That depends on what you're counting. Do I include 401k/IRA accounts even though I'm not able to access those easily for another 25 years?
When we turned 30, my wife and I had 10+ years of expenses saved up in accessible form -- specifically because we had plans to buy a house and wanted liquid cash for when the bubble burst (my friend Tim Ellis ran the popular "Seattle Bubble" real estate blog, which gave us a heads up about that.) We actually did buy the house -- we paid cash to my parents to move them into a new and completely paid off place, and took over their older, larger, less wheelchair-friendly house. But that killed our flexibility; we're down to a year and a half of expenses in easily available form. On the plus side, our post-tax income is over 4 times our baseline expenses, so now that the singularly expensive house-buying event has passed we can go back to saving.
There's an additional ~15 years of expenses in retirement accounts. We should hit age 40 in pretty good shape -- a paid off house and a couple decades of runway.
You may have seen my comments in other HN discussions about living in lower cost of living cities that still have decent tech scenes. Consider this exhibit A: the fully customized wheelchair-accessible 1600 sq.ft. condo I bought for my parents (in trade for their house) didn't break six figures. My sister bought a smaller condo in the same complex for under $40k. Literally, buying outright in their neighborhood is comparable to paying rent for a year or two on similar places in or near SF.
You can live a lot more luxurious than they do and still come out way ahead financially, and be ready to retire at 45 or 50, making an ordinary developer salary and not taking any unusual risks. You can make low six figures in Colorado or Texas or Georgia, pay off your house in 5 years, and have a family living on 25% of your take-home pay from there on out. It's not the right choice for everyone, but it's the right choice for some people -- find a place you love to live with low expenses, and you create a lot of flexibility and open up a lot of possibilities you wouldn't otherwise have.
> You can live a lot more luxurious than they do and still come out way ahead financially, and be ready to retire at 45 or 50, making an ordinary developer salary and not taking any unusual risks. You can make low six figures in Colorado or Texas or Georgia, pay off your house in 5 years, and have a family living on 25% of your take-home pay from there on out. It's not the right choice for everyone, but it's the right choice for some people -- find a place you love to live with low expenses, and you create a lot of flexibility and open up a lot of possibilities you wouldn't otherwise have.
I can't second this enough. I'm moving from Chicago (high cost of living) to Tampa, FL. Real estate is roughly 40% cheaper, and I can work remotely, paying off our new place in 3-5 years (we're ~30). It'll allow me to spend a lot more time with kids we plan on having soon.
When we turned 30, my wife and I had 10+ years of expenses saved up in accessible form -- specifically because we had plans to buy a house and wanted liquid cash for when the bubble burst (my friend Tim Ellis ran the popular "Seattle Bubble" real estate blog, which gave us a heads up about that.) We actually did buy the house -- we paid cash to my parents to move them into a new and completely paid off place, and took over their older, larger, less wheelchair-friendly house. But that killed our flexibility; we're down to a year and a half of expenses in easily available form. On the plus side, our post-tax income is over 4 times our baseline expenses, so now that the singularly expensive house-buying event has passed we can go back to saving.
There's an additional ~15 years of expenses in retirement accounts. We should hit age 40 in pretty good shape -- a paid off house and a couple decades of runway.