If I said I was really, really happy for Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung, I would be lying.

Then again, they’ve worked hard to retire at the age of 31 (yes, you read that right), and they believe they have the secret to saving enough to hang up their working boots early.

I’m listening.

Kristy Shen grew up in poverty in rural China, according to the Guardian, and her family would live on around $0,44 a day, so pragmatism comes naturally to her:

On her first ever trip to a toy shop aged eight, after her family moved to Canada, she declined the offer of a teddy bear in favour of a cheaper one and requested that her father send the remainder of the money to their family in China. As a teenager, she chose to be a computer engineer, ignoring her dream to be a writer, based on a formula she devised to rank the best value university courses based on tuition fees versus future pay. And as an adult, any domestic disagreements with her husband, Bryce Leung, are generally won or lost based on who makes the best mathematical case.

They sound like a hoot.

In 2012, Leung told his wife that their savings had the potential to hit C$1m (US$760,000) by 2015, and he reckoned that was enough for them to retire in their early 30s.

She argued against his logic, he presented his mathematical case, and came out the winner. Shen was 31, Leung was 32, and they retired:

They are part of the growing Fire (financial independence retire early) movement that encourages workers to save intensively to enable them to stop working for money far earlier than is commonly done.

Today, at the grand old age of 36 and 37, respectively, Shen and Leung are reveling in their “retirement” (to use the term on two people so pulsating with youth seems disingenuous).

Since leaving their old jobs – they both worked as computer engineers – they have travelled the world almost constantly – spending time in countries including Japan, the UK, Portugal and Thailand – started a successful blog, Millennial Revolution, teaching others how to retire early too, and co-written two books.

The first was a children’s book, Little Miss Evil. The second, Quit Like a Millionaire, a memoir-cum-how-to guide came out this month and presents financial independence as a route to happiness and is refreshingly dismissive of home ownership as an investment.

Congratulations. I will not be reading their blog, but you’re welcome to do so here.

I will just drop this video in here, which sums up what the ‘Millennial Revolution’ is all about:

My apologies.

Of course, this would be impossible in South Africa, where wages pale in comparison to those in Canada, but that’s a story for another day.

Let’s get to the nitty-gritty of their saving system:

Using an adapted version of the “4% rule” – a principle borrowed from the traditional retirement world – they calculated their basic living expenses, C$40,000, and multiplied it by 25 to come to C$1m, the amount they would need to retire. In a total of nine years they managed to accrue around four-fifths of that in savings, plus a further C$200,000 through low-risk investments…

Now that they’re retired, they believe their savings, invested in low-cost index ETFs (exchange-traded funds), will keep them going for the foreseeable future. In case of disasters, including a 1929-style crash, they have three backup plans.

“We are probably some of the most pessimistic people you’ll ever meet,” says Leung, by way of explanation. “And we’re only doing this because we’ve created all these safety nets that will catch us.”

I have some cash stuffed in my sock drawer for when things go wrong. Is that an adequate safety net?

Jokes – I have the pros handling my finances, although I doubt I’ll be retiring any time before I resemble my recent FaceApp picture.

We can’t wrap this one up without covering Kristy’s closing comments:

So would they ever go back to their old jobs? Shen giggles drily. “I don’t think I would be very useful as an employee any more.” She has, she says, become too open-minded to obediently follow instruction. “Once you’ve been out of the matrix, you can’t go back into the matrix,” she says soberly. “You’ve already seen too much.”

Sounds like she took the red pill.

[source:guardian]