🧓👴Toughest Main Goal in Retirement Most Cannot Achieve: Never Run Out Of Money

According to retirees, not fresh grads or Millennials ready to tackle the FIRE movement, retirement is in fact the scariest moment of one’s existence.

As a college student, I can only say so much about retirement yet through my research, discussions with young and old retirees and planning for it myself (don’t judge), I’ve learned far too many things about this stage of life Americans are completely unaware about.

With no stable income, no definite plan, creeping inflation, costly grandkids, higher cost of living, medical costs, uncertainty, weakening brain cells, over exuberance, lack of patience, less responsiveness and less time, retiring isn’t as glamorous as it used to be.

The most common questions based on retirement aren’t about the all-inclusive senior living communities in South Beach Florida or tastiest margaritas, instead they focus on funding. Majority of the money talk Americans engage in regarding retirement to college in this country is frightening since they know very little.

The truth is, we are bad at planning and predicting the future yet we can’t blame ourselves! What’s certain is uncertainly. We are convinced retirement is in a lifetime from now, in a distant far away land that we will tackle when we want a severe break.

I’m sorry kiddos or shall I say adults, retirement egg’s don’t hatch a day earlier. They take time, meaning decades to build.

Luxurious Pure Hassle

When one plans on retiring, they imagine a peaceful, stress-free life with their life planned out like a 30 year vacation. Mornings are made for 2 hours of golf, lunch with grandkids, afternoon to take a dip in the ocean and the evenings are dedicated to reading some classics or to have a drink with friends.

This is the biggest disillusion one can have as sadly majority of retirees, those who are classified as living off their retirement benefits/savings plan officially unemployed, lived a better life prior to retiring.

I honestly don’t know what all the hype is about around retirement. Yes, 4 hour work weeks and WFH are strategic since our health is priceless yet quitting work at 30 to sit on a beach for the rest of your life is miserable and beyond lazy.

Millennials are more eager than ever to go down this route but at the same time are least prepared and probably in the worst financial state of their lives.

To take this vacation or not? Spend time with the kids or go back to work? Buy this sweet car or back to the first car I got after graduation? Ask Susie for money again? Where did I leave my wallet?

This isn’t an extensive list of the worries that cloud pre-retirees minds and there are far more especially as you get older when all you seem to think about is your health which ends up translating into a larger fine into your bank account.

Personally, I believe attempting to delay living your best life now for later on is a poor philosophy to live by. I enjoy working hard and playing hard yet not at the expense of my life today.

Currently, I know two former colleagues who recently fled corporate America to nomads land in New Zealand and Puerto Rico. They are part-time following the FIRE movement (financially independent retire early) as they realized 2 months in they couldn’t sustain living off of their sheer $10k in savings from college and few years in a job and needed to pick up the pace with their side hustles, something they never had any experience in but had no choice since their prior job was a bit uncomfortable and they couldn’t resist going back.

I find if we had a bit more patience, dedication and grit to do something that is uncomfortable, we would get much farther in life. We don’t know what’s waiting on the other side of change and most quit right at the point where a breakthrough is about to happen in their careers. It’s unfortunate people prefer to struggle in retirement as opposed to pushing through challenges at work.

I’m convinced this is the case with far more Millennials and middle-aged people who are dealing with this crisis on their hands than we think. With the nuclear weapon of social media in our hands at all times, we scroll through highlight reels of what we don’t have and are convinced at all times that others have it better than us.

Instead of paying attention to what we do have, we focus on what we don’t have. The luxurious resort your friend has been WFH bound at for the past 6 months or your colleague swimming with the sharks every morning is too good to be true.

Everyone needs to sustain their cost of living somehow and not working shouldn’t be allowed, even if you’ve inherited a handsome lifetime payment. We need fulfillment in our lives and have to become comfortable with the uncomfortable.

You don’t see the flip side to real life or reality online. This distorts our thinking. Just like on LinkedIn, majority of your feed is probably filled with acceptance or congratulatory posts instead of the more common reality of rejections, confusion, mid-life crisis and failure.

By The Numbers

America is embedded within the hustle culture and this has been perpetuated by workaholism and competition. Taking days off to cure your mental state is looked down upon yet retiring 3 years into your first job seems courageous.

As the wealthiest nation in the world, it has been competing with China, the largest economy since its existence and has expanded innovation, digitalization, consumerism, and globalism to its max potential which mainly boosts markets, not so much the economy, distributing money into the pockets of shareholders who don’t need a third beach home.

As a result, this harms minimum wage workers, diligent tax payers and W2 earners exacerbating the wealth inequality gap as America is too expensive for most at this point luring foreigners in instead.

Along with the lack of proper financial literacy prep in the education system mixed with unequal “rent” distribution (excess pay given out to the top 1%-typically in the financial industry through equity based compensation), there is a great divide between Americans as the rich get richer and the poorer get poorer.

It seems like the goal of higher-education is to get the top 1% to turn into billionaires instead of what really should be done is to help the bottom 90% become millionaires. We don’t have our priorities straight and the government to financial sector works in favor of the shareholder class, those who are driving profits and boosting GDP the most through consumer and business spending, exports and business dealings/investments.

While we wait and see where the regulation will be headed for Wall Street and Big Tech, all we can do is control what we save up for for the rest of our lives.

Don’t Take A Break

Retirement should be a blissful, exciting moment in one’s life. It shouldn’t be dreadful and people don’t believe it really is until they live it.

The reason retirees are misaligned by how much it costs are due to these distractions:

-Lack of fin-lit education
-Employer doesn’t offer 401(k), 403b, etc. plans to start saving nor health insurance
-Cannot professionally budget appropriately nor predict correct risk tolerance
-Misallocation of spending and investing
-No emergency savings fund
-Lack of income streams
-Highly dependent on another person besides themselves, typically a working spouse
-Believe the gov’t has their back via stimulus or food stamps, social security
-Forget medical costs are the number one reason their fellow Americans get and stay in debt
-Disregard the fact that they won’t be this mentally or physically sharp forever

With these factors in mind, let’s see how poorly equipped Americans really are for retirement.

Get ready to cringe….

According to a survey by the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, the median retirement savings by age in the U.S. is:
Americans in their 20s: $16,000
Americans in their 30s: $45,000
Americans in their 40s: $63,000
Americans in their 50s: $117,000
Americans in their 60s: $172,000

Taking a quick glance, I’m actually quite impressed by these results especially for those in their twenties yet quickly it steadily declines by the mid-30s as Americans start to invest less and spend more.

The reason being is due to;

-Starting a family

-Making the largest purchase of their lives: their primary residence

-Still possibly paying off or taking on more debt if finishing up degree or getting a part-time MBA

-Having kids

-Paying for kids education + possibly theirs

-Insurance costs

-Vacations

-Trips

-Higher cost of living-commuting, inflation, location

This all adds up quick! You can really get by with saving almost 80% of your income in your twenties. With the average savings rate of 15% for Americans, by the end of the day, they have little to allocate to their retirement account after their disposable income is slashed by taxes, put into savings and if possible in their investment account as well.

The average savings rate should hover around 30% as it aligns with the top 10%’s where their necessities take up a sliver of their earnings and the rest they invest compounding their wealth and growing a larger nest egg contributing to excess retirement savings.

The most strategic and cost efficent way to save up for reitmenet is:

-Get started early with investing
-Save more than you earn
-Set up automatic deposits from your earnings at work towards your retirement and investment account
-Don’t rush nor look at other’s timeline-you don’t need kids by 30 or get married tomorrow

Actual Recommended Savings Rate

By your mid-60’s if you saved roughly $20k or more per year since age 25, you should have already accumulated shy of $1m in your retirement by 60.

Individuals should save 1-2x their annual salary in their 30’s and this increases by 1% each year for example:

-Americans in their 30s: 1-2x save their annual salary to contribute to their retirement
-Americans in their 40s: 3-4x
-Americans in their 50s: 6-7x
-Americans in their 60s: 8-10x

This is twice the median and average amount of what most Americans are saving. Plan to live off 80% or ideally less of your pre-retirement income if possible and slowly try it while still working. 

Having a net worth of $10m or 10k isn’t the point here since at the end of the day it’s what you do in retirement that counts and that’s usually indicative of how you live your life now earning and spending. If you spend majority of your $1m salary, you are as broke as a farmer earning a third of that amount spending 10% of it and investing the rest.

It’s all relative. Don’t be addicted to a higher salary to upscale your life. You don’t need it.

There’s no secret formula nor path to take to retire yet staring early is your best advantage as returns compound faster with more time since time in the market beats timing the market.

Passively investing in index funds or ETFs that track the broader market indexes such as the S&P 500 or Dow Jones are enough to keep you stable and save time and money in the long run. What’s the point of beating the market when you can trail it? It’s still growing anyway. As you near retirement, you certainly want to rebalance and gear towards a more conservative approach as you aren’t able to afford the volatility given your lack of stable income.

Time On Your Side

If you’re in my position currently at college, you may be thinking retirement is for elders. No need to worry. By thinking this way, you are sabotaging yourself more by not investing earlier than later.

Even if you start contributing more than the total amount you contributed little by little each year in your twenties, through the power of dollar cost averaging, you still would’ve accumulated less overtime starting later.

An effective way to start saving for retirement in your twenties is by contributing to a Roth IRA – a tax advantaged post-tax account. You can contribute up to $6k per year. Also setting up an emergency cash cushion of no more than 6 months at this stage is key in case of surprise expenses that inevitably come up.

Unfortunately Millennials, who are also the poorest generation, have the lowest median saved for emergencies at only $2k and 70% + Americans admit they will have to go into debt to afford an unexpected $1k expense.

With only 1 in 3 workers in all generations having an emergency savings plan and have not started investing until middle age, there’s no way to catch up at this point. Little by little investing overtime is better than a lot later on.

Saving for retirement is a bigger priority than you should make it seem since we don’t realize until we get older that life does in fact get slower and doesn’t continue at this fast-pace forever. It should never be embarrassing to think about and instead enjoyable and exciting to plan the life you can make for yourself putting your hard earned money to work.

Think about your 70 year old self.

Would they appreciate you buying that BMW to impress strangers at 30 or that you diligently saved an extra $20k since college so you can live in a safe community with a reliable aid to help you?

West Case Scenario

Part of being a prudent investor is taking into consideration all the possible ‘what if’s’ that can come about in the market to life.

This starts with understanding:

-Your risk tolerance by the decade (should lean towards fixed-incomes and alternatives as you age)

-Short/long term goals

-Health conditions

-Life insurance policy plan

-Annuities

-Withdraw rate and date

According to the IRS, there is a 10% penalty tax as a part of your gross income if you withdraw from an IRA before age 59 ½ and the same thing goes for a Roth IRA as they are designed to be used for retirement not a wedding. Since the withdraw age for most plans is 59 1/2, retirement is recommended to start at this time or later.

To build up your nest egg but also have enough cash to live your life today, don’t be scared to aggressively invest a bit as you should take advantage of your longer time horizon. Additionally, invest in alternative assets to build generational wealth passively through real easter or farmland, etc.

And most importantly, pay off any outstanding debt. Far too many retirees are still dealing with lingering debt from 5 decades ago and it is hampering on their lifestyle. Most people retire between 65 and 67 but most end up doing it at 61 and in fact want to do it earlier these days with chronic burnout and no purpose.

If you are in the midst of your career, you are most likely hating or loving it.

Jumping on a decision to go to the Maldives and spontaneously work on your side hustle is not strategic specifically if the side hustle isn’t generating more returns than your investment income, something I strongly advice.

Before you jump into retirement at any age make sure:

-You are confident your investment income > active income at least for 5 years

-Know that you won’t have to struggle to live and can actually do it comfortably living off of 80% or less of your gross income you are earning today

-Know what you want to do! After a week, you will most likely feel bored on the beach and need a purpose!

Don’t expect to earn as much as before since that’s the point of retirement but have some mission whether its volunteering or working at your local pharmacy, wherever it may be, find something to get you out of the house and moving.

Spice up that old brain if it happens to be old!

-Don’t give up right away. If your life isn’t panning out and you want to quit and head to retirement, slowly weigh your options since once you quit, it’ll be expensive and draining to jump back into full-time work mode, try a break/hiatus first. It doesn’t hurt!

-Make sure to take advantage of your company’s severance package and any accrued benefits such as extra perks and compensation to take with you

Last but not least, the absolute worst thing you can do is plan to go back to work when you retire. Not planning on earning anything in retirement is your best bet. You don’t know your circumstances, how you will feel, or what will happen tomorrow.

The point of retiring is to retire not pretend like it.

Journeying on the FIRE movement at age 30 isn’t any better than at 60 because you need to plan for 30+ more years of pure boredom, scarc

According to retirees, not fresh grads or Millennials ready to tackle the FIRE movement, retirement is in fact the scariest period of one’s existence.

As a college student, I can only say so much about retirement yet through my research, discussions with young and old retirees and planning for it myself (don’t judge), I’ve learned far too many things about this stage of life Americans are completely unaware about.

With no stable income, no definite plan, creeping inflation, costly grandkids, higher cost of living, medical costs, uncertainty, weakening brain cells, over exuberance, lack of patience, less responsiveness and less time, retiring isn’t as glamorous as it used to be.

The most common questions based on retirement aren’t about the all-inclusive senior living communities in South Beach Florida or tastiest margaritas, instead they focus on funding. Majority of the money talk Americans engage in regarding retirement to college in this country is frightening since they know very little.

The truth is, we are bad at planning and predicting the future yet we can’t blame ourselves! What’s certain is uncertainly. We are convinced retirement is in a lifetime from now, in a distant far away land that we will tackle when we want a severe break.

I’m sorry kiddos or shall I say adults, retirement egg’s don’t hatch a day earlier. They take time, meaning decades to build.

Image by Unsplash

Luxurious Pure Hassle

When one plans on retiring, they imagine a peaceful, stress-free life with their life planned out like a 30 year vacation. Mornings are made for 2 hours of golf, lunch with grandkids, afternoon to take a dip in the ocean and the evenings are dedicated to reading some classics or to have a drink with friends.

This is the biggest disillusion one can have as sadly majority of retirees, those who are classified as living off their retirement benefits/savings plan officially unemployed, lived a better life prior to retiring.

I honestly don’t know what all the hype is about around retirement. Yes, 4 hour work weeks and WFH are strategic since our health is priceless yet quitting work at 30 to sit on a beach for the rest of your life is miserable and beyond lazy.

Millennials are more eager than ever to go down this route but at the same time are least prepared and probably in the worst financial state of their lives.

To take this vacation or not? Spend time with the kids or go back to work? Buy this sweet car or back to the first car I got after graduation? Ask Susie for money again? Where did I leave my wallet?

This isn’t an extensive list of the worries that cloud pre-retirees minds and there are far more especially as you get older when all you seem to think about is your health which ends up translating into a larger fine into your bank account.

Personally, I believe attempting to delay living your best life now for later on is a poor philosophy to live by. I enjoy working hard and playing hard yet not at the expense of my life today.

Currently, I know two former colleagues who recently fled corporate America to nomads land in New Zealand and Puerto Rico. They are part-time following the FIRE movement (financially independent retire early) as they realized 2 months in they couldn’t sustain living off of their sheer $10k in savings from college and few years in a job and needed to pick up the pace with their side hustles, something they never had any experience in but had no choice since their prior job was a bit uncomfortable and they couldn’t resist going back.

I find if we had a bit more patience, dedication and grit to do something that is uncomfortable, we would get much farther in life. We don’t know what’s waiting on the other side of change and most quit right at the point where a breakthrough is about to happen in their careers. It’s unfortunate people prefer to struggle in retirement as opposed to pushing through challenges at work.

I’m convinced this is the case with far more Millennials and middle-aged people who are dealing with this crisis on their hands than we think. With the nuclear weapon of social media in our hands at all times, we scroll through highlight reels of what we don’t have and are convinced at all times that others have it better than us.

Instead of paying attention to what we do have, we focus on what we don’t have. The luxurious resort your friend has been WFH bound at for the past 6 months or your colleague swimming with the sharks every morning is too good to be true.

Everyone needs to sustain their cost of living somehow and not working shouldn’t be allowed, even if you’ve inherited a handsome lifetime payment. We need fulfillment in our lives and have to become comfortable with the uncomfortable.

You don’t see the flip side to real life or reality online. This distorts our thinking. Just like on LinkedIn, majority of your feed is probably filled with acceptance or congratulatory posts instead of the more common reality of rejections, confusion, mid-life crisis and failure.

Image by Unsplash

By The Numbers

America is embedded within the hustle culture and this has been perpetuated by workaholism and competition. Taking days off to cure your mental state is looked down upon yet retiring 3 years into your first job seems courageous.

As the wealthiest nation in the world, it has been competing with China, the largest economy since its existence and has expanded innovation, digitalization, consumerism, and globalism to its max potential which mainly boosts markets, not so much the economy, distributing money into the pockets of shareholders who don’t need a third beach home.

As a result, this harms minimum wage workers, diligent tax payers and W2 earners exacerbating the wealth inequality gap as America is too expensive for most at this point luring foreigners in instead.

Along with the lack of proper financial literacy prep in the education system mixed with unequal “rent” distribution (excess pay given out to the top 1%-typically in the financial industry through equity based compensation), there is a great divide between Americans as the rich get richer and the poorer get poorer.

It seems like the goal of higher-education is to get the top 1% to turn into billionaires instead of what really should be done is to help the bottom 90% become millionaires. We don’t have our priorities straight and the government to financial sector works in favor of the shareholder class, those who are driving profits and boosting GDP the most through consumer and business spending, exports and business dealings/investments.

While we wait and see where the regulation will be headed for Wall Street and Big Tech, all we can do is control what we save up for for the rest of our lives.

Image by Unsplash

Don’t Take A Break Just Yet

Retirement should be a blissful, exciting moment in one’s life. It shouldn’t be dreadful and people don’t believe it really is until they live it.

The reason retirees are misaligned by how much it costs are due to these distractions:

-Lack of fin-lit education
-Employer doesn’t offer 401(k), 403b, etc. plans to start saving nor health insurance
-Cannot professionally budget appropriately nor predict correct risk tolerance
-Misallocation of spending and investing
-No emergency savings fund
-Lack of income streams
-Highly dependent on another person besides themselves, typically a working spouse
-Believe the gov’t has their back via stimulus or food stamps, social security
-Forget medical costs are the number one reason their fellow Americans get and stay in debt
-Disregard the fact that they won’t be this mentally or physically sharp forever

With these factors in mind, let’s see how poorly equipped Americans really are for retirement.

Get ready to cringe….

According to a survey by the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, the median retirement savings by age in the U.S. is:

Americans in their 20s: $16,000
Americans in their 30s: $45,000
Americans in their 40s: $63,000
Americans in their 50s: $117,000
Americans in their 60s: $172,000

Taking a quick glance, I’m actually quite impressed by these results especially for those in their twenties yet quickly it steadily declines by the mid-30s as Americans start to invest less and spend more.

The reason being is due to:

-Time, energy and money to start a family

-Making the largest purchase of their lives: their primary residence

-Still possibly paying off or taking on more debt if finishing up degree or getting a part-time MBA

-Having kids

-Paying for kids education + possibly theirs

-Insurance costs

-Vacations

-Trips

-Higher cost of living-commuting, inflation, location

This all adds up quick! You can really get by with saving almost 80% of your income in your twenties. With the average savings rate of 15% for Americans, by the end of the day, they have little to allocate to their retirement account after their disposable income is slashed by taxes, put into savings and if possible in their investment account as well.

The average savings rate should hover around 30% as it aligns with the top 10%’s where their necessities take up a sliver of their earnings and the rest they invest compounding their wealth and growing a larger nest egg contributing to excess retirement savings.

The most strategic and cost efficient way to save up for retirement is:

-Get started early with investing
-Save more than you earn
-Set up automatic deposits from your earnings at work towards your retirement and investment account
-Don’t rush nor look at other’s timeline-you don’t need kids by 30 or get married tomorrow

Image by Unsplash

Actual Recommended Savings Rate

By your mid-60’s if you saved roughly $20k or more per year since age 25, you should have already accumulated shy of $1m in your retirement by 60.

Individuals should save 1–2x their annual salary in their 30’s and this increases by 1% each year for example:

-Americans in their 30s: 1–2x save their annual salary to contribute to their retirement
-Americans in their 40s: 3–4x
-Americans in their 50s: 6–7x
-Americans in their 60s: 8–10x

This is twice the median and average amount of what most Americans are saving. Plan to live off 80% or ideally less of your pre-retirement income if possible and slowly try it while still working.

Having a net worth of $10m or 10k isn’t the point here since at the end of the day it’s what you do in retirement that counts and that’s usually indicative of how you live your life now earning and spending. If you spend majority of your $1m salary, you are as broke as a farmer earning a third of that amount spending 10% of it and investing the rest.

It’s all relative. Don’t be addicted to a higher salary to upscale your life. You don’t need it.

There’s no secret formula nor path to take to retire yet staring early is your best advantage as returns compound faster with more time since time in the market beats timing the market.

Passively investing in index funds or ETFs that track the broader market indexes such as the S&P 500 or Dow Jones are enough to keep you stable and save time and money in the long run. What’s the point of beating the market when you can trail it? It’s still growing anyway. As you near retirement, you certainly want to rebalance and gear towards a more conservative approach as you aren’t able to afford the volatility given your lack of stable income.

Image by Unsplash

Start Early Or Fall Behind Forever

If you’re in my position currently at college, you may be thinking retirement is for elders. No need to worry. By thinking this way, you are sabotaging yourself more by not investing earlier than later.

Even if you start contributing more than the total amount you contributed little by little each year in your twenties, through the power of dollar cost averaging, you still would’ve accumulated less overtime starting later.

An effective way to start saving for retirement in your twenties is by contributing to a Roth IRA — a tax advantaged post-tax account. You can contribute up to $6k per year. Also setting up an emergency cash cushion of no more than 6 months at this stage is key in case of surprise expenses that inevitably come up.

Unfortunately Millennials, who are also the poorest generation, have the lowest median saved for emergencies at only $2k and 70% + Americans admit they will have to go into debt to afford an unexpected $1k expense.

With only 1 in 3 workers in all generations having an emergency savings plan and have not started investing until middle age, there’s no way to catch up at this point. Little by little investing overtime is better than a lot later on.

Saving for retirement is a bigger priority than you should make it seem since we don’t realize until we get older that life does in fact get slower and doesn’t continue at this fast-pace forever. It should never be embarrassing to think about and instead enjoyable and exciting to plan the life you can make for yourself putting your hard earned money to work.

Think about your 70 year old self.

Would they appreciate you buying that BMW to impress strangers at 30 or that you diligently saved an extra $20k since college so you can live in a safe community with a reliable aid to help you?

Image by Unsplash

Worst Case Scenario

Part of being a prudent investor is taking into consideration all the possible ‘what if’s’ that can come about in the market to life.

This starts with understanding:

-Your risk tolerance by the decade (should lean towards fixed-incomes and alternatives as you age)

-Short/long term goals

-Health conditions

-Life insurance policy plan

-Annuities

-Withdraw rate and date

According to the IRS, there is a 10% penalty tax as a part of your gross income if you withdraw from an IRA before age 59 ½ and the same thing goes for a Roth IRA as they are designed to be used for retirement not a wedding. Since the withdraw age for most plans is 59 1/2, retirement is recommended to start at this time or later.

To build up your nest egg but also have enough cash to live your life today, don’t be scared to aggressively invest a bit as you should take advantage of your longer time horizon. Additionally, invest in alternative assets to build generational wealth passively through real easter or farmland, etc.

And most importantly, pay off any outstanding debt. Far too many retirees are still dealing with lingering debt from 5 decades ago and it is hampering on their lifestyle. Most people retire between 65 and 67 but most end up doing it at 61 and in fact want to do it earlier these days with chronic burnout and no purpose.

If you are in the midst of your career, you are most likely hating or loving it.

Jumping on a decision to go to the Maldives and spontaneously work on your side hustle is not strategic specifically if the side hustle isn’t generating more returns than your investment income, something I strongly advice.

Before you jump into retirement at any age make sure to:

-You are confident your investment income > active income at least for 5 years

-Know that you won’t have to struggle to live and can actually do it comfortably living off of 80% or less of your gross income you are earning today

-Know what you want to do! After a week, you will most likely feel bored on the beach and need a purpose!

Don’t expect to earn as much as before since that’s the point of retirement but have some mission whether its volunteering or working at your local pharmacy, wherever it may be, find something to get you out of the house and moving.

Spice up that old brain if it happens to be old!

-Don’t give up right away. If your life isn’t panning out and you want to quit and head to retirement, slowly weigh your options since once you quit, it’ll be expensive and draining to jump back into full-time work mode, try a break/hiatus first. It doesn’t hurt!

-Make sure to take advantage of your company’s severance package and any accrued benefits such as extra perks and compensation to take with you

Last but not least, the absolute worst thing you can do is plan to go back to work when you retire. Not planning on earning anything in retirement is your best bet. You don’t know your circumstances, how you will feel, or what will happen tomorrow.

The point of retiring is to retire not pretend or hop into it.

Journeying on the FIRE movement at age 30 isn’t any better than at 60 because you need to plan for 30+ more years of pure boredom, scarcity and fear. Planning to work at an older age is beyond dangerous since there’s only so much you can do and many employers want fresh blood from school.

Therefore, it’s much better to die with a little too much than a little too little.

ity and fear. Planning to work at an older age is beyond dangerous since there’s only so much you can do and many employers want fresh blood from school.

Therefore, it’s much better to die with a little too much than a little too little.