0-22 - I’m someone else’s responsibility - graduated college degree in CS
22-36 - shuffled aimlessly between two meaningless jobs, a horrible mistake of a marriage (and divorce), got into real estate too heavily and the crash of 2008, taught fitness classes on the side as my only outlet.
36-46 - got remarried and became an instant father to a 9 and 14, rebuilt my career from scratch and hopped between 5 jobs, got my finances under control after walking away from 5 mortgages, built a strong marriage and both (step)sons graduated. “Retired my wife” when she was 44.
46 - present - transitioned into consulting, got first and only job at BigTech, (working remotely cloud consulting department), moved permanently into what was a vacation home in Florida, and start traveling extensively post Covid including doing the digital nomad thing. Left BigTech and enjoying a nice balanced life with my wife while I work remotely and she enjoys her passion projects.
I made enough so she doesn’t have to work anymore. Before Covid, she was a special needs bus driver. I didn’t want her on the bus after Covid for both her health and mine.
By the time Covid lifted, we had decided to fly around the country taking one way trips and she was deeply into her passion projects.
We got rid of everything we owned that wouldn’t fit into 4 suitcases. Our official home was our vacation home in (state tax free) Florida that was being rented out while we were traveling as a short term rental.
The “state tax free” came in handy when I was getting RSUs/pro rated signing bonuses
> Our official home was our vacation home in (state tax free) Florida that was being rented out while we were traveling as a short term rental.
States typically define residency as either based on domicile, or a statute. In other words, some of the states you "traveled" to undoubtedly have laws stating that if you are in the state for a certain number of days out of the year, you are automatically a resident, not a visitor, and liable for taxes on your world-wide income.
Besides Las Vegas where we ended up staying a month and a half and two cities in Texas where we were in Dallas and Houston 3 weeks each, we only stayed in one place for a maximum of 3 weeks.
It just happens to be a moot point in Nevada and Texas since they were both state tax free states.
When we do it again probably in summer 2027, those also happen to be the two states we will be spending the majority of our time. My wife knows a lot of people in both states
"not engaged in a gainful occupation"[1]
"not having a job that provides money"[2]
Maybe not official as in dictionary definition, but official as in political / statistical lingo?
> Finally, other individuals who are not working or seeking work for pay or profit are not included in the labor force.
> BLS considers the unemployed as those individuals without a job who have looked for
one in the past four weeks and are available to work. Looking for work involves an individual taking some action to obtain a job, such as completing an application, sending out a resume,contacting an employment center, etc. Individuals who have been temporarily laid off are
considered unemployed regardless if they have looked for work in the last four week
The government’s definition is designed to make things look nice, not gauge the actual level of unemployment. If you’re not looking for work because you gave up trying, you’re not counted even though you’re unemployed. Retired or disabled is a different thing, and being a home maker and taking care of kids should be counted in the numbers as employment, otherwise everyone should be under unemployed.
Yea and? The government isn’t the people, they want things to look as rosy as possible, every one of them. The people’s definition for unemployment is you’d want to work but you can’t find a job. Your definition is just appealing to authority.
Nearly anyone who you ask will say you should count someone who has no income and can’t find a job as unemployed for the numbers, otherwise type ignoring problems. What if you have 10% of your population that can’t find a job and gives up to live on the streets due to loss of hope? Do you just not count them as unemployed? That’s stupid. Your rapid fire set of questions carefully worded to sound reasonable is just a way for you to avoid the crux of my argument that government numbers for unemployed are low due to the twisted definition they use.
Tell me why they shouldn’t count the hopeless as unemployed?
> Tell me why they shouldn’t count the hopeless as unemployed?
Because “Words Mean Things”. Every single country’s government that I could find - including non English speaking countries (I just looked up the definition in Japan) define unemployment the same way.
The unemployment, the homeless and the labor participation rate are all statistics that are reported by the government and one isn’t ignoring the other.
And you don’t think it is “unreasonable” to make up definitions instead of using ones that are accepted globally?
The biggest turning point for the worse and for the better was not having a good stable home life.
I am not saying you have to be in a relationship to have stability. Of course it’s better to be single than being involved in a bad relationship.
Looking back, what really started things going bad was a lack of self confidence and wanting to be in a relationship.
I was a short computer geek, kind of awkward. I got better. Now I’m very comfortable talking to anyone. It’s my $Dayjob.
Ironically enough though, I had no trouble being in front of people at 28 and had been a part time fitness instructor for 3 years by then as hobby. I was in great shape.
I met someone who was physically attractive and was interested in me after being friendzoned all of my adult life. I got married and I should have seen the signs.
That led to everything else that happened for the next 6 years - staying at a job too long, getting too heavily invested in real estate trying to make more money, stagnating both technically and financially. Got divorced at 32.
At 34, in 2008 around the time of the real estate crash, I just had to accept the fact that everything I had done up to that point was a waste and be comfortable starting over from scratch.
I got ready to interview after being at my second job for over 9 years and did a vertical move to another job that would let me get some real world experience with an in demand language - C# and the startup was working with ruggedized mobile devices right when smart phones were taking off.
I wasn’t trying to date anyone at that time and my now wife had to basically shove her number at me once we had been working together for over two years. She was in another department. I told her all of the shit I was going through at the time with my real estate and she was still interested.
We both got laid off when the company went out of business and she got a job quickly that had benefits and I got a good paying contract without benefits. I proposed to her while I was working as a contractor with the plan for us to get married after I got a permanent job.
She suggested we get married sooner so I could be on her benefits. That arrangement kept until 2020 when I was 46. It allowed me the freedom to jump back and forth between full time and contract jobs to build my resume.
In 2020, as a direct result of me being able to aggressively job hop, a remote position at AWS (Professional Services) fell into my lap in 2020.
The difference between what I was making pre-AWS and post AWS was 3x what she was making. But there is a direct line from her supporting my career to me being able to do that.
I have no problem with my wife not working so she can pursue what she wants. It gives us a chance to travel like crazy and it’s not like my life is stressful once I left AWS.
0-22 - I’m someone else’s responsibility - graduated college degree in CS
22-36 - shuffled aimlessly between two meaningless jobs, a horrible mistake of a marriage (and divorce), got into real estate too heavily and the crash of 2008, taught fitness classes on the side as my only outlet.
36-46 - got remarried and became an instant father to a 9 and 14, rebuilt my career from scratch and hopped between 5 jobs, got my finances under control after walking away from 5 mortgages, built a strong marriage and both (step)sons graduated. “Retired my wife” when she was 44.
46 - present - transitioned into consulting, got first and only job at BigTech, (working remotely cloud consulting department), moved permanently into what was a vacation home in Florida, and start traveling extensively post Covid including doing the digital nomad thing. Left BigTech and enjoying a nice balanced life with my wife while I work remotely and she enjoys her passion projects.