Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta

[Peanut]

Do you make money doing music? I couldn't quite figure out all that you do, probably from not reading carefully enough, sorry. I know there is some production-side stuff which seems to me like it should bring in some money but maybe the equipment is mega-expensive to amortize. But I know you also play some instruments. Would you have any interest in working with kids? There are different avenues for that where I live, including teaching, weekly shows, performing for parties, recording music for sale, etc. The original gig economy work. You have to be able to tolerate children, of course, and develop a repertoire of music that appeals to them (not necessarily all mind-numbing 'kids' music,' as folk, pop, classical also appeal). And if you don't like young children maybe working with teens would be enjoyable for you, teaching them how to use production equipment.

[Jin+Guice]

@c_L: I'm not quitting music! I've just replaced full-time work with full-time music work. There's no room in my schedule for building other ERE skills. Lately even my social life has been suffering. I'm putting in too much time and getting too little out. Figuring out how to keep music a major part of my life while having time for other activities is the challenge.

As I read more about permaculture and environmental doomerism (Daniel Quinn, Derrick Jensen, etc...) I wonder about how to accomplish it in an urban environment as well. I do really like living in a large city.

@Peanut: I do make money from music. I get paid for gigs and I also get paid for production stuff sometimes. I also do live sound/ live production work exclusively for money, which is ironically the thing I'm worst at (probably because I like it the least). Pre-ERE I "saved" money by buying instruments and production equipment so I already have a lot of high-end equipment. I haven't used it to open a studio because one still needs to pay for the space and it's easy to get yourself in a situation where you fuck yourself into working for $15/h just to pay the bills. I'm working on getting into a situation where I can use my gear to make money without trapping myself. There are several ways I could support myself from music, teaching or playing for children being just one of them. I don't want to pursue any of those paths currently, though I count them among possible future employment oppurtunities. I do appreciate your suggestions though !


The current plan is to limit myself to 3-4 hours in my studio each day with 2 longer days per week. Hopefully I'll have time to work on some of my other web of goals stuff with this restriction, otherwise I'll have to cut back further.

P.S. @c_L I just finished Scott Adams "How To Fail..." book after you suggested an article by him in another thread. Thanks for the suggestion, it was an excellent book to read as I make my first attempt at setting up a system.

[horsewoman]

P.S. @c_L I just finished Scott Adams "How To Fail..." book after you suggested an article by him in another thread. Thanks for the suggestion, it was an excellent book to read as I make my first attempt at setting up a system.

Scott Adams introduced me to the system thinking concept many years ago. I was a little hesitant to recommend his work here in this forum because I feel he has gotten a little bit crazy ever since he predicted Trump winning the election. There is a series on his blog about Master persuades, Trump being one of them. I was a real admirer of his work in the past and have all of his books, and while I find the persuasion angle interesting, he has stared to creep me out with his podcasts.
There will be a new book by him out soon, I'm curious in which direction it will go. Or rather if the podcast craziness shines through.

[Jin+Guice]

@horsewoman:

He's a little bit crazy/ douchey even in the book I read. Totally not what I expected from the guy who created Dilbert. One of the key insights I received from this blog/ forum was the realization that I could read books by people I didn't like and still gain useful information. I've posted that several times without much note, but this is an extremely rare insight (among people I know IRL)! The book that did it for me was "Cashflow Quadrant." The picture on the front made me vomit in my mouth a little. I still think the dude who wrote the book is an asshat, and probably a scam artist, but his story, as he tells it, is interesting and the information in the book is good.

Have you read/ listened to anything else by Scott Adams that was particularly interesting or useful to you?

[horsewoman]

I still think the dude who wrote the book is an asshat, and probably a scam artist, but his story, as he tells it, is interesting and the information in the book is good.

Have you read/ listened to anything else by Scott Adams that was particularly interesting or useful to you?

He introduced me to the idea of system thinking many years ago. I also got some validation because I kept "failing", but still inexplicably got ahead all the time. In a specialist society, and Germany in particular, trying and failing your way to success is seen as pretty fishy. You are supposed to decide around age 12 what your "vocation" (this is actually the regular word for "job" in Germany!) will be and work tirelessly at it until your are 65. Otherwise people are suspicions of you. So it was very relieving to read about a guy who became one of the most successful cartoonists worldwide without being able to draw. He is no scam artist at all, but a very peculiar human being who has very little (false) modesty. This can sound douchy but I think it is refreshing (at least it was until he lost his marbles a little after he predicted Trumps ascent to POTUS).

Another thing I find wildly interesting is his being a certified hypnotist and how he was able to connect this skill with other skills. This is his "stack of skills" which totally appeals to my scanner mentality.

I cannot point you at any specific article or book because I followed Scott Adams since the early 2000s - I only stopped listening to his podcasts recently because it got a little bit to crazy for my taste. So it all blends together. All in all, I used to feel some kind of mental kinship to him in the past because we used to have a rather similar way of thinking. Which might be a warning as well :)

[Jin+Guice]

A Vacation to the Upper and Upper-Middle Classes:

I went to Austin this past weekend for my girlfriend's birthday. We hung out with some of her old rave friends and they hooked us up with a free place to stay in this legit rich dude's apartment. Rich dude retired from some right-place-at-the-right-time tech money when he was 23.

Her rave friends are what I'd consider upper middle class. One is an engineer for Verizon, one is a PhD chemist with a non-tenure-track faculty position and a startup. I've also been going out there for work and staying with my friend who is very successful mix engineer. The upper middle class folks are very stuff and service intensive. They don't seem to be able to have fun without spending money. I offered to cook one night in this dude's, like 1500 sqft apartment, which was stocked with tons of free booze, but instead the upper middle class decided that we should order mediocre pizza so I wouldn't be burdened with the horrors of cooking. For me there was essentially a negative correlation between spending money and having fun. Every purchased experience was less fun than every free experience.

I was also struck by how similar my life was to the upper middle class and upper class lives*. The upper middle class life was, to me, appreciably worse. They spent most of their time driving between paid activities while I spend most of my time reading, walking or socializing. The upper middle class folks also exhibit the profound belief that it is necessary to have multiple million of dollars to lead anything resembling a good life. "I dated a really rich guy once, it was great, we could do anything we wanted."

*We never actually met the rich dude, he just bought a house in another city and is leaving this one vacant for awhile.


The rich dude's life was different in some ways. It was nice being in an apartment, bigger than our house, where each room has minimal stuff, that was centrally located downtown. Unlike the houses of the upper middle class, the rich dude has much less stuff per sqft (and possibly even total) and it is all very nice. I realized I'd hedonically adapted to his apartment by day 2. The rich dude travels a lot, often by private jet, which sounds a lot better than by non-private jet or car, but not better than by bike. Finally, the rich dude is actually retired so he never has to worry about waking up at 5 a.m. to stick needles in someone's ass. He does whatever he wants all the time**. While I do think I'd still do some form of structured work (this guy just seems to party and travel) sometimes if I had unlimited money, I was jealous of the option not to.

**There was a 2nd rich dude, never seen by me, who is apparently even richer and extremely miserable. FWIW, everyone who knows rich dude 1 seems to feel like he's pretty happy.

What I was really struck by is that none of these people are actually doing anything that I'm not. I still fly on airplanes. I still live in a house in a city. I go on vacation. I visit family and friends. I drink alcohol and do drugs. I eat in restaurants and go to bars. They are essentially spending 10-100x more for minor increases in convenience or quality.

[Jean]

It always struck me how it was easier to communicate with people that were orders of magnitude richer than me than with middle class or uper middle class persons.
Having enough money is more in common than having the same amount.

[classical_Liberal]

I've always thought the difference that matters in being rich is the ability to choose and switch between different lifestyles without hassle. Like, I think it'd be cool to have a smaller than you describe, yet nice apartment in the downtown of a hip urban center. Even better if I could have one in two different places, one urban one rural near mountains, with different climates. Even better if I can have both of those apartments and still have enough to spend a couple of months abroad each year.

Think about it though, even all of that is actually maybe a 4-5K a month cash burn if you do it right. Lets face it, I could not do it inefficiently because it would bug the piss out of me. So "rich" to me is spending 50K a year. This is well within the means of upper middle class, while still saving at least a quarter of their take home salary. The only difference is having the time to enjoy being rich. Which is why your GF's upper-middle friends seem to be so reliant on "time saving" services.

[7Wannabe5]

I think it's better to be able to switch to different lifestyles by inhabiting different costumes and skill sets. For instance, what if I trained until I could do skateboard tricks like a 14 year old boy, but could still be like Mrs. Santa Claus reading a book to 4 year old children, and then go negotiate a deal on some real estate? Money alone can't really buy you access to a lot of different experiences.

[Jin+Guice]

ERE and Fear:

There is a lot of fear here about running out of money. "What if I had only saved up an extra year of expenses? I could've survived the market downturn." ERE is about exiting mainstream ideas about the relationship of materialism, money and work. Exiting the cultural narrative about finances (which is also what we're or at least I've been taught is most important) is scary. It's comforting to build a fortress of money. I don't want to end up looking foolish in front of all the normies if something goes wrong.

I don't think the point of ERE is to end up with a bunch of money. I think the point is to be able to live in accordance with your values, spending your time, energy and attention as you please. Escaping from the imposed structure of using employment by others to fulfill economic need is just the method.

We're taught that we live in a world of economic scarcity. Accepting an ERE philosophy means accepting that we live in a world of economic abundance. A world so abundant that someone could save enough money to access the resources necessary for 33 years of living in five years of work. A world so abundant that someone could expect 33 years of capital resources to produce enough economic resources to sustain us forever (or for at least another 60-70 years).

Faced with this world of abundance, is a fear of financial ruin prudent? What about fear of accidentally saving too much? That is, fear of spending too much time doing something we dislike so that we may allow ourselves to do and enjoy the things we like? What about fear of compromising our values as a necessary evil to survive in a world of scarcity? What about fear of sacrificing social networks in favor of economic ones? What about the fear of sitting in a windowless office on a sunny day? Is planning only for tomorrow not as foolish as not planning for tomorrow at all?

[theanimal]

Great questions. Fear of uncertainty is so prevalent and even more so when you only have one leg to stand on. ERE gives us more than one leg though, by diversifying skillets and relying on alternative means of capital. It still takes courage though to go without that security (large financial stash in this case) but I'd argue that your life ends up better off without it.

It's crazy that the fear of ruin can keep you bogged down and prevent you from attaining something that you desire (freedom to do x).

[black_son_of_gray]

I think the point is to be able to live in accordance with your values, spending your time, energy and attention as you please.

I agree. ERE is just self-actualization viewed through an economic lens, and no one gets to self-actualization through fear.

[Bankai]

Wholeheartedly agree.

I remember jacob writing in a blogpost something along the lines of "so what if economical apocalypse strikes? Everyone will be equally doomed, while an extremely early retired person would have at least enjoyed years of freedom before the doom arrives." Nowadays, more and more doomsayers advocate for 2% SWR or even less. This changes the maths from 5-7 years of ultra savings to 10-15 years. Not appealing at all. Not to mention it doesn't actually make any sense since 2% still covers you for 50 years even if you somehow manage to achieve no returns for half a century. How likely is that really? Or what about the fact that almost no one who actually retires early stays retired for long and ends up making more money soon after quitting anyways (journals here offer plenty of examples).*

I suspect another factor might be in play here. Institutionalization. I aim to quit no matter what before my 40th (in 3 years' time). By that time I'd be in institutions for... 39 years? Or 97.5% of my life (nursery, pre-school, school, more school, uni, work, more work). Can I even create a life of my own without a nurse/teacher/boss? I don't know but what I do know is that the longer I wait, the less likely it is to happen. I also have a job I don't mind (quite like actually) which makes it even harder to quit. It did cross my mind a few times that maybe I should not retire as long as the job is good. This is both comforting as it allows me to stay in a familiar zone and also very disturbing when compared to what I actually want(ed) to do with my life when I was younger/less institutionalized.

I'd really like more examples of people actually retiring early and having a blast rather than keeping working into their 50's to get to $2M, $3m, etc or complaining that there's nothing to do in life (at times when there's more to do than any time in human history). The dominant narrative is all about working longer to be 'safer' while no one mentions that next is always the best year of the rest of your life (health, youth, energy, etc.) and spending it working is a guaranteed loss while having to go back to work for a year at some future point is only a possiblity and not very likely really.

*what if FIRE was really started by the finance industry to make people save more and put more money into assets?

[classical_Liberal]

Personally, my greatest fear is that I will economically lock my future-self out of a lifestyle that I will want at that time. Humans change a lot, my life has been no exception to this rule. I worry that someday I will crave a lifestyle I have locked myself out of permanently.

While I'm a firm believer that I can obtain a minimum wage ($15/hr) work-for-other job that, at least, doesn't disagree with me, at any time. What I am not so sure of, is being able to obtain another six figure job, at will, or maybe even ever. Age discrimination is real and it will get harder and harder to start over as I get older, eventually there will be no real opportunities (above $15/hr) at all. Since I have barely above zero self employment experience, I have no confidence in this realm either.

So, even being basic lifestyle FI, and having 100% confidence in my ability to earn that amount at will with a half-time, work-for-other job, I STILL have fear. I don't really think it will ever simply go away with more money/assets/income. I have tried to intellectualize this fear away with no avail. If, however, I continue to make any amount of small, sustainable, progress to my finances this fear seems to stay at bay. I think this is a huge untold benefit of semi-ERE, or even regular value-add ERE vs FI and E-RE.

[ertyu]

For me, fear like this occurs when I'm trying to hoodwink myself into minimizing a legitimate concern. Locking oneself out of a lifestyle one's future self might desire is one such concern, planning for a circumstance where one is unable to work is another (burnout, ageism/discrimination, exceptionally shitty crisis, zombie apocalypse, etc). To me, it is reasonable to worry now: sequence of returns risk is especially elevated even without these other concerns. Taking these seriously and contingency planning, at least in one's head, would go a long way.

[horsewoman]

I suspect another factor might be in play here. Institutionalization. I aim to quit no matter what before my 40th (in 3 years' time). By that time I'd be in institutions for... 39 years? Or 97.5% of my life (nursery, pre-school, school, more school, uni, work, more work). Can I even create a life of my own without a nurse/teacher/boss? I don't know but what I do know is that the longer I wait, the less likely it is to happen. I also have a job I don't mind (quite like actually) which makes it even harder to quit. It did cross my mind a few times that maybe I should not retire as long as the job is good. This is both comforting as it allows me to stay in a familiar zone and also very disturbing when compared to what I actually want(ed) to do with my life when I was younger/less institutionalized.

Personally, my greatest fear is that I will economically lock my future-self out of a lifestyle that I will want at that time. Humans change a lot, my life has been no exception to this rule. I worry that someday I will crave a lifestyle I have locked myself out of permanently.

Those two quotes stood out to me.

As someone "from the other side" - meaning someone who never earned any large amount of money I can tell you, it's all in our heads. Only for me it's the other way around, I've always (without giving it much thought, it's just the way I am) prioritized personal freedom over money/security/status. At this point I would not even know what to do with a normal salary. I never had an expensive house, lavish holidays, nice cars and expensive clothes and frankly I don't miss it at all. So I think it is fair to say that I will not miss it when I get older and less active.

People fear to lose what they have, what they are used to. A FT job would make me lose the large amount of freedom and unstructured time I have been used to most of my life. So I'm very willing to do without a lot of the trappings of "normal life" to facilitate this lifestyle. I don't feel deprived or that I'm sacrificing anything at all.

Conversely, someone who is used to a large salary and all the convenience and security it brings, will be very willing to deal with the job necessary to earn it. It would in most cases not feel as an unbearable thing, simply a perfectly normal thing. Especially if the job does not suck 100% I can easily see why quitting it would be a large mental obstacle. Quitting the job would make them lose a lot of what they are used too.

Same as I can't wrap my head around working more those people can't wrap theirs around working less. The problem is not that one might be locked out of any future lifestyle, it is that one is locked into the current lifestyle, unable to imagine how it could be different. Which is why @Jacob called it the lock-in his book, I suppose.

I might be heading to a dismal future in poverty, once I'm too old to work a PT job, but I fear giving up my current lifestyle more than the thought of this possible future. OTOH, I might be perfectly happy in 25 years with an internet connection, a small warm room and a small dog in my lap. Personally, I think this is more likely, but my brother (a high earner) might be right when he prophesizes that I will regret not working and saving more for old age. We'll see!

The FIRE method is an effort to join both of these lifestyles into one - lots of freedom plus lots of money. Problem is, to earn all that money you need to lock yourself very firmly into the career-lifestyle, which makes quitting hard - provided you fall not into the traps that a large salary brings with it (lifestyle inflation, anyone?). It is a little like putting the cart before the horse, compared to ERE - get your expenses down, so you need earn less money. Easy, right? :)

[Jin+Guice]

ERE gives us more than one leg though, by diversifying skillets

I've got 3 cast iron (varying sizes) and a wok made out of an old hub-cap .

@bankai: I agree about the institutionalization. Also, see @horsewomans post about how we fear losing what we have and are comfortable with. Is there anyway you could do your job part-time? Would that impede your freedom goals or keep you in your comfort zone too much?

@c_L: We've discussed lifestyle lockout before and we always come to a stalemate. It's hard for me to see what money will buy future me that it's not buying current me. Currently it's buying me space and time and I'm not convinced that sacrificing more current time and energy for more future space and time would greatly benefit present or future me.

In the spirit of my post, you lock-in present pain for fear of potentially locking yourself out of future lifestyle. That's a 100% chance of losing today for a ??% chance of locking yourself out of ?

@ertyu: I read the thread you started asking for coping mechanisms at work. You threw down pretty hard for following the FIRE plan of doing all of the work first and then gaining all of the freedom. This is pretty much the opposite of what I advocate. I know you also don't have the extreme benefit of being American or living in a first world country. I'm pretty confident that I'll always have access to a job where I can make the small amount of money it takes me to survive. I feel more comfortable relying on a steady but small(er) stream of income, a diversified skill set, a robust social network and sizeable savings rather than just investment income. It's impossible to say if and how my plan would be different if I wasn't American.

@horsewoman: I know, I think I'm ruined for full-time work forever. "You mean you have to work tomorrow? Didn't you just say you had to work today?" - Me

[ertyu]

What can I say, in my case the FIRE method works better because of the geoarbitrage I'm involved in. It makes sense to work work work in High Income Country where I cannot and do not want to get settled then workaway or return to my country or baristafire or whatever. Your situation is different and it might make better sense for you to approach things differently. For instance, you have not spoken about burnout or depression, which is one of those things that you can't really explain to a person who hasn't lived through it. What if you have a health issue (physical or mental) or an accident that prevents you from returning to work? It's hard to imagine it would apply to you when you are young or when you have never had to take off work because you couldn't get yourself to get out of bed even though you are objectively physically healthy. Now, this might never happen to you and I hope it doesn't, it's a sucky sucky state to be in, but once you've been there (and I have been there, both physically-ill-wise and mental health wise) you learn not to take your ability to return to work for granted.

I guess the same thing applies to having lived through adverse economic conditions - you never again think that it can't happen to you or in your country.

Two things of note: One, I am not arguing for what you should do or what the "right" way is. That varies by circumstance. And two, I am not arguing that FIRE is superior to ERE. I am on this forum, after all. But even Jacob, our spiritual leader, pulled the full time work plug at 300k, which is 40+ JAFIs (then 7k). What was the saying, trust allah but tie up your camel. You don't have to accumulate millions, but you do need an amount which provides a minimum failsafe should other options become blocked.

Again, not saying this as something you or cl or anyone else should follow as a model, just expressing my opinion.

[Bankai]

I thought Jacob first time retired at around 5% swr?

[ertyu]

I thought Jacob first time retired at around 5% swr?

At mkt bottom in 2009. 45+ at mkt top. It is now a mkt top, not a 2009-style bottom. Thus 45+ is the relevant metric. Sequence of returns is a thing, and it matters.

By now it is no secret I am one of the forumites here that tend to be on the more cautious side. I would not have a problem with pulling the plug at 5% if the mkt just fell 50.