
A Cautionary Word on the Deferred Life Plan - ahalan
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=1791
======
dmfdmf
I have a client, nice old lady, a widow, in her 70's and while working on her
computer she started talking about her life and times. She warned me about
working too much and told me her tale of woe.

She and her husband worked all their lives, raised a family and saved their
money. Their plan was to retire early at 55-60 and then travel the world once
kids were grown. All was going according to plan and they both retired but
then her husband got colon cancer and died 6 months after he retired before
they took a single trip.

She wasn't bitter but clearly regretted deferring life for work, and she did
not want me to make the same mistake. After her husband died she tried to
travel but said it was just too difficult to carry on without her husband. Sad
to see her living with a broken heart.

~~~
AznHisoka
This is a very sad story, and something I caution my parents about as well.
Unfortunately, the retirement age before you get any benefits keeps rising.

~~~
fennecfoxen
Yeah, but if you're smart and plan ahead you can do things like _take breaks
from work_ , and it doesn't even need to be the super-fancy live-it-up
European vacation. Or even just retire before 65ish and live off your _own_
savings before tapping government benefits. These are both options available
to you...

~~~
kamaal
Its not one or zero, Its not like suffer on the short run to enjoy on the
longer or vice versa.

You need to plan both for the longer and shorter terms in life. I wouldn't be
OK if I get a exotic vacation every now and then but a horrible time when I
get old. Or the vice versa.

I think whats appropriate in life is to have short sprints of hectic work
schedule where you can make you moderately big cash, then save and invest a
part of it for retirement. Enjoy the rest to the fullest.

------
spiredigital
I took an investment banking job right out of college and spent the next few
years working like crazy. It was good work experience - and a great chance to
save money - but it was exhausting work that I wasn't passionate about. My
close friends and family lived in different cities, and I saw them only a few
times a year. Some of my colleagues planned on working 80-hour weeks for 15
years and retiring at 40, but I wasn't interested in that plan.

So after 2.5 years, I quit to start my own business. I'm pretty tech savvy,
but have nowhere near the programming skills as many here on HN. I am,
however, a good marketer so I started an eCommerce drop shipping business.
Within a year, I was making an income that could support my family - within
two years, a good income. And I also had the ability to work wherever - and
whenever - I wanted. I'd work like crazy for a few months on a business
project I was really interested in, get a ton done and then take a few months
off to travel. It was the best of both worlds: I'd be super productive when I
was interested and had the energy, and take time off when I needed it. Best of
all, I saw the people I cared about much more frequently.

With the dawn of the internet, there's never been a better time in history to
start your own business (low risk, high reward, global scope), especially if
you're technically minded. We have the unique opportunity to do work we love
while being able to maintain a health work/life balance. It's amazing.

If anyone's interested in the full story of how I made the leap from corporate
workaholic to a more balanced life, I've written about it below:

<http://www.ecommercefuel.com/my-corporate-escape-story/>

~~~
joshcrews
The most impressive part to me about the story was picking a niche, CB Radios,
that doesn't appear to be a business you were already familiar with and
building a successful company anyway.

~~~
spiredigital
Thanks Joshcrews!

That's one thing I try to advise people when they ask me about doing something
similar: a research driven approach to picking a business usually works much
better than trying to pick something at random, or something you're really
passionate about. That's what brought me to CB radios. If you're interested in
the process / criteria I used, I wrote a free eBook which I offer on my blog -
just hit up the link above.

In most areas, especially for sales, if you spent just 2-3 weeks learning
about a market you'll know more than 98% of your customers, so becoming an
expert in an area doesn't take too long, which makes it easier to pick a
niche, become an expert and then market your business.

------
jaysonelliot
It's very easy for a wealthy VC to sit on a stage and pontificate like this.

Not everyone has opportunities in front of them to work on a project they
believe in and make enough money to pay the bills with it.

Most of us have to struggle through years of working at jobs that hopefully
use our skills well, putting in time on nights and weekends pursuing something
we do believe in and feel passionately about.

Our passion projects go through half-starts, frustrations, and down blind
alleys; sometimes having to battle against our own pessimism, peer pressure,
time demands, and the sense that everyone else is doing it better, and more
easily. (The truth is it's not coming more easily to everyone else, but it's
human nature to see things that way.)

If we're lucky, we get it right, and maybe that personal project gets a
foothold (fuck "traction," it's hard enough to get a toehold at the
beginning). For a few, there's a chance to even quit that job that's making
you prematurely old and finally do just what you want. For many people, that
doesn't happen for years and years, if it happens at all, and there ought to
be a medal for anyone who can simply stay motivated and persistent for that
long, whatever comes of it.

And in all of this, I'm still talking about a small subset of the American
public, and an even smaller subset of the world. We're talking about some of
the luckiest people on the planet—those of us who can even consider things
like "life plans" because the circumstances of our lives have landed us so far
up Maslow's pyramid. If you're working at a job that you don't care about,
where your manager is a capricious idiot, the office is ugly and the coffee
sucks, but you're at least using your skills, you're already in a position
that 95% of the world would love to trade places with right now.

Don't let a billionaire with perfect 20/20 hindsight tell you you're doing it
wrong. If you have to spend part of your life with your excitement and
enthusiasm deferred because that's what it takes, don't pile on your own
troubles by telling yourself that you're "deferring life." Life is one long
journey of ups and downs, discovery, pain, joy, frustration, accomplishment,
and every other damn thing. Take it as it comes, meet it with your head up,
and when you have to slog through the bullshit, slog through it. Just because
your passion might flag for a bit doesn't mean it's not going to rise again,
and just because you have to "sell a product you don't believe in" doesn't
mean you're doing it wrong.

~~~
lusr
Deferring life is a risk. And there are degrees of risk. If your plan is to
work consistently at an average job and defer life until 65 there's the risk
you die first, but at least you had your weekends free.

If your plan is to work double hard and smart on something that may pay off
sooner, there's the risk you burn out and the opportunity costs of those
additional working hours (not spending time with friends, family, hobbies, for
instance).

I saw a show on TV once, and don't remember what it was, but they had a guy in
the middle of nowhere working his butt off every day. He said something to
effect of "I work like a horse so that my children can work like dogs, so that
my grand children may work like humans some day". That stuck with me. I
realised I could have it _much_ worse, and the only reason I might not
_choose_ to work like a horse is because I earn more than enough to be pretty
comfortable working my 8 hour day. But the rewards if I _did_ work like a
horse... And if somebody else can do it, then I can push through the half-
starts and frustrations you mentioned.

What's the point of living to less than my full potential?

------
jasonkester
I think the key is to wait for a local maxima in savings and employability
before you take off on your big "deferred life" trip.

The trade-off is always portrayed as between ending up an unemployable
22-year-old with $10,000 in credit card debt, or a 70 year old widower who
tried to put it off until after kids but missed the window.

But there's a middle road.

I, for instance, saved like crazy until I was 27 before taking off on the
first big trip. By then I'd established enough of a professional reputation
that I could quickly find a job when I got back, and enough savings to not
worry about going broke on the road. Over the next 13 years I averaged about
six months off every year, getting more employable at every step and usually
ending each year with more savings than the last.

I don't think there would have been any chance of pulling that off had I
started off by maxing the credit card on a gap year trip straight out of
school.

~~~
seles
Do you have a wife and kids?

~~~
jasonkester
Yes. If you shop around, you'll find that wives come in a portable model that
you can take with you around the world. In fact, they're much easier to find
if you're already halfway around the world, as then they've at least
demonstrated the capacity to get there and a predisposition towards traveling.

Kids are pretty portable for the first several years as well. We've only had
this one for a little over a year now, but he's got a dozen flights and seven
countries under his belt already.

(And heading off the inevitable 3rd piece of that question: Yes. I've found
that houses can remain happily unoccupied for months on end, so long as you
either bring along enough money to keep paying their mortgage or pay it off
before you leave.)

------
greggman
I don't know why but it's always hard for me to accept that kind of advice
from rich people. People for whom money is not an issue and can basically live
a life of luxury without working.

I'm not saying the advice isn't sound advice. Just that doing more of what you
love Or want to do is far easier for them therefore it's easier for them to
say it

~~~
ken
It works both ways. I think I'm more likely to take advice from someone who
appears successful in their field.

Perhaps the choice to work on something they're truly passionate about helped
them to be successful, while others who merely did what was expected did not
have the drive to excel at it.

~~~
larrys
"I think I'm more likely to take advice from someone who appears successful in
their field."

Problem is he's not giving you advice tailored to your specific situation. He
is giving general advice. And with any general advice it's hard to account for
all the nuances and judgement that might change with knowledge of specifics.

General advice might be "marry someone with a good education" or "marry a
doctor". But a Kennedy might have good education but they also come with a
host of other issues (and benefits) as a result of their fame and family name.
With respect to the latter I'm sure Zuckerberg marrying a Physician is less
important then it would be to someone else who could benefit from the
stability and income that occupation brings.

------
kenrikm
If you have ever encountered "lifers" people who have worked their entire
lives in a single job of little importance then you will realise this is great
advice. I have personally made a commitment to never let comfort and fear
prevent me from living life with passion.

------
sliverstorm
The way I see it, you've got three chunks of time in any work day. 8 hours of
work, 8 hours of sleep, and 8 hours of whatever you like.

Now, other things do eat into the last block, like travel and washing the
dishes. But you still wind up with a healthy chunk of time every day, and
_that_ is where Life happens. So, make of it what you will.

~~~
skyhook_mockups
I know what you mean, but I find that so brutally sad. The best, most alert,
most productive hours we have, we trade away for enough money to live. That
third block of 8 you mention are the scraps left over. You're lucky if you
have enough energy left to do anything worthwhile with those last 8 hours :(

~~~
sliverstorm
We have _always_ traded our time for survival. That is _why_ the species is
intelligent. If anything, celebrate that you only spend 40 hours a week on
surviving. Celebrate that the alert, productive, valuable time you invest is
slowly building even better futures.

Besides, work is demonstrably good for our mental health. I'd go insane if I
didn't have responsibilities, just like a sheepdog will.

~~~
maigret
Current hunter-gatherers populations that can be observed in the world
nowadays "work" only 20 hours a week. So 40, or even 50 for some, is way out
of what would be "natural". Of course we now live longer, etc. I'm just
countering the argument that 40 h is little to survive.

~~~
pedrolll
I would have to agree with you. When agriculture was invented, so was "work",
that is, something that is separate from your real life. There's a reason
agriculture didn't properly take off for hundreds of years, even though people
knew that planting stuff makes it grow. Tending the earth was a shitty
business, hard work that took most of the day without proper tools. Gathering
stuff was a lot easier.

Work is in no way "natural". Having to eat is quite natural but for most of
humanity's history you could just eat stuff from your immediate surroundings,
with little time spent on gathering food. These days we spend 10 hours a day
to a acquire the means to eat. I'd say people we're a lot smarter thousands of
years ago.

~~~
terangdom
I'd say people were a lot fewer thousands of years ago.

~~~
AznHisoka
Yep, and that was mostly before some fool introduced agriculture, which led to
1000-fold increase in the human population... not to mention the introduction
of diseases because we're not meant to digest agricultural products. Doh!

~~~
sliverstorm
And what diseases are these? If you are thinking of the classic diseases of
civilization, that isn't a problem with agricultural crops.

~~~
AznHisoka
autoimmune diseases? grains?

~~~
sliverstorm
Wow, that was specific.

~~~
AznHisoka
so you think the advent of agriculture was a godsend to humanity?

~~~
sliverstorm
I am not interested in playing this game.

------
lpolovets
I read The Millionaire Fastlane recently, and it was fantastic. The author
talks at length about the potential folly of saving your whole life in order
to have fun at the end. Who knows how long you will be around or what your
health will be like when you finally "retire"? The book has lots of great
insights and strategies for the startup crowd. There's a Mixergy interview
with the author available here: <http://mixergy.com/mj-demarco-limos-
interview/>

Book link: [http://www.amazon.com/The-Millionaire-Fastlane-Wealth-
Lifeti...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Millionaire-Fastlane-Wealth-
Lifetime/dp/0984358102)

~~~
jonpaul
I completely agree with this. Once you get over the cheesy metaphor, the book
really is packed with a ton of information on starting a business and actually
achieving wealth at a young age. Also, the author (MJ Demarco) has made
himself accessible for anyone that wants to contact him and ask questions.

I can't recommend this book enough.

------
Swizec
Lately I've been thinking on traveling around the world for a year after
college (so late this year). I haven't thought it out yet, but it seems
possible to have enough savings for about two months of life (for contingency)
and then freelancing remotely two or three days a week to support myself for
the year.

At least I think it should be possible for a 25 year old to travel the world
on 2k euro a month ...

Anyone ever done something like that?

~~~
spiredigital
I spent 7 months traveling last year, and think you could definitely pull
something like this off. As far as maintaining your budget, the two biggest
things you'd need to consider would be how frequently you travel and where
you're traveling to.

A lot of people tend to sprint from place to place when traveling, which is
both exhausting and expensive. If possible, I prefer to pick one spot and
spend between 1 to 4 weeks there to really get a feel for it. This would be
much more conducive to freelancing (staying put) and to your budget as
transportation eats up funds quickly. It also lets you travel for longer
periods of time as you don't tire nearly as quickly.

Secondly, as you already know, your location will determine if your 2K / month
budget is realistic. Planning on spending lots of time in Zurich? You "might"
be able to swing it at 2K Euro a month, but you'll have to be really, really
careful. On the other hand, you can live like a king in South America on that
every month. In Ecuador, I spent $10 dollars / day for a beachfront hotel room
with two daily meals. It wasn't 5 star, but it was beautiful, authentic and
amazingly affordable.

Best of luck! You can definitely make it happen...

------
robgough
I'd love to hear more information about how to pick a decent niche. There's
always some vague mention of "research" but really, what is this - what's
involved. Surely you need an idea of what to do BEFORE you research it?!

------
subpixel
Watch later: <http://bit.ly/LTsuUY>

------
maeon3
I took 18 months off work to follow my dreams. I tried to strike it rich, but
I got experience instead. It was quite the roller coaster ride. In America, if
you are not working a job and receiving a salary, you are seen as a leech, a
useless appendage and worthless drain on society. Women don't want to date
you, parents always asking when are you getting a job, you have to put up with
the revulsion at parties when you have to admit you are not drawing a
salary... And you have to take it easy on the expenses. But it was a great
decision, and I'll do it again soon when I get another nest egg saved up. You
gotta have nerves of steel and be able to tell the others to keep following
your dreams of the deferred life plan, and call me in 2060 when that pans out.

If I don't spend the money I earn on myself, then the government will just
take it away from me in the next 10 years through 10%-20% annual inflation as
it tries to pay down umpteen trillion dollars in socialism. You can't plunder
the value behind my bank account dollars if I don't have any to take! When the
new currency comes down the pike, I'll work my butt off at age 65 and 75 to
earn a 350 thousand dollar/year salary working food service.

~~~
coffeemug
_In America, if you are not working a job and receiving a salary, you are seen
as a leech, a useless appendage and worthless drain on society. Women don't
want to date you, parents always asking when are you getting a job, you have
to put up with the revulsion at parties when you have to admit you are not
drawing a salary..._

I think you might be hanging around the wrong people...

~~~
greggman
Agreed. I've never seen this kind of reaction from strangers or friends.

I also don't understand the tax reference. Yes, there are taxes on company
income. There are not taxes on money sitting in the bank from the previous
year. This is no different than a job.

If I earn $50k this year the gov takes say $20k and I have $30k left over. If
I do absolutely nothing the next year the government doesn't take money from
that $30k.

Similarly if I run a company and have gross income of $100k and expenses of
$50k leaving $50k the in the bank the gov will take a percentage. The next
year the gov will only tax NEW INCOME.

At least that's my understanding. I'm not a tax expert nor a lawyer and I can
only go from my experience in California. Other places might be different.

~~~
replax
He was referring to the inflation rate. What he was saying was (as far as I
understood it), if you safe e.g. $10k now, in e.g. 10years you could not buy
as much with it as you could at the time you earned the money. Therefore, you
"lose" money (or rather purchasing power) by not using it.

~~~
polyfractal
And that's why no one should be sitting on their money...invest it! Keep
enough for emergencies (6-12 months of rent/food is the general mantra) in
your bank account and put the rest in your IRA/401k and/or non-tax advantaged
index funds.

