Thoughts about retirement...

Portfolio diversification means that the very worst place to invest your retirement fund is your own employer. It ought to be illegal for employers to insist on this. By all means invest a little there if you need an incentive to work hard and make sensible decisions (as senior management seem to require), but ideally keep most of your money away from your own sector of the economy.
 
Also, in Europe, your spouse cannot claim your retirement as a marital asset in a divorce.

Here, a prenup is an obligatory/standard routine for selfemployed folks.
For the ones who lack sufficient funds to set up a corporation, a prenuptial agreement ensures that part of the assets are kept out of a bankruptcy.

Unfortunately, the kind of potential long term partners, sought after by financially succesfull folks, are not the prenup "type".
So in the event of a divorce, Gus Petch will nail your asz just as hard.

The number of specialist doctors and engineers I know, as vindictive as Miles Massey, after having to hand in 50% of the funds they accumulated during the years of marriage, far outweigh the happy divorcees.
 
OK, then it must be just Sweden then...

Depends on a country. We had approach very similar to what is accustom in Sweden but now it is rapidly changing and getting so similar to US 401K and all other legal stuff.

General wisdom seems to be : don't marry at all or when you're already married: don't divorce :)

Bridal contract is another option maybe.
 
well here's some from a guy who'll be 33 in less than 2 months.

a while back I had this chat with a work colleague, he said "some of us are in their 30s and already started to get fed with it".

when I was at the University a few of us we had this talk with an assistant during a lab. some guy told about some of his electronic personal projects. the assistant said "when will you start those?", the guy replied "well, there's enough time". the assistant said "how much are you willing to bet that if you won't start tomorrow you never will?"

my father died at 60 because of health issues. he spent most of his life planning. he wanted to retire early because of the health issues.
back when the Chernobyl disaster happened he was working as an engineer in construction in Ukraine, less than 600 km away from Chernobyl.
when he filed for early retirement, he found that the company he was working for at the time did not pay retirement contribution for many employees so from the state's point of view he was unemployed for 4 years. he sued the company and lost, the state denied early retirement.
he died a short while afterwards.

I had this friend who started working earlier than I did. after a few years working he told me that had he afforded it, he'd retire at 35. I somehow started to understand why. I've always had decent jobs but they never gave me much joy.

and I'm starting to wonder...
 
Truly believe it is rather subjective. David Packard or William Messerschmitt demonstrate another personal attitudes for example.
I never said it wasn't.
depends on how you define work. if it means being at the office at 9 o clock and just doing something that doesn't necessarily give you a sense of purpose, I would definitely retire by the time I'm 35. too bad I can't afford it.
 
I've always had decent jobs but they never gave me much joy.

I've never expected work to give me joy. I expect it to be work, to be labor, and my feeling of accomplishment is enough, as well as being paid. I am grateful for my job but I don't expect to find joy in it. I guess I don't have high expectations for the work environment. Stuff needs to be done. Sometimes it's just not pretty.
 
I've never expected work to give me joy. I expect it to be work, to be labor, and my feeling of accomplishment is enough, as well as being paid. I am grateful for my job but I don't expect to find joy in it. I guess I don't have high expectations for the work environment. Stuff needs to be done. Sometimes it's just not pretty.
well, good for you then?
I don't want to be converted or anything. people have different goals in life. I'd even go as far as to say that your "joy" is the pay, because otherwise you won't do it. maybe my source of joy is different.
and note that I said "not much joy".
if you define work-induced joy as some sort of orgasmic pleasure, well, I guess there'll never be any. but there were many times when I felt like I was just doing something not because it needs to be done, but because some superior felt it'd make a bar graph look pretty. if that gives some people a feeling of accomplishment, I can only envy them.
 
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PushPull....
Dark most certainly have a point. Work is something we do to live, not as most of all these modern day coaching idiots keep evangelizing, about the meaning of life in work, joy, fulfillment and all the rest of the BS.

We may certainly wish and hope for joy and happiness in a job situation, but if that is the main goal, a lot of people will be very disappointed, for sure.
Have you ever given a thought to what joy and fulfillment the average industrial worker or farm worker, any hard manual labourer get from a minmum payment in an underdeveloped country?

We who live in western democracies are actually very lucky to be where we are, even of our "systems" also have major flaws. We have developed social systems to take care of those who cannot work, -systems so good that it is an ever increasing inspiration to those who won't, - work, that is!

During the last decades, I more and more often hear younger people expecting maximum pay without any proper education or work practice, - or quite ordinary jobs being charactereized as '**** jobs', since they don't offer an office and a CEOs pay.
Now wonder the western economies are struggling these days....
 
Aurora, I disagree with most of your points.

PushPull....
Dark most certainly have a point. Work is something we do to live, not as most of all these modern day coaching idiots keep evangelizing, about the meaning of life in work, joy, fulfillment and all the rest of the BS.
you seem to be somewhat evangelical yourself, telling me what is right or wrong, just as those coaches do. if pleasure in work is irrelevant, would you quit your job and do something you never had any talent or calling for but is well paid?

We may certainly wish and hope for joy and happiness in a job situation, but if that is the main goal, a lot of people will be very disappointed, for sure.
agree.
but actual experience taught me that much things differer from one employer to another, which makes me think/speculate/hope that there is such thing as a good place to work in.

Have you ever given a thought to what joy and fulfillment the average industrial worker or farm worker, any hard manual labourer get from a minmum payment in an underdeveloped country?
yes, many times. never really helped me. it just felt irrelevant as I'm not in their position.

We have developed social systems to take care of those who cannot work, -systems so good that it is an ever increasing inspiration to those who won't, - work, that is!
I'm not sure they really do.

During the last decades, I more and more often hear younger people expecting maximum pay without any proper education or work practice, - or quite ordinary jobs being charactereized as '**** jobs', since they don't offer an office and a CEOs pay.
Now wonder the western economies are struggling these days....
I never wanted a maximum pay, my life philosophy is that a regular job only gets you an Audi A6 instead of a Fiat Punto, I think that the Punto still gets one from A to B.
I think of myself as an educated man, how do you know that I'm not?
I personally think that the struggling economy has more to do with things that are not subject of this discussion. moreover, I even feel that recently there's more of a demand for less educated people. we must've had very different job experiences.
 
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Well I agreed with AuroraB.

I talked once to guy who worked on an assembly line at a car factory. I would like retire from a such job from day one probably.

Hopefully with all that modern micro-controllers, expert systems and other automation achievements western industries getting to the point when physical human labor would be eliminated. Robotized assemble lines deliver more consistent and better quality moreover.

I see another issue however. Being an educated pro means learning much more complex stuff further and further. So eventually we are getting to the point when person achieves necessary skills that let him start work productively at 35 only.

Or maybe modern youngsters getting more advanced and could learn faster then we were able in the past.
 
I wasn't directly aiming at you, PP, for most of my comments.
It is a fact in a larger part of western Europe, that a lot of younger people (among those unemployed) don't want to work, as it "gives no joy and fulfillement", probably meaning that this or that job seems meaningless.
To my mind almost all jobs have a meaning - because it is a job that needs to be done. That is certainly not to say that I would take a lot of these jobs, unless that was my only option for survival.
Our modern societies have created a sort of "happines choma", for lack of better words, that more and more people cannot find. The real question may be if this is the real life one should seek, or if this is more of the root of the problem.

That is also why I chose an education, found a reasonably good job way out of suburbia and city turmoil, and have been reasonably happy with that. There are other values in life than Audi's...... ;)
 
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So eventually we are getting to the point when person achieves necessary skills that let him start work productively at 35 only.
there are many project management techniques.
some employers willingly choose less educated/intelligent people because they fit the business model better. does the job, doesn't ask questions. some do the opposite. I've seen both sides.
the small, day to day job tasks and the higher management techniques are interwoven. certain management techniques promote a higher level of automation, hence require highly trained people to develop and maintain the automation process. others advocate manual labor divided into smaller, simpler tasks instead of automation (and I'm not referring to manufacturing only but also engineering etc), hence the need for people with a lower level of training.
there's literally a whole literature on the subject.
 
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diyAudio Member
Joined 2007
Most "Work" is paid drudgery, but also most people get some satisfaction from doing a job well. I started work at the age of 14 years, went back to school at 16; found a trade I liked, trained in it and worked in that trade for 32 years before I burned out and went to something else and now I am caught in a paradigm shift.
I could teach if only I already had a job in my trade, I am 62 in a trade where 35 is OLD. The only solution my wife and I can see is to buy ourselves jobs by setting ourselves up in business.
Only drawback is we are in a huge recession and my trade is hospitality which always suffers first in a recession.
So I stagger from one small crisis to another because I did not plan for retirement, but also because I did not think I would ever marry again and therefor there was no need to plan.
 
Member
Joined 2002
Paid Member
Haha, i enjoyed that scene.

Sorry i haven't any firsthand advice although my old man tried to retire a couple of years back and he ended up getting bored and going back to work!

But having said that, if you have a hobby that is as involving as diy audio then you should be able to keep your self more than busy. Or at least stay busy enough not to have feuds with Mrs Gregg!

Ok, time to crack another one open, good luck buddy.

I know some people that work for $6AUD and hour for 'something to do' instead of retiring and collecting a generous pension. Kind of sad.
 
I can't think of a better way to ruin a hobby or a vocation that you really love than to turn into a career. It's better to just find out where you have a talent that will pay a salary and go for that. I am satisfied with my job, but I'm not in love with it. They treat me extremely well, and it's been getting better and better. I guess I'm lucky in that regard. I don't make a huge salary but I'm satisfied with what I make. For me, it's all about be satisfied with what I am able to do. Wishing I was more wealthy, or more talented, or had a job that I loved is to me a waste of time. Hobbies are for fun and pleasure. Work is for other things.