It does seem appealing to compress it into a few years, doesn't it.

But I don't think it works for me at this point. First, the math. I believe 20k gross is ~10k after tax where I live. My absolute minimum acceptable lifestyle costs 30k/year. Which leaves the possibility of saving 90k/year. So I get three free years for every year worked. Brings to mind the Ciolkowski equation.

Three years for every year worked, neglecting investments, but also opportunity cost, and the fact that I absolutely detest working for others and even a year of working full-time is a dreadful prospect to me.

Assuming life expectancy of 85 and no state pension, I would need to work full-time for about 13 years, no time-off, optimistically assuming no mental breakdown from all that work. So I end up at 45, possibly bald, with no savings except to fund what I considered the minimum acceptable lifestyle at 32. That is not good.

The opportunity cost. I now work for about 2-3 months / year (and benefit from lower tax at lower income), building a quite possibly successful business venture on the side, and devoting lots and lots of time to my hobbies.

Aging. I would not want to sacrfice a year of my 30s for three years of my 50s.

I actually agree with you. I think taking long breaks in between jobs/clients is the better path for most people.

I just got an amazingly sweet deal:

- I was remote so I lived out of my backpack in places around the world for many years (pre-COVID)

- I got my work done fast in less than 20h/week most weeks so I had plenty of time to e.g. learn another language to a conversational level

- I was able to save $15k - $20k/month

- I took 1 or 2 months of unpaid leave every year to pursue hobbies

Had I not been able to do that, I would definitely have quit earlier and taken a long break.

Yeah seriously, who wants to "travel the world" in your 60s lol.

Dude if you sacrifice two years in your twenties to bank ~300k you can have plenty of time to travel the world while you're young and single or dating someone and live it up.

There's a huge difference between 'sacrificing' a few years if you can milk a decent gig when you're young and throwing way decades of your life being miserable.

But 2 years to save 300k means you gotta have a top tier faang job doe right?

What was your financial independence level? I figure not working at all is probably boring... so getting to a point where you have enough to quit when/if you want is probably the goal.

I initially wanted to quit ASAP and was going for lean-FI at $20k/year, but ended up negotiating a sweet deal and working a 2 years longer to get to $60k/year from investments with the 4% rule. I still only spend between $20k - $30k/year so I have plenty of room to increase my budget.

I just quit a few months ago so we'll see how not working for money turns out long term. So far it's been great. I've been pursuing my hobbies, volunteering, and doing some very light consulting (0 - 2h/week). In other words, I still do plenty of things, it's just that I don't get paid for them and can do them fully on my terms.