Hello everybody, it's Sam and Sydney from Financial Samurai and in this episode we want to talk about why early retirement or fire is becoming obsolete And also I wanted to get some perspective about early retirement from you Sydney from a female's perspective Hopefully you listened to our previous podcast episode where we talked about the greatest benefit of retiring early Which is greater happiness for longer and higher peak levels of happiness But I'm sure some of you might have listened or read the post and thought well gee that's nice Of course, I want to retire early and you know experience more happiness, but I can't well the good news The good news is you don't have to actually retire early or early to feel this happiness Since I kick-started the modern-day fire movement in 2009 I've noticed many changes in the past The goal was to simply generate enough passive income to cover your living expenses, but that's hard It took me I would say what since 1999 to 2012 Yeah 13 years to get to a basic level of financial independence And then another five years after that to earn enough to provide for a family and not stress too much however Since 2009 we've had new terms come up right barista fire is one of them I think it's a smart solution where you work like a part-time job to get health care benefits and supplemental income To help you in retirement I was thinking about going back to Hawaii and instead of working at Starbucks because I don't drink coffee to go to Coldstone Creamery, you know on the strip in Waikiki.

I can eat all the ice cream I wanted maybe cake to probably not really healthy, but they provided health care insurance Which is huge for any retiree retiree and then a new term popped up called coast fire Coast fire emerged for those who are still working day jobs, but wanted to feel good about the amount of retirement savings They already had but it's just weird because coast fire is like, okay What's the difference between coast fire and a person working a job and then saving for retirement?

It's kind of like well here. Here's a trophy your fire. I'm fire Everybody's fire Everybody gets a car like Oprah Winfrey said the reality is coast fire is an illusion just to help make you feel better About your progress but post pandemic I think early retirement and fire is becoming obsolete Simply because more and more people are able to work from home And when you get to work from home, you have way more flexibility And I know you know We live in San Francisco And there are a lot of tech jobs that enable people to work from home To play while they work from home run errands while they work from home send their kids and pick them up their kids up early because they're working from home and some people have Criticized this idea because not everybody can work from home and I totally understand that but you did some research Sydney and What did you find out just in a quick search?

I found some studies that were highlighted on Forbes So roughly about 25% of jobs now in the US are being done remotely But there was a separate study that estimates that about 40% could be done remotely. So there actually is still room for growth in that but that's gonna ultimately depend on each individual employers policies and The employees themselves ultimately some actually prefer to work in the office, but it just depends.

There's a lot of variables Well, the point of that statistic is 25% are Working from home but up to 40% can work from home. So that is a becoming that is a trend line that we should foresee And which is why I'm saying Fire is becoming obsolete. I'm not saying it's obsolete right now Everybody wants to achieve financial independence no matter what job you're doing, but the trend is towards Obsolescence and here's the thing folks since I haven't had a traditional day job since 2012 I've been experienced what real-time in real life early retirement is like So I've been going to the tennis courts in the middle of the day and now to the pickleball courts And I've been talking to people who are also retired early or who are also working from home and not really working but playing and Recently over the past three months.

I've gotten to know many many pickleball players on the courts between 10 a.m And 3 p.m. Between Monday and Friday. I would say 65 70% of them are over 60 traditional retirees, which leaves 30 35 percent of them as 20s to 40s 30s 40s 50 year olds who have a lot of free time because they're working from home And I ran into this one person who we played from 10 30 to 1 30.

She's a single mom, right? She's an educator at a San Francisco private school And she was able to have three hours of fun activity and then go teach for five hours in the afternoon And so if you think about it, you're a single mom in supposedly expensive, San Francisco and you can make it work Why would you ever want to retire?

Because you've got the best of both worlds and then I met another girl. She's 26 years old works at Google She also played from about 10 30 to 1 30 p.m. And She was working she said yeah, I just code at night and my boss really doesn't care So long as I get things done and that sounds great.

I talked to one of our son's Best friends father who works at Google and he said yeah, I don't care I don't care if she you know Go plays pickleball for three hours a day or goes hiking or whatever so long as she gets her work done That's all that really matters.

And so this trend, you know, it's in tech, right? but I think it can you know bleed to law to banking to consulting because these industries are all Being for the same talent pool and to attract this talent you have to stay competitive With the workplace flexibility, you know Google started it with all these perks and all you know massages in the office and Free childcare in the office and now working from home and I think to stay competitive Other companies need to provide these benefits as well.

So yes, not all of us can get these fancy tech jobs at Google Facebook Apple Netflix wherever and sure Plenty of people work very very hard But I've talked to so many people since 2012 who work from home or reflex hours and they are just ecstatic So when you're happier at work, you don't feel like you need to retire early or quit your job or leave work It's very logical.

What are your thoughts? Flexibility and autonomy, I think are two of the most coveted features of jobs I definitely know that my happiness went up when I started to get more autonomy in my role and then flexibility as well when I Went back to work for my employer After I left to come back as a consultant when they wanted me to come back I had so much more flexibility and it was wonderful it was it was a phenomenal way to Be able to reconnect with everyone and earn some money so I definitely can see how Flexibility can motivate people to stay in the workforce longer So if you are able to let's say I don't know run errands or exercise for two three hours a day in the middle of day From Monday through Friday Do you think you would have left your job as early as you did?

if the stress was Manageable I could see that. Yeah I mean I I was fortunate that I had the luxury to take Easily take an hour-long lunch break and sometimes I stretch that to an hour and a half and I was definitely happier on those days You know or hey, you know one of my favorite buddies is like hey, let's go get let's go take a coffee break You know and we'd go for 20 minutes and sometimes we stretch it to 30 And we make sure we got all our work done but definitely being able to have flexibility to step out of the office or to just You know if you're working from home to be able to control your hours Some people work really great at night.

Other people work super are super productive early in the morning any kind of flexibility I think can produce. Oh, sorry can increase happiness and productivity Yeah, I remember when I was 26 years old I was working 60 hours a week and I couldn't leave the desk for more than 15 minutes because we would have inbound phone calls Yeah, and you know if I left for more than 15 20 minutes other people would have to pick up my slack pick up my phone And say hey, we're Sam.

I need this what's going on? And if they weren't in the Asian equities department, they didn't know what to do They just like okay. I'll have them call you back. And so that was like, okay I had to sit at my desk Tethered for many many hours a day if I didn't have client meetings or a business trip Yeah and so if I could leave for two to three hours a day go play tennis because Exercise is also very therapeutic right?

Yeah, or I go sit in the hot tub for like an hour I can take phones calls from there, you know after exercise I would probably work until my ideal retirement age of 45 and that would be 11 more years of saving and investing and man we would be so much richer.

What do you think? Yeah, I mean being well just being able to have outlets for stress during your workday Whatever your work hours are is so beneficial and this reminds me of Atlas of the heart I was rereading chapter one and she talks about how when she was working Tables as a waitress early on in her life how they had these two Phrases that they would use in the weeds and what was the other one?

It's like blown out blown out or something. There's a certain phrase and basically when you use that word everybody would just take over for you for 10 minutes and You would be able to just do go outside just blow off Whatever steam you needed to scream or whatever and know that your your colleagues were gonna cover you for those 10 minutes Well, you would reset right and what a difference that made, you know It's not a long time 10 minutes, but just being able to have outlets for stress during a workday is is very valuable Yeah, and investment banking equities Whoa, that's one of the highest stress jobs for like I guess white-collar work it's just there's pressure over and over again and the markets are open and you know clients are losing money and Demands that was really stressful.

So hopefully people can realize That you know, yeah, you work 60 hours a week which is 50% longer than the average 40-hour workweek and you work in a more stressful environment that can easily lead to burnout and With this flexibility Wow one one of the best things to come out of the pandemic from a professional standpoint is the acceptance of working from home and Everybody's in cahoots folks.

Everybody is in cahoots who are working at home It is so much better because you don't have to work as much or you can just control your time Better and here's the funny thing. It's actually not funny. It's very logical the most Hungry the go-getters out there. They actually don't want to work from home.

They don't want to go into the office They want face time with their bosses build a network, you know see clients get in front of people because they know Smartly and wisely and rightly and correctly that the more time they spend with people The higher up they can potentially go because at the end of the day People hire and promote and take care of people who they like and who they know Think about this folks, you know during this mass layoff season Here in tech how easy it is to lay people off now when you don't have to see someone Yeah, that's true in a meeting room and say hey your services are no longer needed you get notified by an email Yeah, that's tough.

You just break up through text message or email Yeah, it's tough for the employee because you feel like wait, what the hell? I mean, I dedicated years of my life You're just gonna lay me off and lock me out of my account. Yeah Without any like going away party.

I mean that was that is something that's really painful But from the employers point of view, it's like click click click. I know. See you later But that is actually something very interesting that has come out of it Given I wrote a book on severance negotiations, you know one of the strategies for severance negotiation or getting a severance is to Alleviate that burden that pain that embarrassment of your manager having to lay someone off So you say hey look, I know things are going through tough times.

Maybe the stock is down 30% We're doing some cost cutting. I heard that from the grapevine I will raise my hand to get laid off so you dear boss Don't have to have that difficult conversation with someone else who might not be as amenable to getting laid off. Yeah strategies folks strategies for getting ahead strategies for Leaving and getting out, you know, it's just got to think smarter and it's a lot about human relationships So early retirement and fire I think was born out of misery The reason why I started talking about fire in 2009 was because I started to hate my job The you know the pressure the global financial crisis made me wonder What was the point of working so hard when you would just lose money and the decline in merit-based?

Compensation was also very demotivating. Can you imagine working really hard getting ranked very well with all your clients and then not getting paid? commensurately or at all You know that that stings and so rational people find rational solutions and my rational solution was to negotiate a severance Do something entrepreneurial so I had nobody to blame but myself and hopefully the harder I worked the more reward I would get I just wanted that correlation with effort and reward and we talked about that regarding, you know, this attack on merit or this decline in merit-based compensation and here's another interesting Reason why I believe early retirement and fire is Obsolete or is getting to obsolescence Fire is an all-gender movement.

However when I started talking about fire in 2009 I was a man right and then a lot of Subsequent people who started talking and writing about fire were also men. However No stay-at-home mom says she is retired because being a mother a parent is one of the toughest jobs in the world I worked in banking for 13 years and it is easy in comparison to being a stay-at-home parent for just five or six years And I think due to stronger egos, you don't see many childless women say they are fire either They are just comfortable owning whatever it is.

They're doing after traditional work But due to fragile egos many men are unable to admit they are stay-at-home dads Especially if they have a working spouse Rather they opt to label themselves as anything but stay-at-home dads out of pride You know, they come up with replacement terms such as early retiree fire entrepreneur author podcaster musician consultant freelancer coach investor gig worker It just goes on and on and on and anything but admitting We are stay-at-home dads So I wanted to get your perspective Cindy on why do you think that is and why do you think you don't hear?

Females saying oh, they're financially independent while they have a working husband making money and you know providing health care insurance well, I can say that as a working mom that It is so much work to take care of young children, especially You know, I can't voice what it's like to take care of older children except from what I've heard from my friends And they always talk about being so busy having to transport their kids to all these various activities But yeah having young children, it's it's work.

It's I Don't like to call it work because it's taking care of our our family But it it's it's hard and it takes a lot of time and energy patience and Yeah, I mean working part-time as well trying to fit it in, you know It's it's a lot to do and in terms of the dad side I'm gonna call out Brene Brown again because she's on my on the top of my mind I've been watching her podcast not her podcast her TED talks and such in her books She talks a lot about shame and vulnerability and I can totally see that as a reason why a lot of men don't want to talk about being stay-at-home dads because I think they feel a sense of Shame to admit that they're not providing income When they used to perhaps I mean, I don't want to Put you know all these men into a box and label them, but I could see how that might be a reason You know from an emotional standpoint of why they don't want to call themselves a stay-at-home father And and so but the other reason might be maybe because mothers spend on average more time with their children Yeah, and so therefore they definitely feel like they're not retired because they're spending more time Quote working to take care of their children.

Yeah, whereas men spend less time on average therefore Maybe they just can't Own to the fact that they are stay-at-home dads and providers because maybe men feel guilty that they're not doing Their part or enough work to consider themselves a stay-at-home fathers. Yeah I'm still curious though because taking care of children vulnerable children who are still learning and who need as much Help and education and love and support as possible.

Why is this considered not an admirable job for men? I think because it's still rare I know when you know, our son was still young and his baby and toddler years You didn't meet very many Stay-at-home dads. I mean, did you I don't even remember if you met one who was Doing that as his primary role.

I feel like it's still very Very rare. Yeah, I do remember taking him like when he was two years old to Golden Gate Park to the Botanical Garden with three or four other mothers and I think no he was six months to 12 months and then it was kind of awkward because we sat in a circle and then Three out of the five mothers started breastfeeding.

Oh, this was a mom's thing. Oh, it was yeah it was a mom's meetup that I was going to and you came along because You had the flexibility. So that's a little bit of a different scenario because it was a scheduled meetup for mom Yeah, so I mean out of respect and courtesy I walked away, you know just to give The moms more privacy and comfort, but okay that was specifically but yeah I didn't meet many stay-at-home dads.

There was a Facebook group that you joined Yeah, or a meetup dad parent. I never like I never meet up with them. Yeah, there weren't that I just feel like there weren't that many. Yeah, so we're really a minority. Yeah, and so when you're a minority Let's say you're a minority minority There's just not a very supportive outlet and I guess when you read articles online a lot of the articles online talk about The anguish of mother is trying to do it all to have their career and be mothers.

You never read about. Oh the Dad guilt that men are trying to do it all and be fathers and providers as well it's very unbalanced and I think partly the reason why it's unbalanced is because You know in the beginning or a while ago. We're trying to help more women Do it all do more have their careers go to college be successful business people But I give you props for talking about these topics and your podcast and in your articles because you've talked about fatherhood a lot Over the years and I think there are a lot of dads out there who have left comments about how appreciative They are of the feelings that you voice that you have the courage to talk about the uncomfortable things That you felt in your journey as a father Yeah I really really if you're a father out there who wants to spend more time taking care of your children Don't let society or your buddies or women make you feel bad for spending more time with your children Nothing is more priceless.

Nothing is more valuable than that I think you're not gonna regret spending more time with your children when you look back when they're older It's just one of those things where it's just kind of like I don't think you're gonna regret working hard At your job or doing something because the reward is worth it, please Don't feel embarrassed for no longer having day jobs feel proud of your partner your girlfriend your wives For earning money providing for your family providing health care, you know support their careers You know, this is something that I really admire Anybody who you know just goes out there and pursues what they want.

We have you know, there's one mother In our school and she has this she's a chef right and we watch her show and it's on the food network and it's just so admirable to see her go out there and Cook and also try to build her business empire. Yeah being able to follow your dreams and pursue what you love is Is a very valuable thing and not everyone is able to follow their dreams when they want to and for those of you who have a dream that you're really passionate about Don't give up, you know, even if you can't do everything that you want right now.

Keep going don't give up on your path to happiness so with less men ashamed about Saying they are stay-at-home dads and with society being more accepting of stay-at-home dads I think fire and early retirement Therefore is becoming less popular because less men will start Needing to shout on the internet or in social media or to their friends that they're everything else but being a stay-at-home dad you can say I'm a stay-at-home dad and I'm a freelancer.

I'm a stay-at-home dad and I'm an author but put that stay-at-home fatherhood up first You know say it with your chest be proud yeah, and finally the reason why early retirement is becoming obsolete is because there are Many many ways to make money now Thanks to technology and the internet some commentators have said well my thesis that fire is becoming obsolete is not inclusive of construction workers or Secretaries or nonprofit organization people or anybody who has to be in the office Every single day to help Society thrive and I say no I say no it is inclusive of Them because the internet is inclusive of everybody Everybody has access to the internet now if you can't afford it at home You can go to the library you can learn anything you want for free on the internet nowadays so to say You know my thesis is not inclusive I think is incorrect because anybody can go online to learn and to make money if they have the audacity To try I'm not talking about instantly replacing your day job income I'm saying you don't have to retire early from a terrible miserable job Because there are more opportunities now you can supplement your day job income With online income or different ways to make money right there's blogging podcasting youtubing courses Editing freelancing consulting you can do everything on the internet every single company has an online website where you can Order or connect with people in addition no college education is required Yeah, about 65 68 percent of high school students nowadays go to college 65% of all Americans have college degrees and you know what that's actually another the great thing about the internet You don't need a college education.

You can learn everything for free You can start your website start your podcast do anything you want if you focus and try alright folks We would love to hear your thoughts on whether you believe the trend towards early retirement Fire is becoming obsolete or not one of the reasons why I decided to start this fake retirement movement Was so that more people can have an outlet to have permission to make money from other than their day jobs So not have to be pigeonholed to either being retired or working Thanks so much for listening.

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Thank you. Bye