Disclaimer:
The following text is really long, opinionated, biased with privilege and very inaccurate or at least optimistic. This is a way how I deal with my struggle with work and I am leaving this here for someone that likes to read about it. Maybe some of you find it useful. I know, that everybody’s circumstance is different and some struggle more than others. You may not agree with me and I understand that. Than I hope, at least the text was bearable to read.
System of Exploitation
How does it feel for you guys to be exploited by the different Entities in the System? To become indebted to study for example? To be treated like garbage by your employer? To be forced to work a job you do not want to work in, to be able to afford your survival? There are certainly more kinds how you can feel exploited and everybody might feel different about it.On the other hand – how does it feel to be kind of forced to be part and even benefactor of this exploitation? I live in Germany. It is among the wealthiest Countries in the world. I know I was born in very privileged conditions from a global point of view. To know, that most products I can afford are part of global exploitation is very depressing to me. I try to live around these things in some ways but it is actually not that easy and obviously conflicts with your own life quality of which most people probably care a bit more than about others.
Working for affording life, not feeling accomplished
On top of it is of course the problem that most of us are forced to work a job they had to choose just to survive. Sometimes you may even like what you are doing in general, but the work culture, stress deadlines, extrinsic motivators or the sheer time you spend on your job destroy this pleasure (in my case at least) taking most of your energy away from your life when you are not working. Therefore I am wondering, and a lot of you probably too since you spend time on this sub, if I can improve this situation in some way. First you probably do is finding a new job if you are able to, earning more, having a better work environment, getting more appreciation for your work. This might make the situation more bearable for you or me but I still feel kind of trapped and I don’t like this. Therefore I got myself into learning personal finance and investing.
Playing the Game you are Part of anyway
But why should this improve my Situation? Well for now, it probably is going to take time. First things you learn doing personal finance is having an overview (after possibly optimizing) your expenses, having an emergency fund and getting rid of high debt (by optimizing point one ideally).
But what I learned is, that investing is mostly an opportunity, to make the situation better for your future self, since it takes time. How did Musk, Bezos and Co. become Billionaires? Not just through optimizing their Companies for Growth (not to everybody’s benefit) but also through the Stock Prices of these Companies. This is the Cherry on top, that pushes their wealth to absurdities. Having a Billion dollars in the Market should historically mean, that each year 90.000.000$ are added on that Value on average. This feels very unfair and probably is the reason how they get richer and richer. But this is not the point. The same principle applies to us. Having 10.000$ in the market, you get 900$ more each year on average. Obviously it is not enough to pay for your life and I also didn’t factor in inflation, sure – but 900$ could finance a big Chunk of your hobby. From a cynical point of view it could also compensate for the not happening raise by your boss.
Depending on your Situation this might still be impossible to achieve but therefore I set such a low Example since you would not need much to achieve that.
If you got just 25 bucks each month to invest, you can end up with about 10.000$ after 17 years this way. Sounds long? If you are in your 20s right now you are going to have to work at least 20 more years. 20 years to have a hobby fund that could grow to 100.000 if you leave it alone until year 40.
No you cannot retire from a 100k not even adjusted to inflation. But it could give you more wiggleroom to find work that fulfils you more but pays less for example. To be able to afford stuff you could otherwise not afford. It could be just 25 bucks.
On the other hand, if you have that option or privilege to earn enough for it – depending on your spending, being able to stop working, might mean even less investment than you may expect.
With 10% of your income, you could be able to retire in about 35 years without the need to change the lifestyle with a very high statistical probability for the rest of your lives.
The concept I am referring to is called “FIRE” – Financially independent (retire early) in my opinion the last part is not that important. The way to the goal is already a way, to give your worklife balance a little more flexibility. And hopefully some extra happiness.
References
I leave some references here, if you want to read some more about the topic after this novel.
r/fire r/EuropeFire . – The subreddits to the fire movement. r/fire is more US-oriented mostly. Both have a wiki with more resources on the topic
https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/02/22/getting-rich-from-zero-to-hero-in-one-blog-post/ the best blog about personal finance (but mostly fire) in general in my opinion
A retirement Calculator based on the underlining Math and Science of the FIRE Principle https://networthify.com/