This is a series about spending LESS, saving MORE, and BUYING ASSETS. That's how (((they))) got to where they did and it's how {{{WE}}} are going to do the same.
In this post I'm sharing a classic from Mr Money Mustache - The Shockingly Simple Math behind Early Retirement. On a personal note, I retired at 25 years old and now raise white children. Anybody can do this, it's shockingly easy. Let's begin.
I have a surprise for you. It turns out that when it boils right down to it, your time to reach retirement depends on only one factor:
>Your savings rate, as a percentage of your take-home pay.
If you want to break it down just a bit further, your savings rate is determined entirely by these two things:
>How much you take home each year
>How much you can live on
While the numbers themselves are quite intuitive and easy to figure out, the relationship between these two numbers is a bit surprising.
If you are spending 100% (or more) of your income, you will never be prepared to retire, unless someone else is doing the saving for you (wealthy parents, social security, pension fund, etc.). So your work career will be Infinite.
If you are spending 0% of your income (you live for free somehow), and can maintain this after retirement, you can retire right now. So your working career can be Zero.
In between, there are some very interesting considerations. As soon as you start saving and investing your money, it starts earning money all by itself. Then the earnings on those earnings start earning their own money. It can quickly become a runaway exponential snowball of income.
As soon as this income is enough to pay for your living expenses, while leaving enough of the gains invested each year to keep up with inflation, you are ready to retire.