I have got into some deep stuff by contemplating the beauty of life and the mystery of destiny. That is by looking back at how I started a career and my eventual journey to financial independence. It started when I was 20 years of age. What I didn’t think about then and can fully see and realize now is how some decisions and actions I took in my 20s made such a huge positive impact on my future-self. How it propelled me From Age 20 to Financial Independence at the speed of life.

What I mean by the “speed of life” is I had a life to live and even though the last thing on my mind then was worrying about financial independence or retirement, I was laying the groundwork by way of being financially responsible for just that. I didn’t have to wait until I was retiring to feel the positive impact of the actions I took in my 20s either. It was felt in my 30s and I was very thankful to my earlier 20s-self for doing so.

My age 20 FI Plan.

To be truthful I didn’t have anything called a FI Plan or Early Retirement Plan when I was 20. I had a life plan and that was to find a job doing what I considered my dream job that paid better than the one I had. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to attend college for a while and I just wanted to be able to support myself and live my life with my wife and my eventual children. The focus of my age-20 life plan was simple:

Know what I wanted to do for a living and target the right company.

Get a full-time job at a company that would provide potential income growth, had benefits including some kind of retirement benefits, and offered the possibility to move to a position I was interested in doing and passionate about.

I was patiently trying to get my dream utility lineman position (I had taken Power and Electronics classes in High School Vocational programs) and in the meantime while working in a Bank’s Research department as an entry-level clerk (before starting at the Bank’s Operations center I was a tar and gravel roofing grunt) I learned new skills that allowed me to qualify for a Service Representative job at the local telephone company so I could get my foot in the door with hopes of a future transfer to lineman. It started what became a 31 year telecommunications career where I retired early as an engineer.

What worked for me.

Being young means there will always be challenges and a lot of closed doors due to a lack of experience but it is important to remember that the path to what you want may not be direct but requires you to always move in the forward direction. My primary objective was to learn and experience as many new skills as I could in any job I had. If there was something that was difficult and everyone else there hated doing it then I jumped in and became the one who mastered it.

It took working a few years before I understood what I was truly good at doing and enjoyed doing. This was important so I could dedicate myself to my work, advance, like what I did, and receive pay increases to further my financial goals. I never stopped trying to upgrade my employment situation and continued my education where I made the move to engineer.

Other Actions of my 20s that really mattered.

* Live a smart frugal balanced life and saved enough for a down payment to buy a house.

I married just before my 19^th birthday and we saved everything we could from day 1. This taught us budgeting and spending discipline. We also painted the house (new construction) as part of our down payment. We were home owners a couple of months before my 20^th birthday. It was a small starter home out in the sticks. It cost 4.2 times my yearly salary.

* Avoid Debt. Growing up low-income my family was debt adverse and I also carried that trait.

I did not borrow money for new cars, vacations, or anything else. The credit card was strictly for emergencies only. At least that is how it started out. We drove some really crappy cars.

* Save something for Retirement. I was 27 years old by the time I had heard anything about 401K plans.

At the age of 27 I started contributing up to the company’s 401K match amount. This was the start to building a large 401K balance that allowed me the option to retire early. The early 401K contributions benefited by TIME with the compounding gains.

My journey to Financial Independence is nothing spectacular and I was fortunate to have started saving something as early as I did.

My From Age 20 to Financial Independence Life Plan

The life plan and other actions I started in my 20s established the groundwork for my financial life.

• It started good financial habits. Setting and sticking to a budget, spending discipline, and debt avoidance. Living within your means is a must for reaching financial independence.
• It started a career where I was able to advance and receive the education to become an engineer. Continually learning new skills allowed me to increase my salary and advance my savings goals.
• It started an investment early that benefited from compounding gains over time and began a habit of paying myself first. It was the beginning of adding to my net worth other than home equity. (Note: I have linked “Net Worth” to Personal Capitol’s Net Worth tracking tools)
• It allowed me to have the option to go into a full 10 year early retirement plan when I turned 40. I really appreciated my earlier-self when at age 40 I decided I wanted to get aggressive about retiring at age 50.
• It was the actions taken while in my 20s that set the groundwork and everything up for me to live debt free and retire early living the retire early and often passion driven lifestyle I live today.

Then and Now.

There are some real challenges today.

Student Loan Debt –

Too many have too much Student Loan debt to repay. If I was a young student considering going to school today I would make careful decisions about how much student loans to take on. First off if I wasn’t getting a big scholarship or grant then I would consider State College over Private College where cost increases dramatically. There are also Trade Schools and Community College.

It is real easy to take on excessive student debt and very difficult to pay it all back. Recognize some educations are more expensive than others and may not mean higher pay down the road. For the most part we are a family of Community College and Trade School graduates. We paid as we went including our children’s education.

My engineering classes were paid for by my company. Graduating from college with Student Loan debt means once landing a job it’s time to create a repayment plan to chip away at it early. Anything paid during your 20s will definitely benefit your older-self when having a family and mortgage will make it harder to make large payments.

Good jobs are still hard to find–

Even with a fat degree good jobs are difficult to land especially jobs with good pay and benefits. It was hard to find them when I was 20 too. Find the best job possible, increase skills, and never stop moving forward. It took two years from the time I applied before I was hired on at the telephone company.

Patience is necessary but don’t rest until you get what you want. Take advantage of your Network and use LinkedIn to find your next move. Another difference is nobody today plans on working for the same company for 31 years like I did. I will say that it was one of the hardest things I have ever done so I would openly accept the ability to move to different companies as today.

Investing is easier than ever–

When I started my 401K there was 2 investment choices, my company’s stock or guaranteed interest money market account. Most 401K accounts offer many investments to select from so you can set up a diversified and low-cost investment portfolio. The internet has made researching and investing easier than ever.

What everyone in their 20s should know today

Whether you decide to plan and set the groundwork for your future-self or not, you will end up doing so anyway. Do you go into your life with some kind of a plan for the better or just leave it to fate and what goes just happens? Whatever you do or don’t do sets the stage for how you will live your future life. After all, your financial independence goals and focus is not complicated at this stage of your life and following a plan guarantees 100% success over doing nothing.

Set goals and track your progress.

Be accountable to yourself by tracking your finances. Set small realistic and measurable goals. Know how much money is coming in and where it is going. Track your debt repayment and savings/investment growth. Your progress also includes personal self-assessments as to your acquired skills and what you do that you enjoy so that as you move forward to advance yourself you can pick the right opportunities doing what is aligned with your interests, skills, and hopefully passions. Life is better lived happy and debt free. Build on your success and learn from mistakes and failures so not to repeat them.

Live Your Life Now and Still Make Your Future Better.

This is a time of living without feeling burden. Part of it is because when we are young in our 20s we can mentally set burden aside thinking there is plenty of time to worry about things later.

I strongly recommend that you keep that youthful thinking but at the same time take the incremental steps to set the groundwork for your near and later future-self by taking advantage of your biggest asset, “TIME” to chip away at any debt you have including student loans and leveraging time to take advantage of any savings opportunities that you may have. The power of compounding interest/gains cannot be ignored.

Are you on course to go From Age 20 to Financial Independence?