MrG
Contributor
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- Jan 19, 2015
- 30
- 26
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:
PS; now that I have time I hope to be more active in the forums.
MrG
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
- 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.
- 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
- 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
- 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.
PS; now that I have time I hope to be more active in the forums.
MrG
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