How to become a billionaire and retire at age 31

I wake up at a fixed time every day, go to work, work without holidays, and enjoy a short vacation. There will be many people who feel irritated with this routine. In recent years, the FIRE movement, which aims to save money when young and retire early, is becoming active. A young man named Kristy Shen, who was born in a poor Chinese village and raised 1 billion won to retire at age 31, tells about her life.

He was born in a poor province in China and moved to Canada with his parents at the age of 8. Parents had to work in Canada and send money to the rest of their families living in China. Shen refused when his father tried to buy a cheap teddy bear as a child and told him to remit the money to China. When he was mature, he gave up his dream of becoming a writer and decided to become a computer engineer after considering what would be the best college course for future moneymaking and tuition. He also married a colleague who worked as a computer engineer. This is to promote consensus on which one will be the best mathematical suggestion when a disagreement occurs at home.

In 2012, he calculated that within three years, two people could retire in their thirties with a fortune of $1 million. The wife refuted that this could not be the case, but in fact, three years later, the couple could retire at the cash register.

These two cases speak of the recent fire movement. FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) means economic independence and early retirement. As of 2019, the couple are enjoying retirement at the ages of 36 and 37. The couple quit their jobs and travel around the world, including England, Portugal and Thailand. How they retired early was posted on a blog called Millennial Revolution and gained popularity.

When these couples went on a trip, their family and friends thought they would be penniless and return. However, the couple’s travel costs were cheaper than spending a year in a Toronto home. As the investment portfolio also grew, I had more assets than before.

For early retirement, the couple started by depositing a down payment for their home purchase. He steadily raised money, but as home prices rose, he eventually succeeded in saving 500,000 dollars after 7 years of effort. Savings for nine years, investing $200,000 at low risk, succeeded in early retirement.

There is a 4% rule for fire movement. This defines 25 times the annual expenditure as the funds required for retirement. The annual expenditure of the two was 40,000 Canadian dollars, so 25 times the annual expenditure is 1 million dollars. They didn’t endure everything. Transportation, house, and food were three targets for saving. They monitored their behavior to identify savings, avoid eating out, and use public transport and vehicle sharing. To cut down on rent, he took a house away from the downtown area.

They are managing their assets in ETFs, or listed index funds, at low cost. It’s about preparing for something in the future. They say they created a safety net because they were extremely pessimistic.

Shen was born in a village in Sichuan, and since childhood he has thought that if there is no money, the government gives nothing and there is no safety net. I have been told by parents since childhood that money is the most important thing in the world. His father moved to Canada as a student after Shen was born and spent 10 years in a migrant worker accommodation facility. Two years later, Shen and her mother moved to Canada. My father, who earned money by cleaning dishes as a part-time job, continued to send money to China. Shen, who spent her childhood in China, experienced poverty and basically lives in a four-walled house and thinks that having parents and food is enriching.

He also says it is a privilege not to be motivated by money. These people are people who have never experienced poverty, and they don’t think of early retirement without experience as a child.

She feels happy after retirement, but she is free from anxiety and depression while working. He was even diagnosed as feeling unpleasantly happy by the doctor. When asked about his chances of returning as an engineer, he says he will not be able to work as an employee, and frankly, he says he is too open-minded to follow the rules and is unlikely to go back. Related information can be found here .