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Comment by jrockway

16 years ago

Depends. If you are making $300,000 a year and live like you are making $15,000 a year (and save the rest), then you can retire at 30.

Most people aren't willing to be this frugal, however. It seems some people making this much even have trouble "making ends meet", because they buy so much crap that they can't afford. Ah, consumerism.

(In the interest of fairness, I am almost as bad -- I love buying stuff. I just stop when I don't have any more money... and I might even be able to retire before I'm 90 :)

9 comments

jrockway

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nekopa  16 years ago

The problem here is in the matter of status symbols. A quick tale for you: A consultant who gave me my start in the industry once had his car break down before an initial meeting with a client(Mercedes). He had to borrow his son's tricked-out VW boy-racer to get to the meeting on time. As he pulled into the meeting the clients were exiting their cars and saw him parking. He said the meeting never even really got started, as they had already pre-judged him.

  • gaius  16 years ago

    There are lots of little cues like this. The car you drive, the cut of your suit, the watch you wear. It's funny because this is an industry that everyone is aware is awash with charlatans, so everyone is looking for clues that the person they're speaking to is credible. Which is something that can obviously be hacked. Having said that, it does basically work. A guy wearing a huge Rolex is probably faking it, for example, it's just too obvious.

    • count  16 years ago

      On the other hand - if you've got the Armani suit, the Tag Heuer or Rolex, and drive the Porsche, you can only be 'faking' so much; obviously you've had some financial success.

      3 replies →

rbanffy  16 years ago

> If you are making $300,000 a year and live like you are making $15,000 a year

It's possible if your employer is paying for your relocation. In 2004 (IIRC) I went on training teams for clients of ours continuously for about two months (with a brief stop at home in the middle). Not only I accumulated a respectable mileage, I spent about a third of what I usually spend in my home town (São Paulo, Brazil).

I'm 40, married for the second time, with a 14 year-old boy from the first marriage and would not be able to reduce my expenditures to that level, but it's quite doable if you are in your 20's.