Speaking just for myself, my work-life-balance is currently such that I have one sports hobby outside of work. Basically only a couple of hours of free time per week.

If I had the time, I would watch movies (subscriptions), play games (purchase), do few other sports (memberships), travel regularly (tickets). At least for me, my monthly hobby expense would increase enormously if I had the time. I would imagine I could continue these hobbies well until my 70s, hopefully many until much older age.

I have been thinking something similar recently for another reason. I think your colleagues have a great point, but if you say that you would be able to live with your pension right now, it might make sense to work few more years, but less than the remaining 16. Here’s how I approached the topic.

1. Think about how much money you need for living. Including the money for hobbies etc. Many people need more hobby money if they have more spare time.

2. Estimate the effects of inflation and other new costs (e.g. needing more health care than currently). I.e. how does the answer to (1) likely change in the upcoming years?

3. Estimate your income for the remainder of your expected life. Do you have any stocks? Is there no inflation factor in the pension?

4. Enter all of the above to Excel. You will find the spot which will likely allow you to have a comfortable retirement for the remainder of your good years. And if you are pessimistic about inflation or something else, you can easily adjust any buffers in the calculation.

For me that age will be a more than 50, but certainly lower than the average retirement age in my country. The freedom to choose to voluntarily do work or hobbies is a much more preferrable to me than having to go to work every day.

Which part contradicts what the engineers or scientists think?

I bought an expensive e-bike exactly 2 years ago. Here the public transport costs 70 €/month. The bike hasn’t quite paid for itself yet, but it’s getting close!

Have you tried communicating directly to her “I want to do this, and I want to do it with you. Please join me because this is a way I enjoy spending time with you”?

This especially applies to all relationships. I recall I didn’t realise it when I was young.

But of course this requires that both of you get it, not just you alone.

I have been lucky enough not to be on the applicant’s seat often, but I’ve interviewed others. Few times someone has asked for feedback, and it is basically always the same (I will just find nice words to express it):

There is only one opening, and someone else did slightly better than you in the interview.

Is there a way to try out both and see which one the child prefers? Maybe the clubs have some open door events in the autumn?

I did karate and judo around that age. It was mostly about games and having fun. Not really about the techniques etc. Definitely not about self defense or things adults relate these kind of sports to.

In Finland everyone can go to the tax office and see the incomes of everyone (with a ~1.5 years delay, i.e. 2023 is the latest today).

I know what my colleagues and friends make. I think the only thing it would affect is, that if I felt that I was making less than I should, I would start looking for a new job.

The tracking aspect also creates a mental barrier for food intake. If snacking is a bit tedious because you need to write it down, there’s a larger chance you really think about eating something or not.

Finland (Suomi) basically means a swamp (suo).

If you look at the etymology, there are other explanations of the origins, but a modern person would associate the name with a swamp. I guess it makes sense with all the lakes.

The best learning material is the one you have motivation to follow through. Doesn’t matter if there exists better ones, if those will be left unused.

I don’t care about which operating system, but my hobby projects have always included things that help myself. E.g.

• Software to collect/archive/analyse real life data (e.g. real estate data from various sources).
• Scripts to parse and structure data that I need e.g. for learning other things.
• Firmware for small embedded electronics.
• Home automation.

So my suggestion is to think of something that you need, but there isn’t a perfect solution yet. Although this advice comes from someone who has been working in software development for two decades now.

If you haven’t programmed before, think something very very small first.

Interesting to hear news from the smaller countries too. Thanks for sharing!

Baba Is You belongs to the same category. One of my favorite puzzles.

Pre-existing models/art is something that is a huge work effort. Not to be undervalued. If one can get those for free, it can be the reason some game exists.

Take Auto Chess for example. I can imagine programming that DOTA 2 mod was an effort one or few programmers did as a hobby at first. If they would have had to either pay or network with artists to create the art and other people to do marketing, it would have been a lot more than a hobby.

One of the best games there is, but without any keyboard shortcuts, that will be annoying really soon.

I participated in multiple homestays in different countries as part of my studies. The shortest was one night, the longest one month. But to be clear, no working, just an opportunity to live with a local family when studying abroad.

I guess those were the best ways to actually see how regular people live in those countries. What are the apartments like, what kind of habits they have. Everyday stuff that you won’t see as a regular tourist.

Those would have also been golden opportunities to improve my language skills more, if I wasn’t so shy.

But regardless, now almost 20 years later, those are one of the very memorable and distinct experiences from my youth.

I would definitely recommend it. Assuming the culture/country is something that interests you.

They were a bigger deal. I started learning Japanese when the first Iphone came out and spent quite some time in Japan when the Android phones were a new thing. Internet on the phones was very limited.

Dictionaries existed on the phones, but the usability was non-existent. Even worse if you had to look for a word you didn’t know how to read.

The electronic dictionaries had great writing detection and cross-referencing between language and informational dictionaries etc. At the time they were awesome. One electronic dictionary could contain dozens of dictionaries of various topics, which probably was convenient for Japanese themselves (and not just language learners).

Of course nowadays you can do the same on a phone, but there was a period when you couldn’t.

At least in Chinese it’s 海豚 (haitun).

I think there are many good replies already, but I feel one consideration is missing: time.

If you have the time for only one job, why wouldn’t you take one paying more, even if it requires a bit more skills to achieve? You are going to do that for a long while, so living more comfortably has a value.