If you had the money to retire at 30, your savings would be invested and on an average year your earnings would cover your expenses. You would have health insurance, so no worries there. The only catch is that you would have to keep your expenses at 65% of what you spend right now. Would you take it, or would you rather work a few more years for a better lifestyle and financial security?
Yes.
No, work is nice tbh. I might do 35 hours instead of 40 a week at some stage but full on retirement at 30 doesn’t sound appealing at all to me.
Nope, 65% of what I make now is barely subsistence. It would be nice for a few months, but quickly become boring
We “retired” when my wife was 30 and I was 33. That was nine years ago.
As Australians, healthcare is free, so that wasn’t a concern. (That being said, we also take out yearly travel insurance policies, which are surprisingly cheap compared to regular private insurance.)
That, not having kids (but we’ve met people who did a similar thing BECAUSE they wanted to spent time with kids), and living very frugally was what made it possible, and continues to make it possible. When we were working, after having paid off our small apartment, we could live on less than 20% of our combined income by being very tight.
The more you save, the more you can invest, and the less you’ll need invested to sustain yourself. It’s a positive feedback loop, and after three years of trying to be as frugal as possible, tracing every dollar, it became second nature.
After building our investments, our cost of living has gone up, but not by much. When you’re building your portfolio, being extra stingy pays off greatly. We have been slow traveling non-stop for the last nine years, because the cost of living is cheaper in (almost) every other country, even when you consider paying for short-term rentals. Next year we’ll hit 100 countries visited.
We’ve also done extra university courses, languages courses, and have a ton of hobbies. Even without work, there’s not enough time in the day if you have an active mind.
I don’t know if that’s morally right. I may pick a job though (or even volunteer!) that I enjoy more than one that pays, but I still think someone who is healthy and able to should still contribute to society.
Working thanklessly for slave wages to make Sociopathic Oligarchs or Corporations rich is not “morally right,” or “contributing to society,” it’s playing your non-disruptive role in THEIR society.
Traveling the world, exchanging cultures, etc. contributes far more to the world than being a tiny cog getting worn down and used up over a lifetime in some oligarch’s machine.
“Morally right?” JFC, get a fucking clue. How is it morally right to contribute to a MAGA Nazi society? Burn it the fuck down.
I didn’t mention sociopathic oligarchs or sociopathic corporations. Not every business is a sociopathic corporation.
“Morally right?” JFC, get a fucking clue. How is it morally right to contribute to a MAGA Nazi society? Burn it the fuck down.
Ah yes, because the USA is the only country with internet access. No wonder you elected trump if you yanks are this reactionary.
No, you didn’t mention Oligarchs or Corporations because that would undercut your “moral” argument, so I did.
The entire world has been sold the concept that the only “moral” lifestyle is to sacrifice your life to earn barely subsistence wages in the pursuit of obscene wealth for a few wealthy families. That is the 21st century human paradigm across the entire planet, regardless of political ideology. EVERY society is Capitalist in practice, and those that deny it it, are lying. There is not a single nation on this planet who is not dedicated to funnelling vast amounts of money to a few wealthy people in their country.
In addition, if we continue on this path, the number of wealthy families benefiting by this system will shrink, until there is only a single family, or perhaps person, who controls the entire planet’s wealth. It may take a few generations, but it is inevitable.
And yes, ALL corporations are sociopathic, by definition. There are NO exceptions.
You’d still be paying sales tax, income tax, property tax and presumably participating in voting. Plus you’d be opening up a job for another person. All of that is contributing to society, imo.
I’d probably still volunteer for something. As a retired person, there are a lot of hours to fill!
Valid reasoning. The volunteering option if you’re financially self sufficient is probably the best option, in light of this.
I’m not sure how I feel about this answer, but on a personal level I share your feeling—that I should be contributing something to my community.
Although when I think of most of my interactions with the people who actually live around me, almost none of them are done for money.
So maybe retiring isn’t so much of an end to contributing to society as it is an end to contributing to private equity, et al.
I was morseo talking about retiring at 30. I still think we have a moral obligation to each other to work, if you’re well and able.
I’m talking about the same thing, but separating paid work from voluntary work.
Just because you aren’t working for a company, doesn’t mean you aren’t working for your community.
You’re also probably contributing a lot less carbon to the atmosphere, though.
Become younger and get money? Sure.
lol… You need like 2 million dollars and a paid off house to make it work in the US and that’s if you know how to manage money and control spending. AND no critical event happened like major illness etc
aka system is designed that vast majority of people can never ACHIEVE IT.
This is a highly pessimistic take. 2 million dollars would conservatively yield $80,000 per year. This would place you at the 70th percentile in the USA for individual income.
I won’t argue individual angle… But not having a family is sacrifice in of itself then.
My numbers did account for a family of 3.
With that being said, cashing out stocks or clipping coupons is a taxable event. Plus inflation and health insurance on a private market.
It is doable but still has risk.
Plus which 30 yo has paid off house and 2 million they earned?
Which 70 year old does either for that matter
Easy. Currently I am probably saving close to 35% of my income as I don’t really know what to spend it on and already live pretty frugally, but I have to work still. So just stop the spending on savings and live like I do now.
Earning £26k so nothing special but a bit over minimum wage. Can save at least £500 a month without trying after paying my half of the bills and mortgage. Would probably save more if I didn’t buy so many cat toys.
100% I would do that but that’s a bit unfair because:
- I make enough money to splurge more than I need to, namely eating out, and I would happily never eat at a restaurant again if it meant I got 40 hours of my week back for the rest of my life.
- I would spend the next 60 years of my life doing all the hobbies I want to do. I have stories I want to write, video games I want to make, furniture I want to craft, themed parties I want to throw, a TTRPG I’m working on, a card game (gods to make a card game before I croak!). Even if I did what I plan to do which is sell all of that at the lowest price I could (including giving as much of it away for free as possible) inevitably some of those things will make me a bit of money. Enough I’d hope to splurge into an international trip every now and then or keep my PC rig rather new.
I just don’t expect to stop working in retirement, I just plan to work doing stuff I love instead of stuff that pays well.
So if anyone in the comments is a wealthy person or dying with no heirs feel free to send me enough money to retire. I would love to create things for people for the rest of my life and not worry about anything but if I could afford a thing I don’t need and if my hobbies are worthy of other people’s time/attention.
It is almost as if all of humanity could survive and provide for each other without psycho billionaires owning the means of production and housing!
Ah, to own a house… Wouldn’t that be neat? And imagine if it wasn’t a piece of shit produced at the lowest cost possible by overworked and underpaid builders. Hell, imagine a custom house for my particular tastes!
What a world we could live in if we just taxed the rich out of existence and owned a portion of our work place.
We couldn’t. More than 65% of what we make goes just to cover the bills, so it wouldn’t be a possibility. Even if we didn’t eat or have a car.
Would be underwater and back at work within a couple of months.
If you mean some version of 65% of our current lifestyle like magically the house shrinks and costs 65% of what it currently does, then maybe? We don’t eat out much, don’t vacation much, don’t go out much already though.
If you mean health costs all covered, and no more retirement contributions and 65% of GROSS earnings, that would actually give me almost the exact same net pay, and wouldn’t be a different lifestyle. Those things cost 32% of my earnings and taxes 15%.
So I’m not sure exactly how to think about this but in short - I am more willing to work to have a reasonably good life, than to not work and not have a good life, but have a lot of free time. I do know how to have fun for cheap, have been poor before, but I like life now better than then.
A 4% withdrawal rate is intended for a 30yr retirement when accounting for inflation, so you’d need to keep your expenses well below that, probably closer to 2%. But more importantly in my opinion this relies on the assumption of a mostly stable market, which over the course of a ~70yr retirement is riskier a bet to take compared to a ~30yr retirement.
Also what would you do on such a tight budget for ~70yr that you wouldn’t get bored of?
I would definitely pursue my dream of sitting in pointless TEAMS meetings all day.
Absolutely but after a while you’d likely run out of cheap hobbies and need more money than your 2% to fund it. The better way to do it is taking a year or two off in the middle of your career imo.
Lol, that’s called being homeless
Instead of hypotheticals, am Auatralian. I (m) retired at 35 and divorced/moved at 45 and lived frugally in a mud brick cabin, off grid (solar and septic) on a dirt road in the bush, for a decade with my new (f) partner, she worked part time 2 days a week, grew lots of our own food, rode our MTBs on fire roads and trails, hiked, kayaked, swam in the river (we could cycle to) on hot days etc etc. Never thought we were missing anything, quite the opposite.
My small untouched share investments compounded hugely. As well as that, I only took 1/2 the dividends to live on, the outer half were reinvested as well,
A series of unfortunate events (aka mega bushfire) saw us buy an apartment in the city near the beach to get our heads stright just before covid lockdown, lived car free there etc , sold that 2 years ago and made a ridiculous profit, bought a place in a small rural village in the back of bumfuck for way less. No flood risk, no bushfire risk and it gets decent rainfall.
Now I have more money then I know what to do with…by that I don’t mean I am a billionaire, I mean living frugally becomes a habit so my shares and income have grown and grown. I now donate 25% of my investmwnt income to charities, 25% is reinvested.and I.use the other 1/2 to live on.
My parter works 4 days a week for 6 months of the year, then has 6 months off completely. She wants her.own independent income etc
My only regret was not being brave enough about retiring earlier. I missed those years of freedom and wing get them.back. Am now 60.
Fellow Australian, I retired at 33, which was 10 years ago now.
It’s crazy how quickly you adjust to living frugally, and spending any money just seems wasteful and unnecessary.
No major health issues?
Healthcare is free, so doesn’t matter.
Free-ish, but also you can’t live off grid in the bush with major health issues.
No flood risk, no bushfire risk and it gets decent rainfall.
As a fellow Australian - where the heck did you find this unicorn of a location?! I’ve been house-hunting (well, land-hunting, really) for over a year, and everything seems to come saddled with a bushfire overlay, flood overlay, or both. I’ve pretty much resigned myself to being stuck in a bushfire zone.
(Note: not asking for you to dox yourself with the actual location, though I am deeply curious.)
Damn, sounds like a dream
A dream with spiders.
I actually have enough money to retire right now and live frugally for the rest of my life at the age of 51… But to be honest it sounds super boring and depressing.
I know this will go against the grain here, but I enjoy what I do. I’m an engineering manager and I work on cool and interesting projects. I enjoy what the extra money gets me, whether it’s vacations or a better place to live or whatever. I enjoy working with other intelligent engineers trying to solve challenging problems. If I was retired I wouldn’t have that same engagement. I don’t know what I’d do with my time and I’m afraid I would not spend it in a healthy way.
So the reality is I’ve thought about it, but I’m not really that interested in retiring, even though I could.
Nope. Even though I can pay my bills, I still need to be able to save for other emergencies and have some fun.
