My story: I did what you are “supposed to do” – I went to college and grad school and spent a zillion dollars (ok, actually around $200K) getting a professional degree. I graduated and hated every minute of my career once I got out of school. I then spent the next 7 years digging myself out of that debt hole, while starting a family and buying a house and paying off all debt. I left the horrid career field right before COVID hit and never looked back. I work part time now in an easy WFH job that I like for a tenth of the pay and love the lack of stress and being able to essentially be a WFH/SAHM for my kids. I feel like my career years were the “accumulation years” (we were able to save up a decent nest egg, although nowhere near the $1.4 million or or similar ridiculous number that a financial advisor would recommend to “retire”, and our house will be paid off in the next decade).
I'm looking at right now as the “treading water years”, where we keep what we have and make just enough to live frugally but also enjoy our relative youth and good health. I am going to be 40 soon, and I honestly don't see the point of working at the grindstone to “retirement age” to amass a huge sum of money that I would be too old to enjoy. I feel like the current system as it exists is a massive scam (“Just as soon as you save up a million dollars investing in private companies via your company’s 401K plan, you can retire, plebe”). Maybe social security will fall apart and I’ll end up at age 75 living with my kids and eating cold beans out of a can… but I’d rather be doing that when I’m old, infirm and can’t climb mountains anyway, than wasting my entire life in corporate hell. For me, real financial freedom isn’t necessarily never needing to work again; it’s taking a year off, because I can. It’s telling my boss to go to hell. It’s never again having to work anywhere I don’t specifically want to. It’s liberation of the mind.