I assume you're wondering "how much does one need to FIRE", it depends from person to person based on their needs in life, I made a simple calculator based on the Trinity Study/FIRE movement on my hobby website simplyfreely.com/tools/financial-independence-retire-early-calculator where you can check your numbers. I highly recommend watching the video at specific timestamps to get the idea if you're not interested in my story (no hard feelings). Best of luck.

hey there, so I'm not sure how far you got into the video, but as I've discussed in the video, this definition of "financial freedom/independence" is based on the Trinity Study/FIRE movement, where a certain % of my portfolio is enough cover the cost of _my_ expenses. You're absolutely correct in that everyone one's "lifestyle" is vastly different, which I also talked about in the video, but as per my channel and content, I'm more of a simple guy with simple needs. Hope that answers your question :)

hey there, great questions! Someone else recently asked me a similar question about my gym and nutrition, soI'll definitely do a video on that one day :). As for groceries, I almost always only buy things that on sale for the week, and bulk buy things when they are on sale (like meat, and freeze them, or things that last like rice). I actually made a video last year about how I save on groceries (I should probably do a "refreshed" one on that topic sometime).

hey Prabhu, thanks for your comment, glad you enjoy them :)

Hey there, I was working towards reaching financial freedom (FIRE) prior to burnout, but it turned out that the burnout was a trigger for me to pull the trigger early. I’ll be talking more about it on this channel :)

couldn't agree more, have to protect that inner peace at all cost!

I think the "working with people" part still traumatizes me, I actually applied to several of them a few years back. For now I'm enjoying what I'm doing (making youtube videos, building tools for people etc.), so I'll just keep on swimming :)

Thanks, happy lunar new year to you too!

haha FIRE-ception?

That's really cool, it sounds like we share a lot in common! Sometimes I wonder if this "fried chicken issue" is a gift or a curse, or if I would rather live a life on the other side of this "spectrum". Do you sometimes wish you have less of this fear or financial insecurity or are you grateful for it and just learning to find the right balance?

@@andrewxu My younger self felt bad about being poor and not having what my friends had in terms of material things. I think I also related wealth and success to being a "good person" somehow. So my family being poor, made me feel that we were less "good". I don't think that way anymore. Especially with the recent US political scene that clearly shows wealthy people are not always good people. So I am grateful for my past experiences and it allowed me to have more perspective. I have the skills to 'stretch the dollar' if I really needed to. So I think its more of a gift. Makes me feel better if I think of it as a super power, and I just need to get better at controlling it.🤭

hey Conor, glad you enjoy this new style I'm trying out! Honestly, your future self will thank you for starting your FIRE journey at such a early age! A part of me wish I had only started earlier, but that's life, the journey is never linear and it's all about learning :) As for balancing the amount of money in retirement accounts, I'm from Canada so my knowledge of the US is rather limited. This is not financial advice, but I always maximize my tax-advantaged accounts (like retirement/tax-free accounts) first to let the growth compound in an tax advantaged environment, and then put whatever money I have left into non-registered/taxable accounts. Unlike the US, in Canada our retirement account (RRSP) actually does not have any additional penalties withdrawing early (other than just paying income tax on the amount withdrawn), which made it much easier to plan in my case. I should learn more about the US side of things sometime, I find it very interesting, but currently learning about the Netherlands side of things (as I'm planning to move there). I know there's another strategy called "Roth Conversion Ladder", so look into that. But I think if I did live in the US, I'd definitely set up a system in which can provide me a source of income to bridge the time for when I would "early retire" until when I can withdraw (without penalties) from retirement accounts. However, this quickly turns into a game of hyper-optimization and "guessing" when you'd retire, how much you will need then (which changes & hard to guess as I've learned), and how long you will live (life expectancy), so try not to get too deep into this game and remember to live a little 🙂, especially in your 20's and it'll go by in a blink of an eye. I think you're already doing great at such a young age to pay so much attention to your finances, and you're already doing all the right things (filling up your tax-advantaged accounts, mega backdoor ROTH conversion etc.), just keep doing what you're doing, so happy for you man!

my tribe ❤️

very well put! it's like this vicious cycle...🤷🏻‍♂️

Yup, it’s really hard to realize the cycle and get out when you are stuck in the cycle and surrounded by everyone else perpetuating the cycle. If it took a person decades to get to that point, it’ll take a long time to get out and break the habits of constant consuming. I’m glad you share your simple life style to inspire others like me to strive for something different as well.

oh they are not tough at all, super delicious and nutrient packed. I try not to waste food, you should give it a try next time ☺️

at a full time professional job capacity, about 10 years or so, but I've been working much longer before that with several part time jobs at a time, even during university day 😅

Also incredibly relatable story I will come back to from time to time, my screen time is beyond belief, as I’m rising it here by watching this, I feel like even at work I can’t disconnect and have to have a podcast, music, KZbin, sport stream playing 24/7 while I’m in the office with my headphones on, I haven’t been going out and do too get drawn into the simplicity of home and consumption of online

hey there, that's awesome! love to hear that you're following what lifestyle you desire and not blindly chase after what everyone else is doing. keep going :)

That's a great starting point, I'm looking forward to sharing more on how it works!

Where did you move to now?

@@andrewxu We live in France now. It was getting to crowdy in the Netherlands

Je venais en vacances dans une famille depuis les années 70

hey that's a great idea! I will look into making an email in the near future :)

hey Steven, happy to hear you got something out of my journey and videos! :)

It must have been the name then 🤣, Earl has been very healthy this year! Merry Christmas to you too!

Thanks David! Merry Christmas!

as a software engineer over 10 years, but I've been working many different jobs before then prior to graduating, at its peak I had 3 jobs while doing school...i grinded quite hard when I was young. I'd say if you have the financial means to do so, you should at least take a sabbatical and explore the world or do something you always wanted to do. Life is short, don't forget to live a little if you can!

my partner lives there, so I split my time currently going back and forth between Canada and the Netherlands :)

@@andrewxuhow did you meet across the world? Online?

Hey Ezra, thank you! Good luck to you in finding your balance too 🙂

Hey there! I also find context switching hard, and I think it's one of the toughest thing in tech that often people (non-tech) underestimate. Every time I jump back into code or problem I have to spend a good chunk of time to "reload" (at seemingly dial-up speed) the whole context, problem, logic path/branches. I do hope you get to carve out some time to do all that you want/love though! Life is short, make it happen 🙂

hey Nelson, when I quit my job, I didn't hit my goal yet so back then it was a rather risky lean FIRE, but the market has done well on average in the last few years since I've quit working (with the exception of 2022, which was a bear market which did worry me a bit), but now I'm in the "normal" FIRE range, but I still live like a broke student, lean and mean. I'll talk more about this when I share my story of unexpected FIRE journey :). How about you? where are you at in your journey and what's your ideal FIRE style?

I definitely need more of that attitude and remind myself "nothing bad will happen", going to touch some grass right now 🤣

He probably built up a pile of money working in a low tax jurisdiction over a couple of years....

hey there, to clarify, this is not my home in the NL, it's my partner's place. Mine is back in Canada. I can't speak for others (on how they've achieved what they achieved), but long story short I was able to quit and sustain a living because I'm *insanely frugal* and worked hard, saved aggressively and invested. Zero help from parents, more so the other away around :)

@@andrewxu i see but i assumed youre in ur 20s how can u build this much wealth, but if u dont pay for the rent then thats pretty doable because almost 50% of monthly income goes to that or more. and i dont understand what ppl mean with investing 🥲 they never go in depth with that.

all good, I'm actually in my mid 30's 🙂. While I don't plan on turning my channel into a "investment resource", instead I like to share my journey and learnings, so perhaps in the future I'll touch upon the topic of financial independence and more specifically how I achieved it. If you want to learn about investing there are some really great resources here on youtube, I recommend checking out The Plain Bagel and Ben Felix. Hope that helps.

@@andrewxu ah mid 30s yeah this makes more sense now haha. Thx I'll look into it.

that's a great quote! thanks for that!

glad you enjoyed it!