Yeah in light of recent posts, I change my mind. Median income can't be safe when taking temperaments into account. Neutral maybe. I reflect my own bias in a way, and similiar to Jacob, I prefer makers schedule / working alone as opposed to team projects...which means I will always err on the side of taking financial capital over social capital anyday.
Which leads me now to think that Semi-ERE relies much more on the other forms of capital then just financial capital and you've to have the temperament to deal with that complexity. Because I do think Semi-ERE is more complex then the standard form.
The thread on "if you were zero'd out tomorrow what would you do" was interesting because it did make me wonder if I'd pursue Semi-ERE strategies instead but ultimately I think I'd slowly filter myself back to median income style. Same as what Axel alluded to:
Once I got the opportunity to earn a higher income doing something I enjoy reasonably enough, it was an instant "hell with this, let's accumulate to FI ASAP" decision.
Regardless of age, taxes, inflation, (taxes and inflation being out of ones control anyway) the biggest factor I found in the chart I built was simply reducing spending as much as possible. That always sped up the timeline more then adjusting other variables like market growth.
Tax on capital gains is a nonissue in retirement if spending is kept low enough due to the standard deduction.
Thanks for your reply! Agree on spending, it's amazing how much difference 100 euro in spending makes. The US tax situation is very different from the Dutch one it seems. Our wealth tax is 2% over all investments, so a hard 2% reduction on growth.
An estimated 3% inflation seems reasonable, and that means market growth would be 3% lower. I'm not sure it's safe to ignore inflation.
Note that the statistics for the median earnings include people who have worked for 20-30-40 years often reaching management/supervisor levels. More realistic estimates for semiFIRE would be "starting salaries" plus a percentage. This would also avoid the tech bro bias.
One of the things that surprised me about salaries is how little supervisors get paid. In The Netherlands a senior metalworker earns $21 an hour and a supervisor $24 an hour. Supervisors work long hours under significant stress. I find it hard to believe they do it for $3 an hour. I hope it's for status or destiny or enjoyment. As one of the lower paid IT people I got more than the supervisors, which seemed crazy to me.
Directors get paid much more, like $60 an hour, and in the US probably more. I think that's the reason to look at the median rather than average wage. The median is not influenced by outliers.
I don't think it is the level of complexity, but more the approach to complexity. I was watching some videos on the topics of "How to Eliminate the Possibility that You Might Be an ENTP" and I was confirmed in my belief that NeTi vs. NiTe makes a pretty big difference, but the explanation offered in the video series was somewhat different than I expected. Basically, NeTi has a better ability or more of a tendency to "compartmentalize" or "put a book mark in it and return later" due to TiSi. IOW, 4th position memory function isn't great, but it's better than the 8th position memory function of an INTJ.
So, it's easier for an INTJ to narrow focus on maximizing one form of a capital at a time through a range of greater complexity and "generalization" towards mastery, and it is easier for an ENTP to wide focus on juggling various forms of capital semi-simultaneously within an overall "generalized" framework of greater complexity. And I think the tradeoffs inherent in these approaches become more obvious around ERE Wheaton Level 6+, or more accurately due to the inherent INTJ bias in ERE, at the conjunction of the Universe of Wheaton Charts around Level 6+.
IOW, in theory, all other things being equal (which they rarely are), an INTJ would usually have achieved higher Wheaton Level on fewer charts, and an ENTP would have achieved lower Wheaton Level on more charts, and the 4th position Si is what allows an ENTP to keep track of all the charts she is working on at a very simple "follow the cookie crumbs back to the main path" level. Whereas, the 8th position of Si for the INTJ provides him with not even "cookie crumb" level confidence in ability to return to main path, so internal Ni process of generalization combined with Te function of getting things decided and done, must be continued until completion else inability to SWAN or similar.
Obviously, not being an INTJ, this is conjecture on my part, but sometimes an objective perspective can be revealing. For example, I never would have described myself as somebody with a good ability to "compartmentalize" until the MBTI expert described what that means in terms of being an ENTP. Then, I was like, "Duh, obviously I can compartmentalize or I wouldn't be able to successfully practice polyamory." So, this is likely also why the polyamory discussions have picked up very little participation by the INTJ majority of the forum. A polyamorous circle of association would have to possess a unified theme with all the vectors pointing in the same coherent direction for an INTJ to be into it. For example, I knew an INTJ who was having sex with two women at the same time, but they were both very short, curvy, STEM majors, and all three of them lived in the same housing co-op. Whereas, when I lived in that same liberal semi-vegetarian Green/Yellow housing co-op, except for one make-out session with the only African-American guy living there, I only had sex with men who lived elsewhere, and one of them was even a wealthy young Republican who complained that the co-op bathrooms were disgusting whenever he spent the night with me. IOW, I (ENTPs in general) can't SWAN unless I maximize diversification/exploration.
Let me make a controversial statement: if you have more autism than ADHD, be FI-ed and done. If you have more ADHD than autism, be semi-ERE or coast. If you have low ADHD -and- low autism, be a happy 9 to 5 normie in an ok job with colleagues you like.
I looking for a job gives you more suicidal thoughts than your shitty job, be FI-ed and done. If your shity job gives you more sucidal thougth than job-hunting, semi ere or coast. If both give you equally high suicidal thougths, spend less on food to pay for medical costs.
Yeah, that seems about right. And, as usual, I will point out that your observations could also be analogously restated making use of sexual/relationship terms such as "celibacy", "monogamy", and "polyamory." In my experience, shitty full-time employment by other is very much like a bad marriage, whereas running my own mini lifestyle-business which allowed me a great deal of autonomy and freedom to pursue other interests was like a very good primary relationship within polyamory. Therefore, Freedom-From-FI would be like trading in a bad marriage for celibacy, whereas Freedom-To-FI would be like doing the work necessary to achieve a good-enough-divorce after your essential truth/values-structure has altered significantly from that of your spouse.
So, an important further note might be that if you are more the ADHD type than the Autism type, simply having enough money to allow you to focus on one big project towards mastery will not change your core modus operandi. OTOH, either type could attempt to consciously push themselves more towards Ne or Ni. I mean, it's kind of humorous for me to note that even though "becoming more of a generalist towards increased resilience" is one of the core themes of "ERE", INTJs are really not naturals at being generalists. Watching INTJs attempt to be generalists is kind of like watching a video in which a skinny white girl fitness trainer tries to teach twerking moves. And I'm sure watching me attempt "efficient approach to mastery/accomplishment" is akin to watching Goldie Hawn attempting military discipline in "Private Benjamin."
I've been doing semiERE for years and it works great for me. I use the extra time to explore a range of ERE practices and ideas. My job fits into my WoGs to a certain extent, although if I were to inherit a bunch of money or reach my FI number I'd stop working, evidence that it is not fully integrated (as a counterexample I would not increase my spending).
Some people like the benefits that come with full FI, theoretically never having to worry about working again. There are opportunities and thought pathways open to those who don't have to work or haven't worked in a really long time that aren't open to those who have to work for money sometimes. There is also a psychological freedom many get from believing that they never have to do anything for anyone for money again. Personally I feel like I get 95% of the benefit of FI by just having a lot of money saved and working very little (usually under 20 hours a week). I also find more of a psychological benefit in having incoming cashflow from employment rather than investment (because I am not an advanced or experienced investor). I'm also fortunate to have a high paying job that allows me to work part-time and still earn a higher hourly wage, which allows me to save towards the goal of FI.
As with FI, those with very low expenses will be in the best position for semiRetirement/ semiERE.
I've been doing semiERE for years and it works great for me. I use the extra time to explore a range of ERE practices and ideas. My job fits into my WoGs to a certain extent, although if I were to inherit a bunch of money or reach my FI number I'd stop working, evidence that it is not fully integrated (as a counterexample I would not increase my spending).
Some people like the benefits that come with full FI, theoretically never having to worry about working again. There are opportunities and thought pathways open to those who don't have to work or haven't worked in a really long time that aren't open to those who have to work for money sometimes. There is also a psychological freedom many get from believing that they never have to do anything for anyone for money again. Personally I feel like I get 95% of the benefit of FI by just having a lot of money saved and working very little (usually under 20 hours a week). I also find more of a psychological benefit in having incoming cashflow from employment rather than investment (because I am not an advanced or experienced investor). I'm also fortunate to have a high paying job that allows me to work part-time and still earn a higher hourly wage, which allows me to save towards the goal of FI.
As with FI, those with very low expenses will be in the best position for semiRetirement/ semiERE.
I've been doing semiERE for years and it works great for me. I use the extra time to explore a range of ERE practices and ideas. My job fits into my WoGs to a certain extent, although if I were to inherit a bunch of money or reach my FI number I'd stop working, evidence that it is not fully integrated (as a counterexample I would not increase my spending).
y sometimes. There is also a psychological freedom many get from believing that they never have to do anything for anyone for money again. Personally I feel like I get 95% of the benefit of FI by just having a lot of money saved and working very little (usually under 20 hours a week). I also find more of a psychological benefit in having incoming cashflow from employment rather than investment (because I am not an advanced or experienced investor). I'm also fortunate to have a high paying job that allows me to work part-time and still earn a higher hourly wage, which allows me to save towards the goal of FI.
@G+J - do you share your hourly pay or your # of of years of savings based on current burn rate? No worries if you don't, just wanted to ask.
Asking because I like what you say here, and it seems SO much more achievable than FI in a timeframe that I'd be happy with. Curious to know these answers to compare them to myself.
I'll share those figures, but I actually don't think about them much. My goal is income>expenditures with the minimum amount of friction. Since I need to earn money still, hourly rate of pay does factor into "friction." I'll incur more friction for a higher rate of pay, in anticipation that this will reduce overall friction later.
I don't actually know what my rate of pay is or my expenditures. I obsessively budgeted for years and I've internalized not spending money to the point where I feel comfortable with the tradeoff I'm making whenever I spend money. I pay for very few things.
I work in surgery and get paid by the surgery, so my rate of pay varies, but I estimate it's around $70/ hour. This job is fucking kush and all kush gigs eventually end. It's also possible I keep this job but get moved to worse circumstances in which case my rate of pay decreases.
It's also part of my philosophy to retire only in necessities and right now my necessity spending is technically just maintenance costs on my bus (that I live in), transportation (bike + shoes) and backpacks (which I need to move shit around, so part of transportation). Right now I have free rent (thanks to generous friends) and don't pay for food (thanks to dumpster diving). However I don't consider these conditions sustainable. So my years of savings based on this burn rate is like, super fucking high, because my current "absolutely necessary" expenses are very close to zero.
I'm also paying for a piece of a rehearsal space and two storage spaces. All of it is unnecessary, but I would experience some pain if I had to give any of them up. So not necessity, but it feels wrong not to count this. Accounting for this, my current years of savings is more like 50-100x.
What keeps me going back to the spine mines is that I am trying to save 33x projected expenses if I had to pay for food and housing, given my prior experience of paying for food and plan for future housing (buying a vacant property to put the bus on). I'm 50% to this number, which puts me at 17.5x. I am slightly overestimating how much I think I will need, because at low expenses, there is little to cut if I fuck up. This is my SHTF, I get kicked out of my friend's place, can't find a suitable replacement AND dumpster diving fails AND I lose my job with no replacement plan.
Tl;dr I am on a crazy streak of luck/ serendipity so it's a complicated answer but roughly I make $70/ hour and have 17.5x saved.
I continue to find it interesting that you and I seem to think fairly alike on many matters. One thing I've been considering recently is that given my track record for not having to pay much, if anything, for housing and food, to what extent should worst-case-scenario where I am doing this be included in my accounting? I think maybe this difference in perspective is made most clear by the fact that I don't entirely agree with Jacob's premise that the financial expenses you absolutely have to cover would appropriately be designated as "head tax." IOW, although I do agree that this is the appropriate designation for the minimum in purely individualist mode, in my experience individualistic mode almost always breaks down before reaching this minimum, because at some juncture collective mode becomes the much easier path to further reduction in expenses. And, the fact that this seems to be true for a young male eNTP such as you as well as an old female eNTP such as myself, tends towards making me want to point to the combined net worth of my grouchy old man poly-partners as actually not being that relevant, even though it is true that at least two of them would be willing to pretty much entirely financially support me in a pinch.
My point here being that you noticing the abundance due to affluence in the dumpsters surrounding you is no different than me noticing the abundance due to affluence in the available men-of-my-dating-cohort surrounding me. If/when I find myself in a different situation, I would notice different forms of untapped abundance and so would you. In a way this is because eNTP/we are actually more towards rational-optimist in our functioning in the sense that we core believe in "substitutability" at all levels. IOW, being adaptable is our strategy.
Some people like the benefits that come with full FI, theoretically never having to worry about working again. There are opportunities and thought pathways open to those who don't have to work or haven't worked in a really long time that aren't open to those who have to work for money sometimes. There is also a psychological freedom many get from believing that they never have to do anything for anyone for money again. Personally I feel like I get 95% of the benefit of FI by just having a lot of money saved and working very little (usually under 20 hours a week).
On the same page as you J&G, I went very aggressive on my savings rate from 2011 to 2017 (when I discovered MMM ERE) so that I could pull the pin on full time work. Confidence in having enough in savings for our future to do what I wanted but also the freedom to try fun things that I could make some money at. It is a rewarding feeling and one I haven't taken for granted.
I was under the impression that "head taxes" as jacob envisions them were literal taxes or mandatory fees and not "my minimal expenses if I lived on as little as possible." For example, I imagine that in jacob's case that looks like property taxes, money for required minimum insurance coverage, required minimum utility fees, income taxes, etc. Maybe I was being too literal in my interpretation?
mathiverse wrote:Maybe I was being too literal in my interpretation?
No, that's also exactly as I understood his meaning. I am just arguing with the notion that you will likely be left with these as your last remaining financial expenses if you are equally open to collective solutions. IOW, I'm arguing that it is pretty easy to trade other forms of capital for these as an individual within a collective. For example, you can trade cooking for shelter and gardening for food, and if you intended to cook and garden for yourself regardless of trade, this is quite efficient. Obviously, the human with whom you are trading cooking for shelter will likely be paying property tax, but frequently no more property tax than they would be paying if you weren't occupying spare room, basement, tiny shed, or half of their bed in exchange for providing cooking. And the same applies to the insurance on a car in which you occasionally occupy the passenger seat.
IOW, because in our affluent society many people are already wastefully paying too much head tax, there is opportunity for increased efficiency at the household/collective/community level. Just imagine a model in which everybody moved inward towards city/employment centers in alignment with 350 square ft rate of occupation per human, and maybe 4 humans per car.
As per the OP - “what are some of the unknown unknowns that could affect semiERE” … one of the interesting elements of semiERE is that there is a foot in both boats with respects to the wage slaves and the wealthy asset owning cohort. As such you’re exposed to the risks experienced by both - replacement by automation or cheaper labor, job loss in general on the working side. On the asset side - changes in taxation as demanded by the rabble due to rising inequality, changes in withdrawal legality from certain accounts, disintegration of one’s stash due to instability in the larger economy, etc. Per JnG’s situation - semiERE with an element of social capital dependence could obviously be at risk to shifts in that social sphere.
The brilliance of ERE is in the emphasis on skill acquisition and the tensegrity provided - while your coworkers are being automated out of a job working the cash register you may find that leaning into your furniture making hobby with the additional 16 hrs previously spent laboring for The Man provides replacement of said income stream. Perhaps you draw a month or two from your stash in that time period while producing enough pieces…
The greatest unknowns are ones which neither FI or ERE can remedy; war or personal injury/health crisis. In the latter having a semi-ere stash of say 15x is likely as helpful as having 30x in that losing one’s shelter while say taking 6 months to recover from a medical procedure is not an immediate stressor.
The greater unknown in semi-ere in my experience has been the multitude of serendipitous avenues for income that open up when one becomes more broadly competent and has the available time to demonstrate such competencies for pay. The informal nature of such opportunities widens one’s net of work considered as well - someone might be highly unlikely to quit their programming job to build drystack stone walls full time. But if they’ve reduced to semiERE employment level at their main gig and have been tinkering around in their garden developing the skill out of personal enjoyment and the occasional one off construction project presents itself they may be inclined to work a few days for pay.
The greater unknown in semi-ere in my experience has been the multitude of serendipitous avenues for income that open up when one becomes more broadly competent and has the available time to demonstrate such competencies for pay. The informal nature of such opportunities widens one’s net of work considered as well - someone might be highly unlikely to quit their programming job to build drystack stone walls full time. But if they’ve reduced to semiERE employment level at their main gig and have been tinkering around in their garden developing the skill out of personal enjoyment and the occasional one off construction project presents itself they may be inclined to work a few days for pay.
This does require that most activities one engage in are driven above the "hireability"-line (ERE book fig 4.1). In my experience, this is not always a given. Realistically(?) one is more likely to capitalize on a few long-run skills that are for the most part related to each other. For example, for me it was physics, quant finance, copy-editing, and writing a "dissertation" on something I had thought a lot about (-> The ERE book). Copy-editing is a basically what one does typing up journal articles anyway. Wall Street tends to hire a lot of physicists because it's easier to teach a physicist finance than it is to teach a business major how to do math in their head. My only remaining uncapitalized skill is likely programming. I'm not half bad at that.
However, I have zero desire to return to any of those venues. Been there done that!
If we look at all the rest of my activities, none of them have led to a livable amount of semi-ERE income. Of course, I haven't exactly been pushing because I haven't had to. I just want to point out that by choosing semi-ERE, one is essentially forcing oneself to either stick with skills one already has or push hard for something akin to a career switch.
It is, in other words, not as a easy as it sounds... it's not something that materializes spontaneously.
Whether semiERE is a good solution thus really depends on one being fine with applying a known employable skill for decades albeit at a low/intro-level (this is probably the most common) ... or whether one has enough drive/energy to keep building up ever new skills to the employment level. If not, it's best to just "get it over with" and become FI.
This does require that most activities one engage in are driven above the "hireability"-line (ERE book fig 4.1). In my experience, this is not always a given. Realistically(?) one is more likely to capitalize on a few long-run skills that are for the most part related to each other. For example, for me it was physics, quant finance, copy-editing, and writing a "dissertation" on something I had thought a lot about (-> The ERE book). Copy-editing is a basically what one does typing up journal articles anyway. Wall Street tends to hire a lot of physicists because it's easier to teach a physicist finance than it is to teach a business major how to do math in their head. My only remaining uncapitalized skill is likely programming. I'm not half bad at that.
However, I have zero desire to return to any of those venues. Been there done that!
If we look at all the rest of my activities, none of them have led to a livable amount of semi-ERE income. Of course, I haven't exactly been pushing because I haven't had to. I just want to point out that by choosing semi-ERE, one is essentially forcing oneself to either stick with skills one already has or push hard for something akin to a career switch.
It is, in other words, not as a easy as it sounds... it's not something that materializes spontaneously.
Whether semiERE is a good solution thus really depends on one being fine with applying a known employable skill for decades albeit at a low/intro-level (this is probably the most common) ... or whether one has enough drive/energy to keep building up ever new skills to the employment level. If not, it's best to just "get it over with" and become FI.
Excellent point, I agree that the most reliable and effective path to ERE is pursuing income in a cluster of long run skills.
I propose that hireability is (surprisingly) something that arises without great effort and the hireability line is reached as a natural byproduct of basic skills performed over time rather than the result of a career switch level impulse. The bar to hireability in many fields appears to be merely that one have a singular degree greater skill than those hiring, or the willingness to exchange time those hiring are not.
To provide an example specific to your life as internet strangers are privy… I suspect that you could have certainly funded a Jakob FI semiERE gardening, performing bike and clothing repair, woodworking, and cooking either collectively or independently while working less than half of a typical full time employee.
As you note perhaps a rather significant unknown unknown in semiERE is whether the individual is satisfied applying a skill at a low level for a sustained period of time.
I like semiERE for people who are temperamentally well suited for it (JnG, 7, etc) or it just really suits their WOG and choose it deliberately, and then also as a kind of temporary strategic adaptation to unforeseen life circumstances, such as getting laid off or family emergency or etc (this describes my semiERE phase), that allows one plenty of time and space to plan next moves or expose themselves to serendipitous opportunities.
I don’t like the temptation I’m beginning to perceive to take ERE praxis, water it down and half-ass it to be nearly mainstream lifestyle behavior with a slightly higher savings rate and maybe pick up a little craft skill here or there, and call it a form of ERE.
Like, no. Maintaining a fairly high COL and working forever at a slightly lower hrs/wk and being a specialist and not internalizing systems thinking *is* *not* a form of ERE.
ETA: the point is that you can’t get the advertised profound benefits of ERE (whichever form) without equally profound changes in behavior. I’m concerned about people making cosmetic changes, not getting profound benefits, and getting down on ERE praxis.
Last edited by AxelHeyst on Thu Apr 03, 2025 9:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
To provide an example specific to your life as internet strangers are privy… I suspect that you could have certainly funded a Jakob FI semiERE gardening, performing bike and clothing repair, woodworking, and cooking either collectively or independently while working less than half of a typical full time employee.
Well, that's the thing. I did do at some of those things to a skill level where I didn't need to pay anyone for services. However, none of them resulted in more than "lunch money" in terms of spontaneous/serendipitous incomes. This is where one needs to be in a "hire me"-mode, handing out cards, and knocking on doors for semiERE to work. If so, it would likely work.
