There are certain things that most people have in common like most of us
like pizza and most people can't stand those who talk while watching a movie
well another commonality we tend to have is the desire to retire early in fact i
would go as far as saying that just about everyone wants to retire early but
unfortunately many people don't know how to go about doing so well you're in luck
because today i'm gonna be breaking down exactly how i plan to retire early by
investing in index funds so that in a few years i could be sipping drinks on
the beach in mexico which honestly i must achieve because right now i'm
looking extremely pale okay so just a few seconds ago i made a pretty bold
claim that just about everyone wants to retire early and i stand by this comment
with the same level of confidence as when i said that just about everyone
loves pizza even though that may just be my italian ruth speaking on my behalf
fortunately as a cpa i love numbers and i actually have the data to support my
claim that if given the option most people will be thrilled to leave their
jobs and move into their post-employment life in fact one particular study i
recently came across really drove home this point so let me share it with you
now a 2021 gallup study showed that less than 50 of people are completely
satisfied with their jobs meaning that a lot of people are working positions that
aren't exactly making it any easier for them to get up when their annoying
alarms clocks go off in the morning now while i love numbers i also love
anecdotal stories which is why whenever i meet someone new i always ask them if
they love what they do for a living now for all my guys out there i wouldn't
lead with this question on a date but from asking this question to new
acquaintances i've come to realize that most people are at best tolerating their
jobs and very few find true fulfillment in them if you ask me this is a shame
because how we spend our time shouldn't strictly be dictated by the amounts of
bills we need to pay if i'm being 100 transparent there are about a thousand
things i would rather do every day than work which include invaluable activities
like spending time with my aging parents or further strengthening my
relationships with my friends not to mention if you can reach the point of
early retirement you'll not only realize a life of less financial stress but will
also open up a whole new world of opportunities to spend your time however
you want which is one of the biggest luxuries we give up when still working
within the nine to five world this is all to say that the goal of early
retirement is worth your effort which is why i myself have been steadily pursuing
leaving the working world early for the last number of years now while my
earlier years i hitched my dreams of early retirement on my good looks and
frugal practices i've come to learn two things first based on my online dating
results it may not be as handsome as i initially thought second while savings
is important it's definitely not the fast-tracked early retirement that i
thought it would be in fact if i were to analogize saving for retirement is like
entering a race on horseback while investing is like showing up to the race
in lewis hamilton's f1 mercedes one it's gonna get to the finish line much
quicker than the other now once i had this epiphany the next step was to
determine how to actually go about investing my money i feel confident in
saying that there has never been more assets to choose from in the present day
for instance you can now invest in digital assets in the metaverse or buy
and sell pictures of apes this is all to say that the investing landscape that
our parents live through is far gone which also makes determining where to
park our money all the more confusing now i'm not sure if it's just because
i'm lazy or because the numbers speak for themselves but the investing
approach that really resonated with me was to invest in passive index funds to
help grow my wealth over time however like using tinder there are many options
to choose from when selecting etfs to invest in and one of my favorite
criteria for selecting a winning etf is a company that manages it this is why
i've always had an affinity for vanguard because its founder jack bogle puts his
investors first and actively seeks out ways to offer investors the most
economical means of realizing wealth building returns rather than gouging
them like many other investment companies do now even by narrowing down
which etfs to invest into vanguard funds alone the company still offers tons of
different assets to choose from but the one that i have hitched my early
retirement dreams on is the vanguard s p 500 etf otherwise known as the vo if
you're unfamiliar the vo is a fund that invests in the stocks of some of the
largest companies within the united states such as apple microsoft google
amazon and tesla now one of the reasons i like this fund in particular is that
it has a nice distribution of stocks amongst many different sectors with at
least 10 of its holdings in consumer goods financial services health care and
tech this means that if one sector experiences a slowdown or a crash the
other holdings can help prop up the fund and keep your investments in a healthy
position however as a cpa i like to dive deeper into the numbers and the two
figures that i tend to gravitate towards are a fund's historical performance and
its expense ratio now just to be clear just because a fund has performed well
in the past does not mean that it will perform well in the future however if
i've learned anything in my 30 years on earth it's that winners win and losers
lose and knowing which funds have performed well in the past is still
valuable information to possess as such since its inception the vo has provided
its investors with an average annual return of over 15 percent and while this
is much lower than the astronomical returns many cryptocurrencies have
experienced over the last year this fund won't have you waking up in the middle
of the night in cold sweats worried that your crypto wallet was broken into or
that the coin was banned in some far off country as for the fees well they are
extremely low and jack bogle meant for it to be this way with an expense ratio
of this 0.03 percent you'll be handing over a measly three dollars for every 10
000 invested which is a bargain if you ask me in fact if minimizing fees is
part of your investing strategy too make sure that you generally tap that like
button below so i can see where all my wise investors are at therefore between
stellar returns and low fees using the vo as my means of investing towards
early retirement was honestly a no-brainer speaking of no-brainers once
i knew i wanted to invest in the vo to support my nine-to-five escape plan the
next step was to ensure that i invested consistently into this great wealth
building vehicle now i'll be the first to admit that i can be rather forgetful
but luckily i'm also self-aware and by knowing how easily things can slip off
my plate i decided to set up an automated system to invest into the vo
every single week by setting up automated investment contributions i can
send money right from my bank into my investment account and purchase more vo
every single week effectively what i'm doing is dollar cost averaging into this
particular asset by buying it when it's high and when it's low and i like this
because either way i win if i buy when it's low i feel like i'm getting a great
deal and when i buy when it's high i'm usually in a good mood anyways because
my portfolio is rising in value this is akin to the proverbial saying having
your cake and eating it too and as a former fat kid this is definitely
something i can get behind now i know some of you don't have an investing
system set up yet and that's a problem fortunately i've got a solution and it's
brought to you in part by today's video sponsor moomoo so moomoo wants to get
your investing journey off on the right foot and they're doing this by offering
new users an amazing limited time offer right now all new users can deposit just
one dollar and get up to six free stocks and get up to ten free stocks if you
deposit two thousand dollars or more then once you're signed up you can trade
commission free if you're u.s resident and are trading in u.s markets and this
also relates to the etfs we've been talking about so far in this video
personally i like moomoo because of its amazing analytical tools and in-depth
real-time data and i found that all these tools have been helping me make
much more educated investing decisions not to mention if you do have issues
setting up a winning investing system of your own moomoo has 24 7 customer
support that can help you along the way so as such make sure you pause this
video and get your free stocks today using the link i've left down below in
this video's description i mean it's basically free money so you might as
well give it a try up until this point i've talked up this particular etf quite
a bit and while it definitely is an asset i'm confident you can use to build
your wealth over time it's definitely not a quick fix what i mean by this is
that you get it what you put in and i mean this in the literal and figurative
sense how much a ctf or any investment can aid in your wealth building journey
comes down to how much you actually invest into it in the first place for
instance if you can only manage to invest 50 a month into the vo then you
can expect to retire in a few years let alone a few decades on this type of
effort if we peel back the layers the success of any investment is twofold and
relies on both your investments and the returns of the fund as already mentioned
the vo has done its part in offering great average annual returns but the
question is are you doing your part i came to realize my own deficiencies when
i mount my desired retirement timeline to how much it was stashing away into my
investments every month and let me tell you this was quite the eye opening
experience when i really dove into the numbers i realized that my ongoing
investment of roughly 200 a month was simply never going to offer me the early
retirement i wanted in fact based on the average historical market return of 7
this 200 monthly investment would yield me just over 500 000 in 40 years time
which i'm guessing in four decades from now will be able to buy you two movie
tickets and maybe a bag of popcorn if you're lucky as such once i had this
stark realization i had to start figuring out ways to increase my monthly
investments and of course i spent striving to make more money however the
question i had to ask myself was how much extra money did i need to make to
help facilitate my early retirement dreams well given that i had this
realization at 25 and wanted to retire at 40 i had just 15 years to make up a
lot of ground financially and after playing around with my trusty financial
calculator i determined that to meet the school i would have to invest 6 500 a
month now if you just had a heart attack thinking about investing this amount of
money every month then don't worry because i too nearly went to cardiac
arrest at the time but fortunately i survived and then began my quest to
exponentially raising my income to meet this need how do i go about doing this
you may be wondering well first off i realized that there was no way i could
rely solely on my nine to five job to facilitate my early retirement dreams so
i had to start building and acquiring assets to help level up my income i did
this through requiring property and building multiple blogs and youtube
channels as well fortunately with the power of the internet with enough
consistent effort anyone could build cash producing assets which is great for
those who lack the capital needed to make extra cash through more traditional
means now that i have my etf of choice selected and my income is on point the
only thing left to do is be patient which if i'm being honest it's probably
the hardest part of this whole process in fact if i'm being 100 transparent i'm
really not the most patient person out there and if you want to achieve
financial freedom faster than watch this next video where i go over what is the
absolute fastest way to retire off dividends which requires much less money
invested than you'd expect so click on over end let's get started