Hello! 25 years old here and want to be "working to live instead of living to work"

[RioIndy]

Hello there! Finished university 2 years ago and turning 25 here. It didn't take long in my career for me to realize that I wanted to be "working to live instead of living to work".

I haven't decided yet how much I will need to pull the trigger but I am saving agressively and aim to be retired by 40-45 at the latest. Finally reached the $100,000 net-worth milestone recently (took forever!!). Awesome feeling and am eager to reach the $250,000 mark.

I feel like society, the goverment and especially corporations have all brainwashed us, making it seem taboo and even greedy to think of retiring early and aiming to spend more time on what we enjoy doing rather than our careers. Yet time and time again I observe that corporation will discard their employees at their earliest convinience because in the end they don't give a s*** about you or the sacrifices you've made and years of your life you've given up to increase their profits. I know that I don't want to spend half of the time that I have in this world being a slave to the corporate machine.

As I've seen others here mention, this forum seems like a great safe haven as many of us are like-minded, and this topic (and finances in general) are difficult/awquard to discuss with the people close to you, even family, as those people will be focused on comparing their progress to yours and some may be far ahead or behind compared to you or have a very different mentality and can't give a neutral opinion.

I also prefer to live below my means whereas most people seem to be hell-bent on living as far above their means as their can get away with, I presume because they are trying to give the impression to the world that they are more successful than they really are. Very few people I know seem to share my notion of small sacrifices now for bigger gains later.

Looking forward to sharing plans and advice with you all. And finally I love the term "F.I.R.E. "


P.S: Does it matter on this forum that I am from Canada? I believe the corresponding terms for a Roth IRA and 401K is just "TFSA" (tax free savings account) and "RRSP" (registered retirement savings plan) respectively for us here. Are there many canadian forum members?

[Lakewood90712]

Welcome. Yes , most mid to large employers do think of employees as disposable when no longer usefull , as is demanded by the owners (Shareholders). Just the way it is.

My advise is to NOT share anything about early retirement to anyone in the workplace, especially at your age. It may stiffle promotion op. and piss off people ( like supervisors and managers) who are chained to the treadmill to keep up their lifestyles. Others in the workplace may think of those who aspire to ER as lazy or crazy. I have never found anyone on this board who has retired to be even close to lazy. Crazy ? , well , I'l keep silent on that one.

Again, Welcome.

[growing_older]

Welcome. I remember being about your age and realizing that the better I did at work, got promoted, received raises, the sooner I could save up enough to retire and not have to work. But the company (and most every place I worked would turn out to be like this) awarded most of those raises/promotions/advancements to people who worked crazy hours, no matter how productive or efficient they were. It was a hard problem and I decided to strike a medium career course and excel in LBYM. To me that seemed like a reasonable compromise that allowed me to live today and reach my goal of having control of my own time in the future, but in retrospect arguments can also be made for going more heavy on the career earlier and possibly be in position to check out earlier. You'll have to work out what feels right for you.

[travelover]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lakewood90712 ...........I have never found anyone on this board who has retired to be even close to lazy. Crazy ? , well , I'l keep silent on that one...................

Me. Crazy and lazy.

Welcome Polaris from the Great White North.

[obgyn65]

To answer your question, no. Welcome, PolarisTLX.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PolarisTLX P.S: Does it matter on this forum that I am from Canada?

[pimpmyretirement]

Check out:

1. The book from earlyretirementextreme.com - you could be out by 30.
2. The book Your Money or Your Life - learn to make work worthwhile

[RioIndy]

Thanks for the welcome everyone and I will definitely check out those books pimpmyretirement.

[Birchwood]

Welcome.
I think you are doing real well. You have already started saving while most your age are either struggling or spending.

[Meadbh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PolarisTLX Are there many canadian forum members?

Yes, lots of us Canucks here! Come on in, the natives are friendly!

So, is it a Polaris TLX or TXL, and do you have one?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7QgTH-RsP0

[RioIndy]

@pimpmyretirement. I checked out the concept of Early Retirement Extreme, his concepts are in fact extreme and provoke a lot of thoughts on the subject, thanks for suggesting it! It made me want to start another thread to discuss it but a quick search showed that threads have already been made.

Anyhow after looking into his posts and reading the first chapter of the book. I can see that the guy is clever and has a good plan that works for him. I immediately thought "Wow retired at 33!!?!? That is very ambitious but sounds awesome!" But after reading how he does it I quickly realized that his method is not for me as he makes a lot of sacrifices that I don't think is a worthy trade off to not working, at least for me.

Basically he just lives dirt dirt cheap at only ~$7,000 / year living expenses. He does this by milking every penny out of his lifestyle and taking the cheapest route on just about everything and eliminating almost all luxuries from his life. I'm sure I could do this too but I think working a few more years to be able to enjoy at least some luxuries is more worth it for me. But let's see how I feel in 10 more years!



@ Meadbh. "Polaris" was already taken (it always is) but my laptop is a TLX (TimelineX).

BUT! I do have a Polaris and it's an 2003 Indy 500. I'd rather have 2012 Switchback 600 but buying those toys now is exactly why many of my peers my age dug themselves into such a deep amount of dept and are now stuck struggling financially for years and years and years.

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PolarisTLX Anyhow after looking into his posts and reading the first chapter of the book. I can see that the guy is clever and has a good plan that works for him. I immediately thought "Wow retired at 33!!?!? That is very ambitious but sounds awesome!" But after reading how he does it I quickly realized that his method is not for me as he makes a lot of sacrifices that I don't think is a worthy trade off to not working, at least for me. Basically he just lives dirt dirt cheap at only ~$7,000 / year living expenses. He does this by milking every penny out of his lifestyle and taking the cheapest route on just about everything and eliminating almost all luxuries from his life. I'm sure I could do this too but I think working a few more years to be able to enjoy at least some luxuries is more worth it for me. But let's see how I feel in 10 more years!

He posts on this discussion board as Jacob (Early Retirement & Financial Independence Community - View Profile: jacob) and who knows... you may get a chance to continue the discussion with him in this thread.

[RioIndy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords He posts on this discussion board as Jacob (Early Retirement & Financial Independence Community - View Profile: jacob) and who knows... you may get a chance to continue the discussion with him in this thread.

Well at least I didn't say anything bad! Looking forward to having discussions with everybody here on all these things