Financial Independence

[Australia Sucks]

Third worlders flooding hospital emergency rooms, then never paying a penny, causing healthcare costs to explode.

To be fair a lot of countries have free emergency care. If there is anything in life that deserves to be free its emergency medical care. Or should you let somebody having a heart attack die because they cannot afford the medical bill?

 

[It_Is_My_Time]

To be fair a lot of countries have free emergency care. If there is anything in life that deserves to be free its emergency medical care. Or should you let somebody having a heart attack die because they cannot afford the medical bill?

I agree. But when your country gets invaded and this literally happens 10's of thousands of times a year, then your health insurance increases 10 fold and the middle class collapses.

I don't think the hospitals should turn them away, I think the cost should come directly from the billionaire class to pay for their new slaves.

 

[TheLearningWife]

To be fair a lot of countries have free emergency care. If there is anything in life that deserves to be free its emergency medical care. Or should you let somebody having a heart attack die because they cannot afford the medical bill?

Usually they use the ER as a primary care center, clogging up wait times. ERs are also de facto homeless shelters at times, especially if it’s raining. Many times the ER is source of financial loss for the hospital and that’s where most of their tax write offs come from, but that cost gets passed along to those with private insurance (not Medicaid, because they have renegotiated rates around 30% less reimbursement than private insurance), and someone with private insurance gets charged $60 for Tylenol and $30,000 for sepsis blood cultures, and you’re stuck paying for a big chunk of that yourself.

 

[Sandalwood Peak]

what do you think the average person in the developed world "needs" in order to have financial independence and basically have time to do whatever he wants in ways that aren't achievable with more consistent (9-5) work?

Real financial independence comes from being rich, upper middle class or dedicating your life to being rich.

The average person needs to reduce his expenses as much as humanly possible to have financial independence. You would have to start thinking like a drug addict. Imagine you want all your money going to crack. The advantage you have is you're not actually smoking crack, hopefully.

If you're thinking like a normie or an Asian guy "I need to buy a house in a nice neighborhood and start a family. I also need to improve myself by taking supplements, going to the gym, getting nice cloth, a nice ride, etc." then you might as well forget about the concept unless you have a great career.

So for financial independence you would want to live with your parents, grow your own food, sleep in a car/trailer, willingness to relocate, go to food banks, cook rice with lentils regularly, keep your declared income low, apply for welfare programs if possible, avoid having friends, find ways to scam the government/insurance/maxing out credit cards, work under the table, hope you have family or inlaws from whom you can borrow things etc.

Eventually you'll be pretty free or might even find an opportunity you could never otherwise. Reminds of stories of comedians or musicians, getting by on chump change travelling the country and performing in small clubs. The only problem is you won't have a good amount of cash coming in biweekly from a proper job in the city. Good news is most people fail to utilize savings, it usually goes to emergencies, spoiling yourself or to impress a woman like a downpayment. A lot of young people get trapped in the rat race thinking they'll just save their way into freedom "eventually". The best way to save is to have as few expenses as possible to begin with.

 

[Blade Runner]

Eventually you'll be pretty free or might even find an opportunity you could never otherwise. Reminds of stories of comedians or musicians, getting by on chump change travelling the country and performing in small clubs. The only problem is you won't have a good amount of cash coming in biweekly from a proper job in the city. Good news is most people fail to utilize savings, it usually goes to emergencies, spoiling yourself or to impress a woman like a downpayment. A lot of young people get trapped in the rat race thinking they'll just save their way into freedom "eventually". The best way to save is to have as few expenses as possible to begin with.

Yes. As I stated before, apart from the high end wage slaves (I consider myself one), it's much harder for the common person to make a ton unless he loses also TONS of time chasing dollars, which increasingly are debased (thus the new slave class). The way to offset this is the catch 21 that the thread brought up: get a woman early in life, marry, and she assists you and works alongside you to accomplish goals and a family for the next 50 years.

The problem is, once that stopped happening, the "dream" became other things like entertainment and chasing money/equity (investments really are the only way) to escape the rat race and either consume massively (female) or be able to have FU money and go to places where young women are (men, another small cohort of them).

 

[JayR]

My path to FI:

Graduated college and started work as a W2 software developer in 1988 and retired a couple months ago just shy of my 59th birthday. Always followed the traditional advice -- max out the 401K and IRA and never touch them. I think I did target funds initially, but for at least the last 20 years I've been 100% S&P 500 Index fund to minimize fees and maximize diversification.

Saved up and bought my first house in Boston (Waltham) in 1993. Started moving around the USA to pursue higher-salary opportunities (Boston > S.F. > Houston > Chula Vista > San Diego > New Orleans). Always purchased my homes (never rented) and each home sale resulted in a healthy profit (some of which was lucky timing and location choices).

Found my 54-yo frugal software developer wife in Texas in 1999, who continues to work. Only child completed college several years ago.

I won't say what my exact retirement/net worth goal was (it was more than $1M, less than $5M), but I hit it this year and promptly submitted my resignation.

I found a robust online retirement planner that offers a 7-day free trial (WealthTrace) and, based on all my inputs (life expectancy of 90, investment holdings, expected monthly expenses, social security, market returns, inflation, etc.), we will never exhaust our savings and I probably could have retired even sooner.

So, following the traditional retirement investing advice, choosing a career in an in-demand field, and living within our means worked for us. However, I'm not sure it still works for somebody starting out today. Cost of living and housing are so much higher now, and wages haven't kept up. Very glad I got my start before things got really bad and was able to achieve my Financial Independence goal.

Oh, another thing I did was to make use of free personal finance tools (Mint until it went away, Monarch Money now, not free) to track expenses and root out waste. I never created a "budget" or put any restrictions on our discretionary spending, but these tools really help to root out waste. To this day I categorize every expense we incur -- drives my wife crazy. "What is this $50 charge to 'Spanx'?" "UGH. Just put it under Clothing!" "Ok."

Edit: Other than mortgages, I have always avoided debt. Have never had a car note, and drive my cars until they die. I never pay somebody to do something I can do myself. I still change my own oil, do all home repairs within my capabilities, and still do all my own landscaping (though I am considering letting the neighbor's boy take over in the summers -- landscaping a corner lot sucks in the summer in the deep south USA).

 

[Thomas More]

To be fair a lot of countries have free emergency care. If there is anything in life that deserves to be free its emergency medical care. Or should you let somebody having a heart attack die because they cannot afford the medical bill?

Of course it's not really free. The doctors, nurses, construction workers who build the hospitals, ambulance workers, janitors, etc. all want to get paid.

You mean that taxpayers should pay for it. That's fine. It works in at least some countries. A lot of countries that have taxpayer funded healthcare still need a network of private health providers and private insurance for people who don't want to wait 18 months for a Dr appt.

There's no sunshine and roses answer that makes health care free. Most tax payers actually pay $1000s/year for it one way or the other.

 

[GoodShepherd]

I have not heard of such a plan. There are plans like mine, 80/20, with like $10,000 deductibles. I don't know if there is anything cheaper than this or not, and such a plan is certainly not cheap at all. The insurance companies have to rake in money to cover the costs associated with third world immigration...

Third worlders driving cars like maniacs, causing wrecks, and fleeing the scene or even country. They often drive uninsured, so the innocent person who is hurt/hit by the third worlder then has to make their own insurance company pay for damages.

Third worlders committing insurance fraud to the tune of billions.

Third worlders flooding hospital emergency rooms, then never paying a penny, causing healthcare costs to explode.

All insurance is nearly unaffordable for many and eats up a large percent of their after-tax income.

I will try get some more info on the plan these people are on and will let you know, personally Im not a big fan of insurance companies they have ripped me off in the past, whether is car or medical so many years ago I canceled all my insurance and have lived without them.

 

[Blade Runner]

I found a robust online retirement planner that offers a 7-day free trial (WealthTrace) and, based on all my inputs (life expectancy of 90, investment holdings, expected monthly expenses, social security, market returns, inflation, etc.), we will never exhaust our savings and I probably could have retired even sooner.

Almost all people can. That's why I think it's so much more valuable to pull the trigger earlier than you think, but it's hard to do.

On what basis do you think you'll live til 90? The good thing is that you won't really be spending much money from 78-90, if you do live that long.

 

[JayR]

On what basis do you think you'll live til 90? The good thing is that you won't really be spending much money from 78-90, if you do live that long.

Both my grandfathers lived to mid-80s and my father is going strong at 80. I figured with modern medicine I've got a shot at 90 if I take care of myself.

My wife had a grandmother who lived to 101. Considering her good longevity genes, and with me being five years older and male, I decided a couple years ago to buy a long-term care policy for her. Beyond catastrophic medical, I've always been very anti-insurance -- never had a life policy and even canceled my homeowners a few years ago when Louisiana rates started getting ridiculous. But I want to make sure the wife has care in her old age when I'm gone, so figured a LTC policy is worth the peace of mind, even though they ain't cheap!