Mental health consequences of ERE

Simple living, extreme early retirement, becoming and being wealthy, wisdom, praxis, personal growth,...
zbigi
Posts: 978
Joined: Fri Oct 30, 2020 2:04 pm

Mental health consequences of ERE

Post by zbigi »

I've been wondering lately how does the ERE path impact mental health. We all know that working in a job for decades is mostly not good for you, but how about ERE? I think it places a lot of stresses on the practitioner, where one has to worry about the money and protect against many catastrophic scenarios a couple decades ahead. Given how the the future of financial markets is currently fraught with perils, one can either be in healthy denial ("buy and hold, markets will always go up in the long run" - this is how the FIRE crowd remains sane [1]) or riddled with anxiety. There's always another risk factor or bad scenario that one has to worry about. I don't see that as being free, it's more about exchanging one crippling factor that's occupying one's mental space (i.e. career/job) for another.

[1] See the youtube video that @jacob posted some time ago, where a guru-like, soothing voice is repeating that everything is going to be fine and the markets will recover.

chenda
Posts: 3289
Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:17 pm
Location: Nether Wallop

Re: Mental health consequences of ERE

Post by chenda »

The essence of ERE is really very low expenditure. This gives many more financial options and much more security. One of which may be living off investment income. Another would be part time work, or self employment, or homesteading.

User avatar
Ego
Posts: 6358
Joined: Wed Nov 23, 2011 12:42 am

Re: Mental health consequences of ERE

Post by Ego »

We are all the offspring of a long line of human beings who survived unimaginably harsh environments. As a consequence we have within us the psychological fortitude to cope with far more pressing issues than concern over whether investments will fail.

Dream of Freedom
Posts: 753
Joined: Wed Aug 29, 2012 5:58 pm
Location: Nebraska, US

Re: Mental health consequences of ERE

Post by Dream of Freedom »

I'd say the biggest risks to mental health with ere are:
1 loneliness, because you don't have the built-in social group at work you have to do other things to get social contact
2 drugs/alcohol It is possible to start the morning with the hair of the dog when you don't have to be to work later

zbigi
Posts: 978
Joined: Fri Oct 30, 2020 2:04 pm

Re: Mental health consequences of ERE

Post by zbigi »

Ego wrote:
Fri Sep 30, 2022 6:27 am
We are all the offspring of a long line of human beings who survived unimaginably harsh environments. As a consequence we have within us the psychological fortitude to cope with far more pressing issues than concern over whether investments will fail.
The fact that those people survived does not mean that they were in good shape, mental-health wise. Plus, we were just not built for thinking/worrying about decades-long perspectives of extremely complex and non-linear systems, that will have a large impact on our lives. It's as unnatural as the 9-5.

ertyu
Posts: 2893
Joined: Sun Nov 13, 2016 2:31 am

Re: Mental health consequences of ERE

Post by ertyu »

many did not survive, and those who did not survive had an unbroken line of successful forefathers, too :lol:

joke aside, i have felt this kind of anxiety, zbigi, and it's due to an underdeveloped array of skills and competencies. Long story short, if you're a salaryman and your salary income disappears, and you rely on income from your investments to replace your salary -- and it ends here, you go no further -- it becomes a matter of extreme importance that your investments don't fail and do well enough to last you into old age.

if, on the other hand, you rely on your investments, and your garden, and your ability to fix up people's photovoltaic pannels for occasional income, and your ability to do basic household repairs and maintenance for yourself and others, and and the fish that you caught on the lake and then froze, and friendly mutually beneficial relationships with neighbors, etc. etc., your investment income is one of many things. in fact, your skills will allow you to draw on this investment income only minimally, so that the rest grows and compounds.

so that's how this sort of worrying is avoided; develop multiple competencies so that if any one of them fails, the others will still carry you through.

zbigi
Posts: 978
Joined: Fri Oct 30, 2020 2:04 pm

Re: Mental health consequences of ERE

Post by zbigi »

@ertyu I get that in principle, just find it hard to implement in practice. Garden sounds like a very nice thing, but I can't have it in a flat (and moving to a house would likely cost as much as I can ever hope to recoup from a growing my own food) [1]. Fishing is maybe an option, but it's a very popular past-time activity around here, and most of these guys are sitting there for hours while barely catching anything (it's more of an meditative practice than economic activity). My neighbors quite often exhibit the signs of typical post-soviet trauma that you probably've seen as well, plus they live in flats so don't have many yields to share on top of their salaries or meager state pensions. As for fixing stuff, it barely produces any value, given how cheap new stuff is. Maybe it will change if we (globally, or just Poland) go steeper into decline.

The most viable strategy I see for mysef is just maintaing my career, by getting say a 6-month contract every 18 months. It will produce more money than I need (and take more time than I want), but these stints will hopefully prevent me from being categorized as a has-been by the employers.

[1] One option that I haven't completely ruled out yet is to buy an allotment garden parcel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotment_(gardening)). They're really cheap to buy and maintain, and some are located very close to me. Obviously, the biggest drawback is that you have to go there every day in the season to water the plants etc. The chore factor becomes much bigger than when just growing food in your backyard.

M
Posts: 423
Joined: Wed Sep 29, 2010 7:34 pm

Re: Mental health consequences of ERE

Post by M »

If you have anxiety about job loss, put more money into stock investments.

If you have anxiety about stock investment loss, put more money into safer investments i.e. government backed inflation indexed securities.

If you have anxiety about loss of government securities, put more time and money into more physical things like skills, gardening, relationships, guns, freeze dried food, tools, land and property, etc

If you have anxiety about losing physical things then put more time into physical health i.e. running every morning and eating a whole foods plant based diet.

If you have anxiety about losing physical health then put more time into mental health i.e. meditation, talking with people, relaxation exercises, books, therapy etc.

If you still have anxiety, well, idk. With ere level expenses you could simply work forever part time, work seasonal jobs, etc.

My personal solution to this problem was to go through all of the above, realize I'm going to lose everything and die someday still anyway, then realize that worrying about it isn't a good use of my limited mental resources, then find an easy slacker work from home job where I can do as I please, get all my work done in four hours, then spend the other four hours on ere forums. :lol:

I highly recommend slacker work from home job.

jacob
Site Admin
Posts: 15906
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:38 pm
Location: USA, Zone 5b, Koppen Dfa, Elev. 620ft, Walkscore 77
Contact:

Re: Mental health consequences of ERE

Post by jacob »

zbigi wrote:
Fri Sep 30, 2022 4:51 am
I've been wondering lately how does the ERE path impact mental health. We all know that working in a job for decades is mostly not good for you, but how about ERE? I think it places a lot of stresses on the practitioner, where one has to worry about the money and protect against many catastrophic scenarios a couple decades ahead.
Worrying about catastrophic scenarios is an almost sufficient but NOT REQUIRED condition for ERE. That is to say, if you do worry, then ERE is a resilient strategy, but you could follow the path of the techno-optimistic salaryman and just ignore the adverse parts of the outcome space altogether.

It's already been demonstrated a couple of times that ERE is more resilient than the "everything is going to work out alright" salaryman strategy a couple of times: Great credit crisis and Covid lockdowns.

Thus I think what you're really asking is "the mental health consequence of worrying about bad things in the future" which is independent of ERE. You can do three things. Forget about it. Deny that it can "happen to me"/"happen here". Do something about it.

There's a concept called trait-anxiety which is a built in tendency to be anxious about things. And then there's state-anxiety which is situationally dependent. For me, ERE reduces state-anxiety because I know I can deal with many different adverse outcomes and this confidence is growing for each problem successfully solved. I'm somewhat blessed with a low trait-anxiety though. If a person with high trait-anxiety spends a lot of time doom scrolling, they may benefit more from therapy, soothing meditation videos telling them that everything is gonna be alright, or emotional support in whatever form it takes than helpful ERE-style manuals that subtly suggests that [these issues] are a nothing-burger insofar 'they just get their personal shit together'. This is generally not helpful. Of course, the opposite of sending everybody to therapy when a simple lifestyle change would suffice is not helpful either.

ffj
Posts: 376
Joined: Thu Feb 04, 2021 8:57 pm

Re: Mental health consequences of ERE

Post by ffj »

The biggest threat I see is becoming out of balance with normal life. Even introverts need to be able to relate to the common man and carry on a conversation. Every person needs the feeling of inclusion, and if one removes themselves from society enough then problems can occur. The internet is not enough.

Everybody here, including myself, lives in their head way too fucking much. Sometimes it's refreshing to talk about stuff that doesn't matter to people that never think beyond simple concepts. And bond over nothing more than the fact that you live on the same street. They don't care any more about your ERE concepts than you do over who won the game last night, but you both have got to cut the grass, right? It helps to keep yourself grounded.

M
Posts: 423
Joined: Wed Sep 29, 2010 7:34 pm

Re: Mental health consequences of ERE

Post by M »

ffj wrote:
Fri Sep 30, 2022 8:55 am
but you both have got to cut the grass, right?
Not really, no. Some people have goats that eat the grass, then kids to milk the goats, then they sit out on the patio drinking goat milk while watching their neighbor cut grass. :lol:

This is the ere way of cutting grass - minimal effort, no gas to buy or equipment to maintain. It can lead to awkward conversations with neighbors though as they realize their grass cutting is not very efficient. Which can then lead to a certain amount of isolation as you have one less thing in common with your neighbor.

I have a similar problem with drinking. I don't drink. Some people invite me out for the explicit purpose of getting a beer at a bar. I always decline and thus am somewhat more socially isolated than others.

Social isolation is one factor for depression.....I imagine constantly imagining doomsday scenarios might be another.

ffj
Posts: 376
Joined: Thu Feb 04, 2021 8:57 pm

Re: Mental health consequences of ERE

Post by ffj »

@M

Dave Ramsey has a saying that " You have to live like no other, so that you can live like no other" or something to that effect. I guess my cautionary tale is that once you have conquered that mountain, and lived like no other, then you should probably quit worrying about extruding the last level of efficiency out of your life and go out and develop some social capital. It will pay huge dividends and help you remain connected to your fellow man.

You can still keep your goats, but you may have to drink a few shitty beers. ;)

mathiverse
Posts: 788
Joined: Fri Feb 01, 2019 8:40 pm

Re: Mental health consequences of ERE

Post by mathiverse »

Alternatively, show up to the bar and don't drink a beer? I've never been kicked out for getting water, a non-alcoholic beverage, or food instead. (Water if you don't want to buy anything. The others if you want to buy something, but don't want it to be alcohol.) I don't understand that example unless the issue is not that you don't drink, but that you don't want to be around people drinking. Those are two different things. I do understand the sentiment the example was supposed to express though.

Riggerjack
Posts: 3180
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: Mental health consequences of ERE

Post by Riggerjack »

@zbigi.

You seem to have highlighted the difference between FIRE and ERE. FIRE solves for income issues, and ERE solves issues in general.

This seems reflected in your lifestyle. Living in a apt in a city is well suited to a FIRE approach. High earnings and low spending, problem solved, right?

But ERE is going to poke holes in FIRE all day long. We want to examine all the possibilities. Our obsession with possible failure points may make someone feel anxious about the future. Especially if one's personal idea of safety is tied strongly to financial security.

We can see this all over the board. Right now, there is a thread about the 4% rule, wherein one participant has replaced ERE with FIRE, in an odd way (he seems to think retirement is simply replacing a paycheck with equally regular FI payments, and any possible irregularities as vulnerabilities). He is very engaged with his model, to the point that he can't seem to perceive other possible models as anything but deviations from his own, with all the detriments that come from not optimizing for his preferred metrics...


We all know that working in a job for decades is mostly not good for you, but how about ERE? I think it places a lot of stresses on the practitioner, where one has to worry about the money and protect against many catastrophic scenarios a couple decades ahead. Given how the the future of financial markets is currently fraught with perils, one can either be in healthy denial ("buy and hold, markets will always go up in the long run" - this is how the FIRE crowd remains sane [1]) or riddled with anxiety.


You have savings. I have savings. You worry about your savings, and want to protect them from unseen dangers, so they can keep you safe. I worry about life, and use my savings as a tool to keep my life tuned. It is one lever, and not the most important lever. If this lever is destroyed, well, I built it, I can always rebuild it, or I can change how I operate the other levers, to compensate for the destroyed cash lever.

Perhaps you can find peace by changing your relationship with your savings. Try reading more journals. Try looking into how other people solve the little issues in life using something other than cash. Looking deeper into what you want your retirement to look like. I doubt your current life minus the work week is really what you want. Maybe put more thought into what you are retiring to.

Because it would be a shame to spend the rest of your life sweating over all the possible failures, rather than gathering successes.

M
Posts: 423
Joined: Wed Sep 29, 2010 7:34 pm

Re: Mental health consequences of ERE

Post by M »

mathiverse wrote:
Fri Sep 30, 2022 11:04 am
Alternatively, show up to the bar and don't drink a beer? I've never been kicked out for getting water, a non-alcoholic beverage, or food instead. (Water if you don't want to buy anything. The others if you want to buy something, but don't want it to be alcohol.) I don't understand that example unless the issue is not that you don't drink, but that you don't want to be around people drinking. Those are two different things. I do understand the sentiment the example was supposed to express though.
Haha - yes. I have went to the bar before and drank water and ate food. I actually love being around people who drink. Drunk people tend to be more honest and relaxed. I am just personally not going to drink...I don't drink coffee or pop either, not just alcohol. I'm just odd in various ways.

I was thinking of a recent example where new person I just met said "hey you want to get a beer" and I instinctively said "no I don't drink, have a good day!" and after walking away it dawned on me that he was actually just looking for someone to socialize with and I should have went with him and just drank water. This is more a "silly M mistake" than anything. :lol:

Edit: There are some other examples I can think of where I declined to go to a bar with someone because they are the kind of person who would try and convince me to drink the whole time, which I'm not going to do, so the whole situation just becomes awkward, but none of this has anything to do with ere.

User avatar
Ego
Posts: 6358
Joined: Wed Nov 23, 2011 12:42 am

Re: Mental health consequences of ERE

Post by Ego »

jacob wrote:
Fri Sep 30, 2022 8:51 am
Thus I think what you're really asking is "the mental health consequence of worrying about bad things in the future" which is independent of ERE. You can do three things. Forget about it. Deny that it can "happen to me"/"happen here". Do something about it.
The anticipation of pain is often more painful than pain itself.

But some people like pain. Some enjoy the feeling of fear. Some welcome the distraction anxiety provides.

Wallowing in worry is an increasingly common reaction to the possibility that bad things may happen in the future.

guitarplayer
Posts: 1300
Joined: Thu Feb 27, 2020 6:43 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: Mental health consequences of ERE

Post by guitarplayer »

@mathiverse, I had the situation just a couple of days back when having dinner with a friend. He asked if we'd be drinking wine, DW and I had said we were fine. The friend ended up drinking water like us, still we had a good time. It was us cooking and the trickier bit was not using cooking fat and salt, these he had to supplement with hah. Anyway, I could see how refusal to drink / conform might put strain on others. This might be considered their problem or one might want to help it as per @ffj's comment. Some people really struggle to find themselves when faced with nonconformity.

@zbigi, I may be wrong but I think council tax on these garden allotments is pretty high. In the past I thought a bout buying one as our HQ and just heading south in winter, some of the summerhouses adjacent to the gardens are proper houses.

Back to the OP, I think you are thinking about FIRE (getting enough money to cross the x% SWR threshold by increasing income...) or ERE1 aka Early Retirement Extreme (...as well as bringing spending down).

In ERE2 aka Emergent Renaissance Ecology I see no imperative of stopping working. Just now when I think about it, another iteration of ERE2 that appears in my mind is like when you have a monkey (or Tarzan for more ego invested readers) swinging through the jungle from one vine to another, whatever vines are in front of them. Developing ERE2 is growing the jungle so it's got many vines hanging around.

Tyler9000
Posts: 1758
Joined: Fri Jun 01, 2012 11:45 pm

Re: Mental health consequences of ERE

Post by Tyler9000 »

Riggerjack wrote:
Fri Sep 30, 2022 11:25 am
You seem to have highlighted the difference between FIRE and ERE. FIRE solves for income issues, and ERE solves issues in general.
Exactly.

Even though I know more about withdrawal rates than your average investor, all the data in the world never seemed to calm my anxiety over having "enough". However, once I realized that it wasn't really about money but about skill, confidence, and determination, the light finally went on. I haven't stressed about money since, because there are other ways to solve problems. When faced with adversity, I'm much happier and more successful thinking like a designer proactively prototyping solutions rather than a finance guy reactively updating spreadsheets.

If you look at absolute spending levels, I'm probably a lot closer to MMM than Jacob. But the thing that has always appealed to me about ERE over more "traditional" FIRE discussions is the mindset. While other communities fret about spending vs income in times of market stress, ERE spends more time thinking about things like flexibility, skill acquisition, and antifragile systems. It plays a different game entirely.
Last edited by Tyler9000 on Sun Oct 02, 2022 7:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

mathiverse
Posts: 788
Joined: Fri Feb 01, 2019 8:40 pm

Re: Mental health consequences of ERE

Post by mathiverse »

OP: Even ERE1 doesn't preclude making income. In fact, making income (or at least the ability to make income) post-"retirement" is a part of the original conception as far as I can tell. viewtopic.php?p=127568#p127568

IlliniDave
Posts: 3845
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:46 pm

Re: Mental health consequences of ERE

Post by IlliniDave »

Hmm, I thought I responded to this earlier. Either I forgot to submit or it got deleted.

I've always had good mental health and retiring has only enhanced it. In general I'd say someone who is having a lot of stress over money/investing should consider not retiring (yet). In my initial response I didn't even mention money/investing because it isn't a source of worry. I do pay attention, and have built in lifestyle margin where I can dial back lifestyle significantly without sacrificing a good life. Ere provides far more of that flexibility than I have. At my best I might qualify for leanFIRE in how far I can dial back my lifestyle spending. I can sympathize with the stress retiring "on the edge" might cause. I moved away from the edge before pulling the trigger by working both ends of the equation: built up a little more in the way of financial resources and proved to myself I can live on a fraction of median income. That margin is not bullet proof, but it's enough to give me a lot of peace of mind even while things in the short-term go south.

Post Reply