I grew up lower middle class in a developing country, in a one-bedroom house with my parents. Money was always tight, and luxuries were never part of the conversation. I think we as a family took 2 vacations in the first 23 years of my life, that too within the same state where I grew up.
But that upbringing left me with a lasting skill: the ability to squeeze value out of every dollar.
At 23, I moved to the United States with –$40,000 in student loans and nothing close to financial stability. I still remember the first bout of stress that hit me hard when the loan was approved. I was pacing around relentlessly in my living room with doubt taking center stage in my head of whether this is the right decision or not. The collateral on that loan was my family home after all.
Ten years later — seven of those actually working — I've hit Coast FIRE at age 33. My investments have grown enough that even without contributing another dollar, they'll compound to cover my retirement.
It feels almost surreal to write that sentence. In hindsight, there are 3 things that helped me get here much faster.
1. Leveraging Tech and RSUs
If you want to hit Coast FIRE this early, there's no beating around the bush... you have to earn a lot of money. No amount of coupon clipping or aggressive saving can get you there in your early 30s without a high income.
For me, that came through working in tech. A solid salary gave me the base, but the real accelerator was RSUs, but not because they appreciated abnormally...
The first six years of my career, the stock was a dud. It crawled up maybe 3 to 4 percent a year. Nothing glamorous at all and no I didn't coast my way to financial independence merrily. But here's the key... I never treated RSUs as cash. They didn't touch my checking account, they didn't factor into my lifestyle, and I never sold them just to fund day-to-day expenses.
I could've inflated my life easily — bigger apartments, fancier trips, whatever. But I didn't. I held on, partly to avoid unnecessary taxes, but mostly because I trained myself to see RSUs as untouchable. They stacked quietly in the background while I lived entirely on my salary and I saved A LOT of it too. This is essentially Coast FIRE — where your investments grow without additional contributions.
Only later, once they had built up, did I start selling portions... not to upgrade my lifestyle, but to diversify into index funds and spread my bets. That decision kept me from being hostage to one company's stock price.
The appreciation only really kicked in after I switched jobs and landed at a company with a stronger stock... but by then, the mindset was already ingrained. RSUs were never lifestyle money. They were wealth-building fuel.
2. Consistent Buy and Hold Investing
If there's one thing that separates people who dabble from people who build wealth, it's this... they stay in the game. I have a natural inclination to be inspired by humble people, be it in sports or finance. My foundations were laid down upon by listening to a ton of interviews of Warren Buffett and following his advice and style, but at the scale that I could afford.
I didn't jump in and out of stocks chasing hype. I didn't try to time the market. I didn't panic-sell when things dipped. I picked my strategy and stuck with it. I work in tech, and as Warren Buffett said, never invest in something you don't understand. I only understood tech and I stayed invested in it. Yes it does sound risky, but I'm young and I went with it. I'm now actively moving more money into ETFs to avoid concentrated risk.
Being dumb surprisingly helped along the way. I was not smart enough to get into complicated investing strategies like options or understanding domains outside my expertise. I was also lazy enough to never get into day trading and all that fluff either.
Over the years, my portfolio returned around 13 percent CAGR. Not because I'm some investing genius... but because I refused to interrupt compounding.
That conviction was tested in 2020. When COVID hit, the market tanked hard. My portfolio went deep into the red, about 25% lost. I could've sold and "protected" myself... but I didn't. (At that time investing was still a bit new for me but I still had a sizable chunk in the market. Probably around 70% of what I had was in the market.) In fact, I doubled down during that period. While people were pulling money out, I was buying more. And this was only possible because I never inflated my lifestyle in proportion with my RSUs.
It wasn't easy to watch 25% losses pile up on paper... but I kept zooming out. I trusted the market to recover like it always had. And sure enough, it did. That single decision — to buy instead of bail — accelerated my path more than anything else.
3. Saving 50 Percent of My Income
The simplest thing I did was also the most powerful... I saved half of what I earned.
That's it. No fancy hacks. No complicated spreadsheets. Just living on about 50 percent of my income and letting the rest pile up month after month.
And I wasn't depriving myself. This wasn't done consciously by setting meticulous budgets and killing all my hearts desires. I ate out but never at michelin star places, I traveled but never stayed at 4 or 5 star hotels, I bought a nice car but a used one and only after 3 years of saving for it. I cared about value. Every flight, every grocery run, every purchase... I made sure I was getting the best deal.
Housing was the anchor. I always chose modest apartments because rent is the biggest expense. (Except for that one year in New York where I lived in a luxury building right outside of Times Square with insane views... but outside of that, I kept things simple.)
High income gave me the engine, savings gave me the fuel, investing gave me the acceleration.
Without any of these 3, there's no Coast FIRE at 33 coming from a 9-5.
Final Thoughts
While I'm fortunate enough to be in this position, I've made a lot of mistakes along the way. But the core formula stayed the same:
- Earn more — leverage your skills in high-paying industries
- Stay invested — don't interrupt compounding
- Save aggressively — but don't deprive yourself
If you're starting from debt like I was, know that it's possible. It took me 10 years, but the principles are timeless. Start where you are, use what you have, and stay consistent. To figure out your target number, check out our complete guide to calculating your FIRE number.
Your future financially independent self is already thanking you.