How we retired in our 30s

Jeremy and Winnie weren't born to riches. Quite the opposite. But by making a series of choices, and committing to them, they managed to save enough to live off for the rest of their lives.

For the past three years they've been travelling – in some luxury – started a family, and had the time of their lives with no need to ever work again to keep doing it indefinitely.

But the story began ten years earlier, with a very different holiday.

“I graduated on a Friday, moved myself over the weekend, and started work on a Monday. I did the same when I moved on to a new job,” Jeremy told Mirror Money.

“I worked for 6 years to pay off my student loans as fast as possible before taking my first vacation. So it was no surprise that when I tried going from 80 hours per week in the office to lying on a beach, I couldn't relax.

“Work work work was all I could think about. But slowly the beach, amazing seafood, and stiff tropical drinks worked their magic and I realised I had been doing it all wrong. THIS was what life was for.”

And once that decision was made, everything else was just about the details and not wavering.

The question was what could you put up with if you knew you only had to do it for 10 years? A smaller flat? A longer commute? Cooking everything from scratch? If it got him closer to that beach, he did it.

“When I returned home, I sold my house, car, and motorcycle, moved into a shared house close to work, and started cycling to work and making meals at home. Saving became goal number one, and we worked up to saving more than 70% of our after-tax income.

“Now, instead of two weeks of vacation per year, our family has fifty two.”

Jeremy was born to a single mother, who hadn't finished school when she had him - he was offered few legs up in life.

He graduated college in serious debt (he estimated in the top 5% most indebted graduates) – resorting to using a credit card just to afford noodles in his final year – then went straight to work to try and clear some of it.

Winnie spend more than two years in an orphanage as a child while her mother worked to get their lives back on track, her father had disappeared.

But between them the managed to save more than a million dollars – enough to live off forever.

They didn't quite start from zero. By the time Jeremy had his beachside epiphany he'd already worked hard to clear student debts and had a house and some pension savings.

But form that moment on he stepped up a gear. Every single thing he could spare to save he did. Every expense that wasn't needed was removed. Tax was minimised too.

The couple were living on less than £2,000 a month and saving every other penny.

Even their honeymoon came in costing a grand total of £0 .

But they reject that they made sacrifices. As Jeremy eloquently explains here - even the poorest renter has more luxury now than Queen Elizabeth I did – indoor plumbing, the internet, electric lights and fridges among the ways you're almost certainly richer then her.

Twice as much money doesn't make you twice as happy. In Jeremy's words: “Life doesn’t magically get better because your car is newer than the next guys.”

This lesson didn't just let them save so much, so quickly, it means that now they need less money – even when travelling the world.

“To date on our travels, we have been spending ~$79/day (£55) or about $2,400 a month (£1,650), with expectations for lower spending in the future.”

However, to build up enough money to live off, saving simply isn't enough. You need your money to work for you too.

“You can’t just put fat stacks of cash under your mattress and expect to get rich,” Jeremy explained here.

“Those fat stacks of cash are best exchanged for assets that produce an income that has the potential to grow over time.”

Jeremy invested in the stock market – but that's only one way to make your money work for you.

Fundamentally what you need to do is make compound interest work for you, not against you.

You'd be amazed how little saving you need to make a million – as long as you start young enough and get a good return.

How to do it yourself

Here are Jeremy's top three tips to becoming financially independent yourself:

Money can be used to buy stuff, experiences, or freedom. Choose freedom.

Aim BIG. Big goals are motivating. Aim for a savings rate of 50 percent or more and you can be financially independent in a little more than a decade. 5-10 percent savings rates are for people who want to work until they die.

Compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe, and it can work for you or against you. The best way to channel this power is via the stock market. Turn investing on auto-pilot via monthly salary deductions into low-cost index funds until your investment income pays all of your bills.