There has to be a better system than this.
The alternative is much worse. I don’t want to be poor and/or homeless. I want to be able to take vacations and not worry about surprise expenses. I want to actually be able to retire someday.
The alternative is a much harder life to live, in my opinion. For me, giving up 40ish hours a week for the peace of mind it worth it. Yes, work is not how I’d prefer to spend my time, but it allows me to spend the rest of my time doing as I’d please.
There are more alternatives.
Live with underlying existential dread for decades. Watch as “doing what you love” becomes “hating what you used to love because you’re forced to do it so that there’s enough numbers in the computer to prove that you’re worthy of continued existence.” Contemplate the pointlessness of it all on a daily basis. Be reminded that your feelings are invalid because “other people have it worse” every time the topic comes up. Nod listlessly as “successful” people tout their own hard work while ignoring any factor luck and privilege played, then tune out when they shift into the dissonant duet of “I succeeded because I am exceptional” and “anyone can do the same if they just work harder.”
Wake up the next morning and realize there’s roughly 30 more years of this, barring a massive coronary or aneurism or something.
barring a massive coronary or aneurism or something.
Fingers crossed! 🤞
I need more therapy tbh
As a kid, I was traumatized by the idea that I’d need to work until I’m old and then maybe spend another decade or two being too old to do the things I wanted before I eventually die. I was so distraught over “the way things are” that I constantly fantasized about running away and building my own tree house in the woods to live in, à la Swiss Family Robinson style.
And this was a time before inflation and property prices got out of hand. We were still fed the idea that getting a college education and a good paying job would help us live comfortably, while still saving up for retirement.
Then I joined the US military, thanks to the advice of my uncle who was a retired Air Force Chief Master Sergeant. 20 years later, at only 38 years old, I officially retired and earned myself a pension equal to about half my monthly pay, which I will collect automatically for the rest of my life. Unfortunately, the military did away with the pension program about 7 years ago, so any newbies will have to do their new BRS program. (Basic Retirement System; basically the federal govt’s version of a 401K) I was lucky enough to be grandfathered into the old pension program when I retired 2 years ago.
On top of that, a bunch of physical and mental injuries accrued over 20 years (thanks to serving during wartime) has earned me the coveted 100% Permanent & Total disability rating with the VA, which means I get free medical and dental for life, as well as a monthly paycheck from the VA that’s bigger than my pension. I’m making more money in retirement than I did while serving! So I can be fully retired now.
My wife also served in the military, but she didn’t make it to retirement. She was medically discharged about 12 years into service. But fortunately, her medical issues also earned her the rare 100% Total & Permanent disability rating from the VA as well. So she enjoys all the same benefits as I do, including a sizeable VA paycheck every month for life.
While I was serving, I bought houses in 2 separate places I was stationed, and I rented them out when I left. I hired on a property manager to act as landlord in my absence (since they’re in different states from where I currently live) and they take 10% of the monthly rent as their pay, which incentivizes them to keep tenants in the house, as they don’t get paid if it’s empty. They literally take care of everything; I only get contacted if they need to make a financial decision, i.e. hiring a plumber, replacing a washing machine, etc.
I make sure to charge afforable rates for rent, not price-gouge like a lot of landlords do nowadays. I’m not relying on income from these houses, so I don’t need to squeeze every penny out of them that I can. I’m very quick to fix issues, too. These houses were in excellent condition when I lived there (one was a brand-new build when I moved in) and I want to keep them in immaculate condition, so I make sure to do quality repairs and not just cheap patch jobs. I charge just enough to cover my mortgage (which was really cheap when I bought them around a decade ago) plus the property manager’s share. When both houses are paid off, that rent money (minus 10%) is just passive income to supplement my pension and disability pay.
I’ve also been living in my childhood home for the past couple years, which my father owned until he passed away last week, so I will be inheriting the house and all 6 acres it’s on. Basically a free house. Oh, and the military paid me a separate monthly housing allowance to afford rent/mortgage payments while I was serving, so I didn’t have to spend any of my own money on the 2 houses I bought. The military covered my mortgage while I lived there and tenants are paying my mortgage now. So I technically own 3 houses that I didn’t need to spend any of my own money on.
Besides all this, I also have some investments going through my cousin, who works for an investment firm. I’m pretending those investments don’t exist until actual retirement age, so they’ll accrue in value over the next couple decades and hopefully be a sizeable retirement nest egg.
So through a lot of dumb luck (and some smart choices), I’ve managed to not only avoid working until I’m too old to enjoy life, but I actually have some decent income to live comfortably on. I’m not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m living cozy enough to relax and enjoy the second half of my life at my own pace, without a job to afford my way of life.
This is what life should be like for everyone. We’re not here to work for the rest of our lives, that’s just capitalist propaganda, fed to us since grade school. We only get one shot at life, so it should be lived! There should be plentiful options to make passive income in the second half of your life so you can enjoy living. But the capitalist machine doesn’t work if there are no workers to power it, so we’re stuck in this broken worker bee system for the majority of our lives.
It’s funny and sad at the same time that you had to expand so much on your landlord duties. I’m sorry this network has preconditioned you to this point.
Lemmy really has become an echo chamber of losers :(
You’re making passive income from disability, a pension system that no longer exists, and owning 3 houses you didn’t pay for based off of programs no longer available to anyone starting out now. While collecting “market rate” rent (which conveniently always increases).
The disability, I’m fine with. My buddy had the same thing from the Marines and he more than earned the 100% rating, as I’m sure you and your wife did.
However, this whole thing where you’re talking about with retiring off of passive income… that was a LOT of words to say:
I’m a landlord
I really wish you would have said this first, because your long winded story about houses and “passive income streams” gives me the impression that you know the house-related part all boils down to being a landlord, and I get the impression you buried that fact to obfuscate it. You’re making money from other people’s work, in the form of the rent they pay to you (minus a small fee to the property managers), while doing literally no work yourself, as you explicitly explained.
The problem is not landlords, which have existed for thousands of years. The problem is that the first time homebuyer programs suck ass. They’re like “only 3% down payment! But you have to pay extra PMI, so it’s still expensive monthly.”
If the government really wanted to subsidize housing, they would subsidize home construction workers and materials. Right now old construction workers have to retire due to age or become contractors. So there are a ton of crappy contractors who have no business sense and a lot of construction experience.
Imagine if you could go to school for free to build your own house! Land in the US is almost free outside of major cities. The expensive part is workers and materials.
Just because landlords have existed thousands of years doesn’t make the situation right. There are lots of harmful things society has been doing or did for thousands of years. Feudalism isn’t one of the high points of humanity, to say the least.
If he lived in his primary residence and did honest, productive work (Or hell, even just collect disability, pension, SS, every damn cent the government will give them, I’m all for that!) There would be 3 more houses that families could buy as primary residences (in an ideal world). Yes, I know there is nuance, PE firms like Black Rock and speculators will probably buy some of them up, etc. etc. so you don’t need to “actually” me here, just work with me here on the ideal that those houses would be bought fair and square by primary residents.
Home prices would be lower if landlords weren’t hoarding them, and 3% + PMI would be lower as a result. It’s simple supply and demand, most kids learn about that in Jr. High School. And when certain people hoard supply, there is less supply to meet the demand, therefore higher prices on the demand side. They are sucking value out of society and not giving back or doing an hour of fair work. Providing housing for over-inflated prices without giving equity is not giving back, it’s just taking. When landlords talk high and mightily about charging “fair rent prices,” that’s code for “as much as the market will let me exploit them.”
It’s easy to see everything as fair when you’re out of touch on top of an ivory tower.
“Kings are not a problem, they’ve lasted for thousands of years.”
I hired on a property manager to act as landlord in my absence (since they’re in different states from where I currently live) and they take 10% of the monthly rent as their pay, which incentivizes them to keep tenants in the house, as they don’t get paid if it’s empty.
He’s actually even more of a dick it turns out.
landlord
You simply work
Because like it or not, you need resources to live. The entire bullshit fairytale (or furry tail) of working in your own vegetable garden to live off the lands IS STILL WORKING YOU LAZY ASSHOLE. And it will be working a lot harder for a lot less resources with a lot more risk when your crops fail
Somehow you snowflake types (sorry, but yeahyou "I hate to work, hoe can I sit on my ass for the next 40 years and have someone take care of me?) somehow really roped yourself into the idea that you can live off air or something. No matter how you do It, no matter what system you implement, you still gotta work!
I worked hard for what I got and I don’t have much, and that is fine, I have enough z I don’t needs a super yacht (nor should anyone, but that is a different story). Yes, I too sometimes have bad day and don’t want to get out of bed but then I just make myself, you know, have some discipline?
You will NOT be able to get by doing nothing unless you leech off and abuse someone else, or an entire group. Until we have fully human like AI robots thatcan do all of our tasks, humans are required to do work, PERIOD.
If nobody will work anymore and we all go to our fantasy vegetable garden then within months, medicine will run out, say goodbye to grandma and everyone that has diabetes or cancer or anything else, and that goodbye will be painful and excruciating. Then after a few months millions more will die from food shortages. Want to complain about it on the internet? Well fuck you because fuck you, because nobody is working anymore and the internet doesn’t work on magic, it runs on hard human labor, meaning that WE HAVE TO WORK.
Putting it on “but evil corporations!!” is a bullshit excuse as well. Like it or not, you need them. Without those evil corporations, no more medication, no more food, no more electricity, no more life for the vast majority of all of us. That evil corporations should change for the better is something that nobody will deny but that is a different story BECAUSE YOU STILL HAVE TO WORK YOU ENTITLED ASSHOLE.
So yes, you are lazy and yes, you need to get off your ass and stop leeching off your mommie. Sorry to be harsh about it but this post just really shows you are entitled and lazy and your post is just really insulting to those that try to live a responsible life and help others. Stop thinking about yourself, you’re not the only one here.
/rant
I don’t think the person who posted this was complaining about having to do work at all. They were complaining about how much work needs to be done and for how long you have to do it and for the fact that you can’t enjoy the reward at the end of it cause you’re too old to do stuff. Which are all valid complaints and at the end of the day comes down to greedy corporations trying to milk workers for every last penny of value they can get from them for as long as possible. Times have changed a lot since many of our norms about 40 hour work weeks and retirement ages were established, and since then workers are much more efficient. So I think it’s good to discuss changing these things to take some of those benefits from increased efficiency and give that value to the workers rather than just letting the corporations take it for their profits and investors.
Tldr.
There is something between doing absolutely nothing, and working your ass off to make someone else rich. Most of us want that middle ground.
Everyone knows work is necessary, what isn’t necessary is 40+ hours a week so some Capitalist can buy another yacht from exploitation of your labor.
Nobody thinks work is unnecessary, this is a strawman.
I don’t doubt that you’ve worked hard, but I do believe you should own your labor, not some Capitalist.
Again, nobody is suggesting literally zero work. Just restructuring.
More strawmanning, blah blah blah.
No, we don’t need corporations owned by a few people, workers can own and run the Means of Production without someone exploiting their labor.
No, this post shows that you’re incredibly out of touch with what people are advocating for.
There are better options for those who find a way.
Maybe this isn’t the answer you’re looking for: my job is my passion and the idea of retiring sounds horrible. I image it will only happen when I’m too senile to keep doing what I love, and that’s clearly not something to look forward to. But who knows… I know old people who are tired and just want to rest.
(I got lucky, since I happened to be passionate about computer programming. I know most other people don’t have the same option.)
(I got lucky, since I happened to be passionate about computer programming. I know most other people don’t have the same option.)
When I was in high school I was very passionate about PC stuff (I mainly used Linux) and while there were not many careers about this where I live the few related ones I stayed away from them because I felt like turning your hobby into your job would get rid of the fun of it (I still think it to a degree, I see it in many hobby type sectors, like gaming).
I kinda regret my decision nowadays though, but still I feel I wouldn’t enjoy my hobbies with timelines and crappy bosses, oh and making them rich in the process ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I love computing in general, it’s just fascinating that we put electric into a bit of sand and people can be as creative as making immersive worlds, or be as positive as making lifesaving machinery, or just make Fortnite porn.
I started my post-secondary school study at college, fucking about on a particular study topic with Visual C++ as it was at the time on a winter evening. The kind of evening where it got dark early, you got up in darkness and went home in darkness.
It was towards the end of a particular day, sat at a terminal on such an evening, and the lights were so bright that you couldn’t see out of the window but only your own reflection. I saw myself in the window, and honestly thought “fuck, do I really want to be doing this for another fifty years?”
…so I wrapped it that term, banked whatever qualifications I could, and fucked off into a different field where I’m out of the office at different locations most days. I get the benefit of both having a varied career and meeting people from vastly different backgrounds, while getting to go home and enjoy the nerdy tech life.
Admittedly, I have gone back to distance learning to tie off that loose end of working towards a degree in the field.
This is exactly where I’m at in the same type of gig. I do get a bit burnt by the end of the day but by 8pm I’m just counting hours until the next day because I want to dive back into the problems I’m working on.
I feel very lucky I’ve found a vocation that I love and pays handsomely. It’s also working for fed gov so the benefits and work life balance are insanely great. Also, work from home.
If I went into the private sector I could probably make 50k more but I’m very comfortable now and the chance of me hating my life and job working to try and make someone else rich is not appealing at all. And that’s all if the company doesn’t fold or get acquired.
Fuck that noise
Nicely done. Find a job you love and you won’t work a day in your life.
Don’t hold on to things you haven’t done before you retire… It is a waste of time and regretting not doing stuff, which lasts for moments, is the folly of youth.
Also what/who you want to do changes as you get older…
/sauce greybeard who is 10 years off retirement.
Thank you HorseChandelier
the ideal way would be to build up passive income and/or outwaging your living costs by double or triple, but god knows how hard that is.
It is easy as shit to do that!
Step 1: Be born into wealth.
I don’t know the other steps because I missed step one, but everyone I know that succeeded at step 1 is set for life.
Live in a country with a decent amount of vacation days.
Or work for the government if you’re in the US
Guess I gotta move to Iran for that 53 days off a year Wikipedia says they get.
I get 47 if my math is right, but not all at once. Next year I think it goes to 48.
I hope you can move to Canada and find a great job like mine. Immigrate for any healthcare at all, stay for the vacation days in the woods staring out over the ocean.
Hot damn! And here I thought 30+ days was decent amount.
Yeah but those days in Iran where it’s insanely hot… I think we are better off in Europe. :)
and if in germany, get yourself a schwerbehindetenausweis and show it to your employer. they have to give you 5 extra days off when the GDB is at least 50.
What if you’re not disabled?
well then you’re not getting it, but even the slightest autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, or even slight physical disabilities will get you one.
brb moving up from austria
Good luck finding a job, though.
i work in aerospace now. you don’t have to tell them when applying for a job.
I honestly prefer not being eligible for that to having extra vacation days.
schwerbehindetenausweis
What is this? I don’t speak German so Google wasn’t really useful
I’m curious also
It’s a certificate showing you’re disabled. Schwer = heavily, behindert = disabled, Ausweis = certificate.
Source: am deutsch, alla.
Thank God immigration is such a cheap and accessible option to everyone!
In what is that a solution :) ? Working 40+ years except 30days per year still make you lose your time, no?
Living with disability like I do means that process has sped up significantly.
Dunno but I am hoping aliens invade in the following years and make our existence more enjoyable than this …
Cry myself to sleep.
On top of being too old, I’ll be too poor, so I’ll probably just neck myself around ~70.
Years ago my dad made a change at work. He was working in the wood shop at a factory, making cabinetry and such with wood. For a few bucks more an hour he could take a job doing something mindless and slow, and he needed the money.
Fast forward 6 mo and he can’t go back to the old job, but this one is so boring that he’s beyond hating it: he actually vomits before every shift because he just doesn’t want to go but he has to.
We moved and he sold fucking lawnmowers for about 6 years.
But we moved. And he changed; and later he got a job as a groundskeeper and that was awesome for him because in the downtime he could do anything he liked onsite. He built cabinets and renovated the work areas and basically everything he used to do.
Don’t cry yourself to sleep. When you get that random occasional burst of energy, I hope you remember tonfocus on “this sucks. What do I want to do instead” and then “okay how do i escape this shit and get there” and then keep breaking down each step into what is possible.
Get there.
The sad part is I love my job, I work in education so helping children is amazingly rewarding, the pay and bullshit parts of the job is utterly crushing however but I know if I’m not doing it, it’s going to fall to someone unqualified and I can’t do that to 'em.
Sir, “Retired” is the opposite of “Start”.
If you’re lucky enough to find something you’re passionate about you may not begrudge the work week. I never have, so i work to live, got into a reasonable paying sector, didn’t waste money on oversized property or flash motors, as they’re not my bag, but used the cash to go adventuring at weekends, snow boarding in winter, the job takes up more time than I’d like but i’m earning freedom tokens. That mentality helped me at least.
Was just talking about how difficult work is going to make the next three days, so that I can’t wait until they’re over, but that’s another week of my life where I’m wishing for days to pass so I can try to be happy again. Lame. Lame as fuck.
If you don’t enjoy your job, try to change it. I don’t love my job, but I like it; and the people are so great that it’s a good fit. We still have to work, so make it something you don’t loathe.
Yep, and there are definitely ways to reframe work in your head so you can make the super shitty stuff either neutral or even fun in a way. Years ago I used to hate a specific meeting with a horrendous manager and I realized I was getting so sour and jaded leading up to and for a few hours after that meeting. Then one day I made a buzzword bingo card and handed it to my peers. It turned that meeting into an hour of fun.
I had an epiphany: we could control what we got out of that meeting. My peers and I decided to do random shit like try to leave the meeting with the least action items. Which lead to some pretty hilarious dodging and weaving and (good natured) 'backstabbing"–“I think Sam should do that task since he already has so much experience and you need it so quickly. I’ll shadow him.”
