Agree, many of my peers are on track to reach financial independence around 45. No compromises needed: Nice large home, good schools, safe neighborhood, plenty left over for luxuries and travel. I don’t know of anywhere else in the world where fairly normal but hard-working people can reliably do this (provided you got lucky enough to get hired at and survive a FAANG for ~10 years).
From here we can then move to a lower CoL place or stay put, whatever makes sense for our families.
> Nice large home, good schools, safe neighborhood, plenty left over for luxuries and travel. I don’t know of anywhere else in the world where fairly normal but hard-working people can reliably do this
I think the only part of that statement I kind of agree with is the “large home” part.
It’s much easier to afford good schools, safe neighborhood, luxuries and travel in most of Western Europe than it is in the US. Because the first two are basically free, travel is cheap, so you have plenty left over for luxuries (unless you want like race cars or something)
Good schools are certainly not free in most Western European countries, in fact for most middle class families, it's one of their biggest expenses to put their 2-3 kids through secondary schools.
There’s a massive disconnect here between a “good school” in the US and an expensive international school, and no definition of middle class where a majority of families pay for it. “most Western European countries” is not a thing. Nonsense.
The part you seem to have missed was being financially independent at 45, retiring, and still being able to have all that stuff in perpetuity. Or if I’m truly that dumb, you’re going to have to spell it out for me.
From here we can then move to a lower CoL place or stay put, whatever makes sense for our families.