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?
For sure no. I don’t want to live frugally for the long term. I played that game in college and I’m not excited to go back.
I don’t think you would keep up with inflation
If living on 65% of my current income was possible.
If I had that little I would be homeless, not retired.
But by 30 most people have already contributed way more than they will ever consume by existing peacefully.
Healthcare costs grow rapidly as you age, and have been outpacing inflation in the US. If your remaining money is only keeping up with inflation over time, you are very likely to fall behind later in life, when job opportunities are more scarce, and less lucrative.
If you can make changes to live more frugally now, and work a year or two more while your money is growing in the background, you will be much better off long term.
I have numerous family members that have lived a long time, and eventually faced severe health issues, so I expect that in my future. I will work until my retirement savings are more than I need for my current lifestyle, and then cut back on certain things to do my best to prepare for that eventuality.
Personally, no. You’re barely an adult at that point. If you have the privilege of a disposable income at thirty, splurge and enjoy yourself. Treat yourself to new experiences.
Fuck yeah. Nothing’s more tiresome and stultifying than the whole work routine. That’s time you’re never getting back.
The whole idea of retiring at 65 after you’ve been squeezed like an orange that’s been sent twice into the press, just to “enjoy” your failing body, failing senses, failing brain in your twilight years is absurd.
If you can retire at 30, hell yes do it.
I don’t think I could keep my expenses at 65% of what I spend now because I already spend as little as I can since I’m trying to save up for an early retirement. I’d love to retire as early as possible.
I’d do it, but retiring early = doing my hobbies instead. Long days writing books, making art, volunteering, and pet sitting. Retiring would just mean working the jobs I want instead of the ones I have to.
I would have retired at 16 if I could.
I am older than 30, but am literally facing this decision right now. I have chosen the latter: work for more years for better lifestyle and financial security. My job isn’t too bad, so I don’t have a huge push to walk away.
I’m planning to scale back my career in a few years, but most likely part-time or seasonal work rather than full-on retirement.
I wasn’t even out of school yet.
I’ve heard of people being kept back a year but damn my dude
Did a PhD. Those take time.
Yeah i figured as much but I like my jokes
I would, but it’s not possible since I don’t have millions of dollars in my savings account.
I’m not retiring until my house is paid off and I can include at least 1 large vacation a year into my budget. Those two things will probably happen simultaneously, but I’ve never heard of anyone paying off their mortgage by 30 in my life.
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.
That’s the dream! Travel a ton, learn languages, work on just the stuff you care about…I hope to be able to do that someday!
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.
