Saving Money to Retire Early

I watched this video on PBS NewsHour that talks about young people who are saving and retiring early.  They are trying to retire by the time they are 30 or in their 30s.  To do this, they have are saving a large amount of their income, some are saving 50% to 70% or even more, by changing how they do everything in their lives.

One person who has done this is called Mr. Money Mustache, who has started to build co-working spaces where instead of just having a group of people come work at the space, you can also learn about various ways to save money, make more, and network with others.  This is about living the fullest with less and doing this on your own time.

I have always thought that retiring early is great.  Yet, in our capitalist society, we have to work forever to get enough money to pay for things even if we don't need them.  The whole concept of capitalism is growth forever and don't stop until you have too much, whatever that is in your mind.  Once, you have too much, you are able to give money away in whatever form you feel that helps keeps your conscious healthy.

In my life, do I feel, I will ever have enough money to live off of forever, I don't think so unless, I start to change a few things in my life.  The part about saving money, I can do that very well, and can save more money than anyone I know currently.  The next part about making money, that is where I fail.  I haven't been able to bring in enough money to actual live a good life, that be food, shelter, and clothes.  I know there is more I need in society besides them but those are the three basics you need first.

The reason, I can't be out there on my own is the city I live in, is very expensive and every year, the costs of everything in the city goes up up up.  There are many people who are leaving the city to live elsewhere because of costs society puts on us, and making a better life elsewhere.  Do they want to come back, some for sure.  On the other hand, there are people like myself, who might want to leave but can't because we make far too little money to move elsewhere.  With that, our jobs are here, and we can't pick them up and take them to another place to live.

With that said, there are tons of experiments and challenges people do, to save more money.  Do they work for everyone, no but learning from them and applying some of them will help, you save in the end.

Some examples:

• Use transit or bike instead of a car
• Find friends or people who are giving away food for free
• Don't use a washer or dryer
• Don't eat out, instead invite people to your house or visit them
• Enjoy what is around you instead of vacationing far away

There are many more tips that will save you even more but there are just 5 that can work for anyone.

All in all, many people in our society are saving tons of money and retiring early.  To learn from that, we could all be reviewing the money coming in and going out to see how we could be saving more.

Please put in the comments, how you save money to live life to the fullest.