Skip to main content

Retire in your 30s, 40s or 50s

You don't have win the lottery or receive a big inheritance. Money magazine interviewed seven people who are getting financial independence on fairly average salaries.


"They are followers of the popular personal finance FIRE movement (financial independence retire early)" who are saving rigorously, investing sensibly and enjoying a modest lifestyle.

The article describes the FIRE movement as "the opposite of working flat-out through-out your life, piling on debt, living beyond your means and consuming voraciously."

"While most Australians rely on drip-feeding their ... retirement account FIREs are aggressively saving much more outside super."

So who are these people doing it so well?

Kate is 22, aiming to retire at 40.

Pat (32) is on track to retire at 35.

Dave retired at 28 having left school in year 11

Leo (34) and Alisha (32) will retire this year on 90k/year

Serina (48) retired at 46 with a family on 60-70k/year

Jason (48) is nearly at his 90k/year goal

Joanna retired at 51 and lives on 18k/year. She can afford more but hasn't needed to - so her savings have even grown 20% in retirement.

What do they all have in common?

Saving. While they each invest differently the common factor is simply that it's very achievable to live on way less than your earn.

By investing the savings these people are getting (or have gotten) to the point where their money is generating more than enough to live on.

Related reading

What is Financial Independence anyway?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How to waste a year's wages

A friend recently asked me why it is that so many people (on good incomes) are struggling to save. Often the big three money areas are housing, transport and food. In one sense these are necessary items. But what we spend on them is often way more than necessary. I crunched some numbers on how much extra my wife and I could spend on these things - if for some reason we wanted to burn our money. 1. Housing Our apartment is fairly nice, but also cost-effective. I've mentioned how choosing it saves us $1,800 per year , compared to a similar one we saw. The high end of 2-bedroom apartments in our suburb is $305 per week more than our apartment. Not $305 per week. $305 per week more than ours is. I cannot get over that. Sure it's new and modern-looking, but that's a lot of money. It's an extra $15,860 per year above what we pay. 2. Transport The Australian Automobile Association lists the costs of owning and running a car. It includes many often-overlooked c...

Ethical Investing for Australians

I write about investing, because it's a key part of life. Spending less and investing means an automatic income. An automatic income means we can work less (if we choose) and definitely stress less. But where to invest? What to invest in? Many people expect their money to be invested responsibly and ethically - rather than making money through things like cigarettes, weapons, casinos, adult entertainment, environmental destruction, and pollution from fossil fuels. Those are all things we could probably do with less of. So how do we invest to get good returns - and to have a positive effect on the world? Here are some sources I've seen: Ethical Investing in Australia At Frugality and Freedom , Michelle has done a fair bit of research into Ethical Investing in Australia . For herself, she's chosen Bank Australia for banking, Australian Ethical for superannuation, and two exchange-traded funds ( FAIR and ETHI ) for her share investing outside of super. She also gives detail...

My mug shot

This is every mug I own. How many did I buy? Zero. They seem to just appear. I don't even drink tea or coffee. In winter I have might have a hot chocolate or cocoa. So 9 mugs seems like a lot. How does this happen? I reckon most mugs are gifts. There are two reasons for this. 1. It's a safe bet. People need to drink. It's kind of like buying your dad socks for father's day. But the difference is that socks wear out and need replacing. Cups don't. One of these mugs i received as a kid in the 90s. It still works fine. Now it has 8 friends. 2. It's often for what's on the mug. It might be a greeting card-style message, or a sports team logo, or something humorous. It's a good thing that something functional can also provide an inspiring message or pleasant memory as you use it. But the problem comes when we have too much. If I use the cup my sister gave me at Christmas, then I'm not using the 'awesome brother' one she already gave m...