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It’s also not very appealing to me to work the prime years of my life at a high stress 100k job and bank all of it while living like a monk. This guy did that for 15 years. That’s probably part of the reason he hated it so much.
I’d rather do stuff the entire time, while putting away money and still retire a millionaire anyways.
Also, not many people make over 100k solo...and I don’t think it ever mentioned what his wife makes. This article isn’t practical for probably 90%+ of the population.
I agree with this for a different reason.
We spend some money on travel NOW and don't "save it for later " due to health reasons.
I have degenerative disc disease in my spine and a bad knee and stage 3 avascular necrosis in my hip and femur. I get around with a cane. If I live that long, I may be in a wheelchair by 70 or 80, etc.
My OH has Pagets bone disease in left hip, and osteoporosis in right hip, so my OH s walking days may be numbered too.
So we go on trips to Disney World, Hawai'i and the like. Our next trip back to Hawai'i will be 2020 or 2022, haven't decided yet. I figured if we went this fall, we could do it for $3500/WEEK rt air car rental included. But we know the tricks, so someone else may cost $5k.
That $4k we are planning for 2020 COULD be staying in retirement fund and may not be needed for 20 years, and would obviously grow, to at me at $10k but we'd rather go NOW while we can still walk the beaches, climb the volcanos, dance to the mele of the hula.
It's a trade off.
She. I was,in my 20s I lived Spartan for a while, or bought very cheap stuff and worked hard at two jobs to save for retirement but to also enjoy my life.
Now I am a "working person with disabilities " and work part time so we have extra money to pay bills, save for retirement and go on those vacations.
I believe in spend a little and enjoy it now before I become one with the recliner and tv remote because I can't move on my own any MORE.
Most people will never reach anywhere close to even a quarter of a million in retirement savings, based on recent articles.
True. And I suspect many of these folks who will save $250k by age 65 if they're lucky are among the most strident and shrill members of the Internet Retirement Police.
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.
That's at least partly, if not mostly, because the average corporate worker bee doesn't want it bad enough. You essentially have to earn an upper middle class income but live a lower middle class lifestyle for a decade and save/invest the difference. Engineers seem to be most likely to be wiling to live this way. They don't care about social status and get a kick out of designing an efficient lifestyle....so living close to work in a small apartment (or buying a house and renting out the bedrooms) and riding your bike to work (or driving a used economy car) is less likely to be seen as deprivation/sacrifice to such people. They want independence from the corporate world more than they want the 'trappings' of the upper middle class lifestyle.
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.
If he lived simply and just invested in something like a total stock market index fund, he still would've gotten there. It just would've taken a few more years.
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.)
Yep, that's the math.
$1500 a month at 9% over 20 years gets you just over a million. 9% is optimistic but is slightly below the long term average of 10.18% for the S&P 500 stock index since 1926.
But $1500 a month ($18k per year) is slightly less than the current maximum of $18,500 per year. And I didn't include any employer matching, either.
So it's optimistic, but still in the doable range.
It’s also not very appealing to me to work the prime years of my life at a high stress 100k job and bank all of it while living like a monk. This guy did that for 15 years. That’s probably part of the reason he hated it so much.
I’d rather do stuff the entire time, while putting away money and still retire a millionaire anyways.
Also, not many people make over 100k solo...and I don’t think it ever mentioned what his wife makes. This article isn’t practical for probably 90%+ of the population.
People always throw out the same old tired arguments:
--You're lying....and then when you show them the numbers, they revert to the next one:
--You're living like a monk (or more bluntly "you're a loser")
Why not just admit that you don't want to do what it takes instead of throwing out unjustified criticisms?
People always throw out the same old tired arguments:
--You're lying....and then when you show them the numbers, they revert to the next one:
--You're living like a monk (or more bluntly "you're a loser")
Why not just admit that you don't want to do what it takes instead of throwing out unjustified criticisms?
Realistically, you’re right. I exaggerated. If it is truly someone’s goal to be financially independent with a decent job you could do it early by just planning. When I graduated college, I made 45k but I choose to rent in one of the nicer suburbs. Today, my wife and I make over 3 times that amount and the life style creep is obvious. Now, I have a house, new cars, travel, eat out all the time, live in nice areas, ect. If I lived as simple as before I met her, we could easily throw 60k to 80k into investments a year and I would be a millionaire by 35.
The truth is, I don’t want to. I grew up struggling in a poor area. I moved heaven and earth to escape it. I want to be able to go on 3 or 4 trips per year because I never left my home state until after college. I save 7 percent of my salary to get the 7 percent 401k match and my wife saves 6 percent to get her 6 percent. The rest is to have experiences and to live well. I could be dead by 60 or I might not have the health to enjoy the things I do now. My job is stressful. I work to do other things. Not to grow an investment balance as my highest priority. It’s still a priority, but I don’t value financial independence higher than using my 20s and 30s to live well.
Last edited by Thatsright19; 09-11-2018 at 04:50 AM..
Realistically, you’re right. I exaggerated. If it is truly someone’s goal to be financially independent with a decent job you could do it early by just planning. When I graduated college, I made 45k but I choose to rent in one of the nicer suburbs. Today, my wife and I make over 3 times that amount and the life style creep is obvious. Now, I have a house, new cars, travel, eat out all the time, live in nice areas, ect. If I lived as simple as before I met her, we could easily throw 60k to 80k into investments a year and I would be a millionaire by 35.
The truth is, I don’t want to. I grew up struggling in a poor area. I moved heaven and earth to escape it. I want to be able to go on 3 or 4 trips per year because I never left my home state until after college. I save 7 percent of my salary to get the 7 percent 401k match and my wife saves 6 percent to get her 6 percent. The rest is to have experiences and to live well. I could be dead by 60 or I might not have the health to enjoy the things I do now. My job is stressful. I work to do other things. Not to grow an investment balance as my highest priority. It’s still a priority, but I don’t value financial independence higher than using my 20s and 30s to live well.
This pretty much sums up the problem. You make over 135K a year but can only manage to contribute the bare minimum to retirement.
You would not need to sacrifice anything to max out your 401k. You would just need to actually give a crap.
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