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How I retired in 9 years on a corporate programmer salary

294 points by usedtolurk 15y ago

skrebbel 15y ago
i don't understand this sudden focus on retirement. You could've had a nice programming job and done it for years with enjoyment
- eliben 15y ago
  I find these articles interesting - insightful in the "lifehack" kind of way. I want to be able to retire some time early, but almost certainly won't actually retire - I love this occupation too much and would do it for free (well, I actually do that too). But being able to retire is a nice situation to be in, in terms of self-confidence, work-life balance and general psychological well-being.
- zokier 15y ago
  It doesn't sound like his jobs weren't nice. You know, you can actually enjoy corporate work if you are not stuck with it for the rest of your life, and got a nice team.
- brador 15y ago
  These memes are cyclic. It's the retire early one right now (gambled and won), last 6 months was minimalistic lifestyle (startup failures who gambled and lost and late startups going ramen), 6 months before that was startup goldrush VC/angel money. Which is next? Probably share/investment goldrush. Then gold and other hard commodities when that goes belly up, then we're back to real-estate. and on and on...
  - adestefan 15y ago
    You forgot about the great bitcoin takeover.
    - brador 15y ago
      Well, universally I'd label that the OMGspeculativemarketisabouttocollapse meme. Also missed out the travel for a year and see the world while running a blog meme. My personal favorite seeing reality hit and post schedule start to slip Scheudenfreud is awesome :)
- todsul 15y ago
  There's more to life than writing code 9-to-5 for someone else. Some people want the freedom to code when they want on projects they choose. They may also want the freedom to do other things like travel the world and spend time with people in places that would otherwise not be possible. Nothing wrong with wanting something different.
- ootachi 15y ago
  Not factoring in age discrimination, you won't.
  - skrebbel 15y ago
    I don't believe much in this. I think a large percentage age discrimination in engineering is well-deserved. There's so many people at any large engineering firm who at some point just start doing the same thing over and over again for 20+ years, protecting their little knowledge island, resisting new ideas and approaches. If these people lose their job and enter the job market, yes they are discriminated against. I call this "lack of skills and interest discrimination". I believe that in most working economies, this is allowed. Of course, as with anything, there's exceptions, but I'm convinced that if you keep investing in your own knowledge, keep exploring and learning, and keep figuring out what it is that you'd like to do most, you can avoid age discrimination pretty well. The few 60+ year old co-workers I have confirm this. The large amount of aged Software Superheros out there confirms this.
- LVB 15y ago
  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.
  - Androsynth 15y ago
    For me, the path to enjoyment involves my own freedom. Freedom to work on what I want and to have, build and implement my own vision. I think this community has a higher than average amount of people like this and that is why these articles show up.
  - asr 15y ago
    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.
- grecy 15y ago
  > i don't understand this sudden focus on retirement. You sound like someone that's never taken a serious amount of time off work. Two years ago I quit my perfectly good programming job to spend 2 years driving from Alaska to Argentina. Someone asked me what I did the whole time - my answer "Exactly what I wanted to do. Every single day." I encourage you to take a seriously long amount of time off work to discover what you actually want to do with your life if you don't have to go to work.
eliben 15y ago
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"
- div 15y ago
  My thoughts exactly. He used the rent from 1 house to cover the mortgages on both his rental and his own house. A typical mortgage around here is about 1/3rd of your income. So being able to basically have other people pay 2 mortgages for you is _huge_. He also mentions he bough a bunch of Cisco stock for 7$ which he later got to sell for 30$. That's more than a 300% return, so depending on how much he invested, that can easily amount to a hefty chunk of cash as well.
- stevenwei 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    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.
- byoung2 15y ago
  Exactly...a bit misleading. It's more about making smart investments and having a lot of luck with the timing. Like my parents, who had successful careers (dad was a dentist, mom was in real estate), but in the end selling the house they bought in 1975 for $87,500 (and paid off) for $950,000 in 2004 was what put them in the best shape for retirement.
wheaties 15y ago
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.
- bryanlarsen 15y ago
  He's letting that 900K appreciate, so it should be enough soon for a lifestyle as frugal as theirs. And I expect that his income will remain good. There's something about being able to say 'no' that puts you in a position to snap up the really juicy work.
- nazgulnarsil 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    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 15y ago
      $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 15y ago
stiller 15y ago
This has to be the most uninspiring and boring life story I've read so far. His focus on speeding to an early retirement is frankly depressing. He could have applied the same discipline and hard work on making great products.
wallflower 15y ago
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.
JoeAltmaier 15y ago
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?
- bryanlarsen 15y ago
  Before the crash, virtually all real estate deals were firecrackers, so no luck was involved there. The luck involved was in mostly cashing out before the crash. He doesn't say whether 2011 is year 11 or year 15...
- brador 15y ago
  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).
- salvadors 15y ago
  I'd love to hear his wife's take on this frugality. http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/04/25/having-the-talk-with-a-current-or-potential-mate/ http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/04/25/having-the-talk-wi...
padobson 15y ago
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 15y ago
  "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_ 15y ago
    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.
- padobson 15y ago
  With regards to the idea of having a cap on savings returns, this is very true. But savings are also different from investments in that whatever you were going to do with your discretionary investments, you now have more capital to work with because of your savings. Example: You make $3000 a month and your monthly expenses are $2000. That leaves you with $1000 a month to invest. If you haggle on rent, clip coupons, and use second-hand stores and flee markets to get your monthly expenses down to $1500 a month with no reduction in lifestyle, then you have $1500 a month to invest. The 50% increase in your investments means a very large gain on returns. With compounding interest at 8%, you can accrue $180k+ over ten years on $1000 into savings every month. When you change the savings to $1500, then you only need 1% return to save the same amount of money OR you'll have $276k at the original 8% rate. You're either massively reducing your risk or massively increasing your return. In any event, saving money on expenses should be the number one priority of any investment strategy. Note: I used this financial calculator for this comment - http://www.thecalculatorsite.com/finance/calculators/compoundinterestcalculator.php http://www.thecalculatorsite.com/finance/calculators/compoun...
huhtenberg 15y ago
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-if-you-sell-your-startup http://www.tonywright.com/2010/no-you-cant-retire-rich-at-30... - though this is not to say that this analysis is accurate.
- hugh3 15y ago
  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.
- bkaid 15y ago
  It's clearly been enough for his family, he's been retires for several years now.
edw519 15y ago
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.]
- mailanay 15y ago
  I am sorry, but I think I disagree with your viewpoint. My idol in being frugal (but not cheap) is Mr. Warren Buffett. I don't think he lost an opportunity by being frugal or has any regrets. Obviously it is a very personal choice. Some people do get pleasure by discretionary purchases, and some (like me) by knowing that there is money in the bank.
- leviathant 15y ago
  I've found it's not that hard to balance frugality with, well, spending money. They can actually work quite well together. So while most of my wardrobe is still acquired from thrift-shops, I also bought my most recent car without taking out a loan. I liked not having car payments, but needed a new car for a road trip we're taking next year, so I tuned my budget and saved cash to buy a car outright. Just because you're frugal doesn't mean you can't have nice things. My wife just bought me a $600 leather jacket (that I've admittedly been too frugal to pull the trigger on) -- for $450, new, via eBay. My 10 year old set of Sennheisers were showing their age, so I bought HD595s. MRSP $329, Craigslist price? $100, new in the box. My other car's radiator was shot - and if I can develop loan disbursement software and ecommerce stuff, surely I can handle changing the radiator in my car, and did, saving myself hundreds of dollars. And these are just things I buy, not even going into the stuff I do. On that last one though, there is definitely a balance you have to find between doing stuff yourself and better spending your time. My father would always wash his own car, but I can drive two blocks and spend $20 to have 8 guys and a giant machine wash it more quickly, and I'll pay someone else to change the oil. In short, I think that your idea that "you'll probably be stuck that way for life" is absurd, and you're mistakenly mixing up the terms frugal and cheap.
mattmanser 15y ago
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 15y ago
  "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.
- AJ007 15y ago
  No one would have read the story if its title was "How I became self employed in 9 years on a corporate programmer salary" HN needs some sort of false title penalty.
- jpdoctor 15y ago
  My reaction exactly. I'd also add: Landlords earn every penny that they collect.
- alnayyir 15y ago
  Doing something that makes money out of pleasure, when you are otherwise independently wealthy is pretty clearly a fair definition of "retired" even if the census considers him whatever his avocation happens to be.
- blago 15y ago
  "How is being self employed retired? Is this a new meaning of the word retired that I have not heard of?" It is the meaning that describes a person who'd saved enough so he doesn't have to work for the rest of their life. What he does for fun is irrelevant. Even if it happens to be "work".
steve8918 15y ago
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.
- fredoliveira 15y ago
  Wouldn't a strategy of investing in good long term stable stocks (for the good times) and shorting ETFs during the busts be solid? It takes timing, a bit of luck, and knowing the markets well enough, but there's probably a ton of people doing it successfully. (this is more a comment on a possible strategy rather than on what the OP did, I realize)
  - brown9-2 15y ago
    The difficulty is in identifying "good" long term stable stocks.
  - steve8918 15y ago
    During the dotcom bust and during the 2008 crash, EVERYTHING went down. In stock trading, 80% of it is getting your timing correct. So sure, if you can get the timing down, then you'll make great money, but that's also the hardest part that not even 80+% of money managers get. I'm not sure there's a ton of people who made money during the bust, especially those that owned mutual funds like what the author claimed. There certainly were people that made money but they are few and far between. One of my coworkers at my current company made $500k shorting 3COM and YHOO. The point is that the author didn't even show a year of flat stock earnings... every year they went up! During 2 crashes! And he never got burnt enough to start thinking that stock investing was dangerous or foolhardy when he had no steady job. It just seems fishy.
incosta 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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.
davidu 15y ago
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.
tl 15y ago
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 http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html
- smallegan 15y ago
  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.
suivix 15y ago
So marry someone who makes a lot of money, and get lucky with investments? Ok.
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  The article should be renamed- 18 (wo)man-years.
mark_l_watson 15y ago
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.
deleted 15y ago
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Murkin 15y ago
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 15y ago
  That "stash" number does not count only cash in the bank. He is also including the value of his house, and other assets.
- lhnn 15y ago
  It's called "Fuck you money", and it means he can choose to be productive or not as he sees fit. He's not trapped to working somewhere he doesn't enjoy being. Why is this idea of being a member of society a good thing? I'm here to live my life.
- CPlatypus 15y ago
  With respect to your first question, I was wondering the same thing. At $150K, federal/state/local tax - not even including property tax - is going to be over 30% unless there's some seriously dodgy accounting involved. Oh, but a lot of that was going untaxed into a 401k? Yeah, about that, the contribution levels mentioned are well above those allowed by law. Either there are some major inaccuracies and omissions in the OP, or the way to retire early is to break the law . . . or both.
- grecy 15y ago
  > And why is the idea of stopping being a productive member of society at 30+ is a good thing ? I'm just about to turn 30, and my parents bring this up all the time. I honestly believe this is old school thinking that simply doesn't apply in the year 2011. I go to work to earn money so I can have and do the things I want in life. Once I have enough money, I will stop going to work and contribute to society in other ways (volunteering, community projects, raising kids, etc.) It blows my mind that people still think you have to go to work.
jpr 15y ago
Wow, a lot of envious people in this thread.
vetler 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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.
  - phillijw 15y ago
    I love my full time job. Am I retired?
  - vetler 15y ago
    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 http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/retire
    - kamaal 15y ago
      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.
Tycho 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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)
brianobush 15y ago
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.
apieceofpi 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    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 15y ago
      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 :\
  - melvinram 15y ago
Sindrome 15y ago
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 15y ago
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.
malbs 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
grimen 15y ago
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.
- ricardobeat 15y ago
  The whole point is retiring so you can raise your children and work on things you enjoy. What's "capitalistic" about that?
  - grimen 15y ago
    Not everyone live with that goal. You are assuming too much.
  - grimen 15y ago
    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.
pragmatic 15y ago
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 15y ago
  He could have summed up the entire thing with "I was lucky"
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
gcb 15y ago
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
shinratdr 15y ago
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.

294 points by usedtolurk 15y ago

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

eliben 15y ago
I find these articles interesting - insightful in the "lifehack" kind of way. I want to be able to retire some time early, but almost certainly won't actually retire - I love this occupation too much and would do it for free (well, I actually do that too). But being able to retire is a nice situation to be in, in terms of self-confidence, work-life balance and general psychological well-being.
zokier 15y ago
It doesn't sound like his jobs weren't nice. You know, you can actually enjoy corporate work if you are not stuck with it for the rest of your life, and got a nice team.
brador 15y ago
These memes are cyclic. It's the retire early one right now (gambled and won), last 6 months was minimalistic lifestyle (startup failures who gambled and lost and late startups going ramen), 6 months before that was startup goldrush VC/angel money. Which is next? Probably share/investment goldrush. Then gold and other hard commodities when that goes belly up, then we're back to real-estate. and on and on...
- adestefan 15y ago
  You forgot about the great bitcoin takeover.
  - brador 15y ago
    Well, universally I'd label that the OMGspeculativemarketisabouttocollapse meme. Also missed out the travel for a year and see the world while running a blog meme. My personal favorite seeing reality hit and post schedule start to slip Scheudenfreud is awesome :)
todsul 15y ago
There's more to life than writing code 9-to-5 for someone else. Some people want the freedom to code when they want on projects they choose. They may also want the freedom to do other things like travel the world and spend time with people in places that would otherwise not be possible. Nothing wrong with wanting something different.
ootachi 15y ago
Not factoring in age discrimination, you won't.
- skrebbel 15y ago
  I don't believe much in this. I think a large percentage age discrimination in engineering is well-deserved. There's so many people at any large engineering firm who at some point just start doing the same thing over and over again for 20+ years, protecting their little knowledge island, resisting new ideas and approaches. If these people lose their job and enter the job market, yes they are discriminated against. I call this "lack of skills and interest discrimination". I believe that in most working economies, this is allowed. Of course, as with anything, there's exceptions, but I'm convinced that if you keep investing in your own knowledge, keep exploring and learning, and keep figuring out what it is that you'd like to do most, you can avoid age discrimination pretty well. The few 60+ year old co-workers I have confirm this. The large amount of aged Software Superheros out there confirms this.
LVB 15y ago
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.
- Androsynth 15y ago
  For me, the path to enjoyment involves my own freedom. Freedom to work on what I want and to have, build and implement my own vision. I think this community has a higher than average amount of people like this and that is why these articles show up.
- asr 15y ago
  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.
grecy 15y ago
> i don't understand this sudden focus on retirement. You sound like someone that's never taken a serious amount of time off work. Two years ago I quit my perfectly good programming job to spend 2 years driving from Alaska to Argentina. Someone asked me what I did the whole time - my answer "Exactly what I wanted to do. Every single day." I encourage you to take a seriously long amount of time off work to discover what you actually want to do with your life if you don't have to go to work.

eliben 15y ago

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"

div 15y ago
My thoughts exactly. He used the rent from 1 house to cover the mortgages on both his rental and his own house. A typical mortgage around here is about 1/3rd of your income. So being able to basically have other people pay 2 mortgages for you is _huge_. He also mentions he bough a bunch of Cisco stock for 7$ which he later got to sell for 30$. That's more than a 300% return, so depending on how much he invested, that can easily amount to a hefty chunk of cash as well.
stevenwei 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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.
byoung2 15y ago
Exactly...a bit misleading. It's more about making smart investments and having a lot of luck with the timing. Like my parents, who had successful careers (dad was a dentist, mom was in real estate), but in the end selling the house they bought in 1975 for $87,500 (and paid off) for $950,000 in 2004 was what put them in the best shape for retirement.

wheaties 15y ago

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.

bryanlarsen 15y ago
He's letting that 900K appreciate, so it should be enough soon for a lifestyle as frugal as theirs. And I expect that his income will remain good. There's something about being able to say 'no' that puts you in a position to snap up the really juicy work.
nazgulnarsil 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    $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 15y ago

stiller 15y ago

This has to be the most uninspiring and boring life story I've read so far. His focus on speeding to an early retirement is frankly depressing. He could have applied the same discipline and hard work on making great products.

wallflower 15y ago

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.

JoeAltmaier 15y ago

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?

bryanlarsen 15y ago
Before the crash, virtually all real estate deals were firecrackers, so no luck was involved there. The luck involved was in mostly cashing out before the crash. He doesn't say whether 2011 is year 11 or year 15...
brador 15y ago
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).
salvadors 15y ago
I'd love to hear his wife's take on this frugality. http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/04/25/having-the-talk-with-a-current-or-potential-mate/ http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/04/25/having-the-talk-wi...

padobson 15y ago

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 15y ago
"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_ 15y ago
  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.
padobson 15y ago
With regards to the idea of having a cap on savings returns, this is very true. But savings are also different from investments in that whatever you were going to do with your discretionary investments, you now have more capital to work with because of your savings. Example: You make $3000 a month and your monthly expenses are $2000. That leaves you with $1000 a month to invest. If you haggle on rent, clip coupons, and use second-hand stores and flee markets to get your monthly expenses down to $1500 a month with no reduction in lifestyle, then you have $1500 a month to invest. The 50% increase in your investments means a very large gain on returns. With compounding interest at 8%, you can accrue $180k+ over ten years on $1000 into savings every month. When you change the savings to $1500, then you only need 1% return to save the same amount of money OR you'll have $276k at the original 8% rate. You're either massively reducing your risk or massively increasing your return. In any event, saving money on expenses should be the number one priority of any investment strategy. Note: I used this financial calculator for this comment - http://www.thecalculatorsite.com/finance/calculators/compoundinterestcalculator.php http://www.thecalculatorsite.com/finance/calculators/compoun...

huhtenberg 15y ago

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-if-you-sell-your-startup http://www.tonywright.com/2010/no-you-cant-retire-rich-at-30... - though this is not to say that this analysis is accurate.

hugh3 15y ago
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.
bkaid 15y ago
It's clearly been enough for his family, he's been retires for several years now.

edw519 15y ago

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.]

mailanay 15y ago
I am sorry, but I think I disagree with your viewpoint. My idol in being frugal (but not cheap) is Mr. Warren Buffett. I don't think he lost an opportunity by being frugal or has any regrets. Obviously it is a very personal choice. Some people do get pleasure by discretionary purchases, and some (like me) by knowing that there is money in the bank.
leviathant 15y ago
I've found it's not that hard to balance frugality with, well, spending money. They can actually work quite well together. So while most of my wardrobe is still acquired from thrift-shops, I also bought my most recent car without taking out a loan. I liked not having car payments, but needed a new car for a road trip we're taking next year, so I tuned my budget and saved cash to buy a car outright. Just because you're frugal doesn't mean you can't have nice things. My wife just bought me a $600 leather jacket (that I've admittedly been too frugal to pull the trigger on) -- for $450, new, via eBay. My 10 year old set of Sennheisers were showing their age, so I bought HD595s. MRSP $329, Craigslist price? $100, new in the box. My other car's radiator was shot - and if I can develop loan disbursement software and ecommerce stuff, surely I can handle changing the radiator in my car, and did, saving myself hundreds of dollars. And these are just things I buy, not even going into the stuff I do. On that last one though, there is definitely a balance you have to find between doing stuff yourself and better spending your time. My father would always wash his own car, but I can drive two blocks and spend $20 to have 8 guys and a giant machine wash it more quickly, and I'll pay someone else to change the oil. In short, I think that your idea that "you'll probably be stuck that way for life" is absurd, and you're mistakenly mixing up the terms frugal and cheap.

mattmanser 15y ago

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 15y ago
"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.
AJ007 15y ago
No one would have read the story if its title was "How I became self employed in 9 years on a corporate programmer salary" HN needs some sort of false title penalty.
jpdoctor 15y ago
My reaction exactly. I'd also add: Landlords earn every penny that they collect.
alnayyir 15y ago
Doing something that makes money out of pleasure, when you are otherwise independently wealthy is pretty clearly a fair definition of "retired" even if the census considers him whatever his avocation happens to be.
blago 15y ago
"How is being self employed retired? Is this a new meaning of the word retired that I have not heard of?" It is the meaning that describes a person who'd saved enough so he doesn't have to work for the rest of their life. What he does for fun is irrelevant. Even if it happens to be "work".

steve8918 15y ago

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.

fredoliveira 15y ago
Wouldn't a strategy of investing in good long term stable stocks (for the good times) and shorting ETFs during the busts be solid? It takes timing, a bit of luck, and knowing the markets well enough, but there's probably a ton of people doing it successfully. (this is more a comment on a possible strategy rather than on what the OP did, I realize)
- brown9-2 15y ago
  The difficulty is in identifying "good" long term stable stocks.
- steve8918 15y ago
  During the dotcom bust and during the 2008 crash, EVERYTHING went down. In stock trading, 80% of it is getting your timing correct. So sure, if you can get the timing down, then you'll make great money, but that's also the hardest part that not even 80+% of money managers get. I'm not sure there's a ton of people who made money during the bust, especially those that owned mutual funds like what the author claimed. There certainly were people that made money but they are few and far between. One of my coworkers at my current company made $500k shorting 3COM and YHOO. The point is that the author didn't even show a year of flat stock earnings... every year they went up! During 2 crashes! And he never got burnt enough to start thinking that stock investing was dangerous or foolhardy when he had no steady job. It just seems fishy.

incosta 15y ago

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 15y ago
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.

davidu 15y ago

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.

tl 15y ago

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 http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html

smallegan 15y ago
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.

suivix 15y ago

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

sliverstorm 15y ago
The article should be renamed- 18 (wo)man-years.

mark_l_watson 15y ago

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.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

Murkin 15y ago

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 15y ago
That "stash" number does not count only cash in the bank. He is also including the value of his house, and other assets.
lhnn 15y ago
It's called "Fuck you money", and it means he can choose to be productive or not as he sees fit. He's not trapped to working somewhere he doesn't enjoy being. Why is this idea of being a member of society a good thing? I'm here to live my life.
CPlatypus 15y ago
With respect to your first question, I was wondering the same thing. At $150K, federal/state/local tax - not even including property tax - is going to be over 30% unless there's some seriously dodgy accounting involved. Oh, but a lot of that was going untaxed into a 401k? Yeah, about that, the contribution levels mentioned are well above those allowed by law. Either there are some major inaccuracies and omissions in the OP, or the way to retire early is to break the law . . . or both.
grecy 15y ago
> And why is the idea of stopping being a productive member of society at 30+ is a good thing ? I'm just about to turn 30, and my parents bring this up all the time. I honestly believe this is old school thinking that simply doesn't apply in the year 2011. I go to work to earn money so I can have and do the things I want in life. Once I have enough money, I will stop going to work and contribute to society in other ways (volunteering, community projects, raising kids, etc.) It blows my mind that people still think you have to go to work.

jpr 15y ago

Wow, a lot of envious people in this thread.

vetler 15y ago

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 15y ago
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.
- phillijw 15y ago
  I love my full time job. Am I retired?
- vetler 15y ago
  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 http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/retire
  - kamaal 15y ago
    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.

Tycho 15y ago

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 15y ago
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)

brianobush 15y ago

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.

apieceofpi 15y ago

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 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    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 :\
- melvinram 15y ago

Sindrome 15y ago

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 15y ago

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.

malbs 15y ago

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 15y ago
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.

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grimen 15y ago

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.

ricardobeat 15y ago
The whole point is retiring so you can raise your children and work on things you enjoy. What's "capitalistic" about that?
- grimen 15y ago
  Not everyone live with that goal. You are assuming too much.
- grimen 15y ago
  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.

pragmatic 15y ago

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 15y ago
He could have summed up the entire thing with "I was lucky"
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gcb 15y ago

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

shinratdr 15y ago

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.