If we can do it, anyone can?

[brett]

I believe that it is very different now.

The cost of post secondary education has ballooned far greater than inflation.

Many unionized, relatively well paying blue collar jobs have gone. Moved offshore, replaced by technology, whatever.

Fewer people have DB pensions of any kind. Job tenure is much shorter-not enough time to build up the benefit of a DB.

Health care costs have increased at a faster rate than inflation.

Low paying service industry and retail jobs have become more prevalent

Economy continues to move toward knowledge based jobs that demand a higher level of skill, education, and continuous learning and upgrading.

 

[Dtail]

An unanswerable question since that messy "future" thing is involved. Ask me again in 30 years and I'll give you an accurate response.

Will you be ABLE to answer the question in 30 years?

 

[Gumby]

Yes. I have a longer version of the "your success is mostly due to luck" sermon that discusses that. Basically for most of us, before we had ever pooped in a diaper we had won the lottery.

Buffett on what he calls "the ovarian lottery:"

“You don’t know whether you’re going to be born black or white. You don’t know whether you’re going to be born male or female,” he explained. “You don’t know whether you’re going to be born infirm or able-bodied. You don’t know whether you’re going to be born in the United States or Afghanistan.”
​

[The ovarian lottery is] “the most important event in which you’ll ever participate,”“It’s going to determine way more than what school you go to, how hard you work, all kinds of things.” For example, “the least-gifted children of high-income parents graduate from college at higher rates than the most-gifted children of low-income parents.”
​

Sounds like the Calvinist doctrine of predestination - our fate is fixed at birth. One of the reasons I really enjoyed the movie "Gattaca" is the message that it is not.

 

[Chuckanut]

I hired many people who had to have a four degree while I didn't have one. It's a requirement that was introduced after 1984.

Our McDonald's starts people at $14 an hour. They'll need a couple jobs and a roommate or two to be able to rent a place.

A big name chicken sandwich place in my area starts people at $16 an hour. But, we are a very high cost of housing area. Very high. $16 an hour is not enough to rent even a small studio apartment and have money left over to live much of a life.

 

[OldShooter]

Sounds like the Calvinist doctrine of predestination - our fate is fixed at birth. ...

Nope, not predestination, but from birth our options are largely fixed. For example, the young garbage picker in Kolkata, no matter how smart he is and no matter how hard he works, will never be the president of General Motors. Or of Tata, for that matter.

 

[Gumby]

But now you are changing the question. The question was whether a young person could replicate what I have done - retire early. I am not the president of GM. If someone did now precisely what I did then, they could retire just like me (absent supervening bad luck, of course).

 

[jkern]

I believe the opportunity for young people to succeed today still exist. Due to technology and globalization it is more challenging and more competitive. The margin for error is smaller, but still doable.

Forty years ago the cost of college was significantly less, but FAFSA didn't exist. I see young people today with Pell Grants that cover 150% the cost of tuition.

While some traditional blue collar trades have shrunk, others have grown. Try getting a quote for crown molding in your house and you can see it's possible to make a good living with a blue collar job.

I do believe it's harder to get a high paying job without a degree, but not impossible. My step-daughter is 29 years old, didn't complete college and works at Apple making about $175K per year.

 

[gayl]

I don't understand the idea that college is completely unaffordable. GS worked thru college, graduated during the pandemic and has paid off 1/2 his loans (dummy took a student loan to buy a car for cash) owing just ~7500 now. Granted DS took 6 months to pay off all loans in 2003 and it will take GS longer. But part of that was due to being furloughed / part due to funding his own Roth / part due to being 24 and living in SF. He currently makes only $22 hr (accepted pay cut to go back to work). State colleges are affordable, grants are available, and then there's FAFSA .... Low interest loans

 

[OldShooter]

... absent supervening bad luck ...

That is the point. And the reason to remember that the silent evidence is out there. A lot of it, IMO.

 

[teetee]

It is not about income, not even about net worth. They are just the puzzle pieces. It is about your avg saving rate, investment strategy, and the amount of time you allow the money to grow.

 

[gayl]

I would say most of us are here because we had good role models somewhere in our lives

 

[Gumby]

I don't understand the idea that college is completely unaffordable. GS worked thru college, graduated during the pandemic and has paid off 1/2 his loans (dummy took a student loan to buy a car for cash) owing just ~7500 now. Granted DS took 6 months to pay off all loans in 2003 and it will take GS longer. But part of that was due to being furloughed / part due to funding his own Roth / part due to being 24 and living in SF. He currently makes only $22 hr (accepted pay cut to go back to work). State colleges are affordable, grants are available, and then there's FAFSA .... Low interest loans

When I was 18, it wouldn't have mattered if college tuition was $5000 a year or $50,000 a year, because I had $0. Not ever having known someone who went to college (my mother and father quit school when they turned 15 and 17, respectively), I didn't even know you could borrow money for college. So I joined the Navy and they put me through college. All I had to do was risk my life on a submarine. You can still make the same trade today.

 

[Gumby]

That is the point. And the reason to remember that the silent evidence is out there. A lot of it, IMO.

I have spoken on this board many times about crediting the role of good fortune in my success. I've had a lot of it. But to take the fatalistic view that you have no chance at success because you were born to low income parents, as your Buffet quote implies, does a disservice to young people by persuading them that it is not even worth trying.

 

[razztazz]

Sounds like the Calvinist doctrine of predestination - our fate is fixed at birth. One of the reasons I really enjoyed the movie "Gattaca" is the message that it is not.

That still doesn't mean a person can do anything about it or that the doing of anything will be successful. The invisible hand pulls the strings all along the way, not just on Day#1. Go ahead. Try to alter things. If things conspire to cause you success (The Hand) by so doing another, unknowable, inexorable, outcome is created. The best laid plans oft gang agley. A chain is only as reliable as its weakest link.

 

[Gumby]

A big name chicken sandwich place in my area starts people at $16 an hour. But, we are a very high cost of housing area. Very high. $16 an hour is not enough to rent even a small studio apartment and have money left over to live much of a life.

I don't think anyone was ever going to retire early if they were stuck working as a server at a chain sandwich store. Even 40 years ago.

 

[Gumby]

That still doesn't mean a person can do anything about it or that the doing of anything will be successful. The invisible hand pulls the strings all along the way, not just on Day#1. Go ahead. Try to alter things. If things conspire to cause you success (The Hand) by so doing another, unknowable, inexorable, outcome is created. The best laid plans oft gang agley. A chain is only as reliable as its weakest link.

Have you arrived at your current station by doing nothing? By remaining inert and motionless, waiting merely for the invisible hand to deliver to you what it will, good or bad? I suspect not.

 

[Speculator]

Personally, I would have a difficult time doing it today.

I graduated high school in 1969 in New York City and briefly went to college for three weeks, after which I dropped out. At that time (September, 1969), I had my pick of jobs, all union jobs and all offering paid training, health insurance, a pension and later on 401ks (in addition to the pension). The entry-level hourly pay was low but after getting seniority (four years to top pay), I could buy a house in a nice area, have a good car and my wife didn't have to work. For most high school graduates today, with no work experience as I had at the time, this would be almost impossible except for rare individuals. I would also add that I had the good fortune to have had a decent education, had a mother and a father who loved me, never had food or healthcare insecurity and never wanted for anything. Unfortunately, in my opinion, my biopsychosocialspiritual environment while growing up is very different from the circumstances many kids today are experiencing. And this does not even begin to address the problems of a very different housing market, filled with investors and corporations who are purchasing huge swathes of houses to rent, and AI and robotics taking away the jobs which high school graduates used to be able to fill. No, in my opinion, the World has changed considerably and if things continue this way, there may be some difficult reckoning in the future. As an aside, I would also suggest that most posters on this forum are the rare individuals who do succeed, no matter the circumstances, but they may tend to downplay their "rareness."

 

[Markola]

I believe that it is very different now.

The cost of post secondary education has ballooned far greater than inflation.

Many unionized blue collar jobs have gone. Moved offshore, replaced by technology, whatever.

Fewer people have DB pensions of any kind. Job tenure is much shorter-not enough time to build up the benefit of a DB.

Health care costs have increased at a faster rate than inflation.

Low paying service industry and retail jobs have become more prevalent

Economy continues to move toward knowledge based jobs that demand a higher level of skill, education, and continuous learning and upgrading.

Or maybe this traditional mindset is looking in the wrong places. Google, Salesforce and many other giant companies have formed their own training programs, at little or no cost, remote from home, to get people into jobs paying $60K or more in 3 months or so, no coding skill required. See the TalentStacker podcast, for example.

One course in coding can also lead directly into high five figure jobs with no degree required.

Companies are paying for students, especially people of color, to be trained at community and technical colleges for all manner of high paying jobs in plumbing, electrical, welding, trucking and many other trades. Zero cost.

The military is still hiring. Zero cost.

You mention health care costs. Yes, that sector is growing so fast it can’t fill all of the jobs.

People who are motivated enough to call or even email one of the above can improve their lot. If not, not.

 

[brett]

I believe that one of the biggest threats today is rising cost of post secondary and post graduate education.

Seems to me that cost/affordability is an ever increasing barrier to entry for many.

 

[gayl]

Or maybe this traditional mindset is looking in the wrong places. Google, Salesforce and many other giant companies have formed their own training programs, at little or no cost, remote from home, to get people into jobs paying $60K or more in 3 months or so, no coding skill required. See the TalentStacker podcast, for example.

One course in coding can also lead directly into high five figure jobs with no degree required.

Companies are paying for students, especially people of color, to be trained at community and technical colleges for all manner of high paying jobs in plumbing, electrical, welding, trucking and many other trades. Zero cost.

The military is still hiring. Zero cost.

You mention health care costs. Yes, that sector is growing so fast it can’t fill all of the jobs.

People who are motivated enough to call or even email one of the above can improve their lot. If not, not.

YES!!!! EXACTLY!

I live in a HCOL and even my DD who didn't graduate college owns a (mortgaged) house in my town, of course my college educated son does.

My kids (DS, DD, GS) are all saving a % of their 'meager' income for retirement but probably will have to work past my FIREd age (50)

But then again, no one was interested in an ivy league (heard that's where the best grants are) just in being able to follow their hearts. They paid for most of their education (I covered food). And yes, divorce / pandemic / quarantines took a hit on their assets (they thanked Bank of Mom and are paying me back) but put their big kid pants on and took lower paying jobs to restart last fall [emoji849] .

It's all about thinking outside the box (no Philharmonic so teach) to carve their own way to success (and me staying out of it for the most part)

 

[street]

All opportunities IMO are here today, for everyone that wants them bad enough. You just have to be creative, and will yourself to make the goals you want. Sacrifices will have to be made at every turn but having a good retirement financially, can be accomplished where every you live and work in the US.
Just my 2¢ and I'm a believer in that, no matter how many bumps along the way you can achieve what you have set out for if you want it bad enough.

 

[1242Vintage]

I believe that one of the biggest threats today is rising cost of post secondary and post graduate education.

Totally agree. We saved for years to be able to send our kids through four-year universities and get them out with no debt. The cost is outrageous and we didn’t want them to be saddled with huge student loans as they complete their education and start out their careers and families.

We started nearly four decades ago without secondary and post graduate debt and felt the kids deserved that same start.

 

[walkinwood]

I get around---the internet. I read many young people saying it is different now. College expenses are to high, houses cost to much, the economy is different, wages are stagnant. Basically I find lots of excuses why the younger generation can't get ahead. It makes me wonder how much of it is true.
My experience, we were middleclass, as I have said here too many times, our average inflation adjusted income was $71k over 37 years. (inflation adjusted means, the $18k we earned in 1981 was adjusted to just above $50k to cipher into the average.) That is slightly above the median US income. But we weren't high income earners. This makes me think yes, If we can do it. The above numbers were in 2018 when we closed the business, so $71k is closer to $78k.
I understand we are a small percentage and most people don't save like many ER readers did. But, if a young couple earns near $80k can they do what we did over 30+ years, or, are things really different?

Why single out young people? How many people your age, who earned as much as you, have ER'd? Or even saved enough for a comfortable retirement? We are a rare breed and will probably always be. I for one, am grateful that I was lucky to have the opportunities & mind-set to do this.

 

[gayl]

As the pandemic stretches on, I have noticed a lot of people with unrealistic expectations. A few examples are the fact that people expect a vaccine to be 100% effective, no side effects, no illness, and no pain. People are expecting colleges to be completely free, everybody accepted, no cost factor, and a ticket to a million dollar house on graduation. People are saying you can't build financial security as easily as past generations. Whether that's the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, get it?

I don't know about you but I didn't start from an easy spot. If I could climb out of homelessness, work 1.5 jobs while desperately trying to not lose my home in the 1990s, have 2 kids own their own home in my HCOL area -- why can't others? My generation complained that 'we' had it harder than our parents and I'm sure our parents generation complained the same

Yes, they may have to forego shopping at Niemann's, buying a Tesla, megahome, gardener ..... but it's all about priorities.

 

[gayl]

Why single out young people? How many people your age, who earned as much as you, have ER'd? Or even saved enough for a comfortable retirement? We are a rare breed and will probably always be. I for one, am grateful that I was lucky to have the opportunities & mind-set to do this.

No!!! Thats my point! I saved a set % of my income so I could FIRE (put aside 1/3 of each raise). Many of my friends owned fancy trucks, megahomes, and the latest styles so couldn't retire. Very different priorities. Even my sister who made 2× me cannot retire due to consumer debt

I never made over 65k a year. Until now. Pension + investments are more than that