Show HN: How long do I need to work at my salary before I can coast, or retire?

kkarmanyaahm about 3 hours ago 50 commentsRead Article on github.com

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I made a financial planning tool in a couple hours that can model various stages of life and potentially guide job searching and work timelines.

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Discussion (50 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

fishtoaster•about 2 hours ago

If you like this, I highly recommend https://projectionlab.com/ for scenario-modeling your future income and retirement.

It's been discussed here a number of times and I've been a happy customer for years.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36849502 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26969173

Espressosaurus•about 2 hours ago

I'll second that. I tried the trial for a few months then started paying money for it. At $100/year I've found it useful for modeling and gaming out different scenarios for retirement thresholds.

Nothing's certain, but if you like to play with data and you don't want to build the whole damn thing yourself, it's useful.

Still waiting for them to get support for options.

sschueller•about 2 hours ago

> Based on the available data, the percentage of the U.S. population that can realistically achieve FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) is very small, likely less than 1% to 3%. This figure represents those who can both meet the strict financial criteria and successfully execute the plan to retire decades before the traditional age.

According to Gallup polling, only 1% of Americans in their early 40s are retired, and just 6% of those in their early 50s have left the workforce. [1]

Nice if you can do it. Most of us will never be able to.

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/what-percentage-of-people-achie...

siliconc0w•about 3 hours ago

Don't forget the unbounded liability that is the US healthcare system!

dyzone•about 2 hours ago

Don't forget the unbounded liability that is the human condition!

ceasesurthinko•about 2 hours ago

Don’t forget the unbounded liability of AGI: your job disappears before you can accumulate the capital you need. On the bright side, you’re retired. Really simplifies the spreadsheet.

snemvalts•about 3 hours ago

For those who don't want to run random python scripts locally https://engaging-data.com/fire-calculator/

krupan•about 2 hours ago

Is this the same project, or a different project that does the same thing. I took a quick glance at both and the descriptions are very similar

vincnetas•about 2 hours ago

"How long do i have to work, until i can force others to work for me"

or alternative "... until i have saved up enough to last me till death"

But most of the time usually its the first option because no one wants to downgrade their ways of live when getting old.

And the problem with the first one is that as more and more people want to do that, who is going to work for them? the opressed youth :)

hnfong•about 2 hours ago

> And the problem with the first one is that as more and more people want to do that, who is going to work for them? the opressed youth :)

If only youth unemployment isn't a serious issue in modern societies.

In reality, maybe AI robots.

tonyedgecombe•about 1 hour ago

From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

bariumbitmap•about 3 hours ago

I swear I saw a version of this years ago on one of the popular tech blags like Coding Horror or Joel On Software. I briefly looked for it the other day and couldn't find it. Anyone happen to remember it? I think it was mainly about salaries and when stock options would vest.

Joel_Mckay•about 2 hours ago

If you live in New York, life will get complex without building supplementary passive income from a young age.

If people live a slow-burn lifestyle, buy revenue property one can later demolish as needed, park unused cash in index funds, and split 7% between bullion & high-risk. Most folks will be fine when things eventually go sideways.

Some people like to gamble, but they usually don't talk about their mistakes. =3

hdgvhicv•about 2 hours ago

> Some people like to gamble, but they usually don't talk about their mistakes

I just saw a cnn headline in the lobby about people who are looking to sell their family home to buy ai stock

They sure talk about mistakes before they happen

walrus01•about 2 hours ago

I think this would highly depend on figures for real estate and overall COL in the specific location where you intend to retire? And also major life choice possibilities like maybe selling your house and moving or choosing something smaller when theoretical children are fully grown and have moved out.

apparent•about 2 hours ago

Given the national debt (and the state debts in many cases), I do not feel comfortable assuming that tax rates will not change drastically. I wouldn't be surprised if Roth IRAs became taxable, at least for certain people. And there could be straight-up wealth taxes on "the millionaires" (which you pretty much have to be in order to FIRE.

gedy•about 2 hours ago

You mean retire at all. I think this would cause a civil war if govt pulled this.

esafak•about 2 hours ago

If you'd written it in Javascript you could have hosted it on Github Pages.

fulafel•about 2 hours ago

You can use Pyodide for that, no need to stoop to JS.

vasco•about 2 hours ago

How much money do you need to allow yourself to be happy and start experiencing life?

How can people not see FIRE is just a way to make you postpone what you want to do? Who cares what you can do when you're old and full of pains?

tigerlily•about 3 hours ago

This is cool, but I for one hope to be able to continue to work until my last dying day.

Chinjut•about 2 hours ago

Retirement doesn't mean you can't work. It means you don't have to. It means you can work for yourself on your own interests instead of for some other boss who tells you what to do.

krupan•about 2 hours ago

The idea here is you get to work, but you don't have to work.

sevenzero•about 3 hours ago

Used to think the same when joining the field and now I despise every minute I have to work on software I don't care about. AI even made it worse as I joined the field due to liking the coding part, not the results. Well, there isn't really an alternative for me either as there are basically no jobs I could learn that pay equally well...

SA9G•about 3 hours ago

Hopefully you can retire early and then work on software you do like!! All those glorious ideas you had... but didn't have the time for. But be careful on the retirement part, the numbers go out the window (Andersen not Microsoft) when inflation bites :-(

techcode•about 2 hours ago

Do numbers go completely out the window due to inflation?

While the price of gas, real-estate, groceries doubled or tripled over the last 10-15 years (here in NL).

It also seems that Stocks/ETFs also did the same, right?

Some of the Tech/IT/AI (and hence to some extent also S&P500 that's heavy on those) increased even more. But even if we consider it an artificial bubble - loads of other more traditional industries/ETFs also grew similarly to inflation, didn't they?

sevenzero•about 2 hours ago

I wont be able to retire early with a measly 2.5k net wage in Germany. Still, job market is dead here. Its all Java and basically zero interesting projects. I appreciate the kind words though!

carlosjobim•about 2 hours ago

Then your life is completely meaningless. You've rationalized yourself into wasting the one and only life you have.

paul7986•about 3 hours ago

How much coding are you doing nowadays vs. AI doing it for you and you reviewing/pushing it into the repo?

estetlinus•about 2 hours ago

Retiring early sounds utterly boring.

herbst•16 minutes ago

I have been in the lucky situation where very little work was more than enough.

You start to do things just because you can. I did wood work, house renovation, gardening, rebuild a motorcycle, a caravan and later a car. Started to DJ, music production got into 3d printing and engineering, ...

Not working on the car after work for months or years. But turning my life upside down and do nothing else for 1 month.

I love doing things in weekdays instead of weekends.

At this point I can't even start to comprehend how people can do anything for them next to a 40 hour week job.

conradludgate•about 1 hour ago

I don't think I'll ever retire, but I'll take jobs knowing that the salary won't matter for me which unlocks a lot of options for me again

kuboble•about 1 hour ago

Retiring is to stop doing what other people tell you to do for money.

There is plenty of room for intellectual and social engagement outside of paid work.

globular-toast•about 2 hours ago

It's boring in the same way as a fridge that works flawlessly for 100 years is boring. Sometimes that's all you really want. Remember, stress is the worst thing you can do to your body. Also remember, being able to retire doesn't mean you have to.