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Interesting.... I come on here and hear a bunch of young folks talking about retirement ... and I talk to old folks like me and all they talk about is making money in the 'market (well ... that and how food with garlic in it gives them gas...)...
I'm just a simple man trading a simple plan.
My daddy always said, "Every day above ground is a good day!"
I also hesitated answering your 4 questions, each one has a different path, background and way of programming the future. I will try to answer based on my personal experience and belief.
a)You should not underestimate the words "having secured your funds for living". Life expectancy is getting longer and longer, if you want to retire at 40 you will need to manage your funds for at least another 40 or more years and that is a long way to go. In this lap of time the economy will change, cost of living, interest rates, buying power, political and geographical stability where you want to retire and so many others (and I did not mention everything related to your family status and it's style of living) . Normally these factors will play against you, that means you will have to compensate to keep your "secured fund". Managing money once you have made it is as much or even more difficult than the path to make it.
b) It is very difficult to quantify the amount of money needed to safely retire. To trade for hobby is to me inappropriate, you should find better hobbies, you should trade because you like it or rather decide to stop trading. Making money should be a consequence of trading, and the more you like it the more you should make it. The big difference with a secured fund is about risk and time management, you can invest in trading a small part of your capital without worrying about your short or med term future and you decide how much time you want to spend on it.
c) It depends what value you give to money. Inheritated money, for me, is a moral question, if my parents worked a lifetime to secure me a better future I have a moral obligation and I will make everything possible to honor my partents' will and keep the money safe, once again it is about managing money. If you are a sane person with good principles there should be no difference between inheritated and earned money.
d) I don't like extremes, one should trade for a living and not the way around.
I mentioned that life expectancy is getting longer and longer, but the older you get the faster it goes. Do not wait for your targets, start enjoying life now, what you can do when you are 30 is different than when you are 40 or 60 and so on.
Disclaimer
My comments are not specifically addressed to Mike but they represent my Epicurean way of seeing things.
Isn't this the conundrum of fear/greed played out over a trading career?
It is evident that some traders make it big and keep it, because those are the ones we know about. What about the ones that made it, lost it and never came back? Which is the larger group? I'd guess the later. We don't hear so much about these individuals, they don't tend to write books about the fortunes they have lost.
I'd suggest 'keeping it' is the point of trading but it is rarely discussed. For example, many money management plans include a cut off at a certain % drawdown - a point at which the strategy is deemed broken and thus put away in a dark cupboard. How about stopping a strategy when it exceeds a certain % in profits? Getting out when it's good?
Who in their right minds would stop trading a strategy when it was making the best profits? And who would have preferred to have done so with the benefit of hind sight?
a) I don't have a set goal. I hope to trade for the rest of my life and derive my primary income from it.
b) N/A
c) Really hard to tell. There is definitely a difference is in how to get hold of it (time, effort), but there shouldn't be a difference in how to put this money to work...carefully.
I am just having a hard time understanding your reasoning behind that.
The way I look at it is like the old man who still goes to work a few days a week - not because he needs or even cares about the paycheck, but because he enjoys his work. He wants to be involved, he likes the engagement of the activity.
I don't believe trading is any different. My goal is to trade forever, but to only trade for income for as long as it is necessary. Beyond this goal, trading is just about the enjoyment of the activity, and not about the money.
The old man who goes to work a few days a week has a risk free motivation, either he will not or will be paid but he will certainly not lose money, when you've made your target you want to keep your capital safe, try to increase it but certaintly not joepardize it.
I guess I have a hard time with the word hobby: an activity or interest pursued for pleasure or relaxation and not as a main occupation.
How are the vacation plans going? Maybe I will start a thread...BMV for Big Mike Vacation. Mrs. Wldman and I have decided to expand...add a week...to the vacation and drive rather than the hurry up of fly. We are renting a friends house in Tabernash Colorado.
Maybe a futures.io (formerly BMT) member has a house in a vacation location that they would rent to you?
I think it is interesting I am the one defending maintaining trading as a hobby after your 'retirement'. I say this because my original post talked about people never having enough, and risk was a big factor. When I see people who are older than me by quite a bit and are making large amounts of money, yet are living in a lifestyle so expensive that they have very little left to show for it, I do not understand this.
But what I was talking about is living comfortably but not extravagantly, and maintaining trading as a hobby. Hobbies can be expensive. For instance, if golf is your hobby you might pay thousands per month to be a member of your local country club.
To me, I see myself trading purely for fun at some point. Right now trading can be fun, but it can also very very stressful. I look forward to being able to get past the stress one day, by not needing to trade for money. I've been doing it long enough so that I never worry about paying bills, but like @tigertrader said, you will always be uncomfortable until you have enough financial freedom to not care about money any longer.
