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I have a friend who retired early because he lived like few others.
He is an engineer who married early, got divorced by age 30, paid her off and never had kids. After that he remained single. He lived simply and made about $100K per year. Instead of diversifying, in 2004 he put all his savings into Apple stock. In 2012, he switched to Amazon.
What he did was incredibly risky but he was correct. He had no wife to nag him. He has no heirs.
Now he does whatever he wants to do.
The amazing stories are the ones where the guy retires early with a nagging wife and kids on less than $100k a year, not the single, childless man with a stable six figure salary.
Cut back on expenses, live frugally. If only the federal government and state governments could get "fired" up about this, this entire nation would be better off.
Anyway, I may nor may not ever achieve success with something like this, but I have to try. First thing is sell my money-pit of a house, dump the leased Cadillac, and find an apartment closer to where I work. The hour commute alone is sucking the life out of me.
Location: Formerly Pleasanton Ca, now in Marietta Ga
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Quote:
Originally Posted by flyingsaucermom
The amazing stories are the ones where the guy retires early with a nagging wife and kids on less than $100k a year, not the single, childless man with a stable six figure salary.
No I think the amazing stories are anyone's who retired early. Having kids or a nagging wife is not a prerequisite for a good story.
No I think the amazing stories are anyone's who retired early. Having kids or a nagging wife is not a prerequisite for a good story.
I think anyone not having kids is already the makings of a great story. Certainly one that’s not full of diaper changing and screaming brats, at least
I think anyone not having kids is already the makings of a great story. Certainly one that’s not full of diaper changing and screaming brats, at least
But also one that's lacking in celebrations, graduations and lots of great moments in between (like watching your kid score the winning goal.. those are some of the best!). Those that don't choose to have kids are helping us reduce our population (that's a good thing!), but they tend to just repeat the negatives about the job. Changing diapers might only last 18 months or so (or less, apparently, if you're from certain Asian countries). Some toddlers get over the screaming stage pretty quickly too (also varies by culture.. so I've heard).
I have a friend who retired early because he lived like few others.
He is an engineer who married early, got divorced by age 30, paid her off and never had kids. After that he remained single. He lived simply and made about $100K per year. Instead of diversifying, in 2004 he put all his savings into Apple stock. In 2012, he switched to Amazon.
What he did was incredibly risky but he was correct. He had no wife to nag him. He has no heirs.
Now he does whatever he wants to do.
I have a family member who basically poured it all into Apple back in 2008. He's done very well with that.
The only people I've known who've really been able to retire before 40 are people who founded their own companies or those who have received generous stock options. You're not going to be able to get out in your 30s as an average corporate worker bee.
Max out your 401k for 20 years gets you to a million. So yeah, 30 is hard, but early 40s definitely do-able. (Not saying it's easy.)
Most people will never reach anywhere close to even a quarter of a million in retirement savings, based on recent articles.
This is 100% correct. Yet that won’t stop silly city data posters from asking if their $1 million nest egg or $80K annual pension is enough to survive. Because healthcare!
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