savings rate is a lifestyle choice.
eg, let's simplify and assume spherical cows, no inflation and no ROI. If you save 50% of your income, 1 year of work is 1 year of retirement. If you save 25% of your income, 3 years of work is 1 year of retirement.
So you should probably read bogleheads, live below your means, and max out your 401k/403b/roth ira/etc with low-cost index funds. or just yolo it on stonks and hope for diamond hands.
This is the correct base from which all plans for "retirement" should start from.
1) Eliminate/Simplify/Lower all your "wants". You will be surprised as to how much you can save.
2) Focus only on your "needs" for existence i.e. what you actually need to live when you are 70.
3) Modify your lifestyle immediately; specifically Diet and Health in the light of the above two goals viz. proper work/life balance, proper diet, proper sleep, proper exercise. Health _is_ Wealth when it comes to old age since much of your retirement money will go to healthcare when you are older. Control/Plan-for/Manage this now.
4) Get your entire family to understand and buy-into the above.
Everything else is gravy.
I don’t suggest people put off everything until they are old. Enjoy life today. Take the vacation, enjoy the concert, etc. It’s about balance. Of course you should save/invest.
I am not saying buy the expensive house, cars etc.
Not what i meant.
The idea is to make sure that you can guarantee (barring unforeseens) the absolute minimum that you need to live before anything else. Once this is done everything else becomes a choice and you can indulge (or not) as you please.
Life is all about Risk Management and given the uncertain world we live in, you need to ensure that you are not totally dependent on the future performance of the Economic System. "Enjoy Life Today/YOLO" etc. should not become an excuse to not think realistically and plan for your own/family's future with definite guarantees.
Nassim Taleb's ideas about Mediocristan vs. Extremistan, Power Laws/Pareto Distribution, Barbell investment strategy, Black Swan events etc. are all relevant here.
Savings/Investments etc. ideas from Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) movement are also very relevant here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIRE_movement
Spend less than you make. It wouldn’t hurt to say that three times.
Don’t get caught up trying to keep up with the joneses. Nobody who matters gives a shit what kind of car you drive.
If your company matches your 401k contribution, max that out. It’s free money. You’re leaving it on the table if you don’t take it.
Even if there’s no match, max your contribution. If you’re putting in 18k/yr into index funds you’ll look up one day and have a million bucks.
Save up a down payment and buy a house. Property ownership is the path to generational wealth.
Two ways come to mind re: retirement. Luck/skill into a big payout via startups or tailor a series of jobs to get you a paid-off residence someplace you'd like to live. Carrying a mortgage into retirement is just too much of a financial restriction for most folks.
You need retirement savings that will cover expenses over any government pension you might get. I assume you're in the US, so there's little chance of a company pension... Basically, save as much as you can while living a reasonable lifestyle. And the killer question is whether or not you have kids - which, usually, suggests a partner having similar decisions. DINKS have more financial flexibility but less populated lives.
In a way, you should "burn the candle at both ends" while younger. Deferring everything until later puts you at risk to not having the physical or mental means to do what you'd like. Or, not having the people you'd like to do them with. I guess you could say "don't waste time". You only get so much and it grows valuable as you age.
And store up memories when you're young. You'll spend them when you're old.
How are you going to store up memories if you're spending the whole time working to satisfy the demands of your financial overlords?
There is a such thing as vacations
The best thing to do is to be prepare to switch your career at some point. The tech industry is notoriously ageist so don't expect to retire working in the same type of job you have now.
I am 51. I got my first job in BigTech at 46. When I got Amazoned in 2023, within the first two weeks I had three offers.
I was out looking again in 2024, I responded to a recruiter and had a job offer within two weeks.
I am still an IC and half my job as a staff consultant is pushing out code onto AWS, the other half is leading projects, supporting sales, talking to customers.
You are the exception not the rule. Go to any tech shop and you the will see that the majority are in their 20's and 30's and mid 40's. Sure there are a few that are older but they are the minority by far.
There's a survivor bias, you see the older techs that are employed and people think "oh, there's no problem." But people don't take into account all the other techs that could not continue their career because they could not get a job as they got older.
Most of the 3 million developers are not working at “tech shops”, they are working at banks, the government - ie “the enterprise”.
I see these folks all of the time at client companies.
On the other hand, if you are 50 years old and haven’t kept up with tech - yeah you’re going to struggle
There's also a large number of folks moving to management as they age. Yes, the tech industry tends to skew young for engineering, but management doesn't. There's also a relatively decent chunk of people retiring in their early 50s (I plan to). There's also a decent number of them leaving to create their own companies, or to join friends at their early stage startups.
I don't think it makes sense to say they're the exception. I'm also mid-40s and have no issues finding employment. Most of my friends are mid 40s/50s and also have no issues. The vast majority of them have switched into management, though. Myself and the other older engineers I know are staff+, though, which helps a lot. I can't imagine being this age as a senior engineer trying to fight an army of equally qualified people in their 20s (who are also having issues finding employment right now).
The HN bubble is real. Most developers are boring old enterprise developers who toil away at writing LOB apps spending their entire career in corp dev if they don’t move onto management.
They live in second tier cities and retire at the same time everyone else retires.
If you are 40 years old and still competing with 20 something’s based on your ability to reverse a b tree on the whiteboard, you have made some poor life choices.
How fast you fire is a function of your savings and burn rate. The more you save and the lower your burn rate, the faster you fire.
https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-si...
I do not plan on living until retirement given the current state of things and my age. Most of my age cohort seem to be similar -- we will never be able to afford a home, we will never have a pension.
Only way out is jackpot -- lottery, startup sale, AI slop millionaire.