
Living in retirement: Seven things I wish I could tell my 35-year-old self - kareemm
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/personal-finance/retirement-rrsps/living-in-retirement-seven-things-i-wish-i-could-tell-my-35-year-old-self/article16429873/#dashboard/follows/
======
ACow_Adonis
Wow...some of those are...really bad. Lets go through them.

1\. No real arguments against the general idea. Divorce is expensive. Duh. Of
course, no one gets married thinking they'll get divorce, so its pretty
pointless advice. And once in a marriage, the real question is then the
opportunity cost of staying in the marriage vs getting out. Sanity is worth a
lot of money.

2\. Children before 35? This never really got explained. Why? Its true that
there's a biological clock, especially for women, but its also true that those
who have children later in life generally have better life outcomes. Obviously
save money if you can...(and i'm not even starting on the "why do you need to
have children at all" question?)

3\. Stick with 1 job/career. If you were from 1950, i'd probably give the same
advice too. Now in 20XX, i'd say be skilled, be flexible, be mobile, don't
give up, beware of cementing yourself into a career/job that might not exist
in 5-10 years.

4\. Defined benefit pensions. For us later generations, they are a thing of
the past. If you do manage to land one, don't assume it will actually be there
for you when you retire. A financial/political/demographic crisis is a bitch.
Defined pensions can't pay money that isn't there.

5\. Find a financial adviser you can trust. This is just populist nonsense.
Not because financial activities are not important, but because its not
possible. If you have the knowledge to judge financial advisers, you don't
need one. If you don't have that ability, you won't be able to tell whether
they're any good until XX years down the track, upon which point you'll
probably judge them on your returns. And even then, there's a good chance
you'll just make a judgement based on random chance/survivorship bias.

6\. Buy the best house you afford, in a neighborhood you adore. Stay there.
--See translation: I'm a baby boomer living in a country that hasn't had a
housing crash.(...yet).

7\. Develop long-standing interests that are not outrageously costly. Can't
argue with that.

~~~
dnautics
2\. because the financial planning for children will run into needing to save
for retirement more dramatically if you have children later (think: kids going
to college when you're 50) I'm not sure he's right about the whole more
degrees and more expensive thing.

Agreed that 3 4 6 come from a position of entitlement - being born in an era
where those things existed (possibly at the expense of future generations
prosperity).

 _If you have the knowledge to judge financial advisers, you don 't need one.
If you don't have that ability, you won't be able to tell whether they're any
good until XX years down the track, upon which point you'll probably judge
them on your returns. And even then, there's a good chance you'll just make a
judgement based on random chance/survivorship bias._

Love this.

~~~
fixedd
College, in North America, is something that you "have to have" (according to
popular thought) and is for-profit, so there's incentive to increase the cost.
The costs have catastrophically ballooned just since I went and I'm in my 30s.
While I don't think those costs can continue to increase indefinitely, they're
certainly bound to rise further.

~~~
dnautics
keep in mind though that if the advice is being doled out to, say a
20-something, then the period in question is +10 (to get to a 30-something +20
or so to get the kid to college) or a net +30 years from now. I think it's
certainly possible higher education bubble will pop before 30 years are up.

------
fennecfoxen
Hahahahahhaa! So you think your defined-benefit pension is proof against
losses, eh?

Well, it can protect you from a lot, that's for sure. But as a rule, pension
costs have been rising for decades, and were underfunded even before the
economy and tax revenues tanked. In this narrow column I can only highlight a
few small pieces of hilarity, like pension plans borrowing cash to invest in
real estate to the tune of a $1B loss (Calpers -
[http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB122947172015212225](http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB122947172015212225)
\- use a Google HTTP referer to read the full article). Or the plan where you
_borrow from your pension plan TO PAY FOR YOUR PENSION PLAN_ \--
[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/nyregion/to-pay-new-
york-p...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/nyregion/to-pay-new-york-pension-
fund-cities-borrow-from-it-
first.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&emc=eta1&pagewanted=print&adxnnlx=1391138226-e8u9VBaQ8WHHfVdFXfzUgA)

So yeah, you've got a lot of clout, but you'd better hope that your city,
state, or other relevant agency stays afloat or you're at risk of getting
dinged a lot like an ordinary hard-working unentitled American.

(At least with a 401(k) or IRA, you know what assets you have and actually
_own them yourself_ \-- moreover, if you worked somewhere small enough, they
might be more diversified than your municipality's future tax revenue.)

~~~
aroberge
The article is written by a Canadian in a Canadian newspaper. The situation in
Canada is quite different from the one in the States. Defined benefit pension
plans for public civil servants (including teachers) are quite safe in Canada.

~~~
dnautics
translation:

 _this time it 's different_

~~~
BrandonMarc
I'm amazed at how prophetic that book [0] is. I wish it would be required
reading for every Congresscritter, SCOTUS judge, every member of every federal
agency, and all the other cogs in the executive branch ... but I fear they
would simply see all the proven mistakes as a blueprint of what to do, only
"smarter" this time.

\----------------------------------------

[0] [http://www.amazon.com/This-Time-Different-Centuries-
Financia...](http://www.amazon.com/This-Time-Different-Centuries-
Financial/dp/0691152640) This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial
Folly It basically takes centuries of data and shows how world leaders tend to
make the same mistakes, causing crises, and then follow the wrong solutions to
said crises.

More: [http://www.reinhartandrogoff.com/](http://www.reinhartandrogoff.com/)

------
epicureanideal
I think one of the problems with advice from people near retirement is that
they think about life decisions that would have benefitted them at their
current age. So for example, being 65, they wish their younger self had saved
on going out to eat, buying nice clothes, etc. so that their current happiness
would be higher than it is. What they don't account for is that their younger
self would've been less happy at that time. Perhaps their younger self
would've burned out if not for "wasting" some money buying some happiness in
the present.

~~~
vishaldpatel
This is a good point, for sure - especially when it comes to personal
financial planning. It is also the reason why I think every country should
have a proper social safety net in place if they can afford it.

------
groby_b
So, basically, live a really boring 30-40 years, so you can enjoy 20-30 years
in declining health.

I'll get right on that.

~~~
dmm
His first tip, only get married once and stay married, is a pretty good one.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Because knowing that the other person is going to snap/leave one day is
completely determinable. Forgive me for my disbelief.

~~~
fixedd
You can't imagine a scenario where your spouse may find something irritating,
but for whatever reason choose to not mention it. Then, after years of daily
annoyance, one day decides that it's too much and presents you with an "I
thought it would get better, but...."?

Making a blanket statement that one should know how someone else feels is
ignoring that the other person may be actively trying to suppress/hide it.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I was being sarcastic. People change constantly. You can no more predict your
future with someone than you can anything else.

------
refurb
_Everyone I know has repeatedly lost loads of money in the stock market, but
not one person I know has lost money buying real estate in large urban centres
in Canada._

Based on what the real estate market looks like right now in Vancouver,
Calgary and Toronto, he will soon know many people who have lost money in real
estate.

Right now the Canadian real estate market is where the US market was in 2007.

~~~
redstripe
Prices might be plenty crazy but there are important differences.

\- The ability to move to dozens of other large cities. The three you named
are the 3 largest english speaking cities. People are basically stuck in those
cities for lack other large cities to move to.

\- Large projected population growth means plenty of people to prop up prices.

\- You can't walk away from mortgage debt the way you can in the US.

\- Lending rules are more strict and CMHC is a crown corp so it isn't going to
go bust.

You're a sucker if you save instead of buying property in Canada - and I
include myself in the sucker category.

~~~
refurb
If you look at the indicators, Canada is in a worse situation than the US back
during the peak of the real estate bubble: debt levels, housing inventory,
etc.

[http://www.greaterfool.ca/wp-
content/uploads/2014/01/chart.p...](http://www.greaterfool.ca/wp-
content/uploads/2014/01/chart.png?8f4c78)

Also remember that Canada doesn't have 30 year terms to their mortgages. Most
people have 5 year terms. When rates go from 3% to 6% (which is still
historically low) you'll see a lot of people who won't be able to afford their
payments. At least in the US you're locked in for 30 years which can reduce
the likelihood of not being able to afford your payments.

The other issue is that some lenders are enforcing an 80% loan to value ratio.
In other words, when you get to the end of your 5 year term and you only have
15% equity in your home (because of a drop in value), the lender may demand
the other 5% (in cash) or else you don't get financing.

And in terms of lending standards, yes, Canada tightened those up, but for a
while you could buy a house with 0% down and a 40 year amortization period.
That did nothing but push prices even higher.

I'm not saying Canada will see a exact repeat of what happened in the US, but
a correction will come and it won't be pretty.

------
cecilpl
This is awful advice.

1\. Neither getting married nor getting divorced should be done for financial
reasons. Get married because you love someone and want to spend the rest of
your life with them, and get divorced because that is no longer true.

2\. Children before 35 is good advice. Especially for women, but for men as
well. You want to be able to enjoy life with your children, and not be too old
to enjoy life with your grandchildren. And sure, be financially stable, but
this is not a financial decision at heart.

3\. Ugh. Or, you know, choose a few different careers and try them all out.
And live within your means at all times.

4\. Worst idea. Defined benefit pensions can be reduced or taken away.

5\. Learn how to invest on your own (low-cost index funds even). This will be
some of the most highly-paid work you will ever do in your entire life. A
usual advisor's fee of 1% annually will cost you hundreds of thousands of
dollars over your lifetime.
[https://personal.vanguard.com/us/insights/investingtruths/in...](https://personal.vanguard.com/us/insights/investingtruths/investing-
truth-about-cost)

6\. Or, you know, buy the smallest house you can be happy in near where you
work. Real estate is a terrible investment that matches pace with inflation in
the long run. The stock market returns 7% above inflation annually in the long
run, and has never lost money over any 15-year period.

7\. Yeah, that's actually good advice.

The key to retiring early is to learn about hedonic adaptation, stop spending
money on things that don't make you happy, save a very large percentage of
your income (Wife and I earn $100k, save 65%). If you save just half your
salary, you can easily retire at 40.

If I'm lucky, when I retire, I'll be having a real-time conversation with my
35-year-old self.

~~~
aestra
>stop spending money on things that don't make you happy,

First you must learn what doesn't make you happy. It might not be what you
think.

[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1057740811...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1057740811000209)

Drawing on empirical research, we propose eight principles designed to help
consumers get more happiness for their money. Specifically, we suggest that
consumers should

(1) buy more experiences and fewer material goods;

(2) use their money to benefit others rather than themselves;

(3) buy many small pleasures rather than fewer large ones;

(4) eschew extended warranties and other forms of overpriced insurance;

(5) delay consumption;

(6) consider how peripheral features of their purchases may affect their day-
to-day lives;

(7) beware of comparison shopping; and

(8) pay close attention to the happiness of others.

[https://www.happier.com/article/c46eeac85cc741b39e0e39d15d4e...](https://www.happier.com/article/c46eeac85cc741b39e0e39d15d4e7119)

------
nahname
>Everyone I know has repeatedly lost loads of money in the stock market, but
not one person I know has lost money buying real estate in large urban centres
in Canada.

Canadians are very optimistic on owning houses. Too bad the market needs to
crash before anyone under 30 can afford anything decent.

~~~
skylan_q
Boomer mentality is especially insufferable in Canada. I have to hand it to
this author, though. He's the most pessimistic one I've met.

~~~
aestra
The author is female.

------
kamakazizuru
I'm highly skeptical about how much of this will be relevant for us (20
somethings) - when we retire. So much has changed significantly since this guy
was 35. Most public pension systems such as the ones here in Europe likely
wont even have enough money in them to pay our pensions..

Also - the extreme risk averse attitude is quite a turn off. I'm not saying
everyone should invest in Dogecoin and Tesla - but taking some high reward
risks can't be the worst idea..

~~~
WalterSear
I'm 40 and much of it isn't relevant to me already.

------
BryanB55
Does anyone else find this advice really depressing? It sounds like such a
boring mundane life. I'm sure there is some good advice here but I can't help
but feel a bit turned off by it.

I think it is important to have an emergency fund and some savings and to know
how to spend within your means. However, I also think you can live a better
life if instead of worrying so much about how to save money, you figure out
how to make more money by creating value and figuring out how to sell it.

I believe a very smart person once said:

"When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and your
life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the
walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money.
That's a very limited life... "

~~~
grecy
> _Does anyone else find this advice really depressing_

Yep, but the great part is you can ignore it all and do what you want with
your life.

I quit my job and spent 2 years driving a Jeep from Alaska->Argentina. Just
because I wanted to.

~~~
jsaxton86
That sounds awesome! How did you deal with the Darien Gap? Ferry?

~~~
grecy
Shipping container. [http://theroadchoseme.com/shipping-across-the-darien-gap-
pt-...](http://theroadchoseme.com/shipping-across-the-darien-gap-pt-1)

------
durakot
Something really sad about this, because it boils down to: do not take any
risks.

~~~
vincie
I live in Australia, work in Superannuation (aka Pension plans). Looking at
the data, there will be a whole heap of suffering for people who did not take
this advice when they were younger. Poverty is one thing. Poverty and old age
is very bad. Add ill-health, and you will have absolute misery.

~~~
patrickdavey
There is of course voluntary euthanasia as an alternative to a poverty ill-
health future. I strongly suspect that it will become more socially acceptable
as the pensions crisis etc. unfolds.

And then of course there's the Billy Conolly idea.. which went something along
the lines of:

"I'm just waiting to hear I've got a terminal illness... I'll be the one
behind the fence with the sheep and a syringe full of heroin" ;)

------
danbmil99
Ask the union workers in Detroit about their defined benefit pension plans.
Bad advice given that these plans can and do get renegotiated when the
sponsor's finances make them unsustainable.

~~~
jjoonathan
TFA says precisely that and mentions public pension plans as a more secure
option. In fact, he phrases his statement to imply that he believes the "bait
and switch" approach to pensions is inevitable in the private market.

> Public service is the only environment where defined benefit pensions will
> remain fully funded.

~~~
spullara
I don't think this will be true long term. The pensions agreed to are actually
unfundable and eventually something will be done about it.

------
hippee-lee
Question for all the folks who have negative reactions to the authors
thoughts.

What's your advice for a accumulating 2-3 million by the time you are ready to
retire? That's my number because I want to 'retire' from regular, year round
employment when I am 55. And I still want to be able to afford healthcare, a
nice meal out and few weeks vacation somewhere fun. Your number may be
different though cause individual taste vary. That number is roughly what my
wife and I will need if we want to informally exit the workforce in out mid-
fifties.

It seems like the point that is being missed is this: if you want a
comfortable retirement you need a plan/strategy and you need to reliably,
consistently execute on it. The earlier you start to do this the better. The
author offers an opinion for something that would have worked for them. Ymmv
but if you think you will just wake up with the means to 'retire' and move
onto a different phase in your life when the world moves on and the ecosystem
changes without planning, executing and routinely re-evaluations your
progress, please re-consider.

~~~
saryant
I'll give you an example:

You're 23. Retiring with $3,000,000 at a 4% withdrawal rate would give you an
annual "salary" of $120k. You make $80k right now, in order to save that much
by 55, you would need to contribute ~30% of your gross income to retirement,
assuming an 8% return, 5% annual salary increase and no employer match.

If you work to 65, the required contribution ratio goes down considerably.

The math is a little more complicated than in my example since I assumed all
retirement savings are pre-tax but there's really no substitute for spending
less than you earn.

~~~
aestra
>You make $80k right now, in order to save that much by 55, you would need to
contribute ~30% of your gross income to retirement, assuming an 8% return, 5%
annual salary increase and no employer match.

That would be $24,000 in just the first year, well over the federal limit for
401(k) contributions. For 2014: $17,500 ($23,000 if age 50 or older)

[http://taxes.about.com/od/retirementtaxes/qt/401k-contributi...](http://taxes.about.com/od/retirementtaxes/qt/401k-contribution-
limits.htm)

~~~
saryant
That's why I said the math was actually more complicated than in my example.
;)

In reality, you'd want to max out your 401k and IRA options while also setting
money aside in savings or regular brokerage accounts.

------
kamaal
I'm in my late 20's. And a good deal of advice in this post is pretty good.

>>Everyone I know has repeatedly lost loads of money in the stock market, but
not one person I know has lost money buying real estate in large urban centres
in Canada.

Actually if you look at it real estate is the best deal you can get. No one,
not one single person who bought lots of real estate I know has ever repented
buying it. Fortunes have been multiplied by 10, some times even 20 only
because some one bought a great deal of real estate in the city outskirts and
watch prices multiply in multiples of 10's when the city grew. Same with rent.
Rent is the best and safest form of passive income. Here in India, there are
people who get obscene amounts of rents, then use the same rents to generate
more of it.

In most Indian cities, real estate crashes rarely happen. Even if they do,
they turn out to be local minima's and within 2-3 years the rush for property
accumulation starts again.

Next, comes Gold of course. Of the things that I learned from people who buy
real estate is- Buying Gold is buying real estate in trickles. The trick is to
keep a proper balance of gold investment. And a real estate loan which you can
afford to pay and is not beyond your means. The reason you need the loan is
the inflation here is close to 9%. While your property value will appreciate
your loan will only lose its value due to inflation, plus when you have enough
gold you can dispose it off to pay of the real estate loan and move to buy the
next property.

~~~
aestra
>Rent is the best and safest form of passive income.

HAHAHAHAHHAHHAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No it isn't. Renting it a LOT of work and it isn't for everyone. You have to
find good tenants, but that is a crapshoot. Everytime someone moves out you
gotta spend time getting the place ready for the next people, advertising it,
then showing it. If your tenant stops paying you have to evict them, but that
takes time and you lose money in the meantime. Then when you finally get them
out of there, you can sue them for back rent and win a judgment, but if they
don't have any money to pay you with, you aren't getting it. Once in a while
you got a tenant who leave the place a BIG HUGE MESS that you can't even
imagine, that's a few week job. Then you gotta deal with things like being
woken up in the middle of the night when people have locked themselves out. If
something breaks, it might costs thousands of dollars to fix. If you don't
have DIY skills and time, then the cost of labor is going to kill you.

If you are renting to more wealthy people, these things might not come up as
often.

If you had LOTS of money, a property manager, staff, then it might be
different, but not in any way risk free.

I have family who were doing a REAL lot of work just to break even at property
rentals. Then ran into the above issues.

------
cl8ton
I wish I had time to write about my experiences as I’m 10 years away from
successfully retiring but I have to say, you 20+ year old readers really need
to listen to what this guy is saying.

Don’t follow his advice to a tee but read in between the lines and understand
the meaning.

At least do this, print his post out and re-read it when your approaching 40
as it will have a different meaning and when your 50 years old, you will think
this guy was a prophet.

~~~
scarecrowbob
I agree, though I am probably closer to 30 years form retiring.

I _hate_ the specific advice in the article (find a job with a pension? My
parents have done well with this, but I trust most companies that would hire
me about as far as I can throw their annual report), but the "between the
lines" idea that we should "find stable things that you can enjoy for a long
time" is both not obvious and important.

------
grecy
Such classic Ontario advice: Follow the prescribed path without question or
deviation.

For anyone that doesn't buy into it, I suggest you head West. People are
genuinely shocked at the difference in attitude when they get here. Almost
everyone refers to it as Onterrible, for very good reason.

~~~
Pacabel
Alberta today is much like Ontario was in the 1960s. It has a relatively young
population, it is economically driven by medium industry, is highly
suburbanized, and wholly dependent upon cars for even the most basic of
transportation.

While this can be a feasible lifestyle in the short term, it is not
sustainable in the long term. Ontario started feeling the crunch from its
similar lack of sustainability in the 1990s, and is still feeling it today.
Alberta will likely run into the same situation in a decade or two.

It will be particularly severe if there's a large-scale movement away from
gasoline-fueled vehicles at some point. With fossil fuel energy prices rising,
it's becoming more and more likely that this will happen sooner rather than
later. While there may be short term gains because of rising petroleum prices,
they won't last. The economic harm caused by the province's nearly complete
dependence upon its petroleum industry should be quite obvious. We've seen the
devastation that even short downturns in the sector have caused in the past,
and it's not pretty.

Without inexpensive personal transport, large swaths of Calgary will be nearly
uninhabitable due to its high degree of sprawl. Edmonton will only be slightly
better off. While a province like Quebec has ample and well-established
hydroelectric facilities that would prove essential for a move toward electric
vehicles, and dense major cities that pre-date the rise of automobiles,
Alberta will not be in such a position.

In general, Alberta has nowhere near the economic, industrial and resource
diversity of Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia. Agriculture and tourism are
basically its only other options, and they're nowhere near sufficient to
sustain the current way of life there.

Alberta's boom times may be better than those of the other provinces, but its
busts have historically been far worse. When the next bust comes, it will
likely be particularly painful, and the influx of people to Alberta will
quickly reverse itself. Any prolonged downturn lasting more than a few years
could very well see those remaining in Alberta revert back toward a mainly
agrarian economy. It will be far more like Manitoba than it will be like
British Columbia, and I don't think that many Albertans today (and especially
ones who arrived more recently) would put up with that.

I'd be very hesitant about putting all of my eggs in the Alberta basket.

~~~
grecy
Who said anything about Alberta?

Sure, I lived there for a while, but when I talk about the west and the
attitudes that people have, I'm talking about BC, and now I'm in the Yukon.

Life out here is different because you're encouraged to live the life you want
to live, not the life that everyone else thinks you should live.

~~~
Pacabel
You did, although perhaps inadvertently.

You may want to watch your terminology in the future. In central and eastern
Canada, the term "West" exclusively means Alberta (although Saskatchewan is
now sometimes included, too, due to its recent Alberta-like petroleum boom).

British Columbia, while geographically more to the west than Alberta, is
typically just called "British Columbia". The Yukon is not considered to be
"West", either. It's referred to as "up north" or "the territories".

~~~
grecy
> You did, although perhaps inadvertently.

No, I didn't.

It's funny you would give me a lecture about the terminology used for the
place _I_ live in.

What I'm saying is, if you want a life that isn't so rigid and formal and
prone to the kind of reactions you've given me, head out to BC/Yukon. You'll
be shocked, impressed and you'll wonder why you didn't do it sooner.

~~~
Pacabel
I'm not lecturing you about anything. I'm merely telling you how the
terminology you used is very ambiguous. Now, that may not be the case in the
specific village that you may be from. But in general, when you're east of
Manitoba, the term "West" specifically refers to Alberta, and to a lesser
extent Saskatchewan. It does not refer to British Columbia, which, as I
indicated earlier, is referred to as "British Columbia" or "B.C.".

------
stretchwithme
You can rely on real estate if you know the government will continue to
subsidize its appreciation. But if you expect that it will eventually prove to
be unsustainable and must be ended, the returns might not be so rosy.

And defined benefit pensions are only as secure as whatever is trapping those
who must pay for it. If your company manages to free itself from the union or
the taxpayers refuse to pay you, it could be painful.

Oh, yes, things never change, I know. Its never happened before in the history
of mankind. But there's always a first time.

------
Oculus
Could the older members of the HN community pitch in and give a couple points
of wisdom they acquired over the years (Would probably more useful than
everyone just bashing the article)?

------
tobib
I hope that I just didn't get the irony. This sounds sad, unhealthy and very
very boring.

~~~
nilkn
Boring and sad maybe (depending very much on personal viewpoint), but how is
any of this unhealthy?

------
mromanuk
I stopped reading in number 4. Those are advices to a self from the past. Even
in that improbable case, is worthless to follow the plan. Applying the plan to
someone today, with a different background, needs, etc. Nonsense.

"Live with the same person, because divorce is expensive..." I don't want to
live on this planet any more...

------
adamconroy
The problem with the stock market isn't that you might lose money, the problem
is that share prices are largely driven by perception rather than substance.
At the extremes it makes sense, in that a company that runs out of money is
worthless and a company that makes 14bn profit a quarter is worth something.
For the rest it is like popular culture / fashion.

The other problem with stocks is that if everyone is saving for the future via
retirement funds then the market is inherently going to be over inflated and
further illogical.

------
thatthatis
Longevity risk is the biggest time bomb i know of in current financial and
societal practice. The state of the art is a 90% chance of not running out of
money (and most people are saving well below even getting to there).

In 40 years we are going to wish we created better risk pools and things like
blind tontines or individually purchasable defined benefit pensions.

------
erichate
Get a government job... wtf

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jonhinson
So much cynicism in these comments. As a 27-year-old, I found myself nodding
at almost everything stated by the author. Perhaps I don't fall into the same
category as most other HNers.

1\. Stay married to the same person.

I married my wife right out of college (age 22) and we were and still are
serious about the "til death do us part" bit. We realize that a strong
marriage is something that takes hard work on a daily basis. Are there cases
where this just isn't the best route to take? Absolutely (e.g. abusive
relationships, unfaithful relationships, etc).

2\. If you’re going to have children do it before 35.

Our daughter is now 14 months old and we have a 529 set up for her. I'll
definitely be pushing for an in-state public school.

3\. Choose a career you can imagine doing for 35 years and stick with it.

I love being a software engineer and I can't imagine working at a different
company than I do now. I'm constantly challenged and learning new things while
being part of an amazing team.

4\. Secure a job with a defined benefit pension, ideally one with a union that
protects you from the wiles of a topsy-turvy job market.

This is where I diverge, albeit not necessarily by choice. I contribute to my
401k which my employer contributes a generous amount. I am not a member of a
union.

5\. Find a financial advisor you can trust.

This is one area where I've procrastinated. I've read a lot of personal
finance books and blogs, so I'm not entirely ignorant, but I do need to find a
competent professional to look after my finances.

6\. Buy the best house you can afford.

I didn't quite follow this advice, as we decided to buy a house below our
means, but it is in a great area, brand new and plenty of space (2100 sqft). I
don't view buying a home as some sort of investment (i.e. I went in to it not
expecting any significant return), but we bought towards the bottom of the
market with an amazing interest rate. On top of that, we're paying almost the
same exact monthly payment as we did on our apartment that was 1200sqft while
putting equity into something. It does help that we're out in the burbs.

7\. Years before you retire, develop long-standing interests that are not
outrageously costly and that don’t depend on your job or your family.

I think this is great advice.

Many comments are saying this results in a really boring life during peak
years, but I don't see that. We eat out at great restaurants, have travelled
internationally, are involved in our community, actively engage in hobbies
individually and together, spends a large amount of time with friends and
family, etc. I suppose it's just a matter of different strokes...

~~~
gfodor
The advice is terrible. Most of it is a function of the luck and circumstances
of his own life and requires you predict the future.

1\. "Marry someone you'll never want to divorce." No shit.

2\. "Plan your child rearing years around how long you expect to live." No
idea how long I'll live.

3\. "Choose a career that will remain lucrative and relevant." Most of our
"careers" are going to be eaten by software.

4\. "Get a pension plan that will never become insolvent." Good luck.

5\. "Find a trustworthy and competent person in an area you have no expertise
in, and hand your future to them." Impossible and irresponsible.

6\. "Buy a house where there will be no real estate market crash." On average
real estate prices track inflation, the last 30 years is an anomaly.

7\. "Rule out any hobbies that will be expensive in 40 years." Getting into
computers as a hobby 40 years ago would have seemed insanely expensive. Like
robotics or 3d printing today.

As you can tell unless you can predict the future most of the advice here is
empty and hinges on the past being just like the future, and not anyone's past
but this guy's past.

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thewarrior
This is EXACTLY how most people in India think. This is pretty much
conventional wisdom here.

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adamredwoods
And the last one would be... 8\. Have no regrets in life, so you don't end up
making a list of things you wish you did differently.

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jlgaddis
I'd like to go back to June 2011 and tell myself to hold onto that $10k worth
of Bitcoin I bought at $7.

~~~
runjake
Off topic, but I love your work. So, thanks!

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31reasons
um why is this on the front page ?

