Steve, Think Save Retire Steve and his wife saved 70% of their income when they worked full-time.
- Steve is a blogger at ThinkSaveRetire.com. He and his wife retired from full-time work at 35 and 33.
- They live in a 200-square-foot Airstream trailer and travel throughout America full-time.
- For Business Insider's "Real Money" series, Steve shares how he spent his money during a week in July.
- Want to share a week of your spending? Email your money@businessinsider.com.
There once was a guy from the Southeast who thought life could be broken down into a few simple constructs: get a job, buy stuff, retire, and die.
Yep, that guy was me.
Early retirement? Not in the cards. 401(k) retirement plan? Sure, but only the minimum. Retirement was the furthest thing from my mind. After all, I had stuff to pay for!
Fast forward about 15 years, and I'm sitting here in our Airstream RV as a 37-year-old early retiree after spending more than a decade working in information technology.
In 2015, we sold almost all of our possessions, including our two homes, and bought a 200-square-foot Airstream travel trailer and we travel the country full-time. We call places like Tucson home in the winter, Glacier National Park home in the summer, and are limited by nothing in our travels. We follow the weather the best we can.
My wife and I run a YouTube channel that chronicles our travels in detail and I'm an avid photographer. I get to embrace the creative side of me that I pushed down and ignored through all those years of working full-time in corporate America.
Both my wife and I were born into loving and supportive families, which has been a huge help in getting to where we are today. We don't represent your typical "rags-to-riches" story. Both of our parents, however, came from very modest backgrounds. My dad worked his way up through the military by earning two master's degrees and joining the private sector in the 90s. He's one of the hardest workers I've ever met.
My wife's family went through bankruptcy when she was younger. Her dad spent several years working overseas to build his family back up from disaster to achieve remarkable success through incredibly hard work, sacrifice, and determination. We've both seen first hand how truly life-changing hard work can be.
We are firmly in the LeanFIRE camp of early retirement. We called it quits from full-time work with just under $900,000 mixed between our long-term investment accounts and short-term savings and checking accounts. Today, we're hovering around the $1 million mark and enjoy every day as full-time travelers. Not to mention full-time side hustlers, too.