If you had the money to retire at 30, your savings would be invested and on an average year your earnings would cover your expenses. You would have health insurance, so no worries there. The only catch is that you would have to keep your expenses at 65% of what you spend right now. Would you take it, or would you rather work a few more years for a better lifestyle and financial security?
The founder of Myspace retired in early thirty’s after selling his company for $80 million. He travels the world and does photography. People who say they will be bored if they retire aren’t being creative enough to think of doing something else.
Living on $80 million is not living frugally. Living frugally severely limits your hobbies and travel.
You can do a lot on a frugal budget
What does that mean? You said 65% of current earnings in the OP. Most people couldn’t pursue any significant hobbies or interests on that level of income.
65% of your spendings, addmittedly this question is mostly relevant to people that spend at least a somewhat above the median, where they can reduce their lifestyle by 35% and still live, just frugally.
I’m not sure what you mean by significant hobbies, but personally with the exception of one, all of my hobbies are cheap/free.
Sure, fine, whatever. You do you.
I think there are very few people who could spend 40 years painting warhammer figurines and call that a rewarding satisfying life.
Why are you so skeptical? I could spend 40 years doing:
There is so much more to life than work and paid services.
And yes, this is a privileged position, but that doesn’t make it wrong.
I guess I have a different understanding of frugal. For me, you can be rich and yet frugal, only spending money on the needs and occasional wants. Some people don’t even show that they’re net worth increased. I forgot the name of the person, but he worked as a janitor throughout his life. When he passed away, to his family’s utter surprise, he left $8 million from his investment account to his family. The guy could have cashed in the investment profits and lived lavishly but he didn’t.
In this hypothetical circumstance described by OP, you don’t have $80m on which to live frugally travelling the world pursuing your interest in photography.
For most people, living on 65% of their current earnings would mean a serious curtailment of their current activities. A subsistence if you will.
Besides which, most hobbies aren’t really satisfying in a way that can nourish the soul, certainly not the ones you can do at home for little or no cost anyway.