[lavidaloca]

(07-16-2015 01:46 PM)samsamsam Wrote:  

(07-16-2015 08:34 AM)lavidaloca Wrote:  

Easiest way to save a lot is to live at home. I moved back home after school and the amount of savings on housing / food is substantial on a yearly basis. It's not ideal to be my age living at home but great for saving / investing.

I think it is key while you are saving to be making some smart investments. It may be hard to just put all your money into index funds and grow it fast enough. I said may.

You might have to make some smart specific stock picks or use the capital to buy and sell stuff, etc.

Need to put the money to work.

Tough to say. A lot of depends on how your number is. If you want to have $10,000,000 at 35... you are probably going to have to make great picks and pile a bunch of money into those pick(s) and get extremely lucky. More than likely your picks won't be so great though.

If you want $500,000 it's a different story all together. A guy living at home with an above average wage ($75,000) for example could foreseeably do that by early 30s without too much trouble assuming a high savings rate just by doing index funds if he makes some lifestyle sacrifices. I spend about $6,000-$9,000 a year on travel at the moment. Outside of that my living expenditures are around $750 per month. It makes it pretty easy to save a nice amount of money. I still manage 6-8 weeks vacation a year as well where I get to let loose. (My Christmas vacation is typically paid by family as my dad likes to take everyone away for 2 weeks).

Roommates is a good solution but even then if you are in a high cost area like Toronto its still going to be damn expensive unless you manage to put 4 people in a 2 bedroom.