A conservative take on "F*ck this event" and retiring early

[MrG]

Hi there, this post goes to shed some light on a not so radical take to fastlane.

Most likely useful for those satarting out in their careers, hopefully there's some useful tips.

TLDR: I am 30 years old and just quit my job with enough savings to live for 20 years, I will enjoy a "fastlane" lifestyle/retirment for 1-2 years and then build a business risk free, if it does not work out I have 10 years of industry experience to get back into a "luxury" position in the rat race, as an employee or consultant.

In the post I will go over my 10 year journey, main takeaways and what I belive are the key levers that helped me get to this modest level of "financial independence".

In addition I will open a new thread for you to roast my business plans based on the CENTS principles.

Summary:

• My family spent their inheritance on a new car and 2 years later we could not use it because we had no gas money - first "F*ck this event"
• Studied engineering, learnt nothing useful but the ability to be resolutive
• Learnt English on my own, biggest differentiator from everyone of my peers, nobody in Spain spoke fluent English.
• Read over 100 books on sales and marketing as a "back-up plan", engineering cannot be learnt on your own. Sales and marketing you can
• Took a scholarship to a northern european country with high cost of living and good job oportunities
• Started working in a factory doing machine maintenance, making 1.5k/month and paying 750€ for a bedroom
• Saved as much as I could, always more than 50% of my salary
• Moved from enginereing to sales in my career path
• Built a unique skillset (business+engineering) in my industry making myself forever employable
• Came back to Spain and eventually hit 100k/year base salary in a sales management role (a good salary in Spain is considered 32-36k/year)
• Leveraged saving rate, tax advantages and investments, current "liquid networth" of 500k in Spain at 30 years old
• Lived rent-free for the last 5 years and I do not have a mortgage or any debt
• A couple of friends passed away, which changed my perspective on time and money
• F*ck this event #2- My boss asked me to become General Manager (at least an extra 2-3 year commitment) of the company and I decided to quit my job
• At the moment I could live up to 20 years with my liquid networth and will take an early retirment of 12-36 months to:
  • Make use of the social security system in Spain to set up a company with 25k "free" initial investent
  • Enjoy life and travel the world for a long while
  • Pilot two to three fastlane business ideas based on my industry experience
  • If fastlane does not work-out I go back to my current job or do the same I do as a consultant

Key takeaways from my joruney:

• Financial peace of mind can make or brake you - for me peace of mind meant having A LOT of savings and steady cashflow, if I quit everything the pressure would be too much to execute on my plans and I am certain I would fail. This applied to first saving, then investing and now on the decision of quitting my job. In addition, the peace of mind that came from knowing I could leave my job at any moment (thanks to my unique skillset and healthy finances) allowed me to be an excellent asset for the company, I was not afraid to say no, to kill projects and to raise my hand to ask for a raise.
• Industry experience - this will allow you to network and find COUNTLESS of problems and business opportunities, you are learning from an industry whilst getting paid, you can do the product-market fit and find the problems whilst working
• Sometimes a highly paid knowledge worker lives better than a small business owner or a top executive - in the country I live in when you go above 60k your salary is taxed at 45%, getting beyond 100k means a lot of responsibility and not so much net money at the end of the month. Starting a business unless very successful may not be the best route to being top 1%, alternatively being a consultant or high payed knowledge worker may be the smartest thing. Being top 0.1% though requires becoming a business owner hands down, but not everyone has what it takes.
• FOCUS is key - i decided to double down on my career and ditch the 10s of side-hustles I built from 18-25 years old, all of them made some money, but unless you go full fastlane mode there's no way there's enough energy to do everything: normal job + life + fastlane business.
• Life is short - in the last year I lost two people very close to me and very young, that has radically changed my view on time and money. I could stop working when I am at 1M€, however you can always get more money, but you will never get more time.
• Chose your boss, not a company - design a career plan that allows you to enjoy the journey, I always switched jobs when I stopped learning. Interestingly enough I never applied for a job, I met people that introduced me to people, I prioritized having a boss I could learn from. The boss that cares about you is the one that can get you to the higher salaries.

Main levers to get here:

• Save over 50% of the salary, last 5 years above 75%
• Share apartments in my teens and/or get company relocation package to cover your rent
• Skill stacking, to be forever employable - in my case I was an engineer eventually working in sales and marketing for industrial businesses
• Get a promotion every 12-18 months and switch jobs every 2-3 years within the same industry
• Tax advantage when travelling outside of my home country
• A job that pays comission on performance (sales), pays for your car and lodging
• Invest when your capital starts making a difference, else keep in cash for "mental sanity" so that you don't sell at a loss - I've been investing above 5k/month for the past 3 years, if it went down 30% did not matter, I had plenty of cash in the sidelines to keep me at peace. If I invested the only 5k I had when I was 20yo, and something like covid hit, I would've never invested again. Instead when I had 100-150k cash I doubled down my investments during covid since I could live even if investments went down to 0. May not be the smartes according to science, but science cannot control my emotions and having +150k cash before starting investing built my peace of mind in tough times. 30% of my current net worth comes from my investments in the last 3 years, mainly driven by SP500 etf and blue chip dividend companies. I also dollar cost averaged 5% of my monthly savings in crypto since 2017, which is doing very good.
• Get a hobby to unwind everyday: for me it was first going to the gym (strength training), then climbing and nowadays mostly crossfit.
• Learn to say no and be careful where/who you hang out with and who you chose as a life partner

Did I enjoy life? TOTALLY, a turnaround point to enjoy life was to be OK accepting that Fastlane without a back-up plan would be a disaster, so I focused on the back-up plan first.

• I noticed early that for me the key was to:
  • 1. Build my career and finances
  • 2. Retire for 1 or 2 years at 30
  • 3. Test a few businesses risk free
  • 4. Back-up plan: high-paying job and be ok with it
• However, for the first 3-4 years I was very focused working whilst building side-hustles, that was stressful and did not help me enjoy life
• Once I doubled-down on my carreer and ditched the "wannabe entrepreneur" projects all of a sudden I had enough time to build relationships AND spend some of my money
• I took a lot of responsibility at work, but that responsibility came with the benefits of money, travelling the world and flexible work schedule

What about relationships? Seems to be an important topic around here

• I had time for those too
• Had one serious long-term relationship but two different countries got in the way
• Not a fan of one night stands anymore or sex for sex's skae
• Not settling is key, I am demanding but at the same time I know what's reasonable, it just hasn't happend or I did not want it to happen yet
• Abundance mindset is key, I believe a life partner is the most important choice and will dictate a lot of your lifestyle
• A lot "friends"/colleagues married and bought a house in their 25-30s, most of them are stuck
• My best friends are mostly still single (both men and women) and those who settled down have a stellar relationship, you can tell those are the right type relationships, until I don't find that type of connection, I will go on with my plans solo.

Any questions feel free, if you have some basic questions on personal finance, investing, career paths etc. or living in Spain for that matter... happy to help!

PS; now that I have time I hope to be more active in the forums.

MrG

 

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