
How I retired in 9 years on a corporate programmer salary - usedtolurk
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/09/15/a-brief-history-of-the-stash-how-we-saved-from-zero-to-retirement-in-ten-years/
======
edw519
I admire OP's financial project and appreciate his sharing it. I imagine quite
a few people may benefit from it.

But make no mistake about it, the #1 reason for any "How I did <anything
regarding money>" is really, "I am cheap."

We only get one chance at this life, and the thing that bothers me the most
is, "What are you missing that you're too frugal to consider?"

Some of the greatest pleasures of my life came as a result of a discretionary
purchase. Incredible people, experiences, even business opportunities came my
way because I bought a product, went to an event, or took a trip that most
frugal people I know wouldn't have.

Once you decide to be frugal, you'll probably be stuck that way for life
because you'll rarely be in position to take advantage of those opportunities
that would break the cycle.

If that works for you, fine. But not for me. I may not be extravagant, but I
don't want to miss any wonderful opportunity because I was too worried about
my bank balance. In the grand scheme of things, how sad that would be.

</sipsLatte>

[EDIT: Yes there is a difference between "cheap" and "frugal". Every time I
mention "frugal" above, I really meant "cheap", but I was trying to be nice. I
will leave it that way to make the thread below make sense. Also, I failed to
mention that there's a big difference between being cheap because you have to
and being cheap because you choose to.]

~~~
webwright
"the #1 reason for any "How I did <anything regarding money>" is really, "I am
cheap.""

I read it as "what happens when you invest intelligently in a booming real
estate and stock market" (especially the former). I don't think this path is
open today.

~~~
scarmig
At this point, investing capital in real estate and stock markets is a fool's
errand. They're done. Maybe they're okay as a savings vehicle (maybe!), but
you should not realistically expect to make more than 2-3% returns after
accounting for inflation, fees, taxes, and time spent on them. And, no, you're
not going to be able to consistently outperform people who specialize full
time in those kinds of investments and who have access to insider information.

The real trick is to invest in something you do have access to insider
information about and that you do do full time: being yourself. Invest in
human capital, aside from a financial baseline to diversify for when your
human capital starts to rapidly depreciate.

In some ways this is cheap. Reject certifications besides the most basic (a
degree). Focus on getting an education instead. Buying a top of the line
computer, high speed internet access, and books to learn from, for developers,
is an almost negligible expense that will go a long way. And the most valuable
way to learn--creating useful projects--can more than pay for themselves.

In other ways this is expensive, though. Choosing to invest in a 401k* takes
an hour or two of your life per year, while investing in yourself is at least
one or two hours a day. This is very, very expensive if you're already
spending 50 hours a week sitting at a computer pounding away at brain-
deadening code. (On the other hand, if you can get paid while also increasing
your human capital... you've hit gold. Stay there until you've stopped rapidly
learning, and then jump to the next big thing.)

Key point, though: there are multiple areas you have to invest in. Yes, a
professional skill like coding is useful. But who knows what it'll be like in
5 or 10 years? Make sure to put time into your relationships, your physical
health, your non-coding hobbies (drawing, banjo, typography, whatever). This
diversification exposes you to more long-term investments: they help you
maximize your luck surface area and will come in handy surprisingly frequently
down the line.

How do all these retire-at-30 articles fit in? They aim to maximize financial
investments early on by under-investing in many categories of self-capital,
hopefully catching a good bull market, and rapidly switching to building self
capital at 30. The obvious flaw is the assumption of outsized returns--they're
not going to be as big as hoped--but that can be dealt with by tinkering with
the numbers a bit.

The more fundamental issue is that it's not diversifying. It's risky. If
you've saved up 500k by 30 by working long hours and frugally cutting coupons
on your time off, that's nice, and if things work out right you might be fine.
But suppose the defaulting of some government thousands of miles away sets off
a chain reaction of bank failures that ends up massively contracting the
economy you live in. There goes most of your savings. Yes, you might have
invested in bonds, but you wouldn't have been pulling in those massive returns
you were banking on to retire so early. And your job, having been funded by
massive amounts of loose capital, suddenly disappears. Oh, you're farked, and
you'll have to start nearly from scratch again after the economy recovers.
Back to giving up your weekends to the whims of an MBA. (If anyone's willing
to hire an expensive 35-year-old developer when there are all these recent
college grads willing to work like dogs so they can retire at 30.)

Or even simpler: you hand in your resignation on your 30th birthday, walk out
the door, and are hit by a semi driven by some overworked and drugged up
trucker. Wow, that sucks. At least all those hard-earned dollars will go to
some charity or another.

The ideal, I think, is to semi-retire as soon as you can, and work 15 to 20
hours a week at jobs you find interesting or fun. You get the best of both
worlds and have diluted the amount of risk you face at any one time.

*Controversial statement here: 401k's are the biggest scam alive today, you're not only freezing your capital but also betting on taxes being lower in the future than they are today.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
_At this point, investing capital in real estate and stock markets is a fool's
errand. They're done._

Absolutely ridiculous. When I hear a lot of people spouting nonsense like
this, I know it's time to buy. American corporations are making a killing
right now; why exactly would I not want to buy a piece of that business?
Especially when it's on sale? Similarly, real estate is dirt cheap right now.
Have people decided they no longer need housing?

Think what you want, but I'm actually _doing_ it, right now, as are many
shrewd investors I know. And I'm doing quite well.

~~~
matwood
Exactly. Saying that most investing is done is just as bad as people saying
real estate will never go down. Generally when everyone feels one way, it's
time to act on the opposite.

I'm also actually doing it right now. I own stocks and close on my first house
Friday.

Now for a crazy side anecdote. My cousin closed on her first house a few weeks
ago. It took her 5 houses to finally get one. The reason? Her other 4 _full_
price offers were rejected because someone else outbid her. Yep, outbid in the
down market. It certainly doesn't mean that the market has turned, but it
shows the interesting difference between what the news reports is happening,
what people think is happening, and then what's really happening.

~~~
scarmig
Doesn't the fact that my POV is apparently outnumbered 7:1 undermine the idea
that everyone is a bear? =)

Instead of subjective measures like what everyone feels, I prefer to focus on
things like P/E and Case-Schiller ratios. Though they obviously have their
limitations, they tend to suggest that the market is still overvalued relative
historical norms. And I see no reason for our economy to prosper in the near-
and medium-term.

------
mattmanser
How is being self employed retired? Is this a new meaning of the word retired
that I have not heard of?

He notes on his 'start' page that a mere 1 in 9 Americans are self employed
like him. Only a few 10s of millions of people then?

I think your office of national statistics would disagree with you buddy,
you're a handyman, your wife's a realtor. You're not retired.

What a plonker.

~~~
garethsprice
"How is being self employed retired? Is this a new meaning of the word retired
that I have not heard of?"

Raises an interesting question about whether working in a hobby business is
"retirement".

If the author works solely in the hobby business for his own pleasure and
could live indefinitely if he shut up shop tomorrow then he is arguably
retired. Plenty of retired people still do some measure of work for the sole
reason of having something enjoyable to do with their time.

Also, LOL at the advice essentially being "Participate in the hottest job and
stock market in history and get out at the right time". Living cheap and
making investments is sound advice, but anyone who made their fortune in the
late 90s was more lucky timing than prescience.

------
eliben
This is a nice article, but two observations:

\- He made a great home investment, apparently bought cheap and later was able
to rent it for a lot of money. This is good for him, but somewhat lucky (or,
alternative, a spark of insight into real-estate)

\- He made nice returns on stocks

Both are fine, but not a part of "corporate programmer salary"

~~~
stevenwei
Not to mention his wife's salary.

But the HN posting title seems to have been adjusted from the original title
(which doesn't mention corporate programmer salary).

~~~
lusr
I'm surprised how little attention that part of the story receives, but maybe
I'm in the minority as a late-20s bachelor?

Earnings received by a partner and shared expenses makes a _dramatic_
difference to wealth accumulation. Where I live, if I earn double what two
people in a relationship each individually earn, the couple make an extra 12%
after-tax vs. what I do because they are taxed at a lower rate on their lower
individual incomes. Furthermore, while two people eat and poop twice as much
as one person, the greatest expenses (living) can often be shared.

------
wheaties
Let me get this straight, he thinks 900k is going to be enough to retire on,
send a kid to college, and lay for his future medical bills!? That home
building business started during the home building boom better be earning more
than 50k.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
yeah, what a moron thinking 900k still appreciating in his 30's plus free rent
is enough to support a comfortable lifestyle.

I'm going to refrain from writing something offensive. Suffice to say I find
your attitude distasteful.

~~~
cperciva
The median household in the US earns about $1.8M over their working lives; and
I suspect that the median household wouldn't describe themselves as having a
"comfortable lifestyle".

Now, the fact that they aren't working lowers their costs; but still, the
amount of money they have now is significantly less than what a typical couple
would earn between now and when they retire.

I don't see anything distasteful in questioning the arithmetic here at all.

~~~
ricardobeat
$1.8m distributed over ~40 years equates to $3750 a month. I doubt a family
could save much with that income.

If you get to this kind of logic, you will lose around $50k from slacking out
during lunch through your lifetime (15m a day, $20/h).

~~~
wheaties
Back in 1950 a loaf of bread cost 5 cents. Now? People often forget about this
little thing called inflation. You have to plan for 4% inflation and faster
medical inflation. You also can't count entitlement p

~~~
ricardobeat
That's why you put your money in a savings account... anyway, I think we're on
the same side.

To put these $1.8m in perspective, that's just a tad less than the amount of
savings one in the top 0.5% might have after retirement:
[http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/investment_m...](http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/investment_manager.html)

------
vetler
Wikipedia defines retirement as follows:

    
    
      Retirement is the point where a person stops employment completely
    

Obviously not what the author of this article did. It seems that the author's
goal was to get out of the IT industry. Why? Was he unhappy? Whatever the
case, he seems much happier building houses. That's great!

Personally I love software development, and don't really want to do anything
else. Sometimes, when the stress gets to me, I find myself imagining doing
something else, but it's usually just a phase.

If you want to change your line of work, then by all means do it, but it's not
retirement.

~~~
ricardobeat
Working on your hobbies for just as long as you wish, with plenty of money in
the bank, suffices for "retirement" to me. Retirement doesn't mean not
working, is your goal in life to become a vegetable? There are easy shortcuts
to that.

~~~
vetler
Not working is actually what people usually do when they retire at old age.
"To retire" can mean several things[1], but quitting one line of work to go
into another is not one of them.

That he quit his job and got into something else is great, I'm not trying to
belittle that, but I'm just annoyed that he seems to consider retirement to be
working with something he really wanted to be working with all along. It gives
the impression that the goal in life is to retire. Which I don't think it
should be. If you want to work on your hobbies, why not find a way to make a
living out of it now, rather then when you retire?

[1]: <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/retire>

~~~
kamaal
Early retirement has a totally different meaning than retiring at an old age.
At old age, you think of covering your medical expenses, sufficient enough
money to take of your needs for food,clothing and shelter till your very soon
to happen biological death. Besides you don't really have the energy and
enthusiasm to enjoy the same things somebody young does.

At an younger age retirement has a different meaning. It means traveling,
riding your motor cycle in rallies to far off places. Roaming around the
country trying out different sort of food, Playing video games and your
favorite instrument during Sunday afternoons.

In order to do all this you need a supply of money that isn't mediocre by
measure. In this case, even if you have $900K (I don't know if this is
sufficient in the US, I'm from India) that may not be sufficient to live a
life of even mediocre decent luxury.

If the idea is to live hand to mouth the rest of ones life, then retiring with
$900K at 35 isn't bad idea. Other wise,... One has no option but to get back
to work.

------
steve8918
Sorry, but his stock trading seems bit hard to believe.

He's saying that he made money on stocks during the dot com boom and during
the bust as well? I don't think that's possible, unless he was psychic enough
to short at the top.

Anyone who made money on stocks during the bust got their heads handed to them
during the bust. No one believed that the bust was going to happen. One of my
coworkers turned 50k in 1999 into 250k by 2000, and then 6 months after the
bust started, he was down to 20k. EVERYONE during that time thought they were
stock picking geniuses, so when stocks went down, they thought it was a buying
opportunity. I can't imagine there were any stocks you could have bought
during the bust where he could have made money, let alone increase in value by
50%!!! During those years he went for 67k to 150k to 250k!

Unless he was shorting stocks, there really wasn't any stocks that survived
the bust very well, especially if he was investing in the likes of Cisco, etc.

The same goes for 2008/2009. Unless this guy is some sort of stock trading
guru, he would have lost 50% of his stock portfolio yet he made $35k. It just
doesn't sound right.

~~~
driverdan
Just because you don't know how to invest doesn't mean other people don't. In
1999/2000 I was telling everyone the market couldn't sustain itself and to get
out, and I was just out of high school! I also called the dip in 2006. When
the market tanked in 2009 I bought in & have made 50%+ on those investments.

The message is that there are plenty of people who can invest wisely.

~~~
steve8918
Everyone was calling for a crash, but it took years before the markets
actually started crashing. Anyone can make a prediction when there's no money
behind it. Obviously everyone thought the market was toppy in 1999/2000, but
if you followed your advice and shorted it, you would have lost plenty of
money from 1999 to 2000. It probably would have bankrupted you.

For the record, I also made money after the dotcom crash and after 2008,
having avoided buying anything during the boom and buying blue chip in 2001.
As well, I sold all my investments in Sept 2008 and picked up more blue chip
in March 2009. Selling all my investments in Sept 2008 was more luck than
anything else, I sold because I thought October was going to be the 80th
anniversary of the Big Crash in the 1920s, but I was off by one year, it was
1929 not 1928. Better lucky than good.

My point is, anyone who made money on the way up, which it sounds like the
author did, didn't believe that the markets would crash. The author didn't
even show flat returns, it was always net positive before, during and after 2
crashes. It just doesn't sound right to me.

~~~
krschultz
Why do you have to short it and lose money for 2 years? You can exit somewhere
on the way up, sit on the sidelines, wait for the crash, buy low, do it again.
Not that hard to believe.

------
padobson
I think this is completely feasible starting with a $0 net worth and having a
college education. I am not remotely surprised he got to a $100k salary
working full time plus nights and weekends. You'd be surprised how many people
you can pass up in the work force just by showing up on time and working more
than them.

Frugality is also huge. If you can save 15-25% on products you knew you were
going to buy anyway by clipping coupons or buying in bulk or searching for
deals, that's far better than making 15-25% in the stock market because
there's no risk.

The real estate thing, too, isn't as hard as you think. Multi-unit dwellings
can often be purchased at the price of a normal house and rented for 2-3x what
a normal house would go for. If you can find a three or four unit building for
$100-$150k and live in one of the units while you pay down the equity and fix
up the other two to increase they're rental value, then getting $500-$600 per
unit becomes very possible. That's $1500-$2400 a month to go towards
mortgages, which would easily support two $100-$150k houses.

~~~
rick888
"that's far better than making 15-25% in the stock market because there's no
risk"

Not really, because clipping coupons won't ever make you enough to retire.

~~~
corin_
I guess this comment I'm replying to was downvoted for being too vague and
blunt, but it's a perfectly valid point.

Let's say my monthly expenses (in areas that might theoretically have coupons
- e.g. house rent isn't going to come with a groupon offer) are $2k, then
saving 25% of that is only ever going to net me $500/month, and there's a hard
cap based on how much I'm already spending.

Whereas with investments, there's no cap on it, except the amount I have to
invest, which could be much, much more than $2k.

Obviously this skips over the question of success in those investments, but
that isn't the question being discussed.

------
JoeAltmaier
I'd love to hear his wife's take on this frugality. "I didn't miss the 2nd car
a bit" - I imagine the Mrs. has a different idea about that.

So pretty much, have a high-earning wife and buy a firecracker realestate deal
that pays 2 mortgages. Doesn't sound so much brilliant as lucky?

~~~
brador
There's always an outlier who attributes his success to skill (and he's
usually writing a book about it so we can all follow his three step process to
riches).

------
tl
So, let me get this straight. You:

1\. You and your girlfriend were making more money _individually_ than the
2009 median _household_ income [1], and you had been doing so since 1999.

2\. You ended up on the good side of a stock market that robs as many people
as it enriches.

3\. You cut expenses whenever possible.

And your end result is a nest egg that might be enough if you stay frugal and
work part-time? How is this useful financial advice?

[1] <http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html>

~~~
smallegan
Seems to me that stories like this are much more useful to the masses than
stories about the Steve Jobs and Bill Gates of this world and everyone seems
to eat those success stories up. I guess it is about perspective and what your
ideal lifestyle goal is.

------
skrebbel
i don't understand this sudden focus on retirement. You could've had a _nice_
programming job and done it for years with enjoyment

~~~
LVB
And that goes for any profession. I was far more inspired to hear a recent NPR
story about a welder at a local factory who's _90_ and just celebrated his
65th year with the company. He likes going to work every day and keeps doing
so.

Far more desirable to me than finding some golden goose is to find a path that
keeps me enjoying work for years and years.

~~~
asr
Who is downvoting this? The point is that people can find a lot of fulfillment
in work.

When I read about a programmer who stopped programming at 30 to go into
construction, I think that shows programming wasn't really the right career
choice for him. If it's not the right career choice for you, then by all means
follow the recent spate of HN "retirement" posts and change careers.

But if you love programming, you can actually find jobs you like in
programming! You don't need to retire! Talking to 30-somethings planning their
retirement is...depressing.

------
wallflower
My landlord used to vacation in a nice coastal area. For a number of years, he
went to the same town, same rental. At one point, the cottage came up for
sale. $200k. He dismissed it as too much of a risk for his financial situation
at the time. Less than five years later, the boom and bubble in coastal
properties had exploded the market value to $600k. For a humble cottage. That
regret (he could have bought the cottage and rented to cover) - missing that
opportunity is why he purchased multiple properties in an up and coming area
before it became the young professional magnet that it is today. He had done
quite well for himself, a liberal arts major who has minored quite
successfully in real estate.

------
pragmatic
The timing of the housing market and stock market couldn't have been better
for this guy.

I'm not saying he didn't have anything to do with this for being frugal (I'm
doing the same thing), but stock and housing gains seem to account for a large
portion of his wealth.

~~~
icefox
He could have summed up the entire thing with

"I was lucky"

------
malbs
Here in Australia, the commonwealth bank provided a guideline on how much
super you needed to retire on to main various life styles, and what struck me
as scary was how much you needed at retirement age 65, to survive for 20
years, if you wanted such first world pleasures as running a dishwasher, going
out to dinner once a week, and so on. 800k was not anywhere near the amount
needed.

I'm not calling this guy out, but you would be living a minimalist lifestyle
in order to make 800k last you 40 years..

If you had it all in a 6% long-term savings account, you're barely making 50k
pa before tax, for two people to live on. Sure, you have no mortgage, but you
still have all the other costs of life involved. They'd be able to do it, but
they certainly wouldn't be living the high life.

~~~
malbs
Oh and yeah, you could go for high risk/return investments, but your
investments could get wiped out, and the taxes you paid go to paying bonuses
to banking execs requiring bailouts.

------
apieceofpi
Step 0: no debt. You could attribute that to luck or smart early decision
making, but that's definitely a large step ahead of everyone else.

Personally, I have measured it will take me approximately three years of post-
college work experience to get out of debt (with my current income, budget,
amount of debt, etc.). I haven't heard of any startup founders that go into a
startup with debt already in their wallet so I feel that the amount of student
loan debt universally shrinks the space of potential new entrepreneurs.

~~~
jacoblyles
I had a very large negative net worth when I finished grad school and started
working on startups 12 months ago. It was risky, but you have to have a taste
for risk to be an entrepreneur.

~~~
apieceofpi
That's inspiring to hear. Student loan debt is not the worse debt to have;
however, it doesn't go away even if you declare personal bankruptcy (although,
there are bills going through the legislative process currently to amend this
currently).

Perhaps I am not as risk-taking as you are, but having to worry about paying
student loan debt versus startup concerns seems like a mental battle I am not
prepared to fight. I'd rather do the debt repayment independent of the startup
so I can focus on each individually with undivided financial attention. On the
other hand, the argument can be made that having debt repayment while you're
running a startup makes you hungrier. Although, I predict that would make me
rather short-sighted to live hand to mouth.

~~~
jacoblyles
Don't forget that if you have a sufficiently low income, you can suspend
payment on your student loans for a year at a time up to three years with no
penalty. I think it is called "forebearance".

Unfortunately, now I am making a salary and next year I will have to start
paying my loans again :\

------
huhtenberg
Retiring on 900K? Here's a breakdown for 3-4 mil range and, no, it's not
enough under conservative assumptions - [http://www.tonywright.com/2010/no-
you-cant-retire-rich-at-30...](http://www.tonywright.com/2010/no-you-cant-
retire-rich-at-30-if-you-sell-your-startup) \- though this is not to say that
this analysis is accurate.

~~~
hugh3
Well that's talking about retiring _rich_ \-- i.e. on a $200K lifestyle. And
then he goes to excessive lengths to show that you can't life on a "$200K"
lifestyle for the rest of your life given only $4 million.

That's fine, but you can retire on a $120K lifestyle given $4 million -- my
rule of thumb is that you can live on 3% of your principal and leave the rest
to appreciate fast enough to keep up with inflation. Dividend-yielding stocks
are an easy way to do this (not sure if it's the most tax-effective way).

So, $4 million gives you an inflation-adjusted $120K lifestyle for the rest of
your life without ever eating into the principal. That still counts as
retiring rich. Half that will give you $60K for the rest of your life, which
is a comfortable not not extravagant retirement lifestyle.

Halve that again and you've got $30K a year to live on, which is roughly what
the guy in this article is doing. That doesn't sound like much fun to me -- if
I'm going to be retired, I want to spend a fair slab of my time travelling and
doing other fun and expensive things. But hey, if he has inexpensive tastes
then good luck to him.

I generally think of $3-4 million as being the amount I'll need to retire. I
don't plan on retiring early though -- I'd be doing this as a hobby even if
they weren't paying me.

------
shinratdr
You can, if you want to live like this guy. I don't. I would rather work and
spend the way I want to on my off time than spend every waking hour managing
my budget without a job. If always going to the library rather than grabbing a
book on Amazon or always bringing stuff from home rather than eating out or
getting a coffee is key to living like this, then count me out. If $5 is
unacceptable discretionary spending, then a coffee or meal out once in a while
is the least of what you're giving up.

Frankly, I also think the guy is a little delusional about the future. You've
got everyone on board now, something tells me that might change once you have
a kid. Or multiple kids. Perhaps you already "agreed" to only have one kid,
but then you are truly being naive in assuming that will stay the case. It
may, but I wouldn't bet on it like this.

------
davidu
It's worth pointing out that this man is exceptionally frugal. It's a great
strategy if you can be happy with a modest spend throughout your life.

This is why the guy who owns the laundromat down the street is a millionaire
-- great stable income, but he and Mr. Money Mustache are far from having a
lavish lifestyle.

------
Tycho
The key thing for me was that he was able to clinch such big pay-rises. Not
complaining or anything, but I wonder how universifiable the
abilities/opportunities are which made that possible. He just mentions them
almost in passing.

~~~
ilkandi
I started as a Powerbuilder programmer at 30K/yr and since then I have gotten
Java and Sybase and Six Sigma certification, Toastmasters for public speaking,
and almost finished my CFA exams. It's been 15 years and I'm still not at his
Year 3 salary. FML.(in Canada BTW)

------
Sindrome
I'm convinced money grew on trees in the 90's... Too bad I missed out. Maybe
it's just beacuse OP highlights what went right, I'd be much more interested
in hearing what went wrong w/ his plans.

------
1point2
Wait till the family arrives... That's when the fun begins - more rewarding
than anything - and the fastest way out of retirement u will ever find. Not
into kids(?) - time will tell.

------
Murkin
Can someone explain how a combined income of $150K (before tax) allowed the OP
to save $100K/year ?

And why is the idea of stopping being a productive member of society at 30+ is
a good thing ?

~~~
brown9-2
That "stash" number does not count only cash in the bank. He is also including
the value of his house, and other assets.

------
incosta
I am assuming the author and his wife are both Canadian citizens. If he moved
to the U.S. in year 3, and his wife a year later, I wonder how the guy has
retired (without moving back to Canada)? He got his green card in 4 years or
less? Not likely. Did he already have it? Also, if he was on H1 visa, it's
very unlikely (if possible at all) to become less-than-full-time worker (as he
did in year 8) in this status. Lots of questions..

~~~
ImprovedSilence
I'm not terribly knowledgeable in this area, but this was pre 9/11, where I
imagine it was much much easier to obtain a green card/citizenship, especially
from a friendly country like Canada.

------
mark_l_watson
With only one piece of income property, I am a little surprised that the
author of the blog post thinks that his family has enough for the rest of
their lives.

That said, if they maintain their job skills, they should be fine because of
part time work income when the will need it.

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suivix
So marry someone who makes a lot of money, and get lucky with investments? Ok.

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sliverstorm
The article should be renamed- 18 (wo)man-years.

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gcb
Deciding to live near work. House on 1st yr/job. Several other jobs.

Or boulder have one single building with all companies, or this guy can sell
houses for homeless people

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grimen
I don't want to retire. I could not live without creating stuff. Maybe I
missed the pointof the article, but it all felt very sad - capitalistic.

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ricardobeat
The whole point is retiring so you can raise your children and work on things
you enjoy. What's "capitalistic" about that?

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grimen
The "work on things you enjoy" part I buy - not the raise children part, but
the article was written in a way it sounds like retirement = success. "This is
how you become a me" kind of blog posts flood this forum. Very often I get the
feeling too many in HN community are driven by money, which is sad.

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brianobush
I find it interesting that people strive to retire from their work by living
frugal (or cheap!). I have always enjoyed what I do and don't mind working
till I am in my seventies if so allowed. I still save a large portion of my
income and have a high net worth, accumulate little material possessions but
still do not feel like a slave to the machine.

