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January 10, 2013 at 1:22 PM #757467
no_such_reality
Participant

UCGal is that the old FIRE community or is that another retire early community? I haven’t been on FIRE in a long while but your comment about it basically breaking into two groups the self investors and the LBYM groups is what I remembered. Healthcare was the big uncertainty and fear for most of them.

They are very informative and particularly spent a lot of focus on determine how much do you really need.

There-in comes the hook to another, IMHO, shyster, Timothy Ferris or 4 Hour Work Week fame. At the root of the four hour work week is a very simple premise, again, a single concept worth gleaning from the few hours it takes to read the book. That premise is literally, figure out how you want to live. Then figure out how much money a month it takes.

Ironically the FIRE community and TF, actually, end up saying the same thing. It can be surprisingly little particularly if you’ve got the freedom to change your locale and focus on the experience and not the material.

Or you just stay in coastal suburban SoCal and quadruple that perceived amount.

[quote=UCGal][quote=AN]I agree, divorce is the one thing you can’t really plan for. So, I’ll concede on that point. However, death can easily be planned by with a large enough life insurance plan.

WRT health problem, of course if you’re self-employed, you’d have to pay for your own medical insurance. Which is why freelancers make more than W-2er. Why do you have to get HDHP? Why can’t you get a HMO? WRT to $8k/year. I save more than $8k/year ever since I start working.[/quote]
Non-employer Health insurance (for the moment) is very expensive if you have a pre-existing conditions. That will hopefully be mitigated in 2014.

The Early retirement board I mentioned earlier – this is a big discussion point… people retiring before medicare age – need to account for health insurance… and if there are pre-existing conditions it can be a reason to stay with an employer well after you have the means to leave the work force… One guy who posts there has a wife who was dx’d with cancer. They are getting quotes on the order of $3k/month for insurance for her. He’s staying at work because of the health insurance.[/quote]