I'm not a subscriber to this strategy, but the theory goes that if you save, in that scenario, 80% of your take home pay (annually saving ~$100k, spending ~$20k), you'll have, say, ~$500k invested in 5 years and can safely withdraw 4%/$20k per year indefinitely. Then you can quit your 200k job, 'retire', and enjoy the same lifestyle as you lived while employed.
Personally I agree with the message about the power of saving to offer financial stability and independence, but I prefer saving reasonably while also trying to find ways to do work that I enjoy instead of saving super aggressively in search of an early retirement from a job I hate.
I agree with your approach and that is what I have implemented so far as well. As much as I would love to have the 40-60 hours a week I work back to myself, it is just much too difficult for me to live off of only 20k or less per year. I am not interested in living like that anymore, I'm too familiar with it.
20k/year is tough to measure up to. From the Reddit community around financial independence, "build the life you want then save for it". [1] You might look at your expenses and decide "_____ really doesn't provide me much happiness. Maybe I should reduce or eliminate it".
If most people would look at their spending and eliminate the 5% that brings them the least happiness, they would be in substantially better positions financially in the long run. Many people spend 100% of their paychecks and have little to nothing to show for it.
GP's example of 5 years is a very short timeframe, however. A big part of achieving financial independence is compound interest returns on investments in low-fee index funds.
Try a quick spreadsheet for yourself. You can assume 5-6 % real returns. Play around with savings rates, GP suggested over 80%, which is more agressive than I've ever heard. Try 60%, which would leave you with 60k disposable, and you'll see things go up very fast in the 10-15 year range.
In fact, MMM shows that it actually all reduces to a really simple calculation, and with that 60 % savings rate, you're 12.5 years away from retirement (if you start at 0 net worth).
Depends on what you mean by "retire." Having complete financial independence is unlikely.
However a person with no debts or children can live a nice middle-class life as a single person or partner/spouse even in the Bay Area and still save $50k/year or more. With conservative investments that $250k in savings over five years can easily be used to have a few thousand a month in income. It won't replace a $200k per year salary, but it'd be enough to live very frugally in an inexpensive place. It's much riskier than having a salary, health insurance, etc. and I wouldn't advise it.
I see, I hadn't considered the "lean fi/re" approach. I guess by that definition you can retire much much earlier than you would think normally. I can't imagine living off of only 20-25k per year during my retirment.
If I live on $30k/yr (I lived comfortably on a less for years--Austin, not SF) and pay 30% in taxes (again, Texas is an exception this way), that's $550k after five years without interest. If you can then earn 5%/yr on that $550, that gives you $27.5k/yr to live on--and you've already been making it on $30k/yr...
Basically, learn to be comfortable on a reasonably low income. In the interview, he talks about biking as an example.
I've always been confused by single people struggling on much more than I lived comfortably on, and I recently realized part of it is that the average cost of car ownership in the US is something like $8k/yr[0]. (My first two years in Austin, I was in Americorps, so that would have been over 70% of my income.) That's just one example of a major expense we just treat as a necessity.
Maybe you don't want to live without a car. Maybe you want to go out to eat twice a week. Maybe you want a bigger apartment. Those are all fine--but those are also all choices that will raise your cost of living, which will likely push out your retirement age.
Personally, I don't mind working past age 30, but if you want to retire early, it will probably require arranging your life to live without things that might seem like necessities right now.
Again, totally your choice, and it might not be for you, but let me anecdotally provide that it's very possible to live a great life without a car, an expensive phone and phone plan, etc.
I'd recommend breaking down all your spending and looking at what you want to live without and what you don't. With things you can easily turn on/off (Netflix is easy to cancel for a few months, or biking to work for a couple weeks if you have a bike--car ownership or apartment size/location, not so much), experiment on living without and see how you feel. You might miss it and you might not.
Don't rely on my experiences, but don't rely on your guesses on how much you like the status quo either. (I guess that also means I should try renting a car and driving to work for a few weeks to see if I like it better than biking.)
Yeah, I live in Houston and can totally see what you mean. I think I could reasonably get down to 30k and be pretty comfortable. I let lifestyle inflation hit me harder than it should have and that's what I'm dealing with now. I make better decisions than most, but not optimal decisions. (eg. I bought a car for 14k on an almost 0% interest loan, but the optimal choice is to not buy a car at all. The average choice is probably buy a more expensive car with a bigger interest rate loan) As I get older I realize the compounding sub-optimal choices really make a huge difference. I'm going to take your advice and really break down what my goal is and what my spending habits must be in order to hit that goal. It's definitely closer to FI at 40 than RE at 30, but at this point I'm not even sure I'll hit that.
It definitely can be a lot less, but national average for insurance alone is $815[0]. Obviously a lot of people have costs below average, but a car is going to be a major expense. If you can do it (legally) for under $1000/yr, you're probably driving very little, taking some risks (in having minimal insurance) and doing a lot more maintenance/repairs yourself than most people know how to.
Under $8000 is easy, seeing as $8000 is average. Under $1000, I'm not so sure about. Maintenance/repairs on a new car averages > $1000/yr[1]--I'd assume used cars to be at least as high. Insurance average cost is similar. Fuel is going to be several hundred unless you have a very efficient car you drive very little.
I think people just look at their monthly car payment and ignore most other costs associated with car ownership. There are a lot of not-so-little costs. There are also lots of not-so-little benefits, but you need to weigh both, not just the latter.
I'm not a subscriber to this strategy, but the theory goes that if you save, in that scenario, 80% of your take home pay (annually saving ~$100k, spending ~$20k), you'll have, say, ~$500k invested in 5 years and can safely withdraw 4%/$20k per year indefinitely. Then you can quit your 200k job, 'retire', and enjoy the same lifestyle as you lived while employed.
Personally I agree with the message about the power of saving to offer financial stability and independence, but I prefer saving reasonably while also trying to find ways to do work that I enjoy instead of saving super aggressively in search of an early retirement from a job I hate.
I agree with your approach and that is what I have implemented so far as well. As much as I would love to have the 40-60 hours a week I work back to myself, it is just much too difficult for me to live off of only 20k or less per year. I am not interested in living like that anymore, I'm too familiar with it.
20k/year is tough to measure up to. From the Reddit community around financial independence, "build the life you want then save for it". [1] You might look at your expenses and decide "_____ really doesn't provide me much happiness. Maybe I should reduce or eliminate it".
If most people would look at their spending and eliminate the 5% that brings them the least happiness, they would be in substantially better positions financially in the long run. Many people spend 100% of their paychecks and have little to nothing to show for it.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/comments/58j8...
GP's example of 5 years is a very short timeframe, however. A big part of achieving financial independence is compound interest returns on investments in low-fee index funds.
Try a quick spreadsheet for yourself. You can assume 5-6 % real returns. Play around with savings rates, GP suggested over 80%, which is more agressive than I've ever heard. Try 60%, which would leave you with 60k disposable, and you'll see things go up very fast in the 10-15 year range.
In fact, MMM shows that it actually all reduces to a really simple calculation, and with that 60 % savings rate, you're 12.5 years away from retirement (if you start at 0 net worth).
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-sim...
That's pretty much most of us. I couldn't imagine sitting around at 30 with nothing to do.
Depends on what you mean by "retire." Having complete financial independence is unlikely.
However a person with no debts or children can live a nice middle-class life as a single person or partner/spouse even in the Bay Area and still save $50k/year or more. With conservative investments that $250k in savings over five years can easily be used to have a few thousand a month in income. It won't replace a $200k per year salary, but it'd be enough to live very frugally in an inexpensive place. It's much riskier than having a salary, health insurance, etc. and I wouldn't advise it.
I see, I hadn't considered the "lean fi/re" approach. I guess by that definition you can retire much much earlier than you would think normally. I can't imagine living off of only 20-25k per year during my retirment.
If I live on $30k/yr (I lived comfortably on a less for years--Austin, not SF) and pay 30% in taxes (again, Texas is an exception this way), that's $550k after five years without interest. If you can then earn 5%/yr on that $550, that gives you $27.5k/yr to live on--and you've already been making it on $30k/yr...
Basically, learn to be comfortable on a reasonably low income. In the interview, he talks about biking as an example.
I've always been confused by single people struggling on much more than I lived comfortably on, and I recently realized part of it is that the average cost of car ownership in the US is something like $8k/yr[0]. (My first two years in Austin, I was in Americorps, so that would have been over 70% of my income.) That's just one example of a major expense we just treat as a necessity.
Maybe you don't want to live without a car. Maybe you want to go out to eat twice a week. Maybe you want a bigger apartment. Those are all fine--but those are also all choices that will raise your cost of living, which will likely push out your retirement age.
Personally, I don't mind working past age 30, but if you want to retire early, it will probably require arranging your life to live without things that might seem like necessities right now.
Again, totally your choice, and it might not be for you, but let me anecdotally provide that it's very possible to live a great life without a car, an expensive phone and phone plan, etc.
I'd recommend breaking down all your spending and looking at what you want to live without and what you don't. With things you can easily turn on/off (Netflix is easy to cancel for a few months, or biking to work for a couple weeks if you have a bike--car ownership or apartment size/location, not so much), experiment on living without and see how you feel. You might miss it and you might not.
Don't rely on my experiences, but don't rely on your guesses on how much you like the status quo either. (I guess that also means I should try renting a car and driving to work for a few weeks to see if I like it better than biking.)
[0] https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/loans/total-cost-owning-car/
Yeah, I live in Houston and can totally see what you mean. I think I could reasonably get down to 30k and be pretty comfortable. I let lifestyle inflation hit me harder than it should have and that's what I'm dealing with now. I make better decisions than most, but not optimal decisions. (eg. I bought a car for 14k on an almost 0% interest loan, but the optimal choice is to not buy a car at all. The average choice is probably buy a more expensive car with a bigger interest rate loan) As I get older I realize the compounding sub-optimal choices really make a huge difference. I'm going to take your advice and really break down what my goal is and what my spending habits must be in order to hit that goal. It's definitely closer to FI at 40 than RE at 30, but at this point I'm not even sure I'll hit that.
> average cost of car ownership in the US is something like $8k/yr
The number you've quoted is about new cars. For used cars it could be 10 times less.
It definitely can be a lot less, but national average for insurance alone is $815[0]. Obviously a lot of people have costs below average, but a car is going to be a major expense. If you can do it (legally) for under $1000/yr, you're probably driving very little, taking some risks (in having minimal insurance) and doing a lot more maintenance/repairs yourself than most people know how to.
Under $8000 is easy, seeing as $8000 is average. Under $1000, I'm not so sure about. Maintenance/repairs on a new car averages > $1000/yr[1]--I'd assume used cars to be at least as high. Insurance average cost is similar. Fuel is going to be several hundred unless you have a very efficient car you drive very little.
I think people just look at their monthly car payment and ignore most other costs associated with car ownership. There are a lot of not-so-little costs. There are also lots of not-so-little benefits, but you need to weigh both, not just the latter.
[0] https://www.thesimpledollar.com/how-much-does-car-insurance-... [1] http://newsroom.aaa.com/auto/your-driving-costs/
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