Re:Ask HN: What age do you expect to be able to retire?
by Red_Tarsius on Wednesday November 29, 2017 @10:54PM
(#15813347)
That's a great achievement! What career did you pursue? Do you have any other advice for people in their '20s? I hope I'm not being too forward. I'm 2Xyo and, long story short, I didn't accomplish much in the past 5 years. Hopefully I can turn the tide for the best.
Edit: Thank you! I really appreciated your detailed reply.
Re:Ask HN: What age do you expect to be able to retire?
by toomuchtodo on Wednesday November 29, 2017 @11:00PM
(#15813362)
high school dropout->Junior sysadmin->senior sysadmin->managed hosting division manager after acquisition->it manager->infrastructure engineer->it manager->vp infrastructure->infrastructure engineer->cloud security architect
I didn’t start saving heavily until my late 20s, so I hustled hard to save faster (day gig, consulting as much as possible for 3 years) while supporting my disabled mother. The best piece of advice I can give is save early and save more. The longer you put off saving, the harder it is to catch up.
I succeeded from nothing except innate curiosity, grit, and a huge helping of luck. You can too.
Edit: You’re welcome! I wish you much success.
* Don’t rent in a high cost of living location; purchase in such a location only under the assumption that your property might lose value
* Don’t waste money on depreciating assets (never buy a new car, no iPhone upgrade cycle)
* Do live below your means, keep your expenses in check, credit card debt must be avoided like the plague; no cable TV, cheap phone service, no Starbucks
* Do save at least 15-20% of your pretax income in retirement accounts, the more the better (contribute enough to your 401k to get company match, then max IRA, then contribute again to 401k up to annual limit, then taxable accounts, generally); I suggest a low expense ratio target date fund for retirement accounts, with anything above %0.20 being exorbitant
* Don’t value your ISOs at anything above $0; cash is king
* Don’t get attached to your job; you are a mercenary, attempting to extract as many dollars per hour as you can (either FTE or freelance); friendly coworkers and beer in the office fridge doesn’t cover retirement expenses
* Do be interviewing and job seeking passively to stay practiced and ready
* Do fund ways to invest in productive, income generating assets (rental properties are my thing, YMMV)
Good luck!