300e6*.0001/100 = 300 people in the USA.
There's probably more than 300, 20 year olds who are living off private incomes.
There's probably more than 300, 20 year olds who are living off private incomes.
News flash, not everyone is in software. If you are I still doubt you are actually independently wealthy. Again, unless you were born that way.
Sorry for not doing a mathematical proof for those of you that think having $50k in the bank by the time you are 30 is independently wealthy when you haven't even put a down payment on a house in SF yet.
It's actually pretty easy to become financially independent before you hit 30 if you finish college on time (while you're 23) and get a 6-figure job out of college, and work for a few years with a small (sub-25k/yr) annual cost of living.
1. The number of fields allowing a new grad to get a six-figure job are very small.
2. The number of places offering the above while also allowing the new grad to live in an area where they can have a sub-$2k/mo footprint are incredibly limited.
3. Of the people who are actually able to take advantage of the above, the majority of them will have no interest in doing so. For every highly-compensated employee at Google living in a van in the parking lot there are several in houses they can't afford with credit card and student loan debt to boot.
4. Gaining financial independence for the sake of gaining financial independence is sort of a pointless goal.
My guess is if you collected every person in the US who retired by the age of 30 and removed those who inherited money, won the lottery, and started a business, you could fit them in in a single large room.
Re 4. it's only pointless if you foresee nothing afterwards. To me there's nothing wrong with wanting to have "fuck you" money (not just being "independent") without really knowing what you'll do when you get it, you can figure that out later and you'll have many options available to you -- a lot of us just keep working, with the added benefit of being able to drop unsatisfying jobs without any anxiety of not being able to find a new one.
Not sure that you understand that financial independence can be just as simple as a function of your total invested assets and expected future annual costs given the reasonable assumption that in the long run your investments will net you at least an average 5% return per year. Is that assumption guaranteed to hold? No, but it's reasonable, and that's what buffer room is for. My rent is $1300/mo, with utilities it's usually around $1500/mo, for a 3-floor house I share with a friend. With miscellaneous other expenses like food and entertainment I end up with living expenses in the neighborhood of $25k/yr, rent is my primary expense since I have no debt. When my investment assets reach $600k, 5% growth nets me $30k/yr (I'm ignoring taxes). So long as my average annual expenses does not exceed $25k/yr, and my average return stays at or above 5%, this is sustainable indefinitely.
And this isn't the only path to financial independence, it's just really straightforward for higher-than-average earners not burning an insane amount of their income on rent. (Mortgages are a different story.)
Or maybe you want to live in a nice high end 1br condo in the heart of the city within walking distance to work and enjoy a higher standard of living because you can easily afford the $50k and still have plenty of money left over for living expenses and savings/investments?
Or to quote your earlier sentence, shouldn't it be "up to you how much you want to save vs. how comfortable you want to live"?