At what point can you be financially free?

Currently in banking, at which stage of your career can you put to bed the financial concerns and feel comfortable that you're at a stage where you'll be able to command a strong enough salary and accumulate enough well to be "financially free"?

 

That would depend on what your assets, liabilities, and other income are in contrast to your lifestyle. A young person who makes a 6-figure salary and has no financial obligation would consider himself/herself financially free for at least a decade or two (however, younger people have more "life" left in them and would have to account for that accordingly).

If you are more senior, have children/older parents/other dependents, a mortgage, and other liabilities for the future then you would need more assets to cover all of that. On the flip side, older people have fewer life years to cover.

When I was in my 20s I felt more financially secure than now because my income was significantly higher than my expenses and lifestyle. Now, with the wish to have a family, an appropriate house, and retirement, savings for potential children, etc I feel like I would need a lot more to feel "free", if that even happens.

As a student, you go from zero income to a good amount (in banking). However, most salaries peak at some point during your career and (for most employees) there won't be unlimited upside while the expenses start to pile up in larger amounts.

 
  1. Inflation eats away at it.
  2. I worked for a few financial advisers for my first internship and I think it was pretty interesting how they recommended even more than that. Your first 10-20 years in retirement (i.e. 50-70ish) you are really going to want to do a lot of travel, still giving gifts to younger family members, etc. since these are your best years in retirement

WSJ just actually ran an article on this: https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-much-money-will-you-really-spend-in-re…

 
m_1:
trade time for money
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I have a friend who lives in the country, and it's supposed to be an hour from 42nd Street. A lie! The only thing that's an hour from 42nd Street is 43rd Street!
 

Totally get the question, but it totally depends on the person. Take the state engineer who gets hired out of school at age 22. Let's also say this person also has incredibly low COL habits. To them, the day they get hired and begin working toward that pension, in essence they will be 100% financially free without stress. Depends on he or shes spending habits, salary, and what their retirement goals are, but at the end of the day, it really depends on a ton of variables...

Cultivating mass and wealth since '95
 

Different for everyone, and (as others have pointed out) it is directly tied to lifestyle and expenditures, but I know a thing or two about this question, but as for me? - A nice house with no more than $500k of mortgage (that's where tax benefits max out) - Enough $ in the bank that it will accumulate by itself to about $10 million in 2018 dollars by the time you're sixty. So using the rule of 72 and assuming real returns of 4%, you'd want to have about $5m liquid by the time you're in your early 40s - About $250k put away for each kid you plan to put through college

 

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I don't know... Yeah. Almost definitely yes.

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