After spending a few years in the corporate world, I've noticed a pattern. The people who have worked in the corporate world for a while develop a certain form of sickness. They develop a certain glazed over look in their eyes. They wake up, go to work, and do the same thing they did yesterday. Their life becomes routine. They begin to fear change. They start to fear authority, and spend most of their time trying to impress their boss and managers in hopes that they won't get fired or laid off.
Their freedom is slowly taken away from them. They are given a thick book of rules and regulations that can change at any moment, which they have to follow without question. They have to dress in a certain manner, and behave in a certain way. Even their ability to frown and express dissatisfaction about a decision is taken away from them. They are expected to take and obey orders from upper management without question, regardless of how stupid or unprofitable the ideas actually are.
Their self identity gets destroyed. They become a title. Accountant. Programmer. Network administrator. Sales rep. Customer service rep. Mechanic. Engineer. The disease slowly saps away their human side, turning them into a mindless worker. Trained to obey without question, perform without expectations, and keep their head down at all times, they are slowly degraded from a human being to a trained monkey.
The strangest part about this disease is that no one ever questions it. We're taught to slave away at our mindless jobs until we turn 65, and then pray that we've gathered enough money together to retire on. The longer people are stuck in this position, the less they seem to question it. Trading 40+ hours a week in for some extra money becomes natural. A part of life, even. You're just expected to deal with it.
What society neglects to tell people is - you have options. You don't have to work your entire life. You don't have to trade in your time for money. In fact, if you can find something that you love to do, you don't have to 'work' at all. You can just do what you love, and charge a fair price for it.
You can do this because society is setup to allow you to do this. In fact, society encourages this. People venturing out on their own encourages innovation and competition in the market place. This gives consumers better products and more choices. Investors, ironically, have a lower tax rate than most employees do, thanks to the special treatment of dividends and capital gains. Entrepreneurs get to control their own destiny, set their own hours, and decide how much money they would like to make.
What stops people from pursuing these options? Two words. "I can't". It's simply a problem of attitude. What stops you from starting your own business? Two words. What stops you from retiring early? Two words. What stops you from doing what you love? Two words. What stops you from...well, you get the idea. It's all about attitude.
The truth is, you can retire early if you want to. You can start your own business if you want to. You can do what you love. You don't have to be part of the rat race if you don't want to. In fact, I'm going to make a bold statement here. Any average person in America can retire in ten years or less. If they want to. In fact, you don't even need any special skills or abilities to do this. And it only involves two simple steps.
First, adopt a frugal lifestyle. Second, invest your excess cash and resources into passive income streams. Do this for a while, and you'll inevitably find yourself in position to retire. The length of time it takes depends on how well you can make money, reduce your expenses, and invest your excess resources.
To exemplify this point, let's run some scenarios. The US stock market has returned an average of a little over 10% per year since its inception. The median household income in the United States in 2005 was $44,389 USD. With a frugal lifestyle a couple can easily live off of $1000.00 per month. This leaves around $2,000.00 USD per month after taxes which can be invested in a low cost total stock market index fund. Assuming a return of ten percent per year, you get the following chart over a ten year period.
| Year | Account Balance |
| 1 | $24,000.00 |
| 2 | $50,400.00 |
| 3 | $79,440.00 |
| 4 | $111,384.00 |
| 5 | $146,522.40 |
| 6 | $185,174.64 |
| 7 | $227,692.10 |
| 8 | $274,461.31 |
| 9 | $325,907.44 |
| 10 | $382,498.19 |
At the end of 10 years it should be safe to withdraw 4% of your portfolio per year without causing your overall portfolio results to go negative when you take into account the effects of inflation (~3%). This will give you roughly $15,300.00 USD per year to live off of, which equates to $1275.00 /month - $275.00 dollars more than the monthly living expenses in this scenario.
Now let's consider a different scenario. Let's say that you went to college, graduated, and got a nice job making $70,000 a year. You then spent a decade living with your parents and putting the majority of your after tax money ($48,000 /year) into investments. Assuming the historical average stock market return of 10% per year continues to hold true, the growth of your account would play out something like this.
| Year | Account Balance |
| 1 | $48,000.00 |
| 2 | $100,800.00 |
| 3 | $153,600.00 |
| 4 | $216,960.00 |
| 5 | $286,656.00 |
| 6 | $363,321.60 |
| 7 | $447,653.76 |
| 8 | $540,419.14 |
| 9 | $642,461.05 |
| 10 | $754,707.16 |
If you then took out 4% per year you could make $30,000 /year just from your investments. Not a bad salary for someone who is jobless.
Financial freedom can definitely be accomplished - in a lot less time than most people imagine. If you're self employed or enjoy a high salary, it's even easier to accomplish. All it requires is a frugal lifestyle, an investor's mindset, and patience. Lot's and lot's of patience.