Become a Millionaire and Retire Early on a Modest Salary
This eBook is your 269-page, easy-to-read, complementary guide to escaping the rat race with $1,000,000.
WHAT’S IN THIS BOOK FOR YOU?
Everything important you need to know about retiring early as a millionaire, armed with nothing but a modest salary, a decent savings rate, discipline with investments, perseverance and patience. There’s no need for a 6-figure salary. There’s no need to make yourself miserable while counting pennies. There’s no need to day-trade your way to a fortune.
In this book, you’ll follow the journey of someone who started saving at age 22, only to find herself with more than $200,000 just 5 short years later, at age 27. If you’re interested, you can find out everything you want to know about her corporate job salary, benefits, expenditure, savings rate, investment portfolio, net worth journey, and more.
All this content has been neatly packed into 10 chapters, with each chapter containing between 4-5 easy-to-read sub-chapters. You can pick and choose what you want to read, and skip those that you’re not interested in, without feeling like you’re missing out on information.
Take a look at all the individual chapters and sub-chapters below.
A CLOSER LOOK INSIDE THE BOOK
Words
Pages
Sub-Chapters
Chapters
CHAPTER
1A
Earn a $50,000 Gross Salary
How Much is Too Little for a Salary?
Why Aim for a $50,000 Gross Annual Salary?
What to Expect from a Job Paying a $50,000 Salary
Should You Ever Work Part-Time or Take a Mini-Retirement?
How to Make the Most of Your Salary
How to Make the Most of Your Time Outside the Office
CHAPTER
1B
GETTING PERSONAL - MY SALARY, BENEFITS, TIME SPENT, AND PERSONAL DECISIONS
A Complete Breakdown of My Desk Job Salary
What Benefits do I Receive?
How I Spend My Time in the Office
How I Spend My Time Outside the Office
2020: The Year I Chose to Earn Less Money
CHAPTER
2A
AIM TO SAVE AT LEAST 50% OF YOUR TAKE-HOME SALARY
Why Aim for a 50% Savings Rate?
How to Cut Expenses Painlessly (Look for Small Wins)
How to Reduce Expenses as Significantly as Possible (Look for Big Wins)
What if a 50% Savings Rate is Not Possible?
CHAPTER
2B
GETTING PERSONAL - MY SAVINGS RATE AND LIFESTYLE
How I Went from Spendthrift to Thrifty
Living with Parents: What’s My Savings Rate and Lifestyle?
Living Alone: What’s My Forecasted Savings Rate and Lifestyle?
Raising Children: What’s My Forecasted Savings Rate and Lifestyle?
CHAPTER
3a
INVEST YOUR HARD-EARNED MONEY
When Should You Not Be Investing?
How to Determine Your Asset Allocation Using Stocks and Bonds
Which Stocks and Bonds Should You Buy?
How Often Should You Check Your Portfolio?
What to Do When the Stock Market Crashes
How to Practise Patience for Decades of Investing
CHAPTER
3b
GETTING PERSONAL – MY INVESTMENT PORTFOLIO AND STRATEGY
My Investment Journey and Net Worth From 2015 to 2020
A List of all the Investing Mistakes I Ever Made
A Complete Breakdown of My Existing Investment Portfolio
My Investment Strategy Going Forward (2020 and Beyond)
CHAPTER
4a
HOW TO SHOW UP EVERY DAY
The Secret to Becoming a Millionaire on a Modest Salary
How to Excel at Your Desk Job While Maintaining Boundaries
How to Get Ahead with Your Passion Project
How to Make Saving Money a Daily Habit
How to Invest like a Pro
The Inspirational, Jaw-Dropping Result of Showing Up Every Day in Life
CHAPTER
4b
GETTING PERSONAL – A PEEK INTO HOW I SHOW UP EVERY DAY
How I’m Proficient in My Desk Job, While Maintaining Boundaries
How I’ve Been Showing Up Every Day with My Non-Paying Passion Project
How I Manage My Money on a Daily Basis
How I Manage My Investments Daily
CHAPTER
5a
HOW TO ENJOY YOUR LONG JOURNEY TO MILLIONAIRE STATUS AND EARLY RETIREMENT
How to Enjoy (or at least Tolerate) Your Desk Job
How to Make Saving Money Fun
How to Overcome Investing Fears, and Create Excitement Out of Investing
CHAPTER
5b
GETTING PERSONAL – HOW I’M ENJOYING MY OWN JOURNEY
How I Went from Hating to Tolerating My Desk Job
How I Make Saving Money Fun for Myself
How I’m Always Excited to Invest (Despite My Fears)
Hi! I’m Liz.
Just your regular, 27-year-old, queer, FIRE-chasing, super-introverted, frugal Singaporean.
After experiencing a wake-up call when I was just 22 years old, I started working, saving and investing. Over these 5 years, I’ve accumulated more than $200,000 to my name.
You might find this a tad controversial, but I believe that earning a modest salary is sufficient to achieve early retirement with $1,000,000 in the bank. I believe that there’s no need for a large 6-figure salary. I believe that working part-time, exchanging money for time, is a wonderful decision.
Since I started working 5 years ago, I’ve never had a real hourly wage of more than $17 an hour. I’ve never made more than $54,000 a year from a full-time job. And honestly, I’m okay with that. In fact, at the beginning of 2020, I decided to take a 40% pay cut to work part-time at my corporate job. That has been one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life, and I’m still on track to retiring early by age 40.
That’s why I wrote this book – Because I believe that a modest salary is sufficient to retire early, although that’s not advice that I hear often. So, if you’re out there, earning only a modest salary, wondering how you’re going to ever retire, I want to assure you that it’s okay. That with a few right choices, you can still retire early as a millionaire.
Elizabeth
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Why is this free? What’s the catch?
As a valued reader of this blog, I want to repay you for your time by providing you with the best content possible. This book is free, as a small thank you for your support on this blog.
There’s no catch to this, beyond providing me with your name and email address.
Are you using this free book to sell me anything else?
Nope, not at all. This is a standalone guide that you can read from cover to cover without any sales pitches or upsells.
There are also no affiliate links or any monetisation of any sort in the entire book. It’s really just to thank you, because your support for this blog means a lot to me.
How much time will it take me to read this book?
Assuming the average reading speed of 200 to 250 words per minute, if you plan to read the book from cover to cover, it’ll take you about 3 to 4 hours to finish this book. However, if you choose to skip sections (which is perfectly fine), it would take you significantly less time to finish the book.
As I value your time, I worked hard to cut out all the fluff, so that the time you spend on this book would be thoroughly meaningful.
I have a question. How can I contact you?
I’ll be more than happy to answer your question. Please contact me via email at splurgingonfreedom@gmail.com. Rest assured that I will get back to you.