> But many people are not in that situation. They buy stuff they don't need. They buy new cars on credit - which is a depreciating asset with interest. They buy

> But many people are not in that situation. They buy stuff they don't need. They buy new cars on credit - which is a depreciating asset with interest. They buy phones they also don't need - sometimes in multiple installments too. > > Instead, try throwing anything extra you can scrape in investments. If you are aggressive about it, you can retire much earlier than you would be able to, normally. Again, I don't think this is feasible for the majority of Americans, but let's push ahead with your premise that many people can scrape their way to an early retirement. 1) The length of time to accumulate that much wealth is really sad to me. Decades of living the one life you have as meek as possible under the hope of retiring early. Again, it's still a hope. Say you make $15/hr -> 1 year is $30k. After 20 years, you finally hit that $30k mark that takes you one year to make from wages. Idk man, that's super bleak to me. Obviously, the alternative to early retirement is that they work their lives away until they can't work anymore. For people who are not uberwealthy, early retirement requires a lowering of their lifestyles (I do understand that a lot of people find it fun or gamify it or find a way to validate cuts in their lifestyles). But they have to center their lives around it; it determines where they live, what you buy, what you wear, having kids, etc. 2). This is more of a question, but doesn't require answer.. just for thought provoking. Because these people are poor, are they not allowed to enjoy certain things like new phones, TV, entertainment? We've built our society to hold these things dear (save for the early retirement folks who have to actively ignore those pressures): We have ads that encourage spending, we talk about the American Dream... everything about our society encourages buying things, so I definitely understand why people do it. I'm guilty of it; one of the most exciting things is buying something. When things are so bleak, buying something feels good.. it hits that dopamine. Both 1) and 2) are a consequence of the society we live in. It's easy to see 2), but a bit harder to see 1). If we had guaranteed necessities: food, housing, healthcare, etc, the early retirement folks wouldn't have to change their standard of living. The fact that poverty exists and that people struggle is an easily solvable problem with wealth distribution. My point is, it doesn't have to be this way and that the pursuit of profit makes it this way. For just several handful of people to be as wealthy as they are, many magnitudes more of people have to live in poverty. We should be changing the system so that it benefits everyone, not try to find ways of survival within the system.