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?

  • SuperApples@lemmy.world
    112·
    1 day ago

    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.