We are a digital Nomad couple living In Goa, India striving to F.I.R.E by 45. We are in a unique situation where we are already living a semi-F.I.R.E lifestyle in Goa while saving up for F.I.R.E at the same time!
How did we do it?
In our late 20’s we were debt-free, owned a house without a loan. With 7+ years worth of living expenses as our safety net we decided to quit our jobs to pursue our dreams of starting our lifestyle business while living in Goa. 4 years into the business we are our own boss. Our business covers all our expenses (we still live a modest life), we work on our own terms and also have location independence.
Our Personal Journey so far (as of 2017)
- Age 36 and 34. Married. No kids yet.
- We’ve saved up 30% of our retirement target so far
- By age 45, we’ll finish saving up 100% of our retirement target & then let it compound untouched over the next 20 years
- Own a flat bought with savings & no EMI in a city where we don’t live 🙂 Although it gives us a modest rent that we SIP, I consider it a poor decision as we could have reached financial independence already by renting instead of owning.
- 3 years in Big Co IT dept: paid off student loan & credit card debt so savings rate was low: around 25%. Debt-Free so I work at Internet Startup for 6 years: Saved little over 40% of my salary!
- 3 years back, wife and I took a calculated risk to start own business when we had a savings runway of 6-7 years. 3 years later business income now covers monthly expenses and the savings rate is climbing slowly towards 50%
- Once we reach our retirement target by age 45, I may take up a job at a non-profit working for a better India at a much lower salary but only if it fully covers our already low expenses.
- We exercise 30 mins to 1 hour daily towards our Health SIP & maintain a healthy diet. We plan to be fit and healthy in our 60s when no health insurance will cover us.
- We’ll save what we can for our future child using the Rule of 72 since the child has age on their side for compounding to work until age 18. But we’ll definitely teach the child to be financially independent in their 30s itself and follow their dreams without needing money from us 🙂
Our F.I.R.E Approach & Corpus Target
Our family’s approach is similar to MMM but differs from the F.I.R.E community’s 25X & never-work-at-all approach in the following ways:
1. We plan to finish saving early for old-age retirement by age 40 and re-design our life to earn money doing work that we like until old-age of 65. That is what we recommend in Early retirement In India- Ultimate Guide and Early Retirement Calculator. This approach targets a corpus that is less than 25X since we plan to continue working.
2. We will also save up 25X annual expenses by the time we turn 45 years of age. However, we have no intention of withdrawing and living off this corpus at age 45. We plan to let it compound for another 20 years till we reach the ripe old age of 65.
3. We also do not intend to stop working after achieving at age 45. Not only that, we also plan to keep investing and grow this 25X even bigger. This means we really don’t care about the Safe Withdrawal Rate until we reach old-age of 65 by which time we will have a massive corpus courtesy of compounding. Compounding needs time. Why break the magic of compounding by living off of your corpus before you actually need it.
We started early so we have over 25 years ahead of us to save up a large old-age retirement corpus. Since we have only one life here on Earth we intend to live the life we want as early as our reasonable savings permit us. That is Early Retirement according to us.
This is our story in brief. We took calculated risks and re-invented ourselves with the safety net of savings that would have lasted for only 6-7 years. Imagine how you too can work on your dreams stress-free with the safety net of savings that’ll last for 25 years.
We are a regular couple with middle-class values. If we can do it so can you. Good luck!
Special Thanks: My wife & I are forever grateful to Mr.MoneyMustache for demonstrating that you can simply save your salary to freedom 25 years ahead of schedule!
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Some of our favourate quotes:
:Be regular and orderly in your life…so that you may be violent and original in your work.” Gustave Flaubert