In Dave Slusher’s Dog Daze Clambake, Dave digs into his financial strategy. While I appreciate where Dave’s coming from (don’t buy stuff you don’t need) and our savings rate is also in the double digits, he makes a couple of assumptions I completely disagree with:
- Retirement, as sold to our grandparents, will exist a decade from now – and later.
Unlike previous generations, Dave and I make our living from our brains – not our backs. While 40+ years on the factory floor makes a back lamer, the same isn’t true of brains. I’m betting on my brain will be a valuable member of society 40+ years from now in a similar way it is today. Perhaps my perspective will change in a couple decades, but today – I see myself doing something revenue generating when I’m in my 70s not because I have to, but because I want to.This is where Dave and I disagree.Dave and I are talking about the same elephant. - Sacrifice today inherently creates opportunity tomorrow.
No, I don’t have a video game console or subscribe to cable television. Nor do I have a high quality portable podcast recorder or a dog. I do have a bunch of other gear that makes my life easier, work more enjoyable, and offers me opportunity and experience I wouldn’t have without the gear. Here’s my assumption: having lunch with a colleague is more likely to lead to a new business opportunity than not.
I think people are more likely to find jobs that they truly enjoy, so feel a lot less like work, than in the past. This makes retirement less of a goal to count down towards, or even something worth obtaining in an absolute sense.
GVB, we still don’t disagree no matter how hard you try to make it seem so. I have no problem earning money in my 70’s but I don’t want to lose my house if I don’t. That seems to be the same way you feel. I just want my options in the want to /have to arena to begin at 50, not later.
Dave, fine, so we do agree :D. Perhaps it’s only our timelines that differ. 😉