Retired At 33 With This One Step
I read an article (link at the end of the article) recently which gives me a new idea about passive income and FIRE (financially independent, retire early).
What did he do?
An engineer retired at 33 with no real estate and no business. He didn’t spend years writing and building a blog or growing a sizeable audience on youtube. He didn’t raise money for real estate. All he did was buying stocks from 2007 to 2009.
Saving 10 years’ time
This one move shifted and shortened his retirement plan from 20 years to 10 years. In other words, he saved 10 years’ time with this simple strategy. I am not recommending you to buy stocks, but just sharing an idea.
Is this hard?
This engineer simply put as much money as he could into the stock market every month when everyone else is selling. He didn’t do anything extraordinary or use leverage or any of the ‘higher level’ money skills.
He simply grabbed ONE buying opportunity and bought shares at half or one-third of their price. When the market started to turn around in 2009, his portfolio grows to the extent sufficient to allow him to retire.
Life after retirement
Now with time to kill, he started a blog and now earns some income (not much) from that blog. And he does sports and grocery shopping and spends time with family.
If he continues with this rate of withdrawal from his investment income, his family would have no need to return to work (financially free).
A seemingly-oversimplified move
Sometimes, we tend to complicate things — especially when we think about the gigantic number of money we think we need to have before retirement. That number is daunting, demotivating and even hopeless. And many are trying very hard to build up side gigs, freelance, writing blogs, shooting and editing videos, day trading in the hope to get lucky tomorrow without really having a strategic approach.
Once again, the blindfolded hustle is not always the answer. It may be time for us to re-think our approach if we want to retire early working our brain off.
Link of the article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanderousseau/2019/07/22/this-former-engineer-retired-at-33-with-zero-passive-income-streams-and-his-net-worth-nearly-doubled-in-six-years/#4a01ff4d4aa0
Note: this is not investment advice. I’m not financial planning professional. Just sharing what is working for me as part of my investing strategy or what I have learned on my investment journey. Please be reminded to do your own research and consider your own circumstances before making any financial decisions. You could also check with your financial professional to understand what would be best for your situation.
