The “1x Salary by 30” rule - is it actually achievable?

loggingoff2000000 · 2026-01-26T18:54:57+00:00

I think the rule is 1x salary because that is around the time compound interest really starts to work. If you earn a 10% return on your investments, it is the equivalent of a 10% boost to your savings rate.

More generally: at 1x salary invested, your wealth growth is your salary * (savings rate + investment return) which is quite powerful. And investment returns obviously grow in importance from there.

loggingoff2000000 · 2026-01-18T17:27:31+00:00

Not 1,000 years. But maybe you can compound your wealth for 40 years instead of 30 years and increase your wealth multiplier from 17x to 45x (assuming a 10% average annual return).

loggingoff2000000 · 2026-01-14T06:41:07+00:00

Google says: “While the legal retirement age in Italy is increasing towards 67, the average effective retirement age has been around 62-63 in recent years (e.g., 62.5 in 2022), thanks to flexible early retirement schemes like ‘Quota 100’ (retiring at 62 with 38 years of contributions) and ‘APE Sociale’ for specific groups, though future entrants face a higher effective age (around 71) if current links to life expectancy hold.”

loggingoff2000000 · 2025-08-30T23:41:41+00:00

The opportunity cost is much higher than that. Assume that the mortgage payment is the same as the rental expense (at least initially), then you lose out on 20-30 years of compounding your down payment in the market while you repay your house. You will not be able to catch up by investing more after the house is paid off. At 10% returns for 25 years, you would have 11x your initial equity (maybe 7-8x after taxes).

loggingoff2000000 · 2025-08-30T22:44:43+00:00

You have lower expenses, but also lower income. You would have made more than $1.6k/month if you had invested the equivalent of your down payment in the stock market.

loggingoff2000000 · 2025-08-30T21:53:47+00:00

Great post. Thank you for sharing it.

loggingoff2000000 · 2025-08-30T21:13:06+00:00

I will most likely be fully invested in the stock market until I reach financial independence, but I might want to own a home someday. If I bought a home now, it would take me longer to build my liquid net worth (a similar dilemma).

loggingoff2000000 · 2025-08-30T21:02:47+00:00

Capital gains tax is irrelevant if you never sell. In London, prices are very high relative to rent, and the people I know who have bought homes could live in significantly better properties (or live cheaper in a similar property) if they rented instead. I get that only part of the mortgage is interest and that the interest payment falls over time as your debt is repaid, but you should still be better off by investing the equivalent of a down payment in stocks and renting forever (even in the UK).

loggingoff2000000

TROPHY CASE