How To Escape Wage Slavery (real steps)

[Consept]

Hey guys, I wanted to drop this post as i see a lot of people asking about this topic and rightly so as its so foundational for life, whether you want to free up time to work on spirituality or just be able to live life and have different experiences without constantly worrying about survival. A disclaimer of course is that it wont solve all of your problems but it will at least handle one side. This is advice i wish i had known when i was young, if i had followed it id probably be retired or very much nearly on my way to being at my age which is 36. Having said that i have learnt so much first hand and you know it is what it is. 

So first of all we have to look at a realistic time scale, assuming you're young lets say 21 this gives you some time to save and invest. To do this of course you need some income, so the first step is and im sorry, be a wage slave lol. This will be a temporary measure but essentially you need enough to cover bills and put money aside, obviously the more sacrifices you make at this point the less time you will have to be a wage slave, so this means staying at your parents house or very cheap accommodation. Getting out of a 'consumer mindset', dont just consume and spend all your money keeping up with trends and the latest stuff, do you need the iphone 12 do you need that surface pro computer when you dont even need it to draw, learn how to cook or eat your mums delicious (maybe) home cooking. 

While doing your wage slave shit, look for side hustles, this can be stuff like selling on Amazon, freelancing on Fiverr, learning new skills that are in demand like coding for Alexa. Read books on finance and business that interest you, subscribe to youtube channels that give out this advice. You should eventually stumble upon something that will boost your income and allow you to put aside more and potentially work less. 

Now the fun part! Im going to lay out some scenarios based on how much you can save per month and what that will equal over a period of time. Im going to use an example of investing in ETFS and Equity funds on a monthly, dollar cost averaging basis, which means that you put money in every month regardless of whether it goes up or down, this lowers the risk. Also these funds are highly diversified which again lowers risk. You can of course invest in more riskier options but i want to lay out a way that anyone can achieve this if they take the right steps. So im using numbers from Vanguard UK as this is what i use so i have access to the performance over the last however many years. Vanguard is good though as fees are pretty low and its very simple to get started, its also tax free as you can get an ISA or Roth IRA or whatever there is in your country.

OK so the numbers are based on an average of 13.5% over the last 9 years for an actual fund, in reality it could be more than this, it also of course could be less but generally youd get an average of around 10%. 

If you start with 500 (can be £ or $ you can change to your countrys currency) and invest 500 every month for 10 years at an average rate of 13.5% you would have contributed 60k and will gain interest of 61,355 giving you a total of 121,355. If you extend this to 20 years you would have contributed 120k and will have a total of 552.4k, as in over half a million. If you chose to just live off the interest you could make 14k a year after 10 years keeping the principal, probably not enough but not terrible. After 20 years though we'd be talking 65k per year in interest, the average salary in the USA is around 70k, so essentially this is the point where youd escape wage slavery. 

Want to get there faster? Lets say youre able to put in 1k every month in 10 years 243k and 20 years would equal 1.1 million, crazy numbers right?? The interest youd get per year after 20 years would be 130k nearly double the average wage, youd hit the average wage at around the 16th year.

Remember this could just be the average of what you could put every month, so you could start off with 100 and then 5 years later you can do 500 etc. So dont worry too much if you can only do 100 or less to start. But even if you just do 100 a month youd still get 24k over 10 years and 110k over 20 years. Maybe not enough to retire but enough to invest in other ideas or whatever you want to do. 

So theres 2 options really either wait 20 years and then live off the interest if you can put enough away or take the lump sum at the end and invest in different things that may give a better return, property, a business, whatever works for you, if you can get a better return than the 13.5%, in theory it makes sense. The thing about this method is that you can waste whatever time trying to get out yourself, 10 or 20 years may seem like a long time but it does go quite quick and whatever you do in that time its not a given that you will escape wage slavery, most dont. If youre young the key thing is that you have time on your side and whether youre able to put in a little or a lot it can help you significantly in the future, at least a lot more than not doing it. Not only that its not really going to stop you from doing what you want, it just puts a cap on how long youve got to grind it out for. If you are 20 years old now and you can escape by the time youre 40 you will be in a position that very, very few will ever be in. 

Anyway the disclaimer is that this isnt financial advice and youre money can go up as well as down, do your own research and verify what im saying, wish you all the best in life. 

 

 

 

 

[Hello from Russia]

Hey man, nice post!

All due respect, but I feel like this strategy is "thinking way too small".

IMO, getting to $1m in 20 years is kinda peanuts, not mentioning opportunity costs of living frugal life (you'll eat worse diet, live in less eco-friendly environments, you'll wear chemically toxic poor quality clothing, will damage your feet through poor shoes, get other many chronic diseases, etc) - this is impossible to escape on a low budget

It looks like a much more stable and fun strategy is to invest in yourself, not funds, train yourself/learn stuff immensely and get money through creating good shit for the world

The strategy you outlined have merits too, though, just probably not for everyone (imo)

Edited September 9, 2021 by Hello from Russia

[Consept]

Just now, Hello from Russia said:

Hey man, all due respect, but I feel like this strategy is "thinking way too small". Getting to $1m in 20 years is really peanuts, not even mentioning opportunity costs of living frugal life (you'll eat worse foods, live in less eco-friendly environments, you'll wear chemically toxic poor quality clothing, etc)

It looks like a much more stable and fun strategy is to invest in yourself, not funds, train yourself/learn stuff immensely and get money through creating good shit for the world

The strategy you outlined have merits too, though, probably not for everyone

Fair comment, of course its not for everyone, i did mention you should learn new skills, this doesnt have to be just financially based you could learn new skills that help people. Im also not saying you have to be crazy frugal, im just saying put something aside every month, this doesnt even need to be your focus its just something going on in the background. As you progress and earn more you can start eating better, even if you only invest in yourself this will still be the case, your investment in yourself can also take a long time to pay off, think of this more as an insurance policy that can also let you invest more in yourself in the long run. 

Over 20 years a million might be peanuts as you say but keep in mind only between 3.5% and 6.5% of the current US population are in fact millionaires currently. It also becomes even more difficult when you adjust for education and race for example the average person with a high school diploma only has around a 5% chance of achieving this, if youre black its only 1% and it only goes up to 6% if you have a masters which is crazy low compared to white people with a masters which is 38%. Also keep in mind this is just in the US which has one of the highest average salaries in the world, good luck if youre born in South America, Africa or Asia. 

So im not saying you cant hack the system and invest in yourself and then create massive value to the world while making money, that can even be your plan A but this is a very stable plan b that if works will leave you completely free for a large chunk of your life, if youre able to live off the interest. Then you can invest more than you ever could in yourself.