There has to be a better system than this.
The alternative is much worse. I don’t want to be poor and/or homeless. I want to be able to take vacations and not worry about surprise expenses. I want to actually be able to retire someday.
The alternative is a much harder life to live, in my opinion. For me, giving up 40ish hours a week for the peace of mind it worth it. Yes, work is not how I’d prefer to spend my time, but it allows me to spend the rest of my time doing as I’d please.
There are more alternatives.
As a kid, I was traumatized by the idea that I’d need to work until I’m old and then maybe spend another decade or two being too old to do the things I wanted before I eventually die. I was so distraught over “the way things are” that I constantly fantasized about running away and building my own tree house in the woods to live in, à la Swiss Family Robinson style.
And this was a time before inflation and property prices got out of hand. We were still fed the idea that getting a college education and a good paying job would help us live comfortably, while still saving up for retirement.
Then I joined the US military, thanks to the advice of my uncle who was a retired Air Force Chief Master Sergeant. 20 years later, at only 38 years old, I officially retired and earned myself a pension equal to about half my monthly pay, which I will collect automatically for the rest of my life. Unfortunately, the military did away with the pension program about 7 years ago, so any newbies will have to do their new BRS program. (Basic Retirement System; basically the federal govt’s version of a 401K) I was lucky enough to be grandfathered into the old pension program when I retired 2 years ago.
On top of that, a bunch of physical and mental injuries accrued over 20 years (thanks to serving during wartime) has earned me the coveted 100% Permanent & Total disability rating with the VA, which means I get free medical and dental for life, as well as a monthly paycheck from the VA that’s bigger than my pension. I’m making more money in retirement than I did while serving! So I can be fully retired now.
My wife also served in the military, but she didn’t make it to retirement. She was medically discharged about 12 years into service. But fortunately, her medical issues also earned her the rare 100% Total & Permanent disability rating from the VA as well. So she enjoys all the same benefits as I do, including a sizeable VA paycheck every month for life.
While I was serving, I bought houses in 2 separate places I was stationed, and I rented them out when I left. I hired on a property manager to act as landlord in my absence (since they’re in different states from where I currently live) and they take 10% of the monthly rent as their pay, which incentivizes them to keep tenants in the house, as they don’t get paid if it’s empty. They literally take care of everything; I only get contacted if they need to make a financial decision, i.e. hiring a plumber, replacing a washing machine, etc.
I make sure to charge afforable rates for rent, not price-gouge like a lot of landlords do nowadays. I’m not relying on income from these houses, so I don’t need to squeeze every penny out of them that I can. I’m very quick to fix issues, too. These houses were in excellent condition when I lived there (one was a brand-new build when I moved in) and I want to keep them in immaculate condition, so I make sure to do quality repairs and not just cheap patch jobs. I charge just enough to cover my mortgage (which was really cheap when I bought them around a decade ago) plus the property manager’s share. When both houses are paid off, that rent money (minus 10%) is just passive income to supplement my pension and disability pay.
I’ve also been living in my childhood home for the past couple years, which my father owned until he passed away last week, so I will be inheriting the house and all 6 acres it’s on. Basically a free house. Oh, and the military paid me a separate monthly housing allowance to afford rent/mortgage payments while I was serving, so I didn’t have to spend any of my own money on the 2 houses I bought. The military covered my mortgage while I lived there and tenants are paying my mortgage now. So I technically own 3 houses that I didn’t need to spend any of my own money on.
Besides all this, I also have some investments going through my cousin, who works for an investment firm. I’m pretending those investments don’t exist until actual retirement age, so they’ll accrue in value over the next couple decades and hopefully be a sizeable retirement nest egg.
So through a lot of dumb luck (and some smart choices), I’ve managed to not only avoid working until I’m too old to enjoy life, but I actually have some decent income to live comfortably on. I’m not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m living cozy enough to relax and enjoy the second half of my life at my own pace, without a job to afford my way of life.
This is what life should be like for everyone. We’re not here to work for the rest of our lives, that’s just capitalist propaganda, fed to us since grade school. We only get one shot at life, so it should be lived! There should be plentiful options to make passive income in the second half of your life so you can enjoy living. But the capitalist machine doesn’t work if there are no workers to power it, so we’re stuck in this broken worker bee system for the majority of our lives.
You’re making passive income from disability, a pension system that no longer exists, and owning 3 houses you didn’t pay for based off of programs no longer available to anyone starting out now. While collecting “market rate” rent (which conveniently always increases).
The disability, I’m fine with. My buddy had the same thing from the Marines and he more than earned the 100% rating, as I’m sure you and your wife did.
However, this whole thing where you’re talking about with retiring off of passive income… that was a LOT of words to say:
I’m a landlord
I really wish you would have said this first, because your long winded story about houses and “passive income streams” gives me the impression that you know the house-related part all boils down to being a landlord, and I get the impression you buried that fact to obfuscate it. You’re making money from other people’s work, in the form of the rent they pay to you (minus a small fee to the property managers), while doing literally no work yourself, as you explicitly explained.
The problem is not landlords, which have existed for thousands of years. The problem is that the first time homebuyer programs suck ass. They’re like “only 3% down payment! But you have to pay extra PMI, so it’s still expensive monthly.”
If the government really wanted to subsidize housing, they would subsidize home construction workers and materials. Right now old construction workers have to retire due to age or become contractors. So there are a ton of crappy contractors who have no business sense and a lot of construction experience.
Imagine if you could go to school for free to build your own house! Land in the US is almost free outside of major cities. The expensive part is workers and materials.
“Kings are not a problem, they’ve lasted for thousands of years.”
You simply work
Because like it or not, you need resources to live. The entire bullshit fairytale (or furry tail) of working in your own vegetable garden to live off the lands IS STILL WORKING YOU LAZY ASSHOLE. And it will be working a lot harder for a lot less resources with a lot more risk when your crops fail
Somehow you snowflake types (sorry, but yeahyou "I hate to work, hoe can I sit on my ass for the next 40 years and have someone take care of me?) somehow really roped yourself into the idea that you can live off air or something. No matter how you do It, no matter what system you implement, you still gotta work!
I worked hard for what I got and I don’t have much, and that is fine, I have enough z I don’t needs a super yacht (nor should anyone, but that is a different story). Yes, I too sometimes have bad day and don’t want to get out of bed but then I just make myself, you know, have some discipline?
You will NOT be able to get by doing nothing unless you leech off and abuse someone else, or an entire group. Until we have fully human like AI robots thatcan do all of our tasks, humans are required to do work, PERIOD.
If nobody will work anymore and we all go to our fantasy vegetable garden then within months, medicine will run out, say goodbye to grandma and everyone that has diabetes or cancer or anything else, and that goodbye will be painful and excruciating. Then after a few months millions more will die from food shortages. Want to complain about it on the internet? Well fuck you because fuck you, because nobody is working anymore and the internet doesn’t work on magic, it runs on hard human labor, meaning that WE HAVE TO WORK.
Putting it on “but evil corporations!!” is a bullshit excuse as well. Like it or not, you need them. Without those evil corporations, no more medication, no more food, no more electricity, no more life for the vast majority of all of us. That evil corporations should change for the better is something that nobody will deny but that is a different story BECAUSE YOU STILL HAVE TO WORK YOU ENTITLED ASSHOLE.
So yes, you are lazy and yes, you need to get off your ass and stop leeching off your mommie. Sorry to be harsh about it but this post just really shows you are entitled and lazy and your post is just really insulting to those that try to live a responsible life and help others. Stop thinking about yourself, you’re not the only one here.
/rant
Everyone knows work is necessary, what isn’t necessary is 40+ hours a week so some Capitalist can buy another yacht from exploitation of your labor.
Nobody thinks work is unnecessary, this is a strawman.
I don’t doubt that you’ve worked hard, but I do believe you should own your labor, not some Capitalist.
Again, nobody is suggesting literally zero work. Just restructuring.
More strawmanning, blah blah blah.
No, we don’t need corporations owned by a few people, workers can own and run the Means of Production without someone exploiting their labor.
No, this post shows that you’re incredibly out of touch with what people are advocating for.
I hate it. I started learning about FIRE, Financial Independence, Retire Early. The great part is that you can do what you want, you just have to match your spending to your income.
I hope for a better system for my kids’ friends. (My kids will have me guiding them.)
The chase to grind up from Proletarian to Petite Bourgeoisie to eventually Bourgeoisie just to escape the Capitalist hellhole is downright dystopian.
