Financial Independence Movement

[Broken_Erika]

Frugal Living = Communism!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Frugal Living = Communism!

I'm pretty sure USSR didn't have people retiring "financially independent" at ages below 50 though .

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Well being dead doesn't cost you very much, so they probably had quite a few.

 

[Broken_Erika]

In Soviet Russia; Frugal Lives You!

 

[Harv]

I guess my question is why? What are you going to do with all this time in retirement that you couldn't kind of do along the way in any balanced lifestyle?

The fact that I do not have a good answer to this question is a fatal flaw in my retirement plan.

Cus if you truly are going to retire in your 30s/40s/50s, unless you have like 8 figures saved you aren't living extravagantly. That money has to last. Even for "normal" retirement age many calculators say you need like 25 times earnings, which for someone making 75k a year is 1.875 million.

I don't know about 8-figures. My numbers are slightly lower. Here are the numbers I have:

$2.5M is a number from a movie quote. I believe the reference is from "The Gambler" with John Goodman. 4% of this number is $100K per year, which is almost enough to pay for health insurance in the USA.

At $5.0M, this 4% figure is now $200K and I can start comparing this to salary and benefit packages for some occupations.

At $10.0M, this $200K figure is now 2%. If I am paying a money manager 2% to manage my accounts, then I am paying my money manager $200K per year. Never mind that I should never be paying a money manager 2% per year and I would never get to $10M if I did, but at $200K per year, I can manage my own money!

After this, there are other numbers that I look at. At 45, the SSA gives me a life expectancy divisor of 38.8. So one option is to divide my retirement assets by 38.8 one year and see which backwards countries (other than the USA) I can live in with a comfortable margin. That comfortable margin is just how low my assets can go in the event of a bear market. With the 1930's as a reference, that number is pretty low. If I live to be 97 years old and each year is a card in the deck, that's a lot of cards left.

And back to the original question - what would I do? For a while, I wondered if I could make it as a math tutor if my current position does not work out.

Also, hi! I have been away for a long time!

 

[Lohrenswald]

I'm kind of terrified of being in debt and wonder if I might become like one of these

 

[Birdjaguar]

Retiring has two basic paths of self inquiry: what do you want to do when you stop working and how much money you want to have each year. How long you will live is a total crap shoot; you can use stat tables if you like for planning, but I wouldn't count on your case being average.

IMHO, retiring to get away from work at a young age is silly; find work you enjoy.
If you are single without intent to marry or have children, your plans will be very different from those with a family.
You will need something to keep your mind busy once you stop a regular job.
Having real people involved in your life will be more and more important, but remember the rule: half your age plus seven.
How much money you will will need will vary from person to person. That's why you need to begin with what do you want to do when you stop working.