Summary (TLDR)
- I deconstruct your lifetime work years, hours, and income and show it in a graphic format and as an Excel workbook (that you can download and modify).
- To make it easy for you to understand and remember, I will also introduce some lifecycle maxims
Disclaimer: the maths may not be 100% accurate, but neither is the predictability of your life 🙂
Don’t tell me! I don’t want to know!
People typically never contemplate their full lifetime existence from a time and money perspective. By examining these things, you can proactively react in ways that could benefit you and your family.
How much you earn and how long you work profoundly impacts many aspects of your thoughts and identity, including (but not restricted to):
- Worldview
- Ideology
- Political Beliefs (Left, Center, Right): Views on Tax, Social Policies, Govt, etc.
- Ethics and Morality
Understanding the entire human working lifecycle also helps to shine a light on poorly explained or understood political tropes and narratives like:
- DIEE: Diversity, Inclusion, Equality/Equity, This out-of-date and often poorly understood ideology elevates an individual’s gender or minority group membership over hours, experience, or capability. e.g. A good person may have worked for 2 decades/36,000 hours in a specific field but because they belong to a ‘vilified majority group’ they are overlooked for another individual that belongs to a ‘cherry-picked minority group’ even though they may have only worked 6000 hours.
- Gender pay gap: Again this trope does not consider anything about hours worked, experience, and capability. Just vilification of another group!
- Home Ownership: Why don’t 30-year-olds own their own homes when 55-year-olds do?
- Income/Age/Time: Why and when do some people have more than others? Why and when are there poor, middle-class, and rich.
- Tax: Why do some feel not only entitled but also robbed by high-income earners’ tax money even though those high-income earners might pay 5x more tax than many others? We don’t consider that a 20ish-year-old might only pay ~15k tax per year and a 55-year-old may pay ~65k per year. Or a 20ish-year-old has contributed ~30k in tax vs a 55yo who may have contributed ~1 million
- Homelessness and Poverty: There are many different reasons for homelessness and poverty SOME people CHOOSE not to work and/or instead prioritize their individual freedom over their desire to work. This group of people may have only worked less than 10,000 hours in their entire lifetime even though they may be middle-aged.
- Political Ideology: Why and when do people at a certain age or income vote left/center/right?
Of course, everything I’ve stated above is a (cherry-picked) example only. There is a lot more to say on each point – but I have saved it for another blog (I’m not ready to be canceled in this one)
20-45-20 lifecycle maxim
- 85 years of your life might look like this.
20-45-20 lifecycle maxim
- 85 years of your life might look like this.
Additional Reading
This document forms part of a 3 blog series:
- Part 1: Your work lifetime hours and income deconstructed (THIS DOC)
- Part 2: Cross the F45 Line (INCOMPLETE)
- Part 3: Money and Time Hacks (INCOMPLETE)