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A seems the most likely to retire early and E the least likely, playboy with a Range Rover not likely the type to retire early If I had to guess. Though sometimes those highly intellectual types are great at certain things and not so much at others like investing and managing their finances. All of them seem to be in order from most likely to least likely, I voted A.
Your analysis on A is correct. There is no doubting his intellectual caliber. Someone taught him Othello/Reversi once and in 6 months he was ranked in the top 100 in the world before growing bored with it, in his words, like people grow bored of tic tac toe. He wanted to try growing a plant, so he picked an orchid, which he managed to keep blooming for over a decade until he moved and gave it away.
Ironically enough, despite his main labor component of being a valuation expert, he has a tendency to argue with the market being wrong. It doesn't see what he sees....grows bored, frustrated and then tries something else...often tragically. For example, at one point he was frustrated and decided he was simply going to put his entire savings in AAPL, which was dead money for a year or so. When it finally broke out I called to congratulate him and he was despondent. He had switched his entire portfolio from AAPL to FIT right before it crashed.
Still, I believe he makes consistently makes the most in wages (with the possible exception of E on a given year).
While none of us are through college with kids yet, so far having kids seems to have...a positive correlation with wealth. I don't have a great sample here as all but 1 had children, but the one without children has certainly raised his consumption standards. For the man that once most often wore a t-shirt decrying fashion as stupid....and he's not arrogant about it now either....but he has determined that when he buys something, it will be THE BEST or nothing.
Now arguably a $35K bicycle has ongoing asset value whereas my $200 bike probably doesn't. However weekends at Michelin rated restaurants tend to look about the same as Taco Bell at a later time.
LOL. That would have been my answer too, but my BF is neither married nor has kids (and we don't live together). I don't think he will ever retire because he just never placed much priority on finances. Unfortunately.
Order of marriage was (and number of children)
B - 2
C - 3
E - 2**
D - 2
A - 0
A seems the most likely to retire early and E the least likely, playboy with a Range Rover not likely the type to retire early If I had to guess. Though sometimes those highly intellectual types are great at certain things and not so much at others like investing and managing their finances. All of them seem to be in order from most likely to least likely, I voted A.
E is the biggest enigma which is why he's last. He has the potentially largest inheritance (or nothing....maps didn't do so well in the Google era). He has remade himself a couple of times in sales. Plenty of toys that come an go. Cessna airplane, nice cars, moderate house from a once larger one he had. I have little doubt that he does well in sales. I don't think he's a great saver, albeit he learned budget control. Consumption wasn't his biggest expense, however.
If one of A's goals is/was to retire early, then no doubt I'd put my money on him. He sounds closest to my own archetype and like it says, right there, he sets goals and accomplishes them. If one of those goals is early retirement, then it seems an obvious choice.
I don't think A can honestly make a long term goal that big. I don't think he has it in him. Think Elon Musk, needing to get TSLA finances together and one day shows up with a flame thrower that he's designed and is selling. Genius car...and I'm sure the flamethrower works great...but he needs to be excited. I think that's why he's never purchased a home. He can't see himself in the same place 40 years from now. I think that's why he was so late to marry.
A good question. Originally thought of putting this in Econ general or personal finance, but I think there's a better group in investment.
Beyond that though, there is a reason why I put it here.
Income from wages....doesn't correlate at all with overall wealth. Now, I don't want 100 minimum wage freaks to jump in on that....my guess is that...as long as you get beyond a certain point with your wages...it ceases to be a significant factor in your wealth standing. Similar to Malcomb Gladwell's finding that basketball players shorter than 5'11 or so face a true inability to compete at the professional level.....however the average 6'5 player was not necessarily better than the average 6'2 player.
The premise is faulty. The person most likely to retire first, is the one with most modest consumption and most imaginative finding of non-vocational interests. The wealthiest meanwhile might be the last to retire, considering his likely yearning for the thrill of the chase. That said,
A) Will completely reform himself, becoming the consummate family-man, with 4 kids and a stay-at-home wife. He'll end up as a corporate drone.
B) Will flame-out, owing to inherent fatalism. He'll die at age 55 from cirrhosis of the liver.
C) Won't be able to retire until age-62, because that's when his FERS pension fully vests.
D) Will reverse with (A), becoming the swashbuckling entrepreneur in middle-age. He'll become the richest.
E) Will retire first. Having gone through innumerable adventures, he'll become jaded and disaffected. He'll buy land in Wyoming and will retire to a solitary, unassuming life at age 50.
A) No, he has gotten married, but I doubt there will be children, especially now. He was a Corporate drone for quite some time before running with some others to setup a competing shop....however he delayed in Corporate...so by the time he went over, he was the top employee....but not a partner. Great salary, lots of personal success and a great guy....but not believed to have much in assets. Not sure how much was him vs his wife, but they run with some big groups. He enjoys the fine things in life. He may be the poorest of the group.
B) No, he's a bit burnt out at this point with work, but he attributes almost all of his success to luck. Leveraging on cheap credit cards in the 90's to buy stocks was stupid, but paid off. A friend pulling him out of the market before the .com crash to buy rentals was luck. Eventually fighting with the same friend who wanted to begin selling in 2005 led to everything sold by 2006 was also not his call, but luck. Marrying a former CFO because he was working days and taking night classes was luck. So he became very cautious....with no expectation of being able to make things up if he does something dumb. He survived 6 reallocations at his company and got a bump each time. He simply saved and invested plainly with new money.
His luck has not been so good as of late. His wife has consistently moved towards higher class activities. She also began working less and less. They had twins very late. They moved to a very impressive and expensive home in LA for the schools for the kids. He was expecting the move to cost him his job, but he hung on. She didn't though. She got cancer. It is now in remission, but she'll likely not work again. Now he is the provider. sorta little kids, a full 30 year jumbo on choice LA property...he's got a great cumulative score, but he's going to need investments to pull him through.
C) He may not want to, but he gets full pension benefit this year...but indeed cannot collect until later. The private sector has been calling but he views his work as important. His gf eventually did follow him and they married. She was a veterinarian, but took time off to raise the kids when they were little. Now she's back and working for a pharmaceutical company. A surprising inheritance (expectation was 0) wasn't big but was enough to deleverage their home. He has gone up in the government ranks, though his salary is unlikely to be high. He primarily listened to B for investing and maintains a vanilla diversified portfolio that he re-balances each year. I don't know that he carries large balances, but he has the annuity of the Federal Government. They're both very healthy and energetic. I think he's stayed away from bad habits in part because he travels a lot with his job. His treasure is being home with the family. The good guy may win anyway.
D) He did reverse....for the worse. A little later, he felt like he'd missed out on the party years. Soon he became an alcoholic with an expensive cocaine addiction. He lost his rentals. He married a fun gal from a decently wealthy family who had been fired from 5 straight jobs for being intoxicated at work. They enabled each other to the bottom. I thought it was only a matter of time before he'd be dead. But the two got clean together. They didn't cheat on one another with others or drugs and alcohol. He had been good with computers and took a basic IT role and began climbing up the ladder. She had been a good jewelry saleslady and began to build herself up again. She opened her own little store with the help of her parents a couple of years ago and it seems to have staying power. Both sides stand to get a decent inheritance. Their kids are impossibly good looking and smart. They take great strides to keep each other away from anything dangerous to them.
E) Married an impossibly perfect and delightful lady who was inspiring and just fun to be around. He fell for her hard...and she kept letting him know he could do anything he wanted and kept bringing him more and more challenges she knew he could do. The world was the two's oyster. Eventually they moved back to where she was from in Texas and bought a ridiculously large place. He quickly became a man about town and was often seen in fashionable circles. His wife was growing increasingly erratic....and he was growing worn from the constant unending scheduling of his time for events and places to be. I think it's fair to say escapism was often on the mind in the times when we could chat. He bought his plane/boats for the peace it brought while flying/motoring/sailing it. When bad times hit, they hit his family hard. Not sure if the legacy family business closed entirely or just got much smaller, but he needed to restart. He finally called to cull the activities but his wife wasn't ready. She found someone to carry on the torch for her. He was devastated and she was soon going nuts in a downward spiral. He got the kids. He found new priorities. After a restart or two, he left the printing industry and restarted. Since then he's built his way back up. He's much more private now despite growing territory at work that allows for an occasional visit. He still enjoys fun transportation, but for now he wants to raise his kids and see them off. Then he'll plot his next course of action. I don't think he'll marry again, but I hope he finds someone nice. B2B sales can make a ton of money and after a period his charisma is back full throttle. His kids are close to done.
Egads....that's too long. Let me shorten it significantly.
15 years ago a group of guys went camping. We placed two bets. The first, when we reunited all of us, couldn't be determined. It was, who became a millionaire first. The second, as a proxy for who will become the wealthiest, was who would retire first.
Your candidates (less me, I'm not in this one)
Then:
A) The Genius. Independent. Fiercely competitive but likeable. Sets goals and accomplishes them. Had already left Chicago for San Francisco for a lucrative sub-specialty in valuations that's very much in demand. Was constantly being recruited but had a very good job already. Marriage was an afterthought for him. Drove an old Datsun.
B) The eastern European immigrant. Average but diligent and saw things in different light. 1st generation from Eastern Europe. While his job prospects were poor, he'd done amazingly well using credit card advances to buy stocks, selling just before the .com crash and paying his school loans. He was partnered with a friend to buy some high leveraged homes. He was also engaged to a much older lady who had already done well in the Corporate world. Drove an old Camry.
C) The good guy patriot. This was the cleanest edge guy the world has ever created. He didn't think his chances were so good as he was about to move to DC for a government job. It was prestigious, but it didn't pay much. Great gf, but she didn't want to move to DC. Didn't own a car, used public transit.
D) The kind religious guy. A devout Jain that would carefully take an insect from inside and place it outside. He cared for others and volunteered with children. He had trained to be an IT worker, but had gotten a surprisingly lucrative career at a bond trading place. His parents and he seemed to be on the fence in regards to arranged marriage or regular. Drove a newer Honda Civic.
E) The playboy. The opposite of the eastern European was the smooth talking man from the UK. This guy could pick up a lively conversation with a mute that speaks another language. He seemed the obvious choice as he was in town with his worthless brother building partnerships for the family business back in the UK. Girls loved him. Guys couldn't help but like him. He had the coolest place, always looked amazing and was heir apparent to the specialty printing and folding cartographer business. We were happy to be his slumming it buddies. Drove a Range Rover.
So the bet was who would be able to retire first....but it was a proxy for who among us would become the richest....but even then we realized that measurement would never be possible, hence first retirement became the proxy. All in all, perhaps E was a bit ahead of us to start, and B's subsequent but forseeable then marriage certainly gave him a significant head start on everyone....but life is hardly linear.
What questions would you have. What hypothesis would you propose. Camping trip was technically June of 2004.
Forgot to come back with the answer....i know you were all waiting.
B retired first. Marrying older but well and careful consumption allowed him to enjoy a life of scuba diving and camping starting in his 40's. Caught some ups in real estate as well. This guy has lady luck on his side.
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