Taking money off the table

There's a crucial extra factor that isn't in the original article, but ought to be: Money's ability to buy great experiences decreases as you get older. I've seen this with beach vacations, road trips to see a favorite band, fast cars, ski trips, etc.

Seize the moment, friend! What you can do NOW with that 10% slice will never exactly be on your possibilities map again.

I think you're hitting on something that very rarely gets discussed, at least in the US and maybe some other Western societies. I wonder if it's just simple depreciation or compound depreciation (or whatever the opposite of compound interest would be).

Me finding the money to climb Kilimanjaro at 23 is different than me having the money at 40 but worse knees.

Thank you for pointing this out and I hope someone formalizes it more.

This is why I love old tech like my 40 year old car (bmw e30 325is) and analog camera and whatnot. You have way more control because of less external dependencies and simplicity, and the prices are still decent compared to what you'd get now for vastly more money. $70k dogshit unwrenchable SUV or $10k 80's car that works like a dream and is built like a thinkpad? It's so relaxing working with older things. Hearing old peoples stories are wild, like just crossing the border with a 6 pack of beer no passport no nothing and having a good time on the weekend. Now my asshole is getting scanned down to the submillimeter and sitting in a palantir database just so I can go on a vacation.

> Money's ability to buy great experiences decreases as you get older.

Excellent point. You may have just talked me into retiring.

> What you can do NOW with that 10% slice will never exactly be on your possibilities map again.

Maybe not... but "once in a lifetime chances" come around more often than you think. You don't have to take every one right now. (As you get older, options narrow, as you said.)

We were in our 20's when my friend said 'A day in your 20's is worth a year in your 30's, a day in your 30's is worth a year in your 40's, etc...' Now in our 60's we're a little less adamant - every day is worth something.- but it has been a useful perspective.

I don't agree. How can wasting your money in your twenties and thirties be more valuable than saving for an early retirement. Imagine being able to retire at 40 and do whatever you want. If you weren't stupid, your health should be good enough. Why prolong the time you have to do stupid chores for other people when you can be strategic and opt out as early as possible.

That's one of the main theses of the book "Die with Zero":

- https://www.diewithzerobook.com/welcome

Read it earlier this year and it definitely changed some of my thinking along those same lines.

My loose summary of the book:

"Any money left in the bank when you die is essentially wasted - you could have used it to have experiences when you were alive, or given it to family / charity earlier when it would have had more benefit. Figure out what major experiences and memories you want to have in life, plan to do them earlier when you have health and time, and build up memories for later in life."

I didn't find the discussions of how to plan out retirement savings very useful - there's a lot better info on withdrawal approaches in various FIRE-related groups.

But the "be willing to spend now on activities you might not be able to do later / don't hold off on 'living' until you're retired" argument made a _lot_ of sense to me for a variety of reasons, and it was a major factor in researching early retirement a few months later (and deciding to make that a new goal. along with taking more vacations before then).

> Imagine being able to retire at 40 and do whatever you want. If you weren't stupid, your health should be good enough.

Do you really believe people who have health issues at an early age are simply stupid?

I don't think it's an either or proposition. You can both retire early AND take a nice vacation. Sure it delays your retirement date by a couple of days, but I think that's a good tradeoff generally. I'm approaching 40 and even now, the vacations I took when I was 10 years younger were different than now, I could cram more in, do more things without being as sore the next day, etc. And I haven't had kids yet, that would definitely change vacations.

Kids is one big reason. You can have totally different experiences before you have kids, once they arrive your outlook on life changes, risk tolerance changes etc.

If you can retire at 40 having lived your 20s/30s to the fullest then game on, but it would be crazy to sacrifice that time when you are so free and full of energy otherwise IMHO.

FWIW I am fortunate enough to have really enjoyed by earlier years and be mostly retired in my early 40s.

Die With Zero by Bill Perkins talks at length about this concept (it's a nonfiction book, so suffice to say it could've been an essay.)

As someone who is not so young anymore, but also not old, I think it is compound depreciation.

You can take once-in-a-lifetime experiences in your 20s and still save for retirement. I went to Burning Man and traveled to Amsterdam in my 20s and that didn't impact my savings.

I should point out that it's cheaper to travel when young: Back then I stayed in a tent in the desert and in a friend's room near Amsterdam. If I did the same trip today, I'd have my family in tow, and would need more comfortable accommodations.

I should also point out that startup equity is not retirement savings. Selling 10% of your equity, investing most of it, and then doing something that you won't be able to do when you're old is a very wise and mature decision.

Taking some time off to travel when you're young is much more than a beach vacation. You meet people (sometimes you meet your future wife), that can become lifelong friends. You learn what you like and don't like; and that the world is infinitely more complicated and beautiful than what you could imagine through books and watching youtube.

After 40 you've already made many of your major life decisions - career, partner, education, kids etc. There's less room for new experiences to alter that trajectory meaningfully.

One thing I've also realized through being lucky enough to enjoy some "semi-retirement" between work is having a healthy balance makes me appreciate both work and "leisure" more. It gets pretty boring to go to the beach every day, it turns out. I was itching to get back to building something by the end.

Also you might get sick. Getting sick is like going 30 to 80 in 60 seconds.

There is probably a stronger argument that health issues later in life a due to being ‘stupid’.

But… you can pay someone to carry your pack, and lie in a comfortably bed at night (you won’t sleep though, that ability vanishes at 40).

The shiite travel arrangements young people will tolerate are truly hilarious.

Experiences are overrated.

A day in my 20s was worth nothing. I went and flipped burgers for $4/hr, then probably went out for beers at a dive bar that night. Just living day to day.

I imagine your 70 or 80 year-old self would think that a day like that in your 20s is worth the moon.

Fuckin A

Then how do you rate 'experiences'?

I’ve just started my 60s.

Physically, I don’t feel a lot different than in my 40s. ( I’m pretty firm in my exercise schedule. ) But looking over almost anyone in their 80s, I’m reminded that the 60s likely kicks off ‘the fourth quarter’, to use sports parlance.

Time to let it all hang out, leave nothing on the table.

I’m ten years away from that age. I’d never go back, unless I could take what I’ve learned since then with me.

> you won’t sleep though, that ability vanishes at 40

I’m not sure why you say that.

If one takes care of themselves in terms of diet and exercise, good sleep should be a thing for most of their life.

I’m in my 50s, and I sleep about as well as I did in my 20s (possibly better).

Great car! How’s maintenance?

For me, diet and exercise seem unhelpful in the face of even minor stress.

Being exhausted when I go to bed helps and I ride a bike to get that, but having the time to get my milage high enough isn’t always possible.

Maintenance is great. I've only had to do minor things to it. Since I'm 6'5 I did have to re-weld all my stalks to be 30 degrees back and do a bunch of work on the steering column and wheel to bring it forward 8 inches and up 2, some stuff on the throttle body from coolant leaks, but other than that it's been great. I've put 100k+ km on it in just the past two winters since I live up in the boonies. I'm alerted of oil changes by the lights in the centre of the dash as well. I haven't done much of any work at all except what I mentioned since buying it and it's been smooth sailing for multiple winters now. The M20B25 is built like a tank. I have it sitting on B8's on H&R sports springs so the handling couldn't be better, and I did some minor ECU tuning on it to give me a little more power on the low end. The idle has remained at a perfect 750 as well, and I can get it down to 6.8L/100KM if I baby it. It's the perfect car [0]. I've even binned it a few times and it's still going strong.

I've also got a period correct radio in there from bmwradios.com (radio wizard from estonia) who gave it bluetooth functionality along with a period correct panel in the console for a microphone, so I can talk hands free while I'm driving. He also modified the radio for me to read out the different GTA 3/4/5 radio stations and I can switch them around as I only listen to GTA radio and commercials when driving [1]. Besides it being 900kg with no airbags, it's the perfect car.

Between e30zone, the bentley manual, and realOEM [3] amongst the other infinite amount of resources it's impossible not to do your own work on it and it's usually easy. It really is a thinkpad in car form. Most parts are still produced and if they aren't you can get any number of things from third party shops like e30garage.no [4] if it's not on FCPEuro. Lot's of parts are also plug'n'play between different BMW models like steering racks which are quite easily swappable.

[0] https://i.imgur.com/kjt2ATf.jpeg

[1] https://i.imgur.com/uenzzLq.mp4

[2] bonus winter video: https://i.imgur.com/KG2IlgN.mp4

[3] https://www.realoem.com/

[4] http://e30garage.no/

I took a few months off intentionally in between jobs to hike and camp and hang out with my kids. Now that my kids are older my only regret is that I didn't do it for longer.

> For me, diet and exercise seem unhelpful in the face of even minor stress.

Good point.

I probably should have written something like “…diet, exercise, and mental health”.