Yes.
By Planning.
I didn’t think it would work for the first 10 years. I just wanted to eat better cat food in retirement.
Pursuing higher paid jobs when I can. Changing jobs periodically. Pursuing higher pay until the pay asked for my soul. Then stepped back, changed jobs, and make way more for less.
Paying down debt when possible. Building up to a constant dollar figure of debit and investment per month. Growing that when I can. I now save 40%+ of my income.
Keeping my spending low by prioritizing my time on free things. Prioritizing the money I spend on high pact purchases.
Planning with 4% rule. Works out to needing 300 times your monthly spend in savings. Driving that number down. A $15 a month expense requires $4,500 invested to support.
A great market runup.
I am glad I did too. My friends are dying. One’s 40’s are rough.
Barring any global events probably. I am quite fortunate.
To start with me and my wife are both sw engineers.
I earn some nice big company stock, from when I started to 5 years later it’s 10x’d. I was a few years late to really hit jackpot but I still made a lot and will hopefully continue to gain. My company also matches the first 6% of my rrsp (a 401k for canadains) and I contribute 8%. I also have a maxed tfsa.
I am a pretty aggressive budgeter so I make sure we spend below our means and build uo other savings as well.
There’s a bit of a “problem” at my company where many of the senior staff basically have blank cheques because only they understand the overall architecture. I hope to also end up in this position. I knew a guy that worked 2 half days a week for at least 2x my salary with vacation time to boot. All he did was answer questions for a few hours then go home.
I bought a house during a panic price drop in 2020 got a really cheap price and then sold it for a huge profit and bought a run down duplex that is a bad investment property but a good place to live for my polycule (in a super walkable neighborhood to boot!). I plan to die in This house. I got what will probably be an all time low interest rate of 1.7% and have been paying it off faster than necessary. When it renews next year at 4-5% I will hopefully keep the same monthly. If my monthly doesn’t grow above that then I’ll be pretty on track to have it paid off before I turn 45, giving me more money to save and also lowering the amount I need a month.
If interest rates go down or me/wife gets some nice promotions or my company stock does another big climb then kids might even be on the table.
My wife and I have pensions plans. We won’t retire for another 35 or 40 years but that’s the plan.
That’s awesome, it seems really far away, but trust me, it goes by quick. I’m 55 and I retire in a few months. And I rememeber thinking it seemed so far away. And fuck, now I’m here. Crazy.
Wow, how are you retiring at 55??? I’m 56, and have spent this year re-vamping my IRA accounts with the hope of retiring in 10-12 years without any reliance on the social security that will be gone.
[Edit] I see below you mentioned having a pension. Must be nice!
My pension plan is for state workers. So we can retire at 55 if we have at least 20 years service in. I turned 55 this year, and hit my 20th year this year.
Of course, the longer I keep working, the bigger my pension would be. I took my current job with the plan to work for 3 more years, then retire.
And I like my current job enough, but every single morning after I turned 55, when I wake up, I think to myself, “Shit if I were retired, I wouldn’t have to go anywhere.”
My job is a 10-minute walk away. So I really have no right to bitch about it at all. But just “having” to be somewhere, gets on my nerves so much now! lol
So since I don’t owe anybody shit, and I can live off of potatoes and beans, I’ll get by just fine. I don’t give a shit what people think of me, so no keeping up appearances. That right there, makes my lifestyle sustainable on low income.
I have four more years to pay off my house. I just have to survive the Trump administration without losing everything.
You’ll be fine. You got this, brother!
As long as Trump doesn’t decide to suddenly end pension plans! I mean, i don’t really think that could happen, but he’s so batshit crazy, who knows. So I figure I should take the jump now and maybe any law changes that would happen would go towards people who aren’t collecting the pension yet.
My workplace has a defined benefit pension and they announced that all employees will be losing this pension (even those who are a couple years from retirement).
We will be switched over to a defined contribution pension and our previous contributions will be converted retroactively.
I don’t foresee this new pension lasting more than 5 years before they cut it completely. I wouldn’t even be surprised if they’re able to keep our pension contributions retroactively, fucking everyone over.
Jesus Christ how can they even do that?
In the industry I work in, they can legally do anything to you because our work exists outside of the Canadian Labour Code. This includes give you $0 paycheques for months and expect you to keep doing your job until it’s fixed, which can take 3 months to a year.
Wow that’s terrible.
Intentional heroin overdose.
I’m barely into my 30’s so it’s far too early to say what I’ll be doing. I aim to be debt free within 10 years and have no major life goals after that. Another 10 years and pension should cover my living costs 1:1, so monetarily I should be fine.
Yep, pretty much the game I played. You’re doing it right.
Nope, never. My retirement plan is a ditch with a nice view of the Rockies in Colorado and a bottle of gin on a cold winter night. Everything I’ve saved into (SS, TSP, retirement accounts) will inevitably disappear before I can access them/hit the age requirements. I don’t trust the system at all (I didn’t trust it before the election outcome either). I’m fucked. We’re all fucked. Might as well live it up now while I still can.
yes. by staying in europe
I’m lucky enough to be a state employee so I’ll still have OPERS when Social Security is annihilated next year, but I’m not sure that’ll be enough.
Yep. My wife and I are in our thirties and have good whole life insurance policies that will supplement our retirement accounts nicely in our old age. I’ve been paying into mine for almost two decades (maybe longer, my parents started it for me and locked in good rates when I was young), my wife’s is newer. We also both have matching retirement accounts and are making sure we hit our matching totals each paycheck to draw as much from our employers as we can.
It’s not ideal, but with good planning (and stable income) you can still do well. Now, stable income is the important part. I’m a software developer, my wife works for a non-profit, so my income is generally a bit more stable than hers.
I recommend finding a financial advisor. Our life insurance guy is great and because he gets commission on the life insurance plans he doesn’t charge us for advisory services (and also doesn’t try to sell us on other stuff, he actually recommended we NOT move our old 401ks from other jobs over to him because we’d end up paying him more than we’d make, he recommended we roll them into our current employer plans).
That advice seems like a red flag. There are way more options to diversify investments in an IRA than a 401k, you can also invest in the same funds through an IRA that are available to your 401k. Either way you end up paying fees to someone as well.
Yep, about to turn thirty and have been paying into an Ira, a Roth Ira and a 401k, I want to retire as soon a possible and do things that actually make me happy.
I already did somewhere in my 20s like 3 decades ago.
But today, with maybe “just” one good academic salary, the minimum rent, no car and saving nost of everything? Difficult. Especially if you maybe wanna live while waiting for retirement. Maybe even have a car or travel.
And if you want a great retirement, you need Hobbies and hobbies cost money. Considering that mayve the government-paid retirement is probably gone or reeeeaaally bad in another 30yrs…you gotta save a looooot AND invest it furiously but safely. Which is work too.
World is fucked.
Nope
I intend to. I refuse to die in old age, wasting my life working to support shareholders. Have a good few decades left to even be close to that though and I hate it.
I enjoy working in my field, but as other commenter said, I have no interest on working until death for shareholders to be happy. I do plan to work until I’m dead, incapable or just tired, but I’m planning to enjoy it while it lasts.
Independence for me would be not having to respond to a higher up, just me, my craft, and peaceful money earned by not overstressing my ass. I’m building my own house now, after I have a place to live without rent, I have no more ambitions than eating, sleeping and be with my loved ones. I don’t need to overwork my ass to death to get that. Maybe 4 hours a day, or two-three days a week should be enough.
I think most people would do the same if they could, most people like working, they just despise the oppression of this rigged system.
