Ask HN: How to Retire ASAP? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to Retire ASAP?

20 pointsekns36 comments

I think freelancing is the best way for me to make money or initial capital (I'm living in Europe). I can make maybe 100-120k per year, which comes to maybe 60k after taxes. After living expenses, that's maybe 35k per year. Not a whole lot for investments.

I did get lucky this year with GME but it turns out that trading is not for me so I lost most of it. Now even crypto is too mature so there's not that much potential left (relatively speaking). Do I just need to continue grinding boring work for the next 10+ years to get back to previous highs or more, to finally stop doing "useless" work?

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You have to be prepared to deeply invest in career in the short term to be able to retire in the medium term. I'm not at 'early retirement' stage but I have been able to hit some financial independence milestones -- some tips:

* Build your personal brand, blog, code open source, write a book, etc. Be known for something specific and valuable

* Get a great job at larger tech co, probably American based given salary differences, especially if its in your area of expertise, then you can negotiate more salary and stock

* Cut down a lot on your personal expenses

In short be prepared to invest a lot of your personal time and have a lot less fun in the near term.

TBH most of the people who have 'retired early' got lucky in the sense that they either joined a startup and had a great exit or joined a FAANG in the mid 2000s and worked there for 10-15 years and watched their stock grow and grow...

OTOH, you can just choose to work your hours, have a sustainable and fun life, disconnect and work on preventing burnout, and just roll with the tech lifestyle

Rather than trying to find some get rich quick scheme, I really recommend you find work you enjoy that pays money and prepare to work for another 10-20 years. Invest wisely and avoid risky schemes like cryptocurrency or trading.

I expect OP is young (as am I) and our biggest threat is that we often don't know what the wise investment is. My personal strategy is to invest in: Skills > Tools > Relationships > Knowledge > Cash for rainy day > Stocks > Crypto/Prediction markets/gambling. The last one feeds into the Skills/Knowledge investment, and I've often heard it's not worth doing at all; but learning to flip $10 of garbage asset into $11 in a crummy market sounded like a skill worth risking $10 to learn, and it's given me huge respect for existing financial institutions because I was able to personally encounter all the risks/problems they protect society from.

Nobody knows what a great investment is, just understand your risk threshold and be OK with taking risks.

If you want a general rule of thumb look to invest in the broader market mainly and then have smaller portions of your portfolio invested in riskier assets.

This. The Bogleheads strategy is maybe not exciting, but I believe it works if you stick to it.

The best source I know of for learning to invest is The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing. It doesn’t just tell you what to invest in, it explains the why.

If your time horizon is long enough (which is it because you are young) just put your money in the stock market. It will climb over 20 years even if there are some down years. It's not a get rich quick scheme but its an easy way to acquire wealth over time. It has served me really well and I'm in my early 30's.

Deviation away from the boring 401k/RRSP/SIPP/ROTH/TFSA/ISA into index funds, without justification, is just another form of "get rich quick".

Never forget that the boring approach of regular savings is a great reliable approach to reaching FIRE.

What I'd do first is max my tax-free savings account (a stocks & shares ISA in the UK). That's 20k a year. Assume that grows at the rate of the S&P 500 and you'll have just under 300k in 10 years, or 25k a year interest which covers your living expenses but doesn't take into account inflation (and assumes the market performs).

Now you have 15k left per year. Make sure that you're living life and not just saving away - spend some of this on hobbies and enjoy your time. Maybe you have 5k left after that, maybe 10k, who knows. Either way, depending on your risk appetite you can either invest the remaining amount into an ETF, save it as cash for a rainy day, buy individual shares, or go into crypto.

I have worked in crypto for several years now and I don't pretend I understand the market, it may as well be gambling, but if I was to give blanket advice I'd suggest following dollar-cost-averaging across as many coins as you can to get the best chance of success there.

All-in-all though, think about what you want to do when you retire. Is it to start a hobby? Spend time at the beach? Play video games? Work out why you want to retire early and see how you can improve your situation to allow yourself to do that now. It could be that freelancing half a year for 50-60k and spending half a year on your hobbies is better than living cash-strapped till 2031 so you can retire.

Unbelievable! A startup forum with few offering advice on joining a startup.

This is where the real wealth is created.

Sure, if you’re a school teacher. Slow and steady savings is the way.

Not when you are a software developer with skills to create wealth…

And you can join a more established startup, to improve your odds.

http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html

I tried this path, but I find myself disillusioned. So far I don't have a cause I could spend all of my time advancing. I don't have the burning motivation to do everything to found a thriving startup doing some random thing. It is really hard.

Maybe I could eventually find one but the odds don't seem great. Ideally I might work for something like Neuralink but I don't think I can get there. The chasm to making that a reality seems too deep. Though this may be a self-fulfilling prophecy in a way.

As for other startups, I don't think e.g. any of the local ones pay well and, like many would say, I value equity options at zero until they're liquid. I just feel like I've been burned too many times to grasp for more lottery tickets.

Also in Europe. Started my adult life with work and rent right before financial crisis of 2007–2008. That was extra tough time and I have been a scrappy person ever since. Not spending any money if I feel there is any chance I might be short on money ever again.

Felt that IT career is making me miserable so was not sure how long I can keep at it even though it pays really well.

Started with my own real estate so there is no rent payment and equity is built up instead. Then got lucky with TSLA (not with GME).

Just retired with somewhere between few years to a decade or runway (depends on stock market) Now I am interested in markets. Have been following markets for about 3 years and plan to test my cleverness and do more active trading/calculated gambling to get to Financial independence. Or return to work when my runway ends.

This channel has been a great learning source and he has a lot to say about building wealth and trading. https://www.youtube.com/c/MeetKevin I think I have done it as soon as possible for me. Took a decade if not counting the financial crisis years. Good luck!

https://old.reddit.com/r/Fire/

Thanks, but I find that r/Fire is perhaps a bit too conservative and singular-focused. I was hoping to find some other takes on HN. Right now I think InvestAnswers on Youtube has one of a the most clear-headed takes on this (hard focus on crypto though).

Perhaps also something on alternative income streams. I managed to work 24/7 on a startup once, but after it crashed and burned with nothing to show for it, I don't think I can do it again. I tried many times but I couldn't make it work.

AI would be more lucrative to work on but even though I have a degree labelled such, I find the chasm to a job making more money from that somehow impassable. But maybe it's not entirely.

InvestAnswers is good. He's willing to share both good news and bad news, and isn't entirely focused on crypto (like 90% of it is, though).

I've had good luck with just throwing a set amount of each paycheck into the top crypto (mostly bitcoin and ethereum, lately more solana) with an auto-buy and not worrying whether it goes up or down. If it goes down, I just end up getting more coin for my purchase. Rode the last crypto bear market down like that, and a few years later (now) it ended up paying off big time.

Was super easy, didn't even have to think about it. Been trying to pay more attention this time around and it might not have been worth all the extra time and mindspace, honestly, except if I had started watching InvestAnswers six months earlier I would have put a big bet on Solana when it was ~$8 and been semi-retired by now, probably.

Some math to ground the discussion:

If you save 35k per year and have living expenses of 25k per year (60k - 35k = 25k), then you have a 58.3% savings rate (net of taxes). My math has you FI in 14 years assuming a 5% return net of inflation, or 13 years with a 7% return net of inflation.

If you can augment that 35k per year savings by working part time it can be even faster. Assuming the same implied hourly rate at 120k per year ($60/hr), and an extra 20 hr/wk of work, AND a 50% tax rate, that yields an extra 30k per year of savings.

That would bump the savings rate to 72.2%, which would drop the estimated time to retire to 9 at a 5% return net of inflation or 8 years at a 7% return net of inflation instead of 14 or 13 years. Thus saving 5 years.

At a 20% rate of return net of inflation, just for example, the 8 or 9 year time would drop to 6 years, so the yield on your investments probably isn't going to be a primary driver of the time until retirement. Savings rate is a much bigger driver.

It depends on what you mean by retire and your family circumstances.

If you are single, ok cutting your expenses and live very frugally, then you need very little money to make a living. If you are not single, check with your partner :). Kids add a lot more expense. If you can afford it, take a sabbatical and see if that works.

My strategy is to work a remote job for 4 days per week and have 32 vacation days per year, while having a livable wage. 32 vacation days on a 4 day work week equates to 8 weeks of paid time off per year.

I am almost there (I am at 24 vacation days) and I just am 3 years into my career.

I am from western europe.

There are two sides to retiring:

1) Make a lot of money.

2) Minimize your expenses.

People often forget just how powerful #2 can be. Don't neglect that side of the coin.

It feels like you're living like a poor person so that you can later continue to live like a poor, unemployed person for the remainder of your life.

It won't be the "cool" kind of retired where you're on beaches, with a nice garden and all. If you've minimised expenses, you'll be that guy with a lot of money in the bank, who's wearing tattered clothes, living in a cramped apartment, eating rice and beans every day.

It answers the question perfectly, though.

No, you are reading the worst possible interpretation into what I said.

You can minimize expenses by having a reasonable home and paying it off early. You can then still sell and upgrade to nicer homes as real estate markets grow. You also should buy items that will last a lifetime. Make sure your home is energy-efficient. Learn to DIY repairs.

You buy good clothes because they last longer. You buy top-of-the-line computers and phones because they'll give you more years before needing to upgrade again. You buy good food to stay healthy and reduce health care costs. You spend your nest eggs when inflation rises because those energy-saving improvements to my home will cost thousands today, but save even more thousands over the next 20 years.

Reducing expenses doesn't mean not spending money. It means looking deeply at the value your spending brings to your life, and doing whatever will actually reduce long-term lifetime spending.

Outside doing illegal things, there is no secret. If there was a secret it wouldn't work for long as those things don't stay secret. People who say there is a secret either want attention or your money.

> Now even crypto is too mature

No it isn't. Who told you that? It's only just been adopted in a couple countries. We've got a long way to go. Don't let FOMO get you.

Get yourself a Bitcoin wallet, buy, and hold. Then see where we're at in 10 years. An no, don't mess with the rest.

You could leave Europe. Move to a low cost of living country and live on $1200/mo. Saving $36k will buy 3 years of living. Start a SaaS or other investments in your off time.

If I could do it all again (no wife, kids, or fear) that’s what I would do.

Negotiate a 4 day work week or compressed hours so you do 5 days over 4 days. Enjoy three day weekends immediately and see it as a step towards retirement right away. PS why do you want to retire now?

Crypto too mature? That’s like saying the web is too mature in 1999.

/r/leanfire man, mostly gotta reduce your living expenses as much as possible and invest as much as possible.

https://nav.al/rich

Save, Save and Save!

moving out to another cheaper country might be help alot

Get a job for a FAANG…?

Do FAANG in Europe pay more? I once wondered about moving to the US but I don't think I can get a work visa there.

Yes. Not as much as the US but significantly more. This video is informative: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF7Hk9AppM8

In Europe, I think London is your best bet for a really high salary. Switzerland, Oslo or Stockholm might also work. Feel free to shoot an email if you wanna discuss it in private.

It's not very easy.

Well, they won’t employ everyone so there is competition. Luckily there are also other employers that pay well.

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