I'm sure you know about this already, but it's worth spreading the word any chance I can get: Look into Financial Independence
You don't need THAT much money to retire. You can put all your money into the stock market, then withdraw 4% per year and live off it and reasonably expect to live like that indefinitely, since the exponential growth of your savings will balance out the ongoing withdrawals and inflation.
At $40k a year you could retire with $1M saved, which could be doable in 10 years of saving FAANG money pretty comfortably.
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On the topic of FAANG sucking: I'm another FAANG guy making the big levels.fyi bucks. This job is great, best job I ever had, but I do hate it as well. I have to ask for permission to take a few days off. My only real long vacation opportunities are during the same time of year as everyone else on the planet, so traveling anywhere is a stressful overpriced fiasco. I spend hours every week getting yelled at in meetings over stupid fucking no-op line items on spreadsheets. I can't take my kid to the park during the winter because I'm stuck going into an office during the entirety of daylight hours every day. While I was typing this rant, I got a popup from Slack telling me I need to update the format of my pull requests to match some stupid fucking template.
People aren't meant to live this way, it's bullshit.
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This rant was awesome. Please post more like it. I am at the point in my career where I don't really need a manager. I am mature enough to come to work and produce valuable things. Still, managers are required in the corporate world, and they ask you do all sorts of dumb things that add no value, e.g., "pull request reformatting".
I'm sorry to hear about your holiday situation. I assume you have about 20 business day or more per year. One idea: Pre-plan 3-4 holidays at the start of the year. Get them pre-approved by your manager. Also: Ask if you can buy more holidays (give up base salary). Most managers think you are crazy for asking, but few say no. (It required some finess with HR.) If you could get 5-6 weeks of holiday per year, you might be able to put up with more b/s from your manager. It helps me a lot. I try to take a one week holiday every quarter. Also: Ask your partner if you can take a holiday alone. Be upfront and tell them "nothing shady", but you want to go backpacking in India or drive accross New Zealand for two weeks (or whatever). Most partners are supportive if you are making very good money (like you).
That's a great suggestion, thanks for that. Especially if I went for a less demanding and remote-friendly role I'll bet that would work really well to keep a decent work-life balance.
I'm just going to tough it out one more year, and hopefully I can get out of this hamster wheel forever after that. I managed to save about $500k in 4 years, so I should be able to move somewhere normal, buy a house, and live in it with my family while working on a revenue stream
>You don't need THAT much money to retire. You can put all your money into the stock market, then withdraw 4% per year and live off it and reasonably expect to live like that indefinitely, since the exponential growth of your savings will balance out the ongoing withdrawals and inflation.
>At $40k a year you could retire with $1M saved, which could be doable in 10 years of saving FAANG money pretty comfortably.
It depends what kind of securities you are buying and where, especially if you want to secure your kids’ future (their education/healthcare/land/legal risks). I also think a 4% withdrawal rate is too optimistic given the demographic changes that are projected to occur, I am using 2% for my calculations.
Which FAANG uses slack? Because I'd like to avoid them. Microsoft and Google sure don't, but then they have their own thing going on, so I'm not sure that's any better.
You don't need THAT much money to retire. You can put all your money into the stock market, then withdraw 4% per year and live off it and reasonably expect to live like that indefinitely, since the exponential growth of your savings will balance out the ongoing withdrawals and inflation.
At $40k a year you could retire with $1M saved, which could be doable in 10 years of saving FAANG money pretty comfortably.
<RANT relevance="Low">
On the topic of FAANG sucking: I'm another FAANG guy making the big levels.fyi bucks. This job is great, best job I ever had, but I do hate it as well. I have to ask for permission to take a few days off. My only real long vacation opportunities are during the same time of year as everyone else on the planet, so traveling anywhere is a stressful overpriced fiasco. I spend hours every week getting yelled at in meetings over stupid fucking no-op line items on spreadsheets. I can't take my kid to the park during the winter because I'm stuck going into an office during the entirety of daylight hours every day. While I was typing this rant, I got a popup from Slack telling me I need to update the format of my pull requests to match some stupid fucking template.
People aren't meant to live this way, it's bullshit. </RANT>