This former minimum-wage worker retired at 39 with $3.5M. Now he’s living on $185K a year in Dubai. How did he do it?

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Jamal Robinson didn’t travel from money. He started astatine the bottom, moving arsenic a religion janitor astatine 14 earlier landing a minimum-wage occupation astatine Taco Bell, moving agelong shifts portion besides going to school.

Today, astatine 40, he’s an American expat surviving among the glittering skyscrapers of Dubai. He has a $3.5 cardinal nest ovum and is pulling successful $185,000 a twelvemonth utilizing the 4% status income rule. His secret? Relentless saving, assertive investing, and a laser absorption connected fiscal freedom.

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“I didn’t spot a batch of radical that were blessed with work,” Robinson told CNBC. “In my mind, I ever thought that it made the astir consciousness to compress that magnitude of clip successful my life. So astatine 17, I acceptable the extremity to discontinue aboriginal astatine 45, which I coiled up hitting six years earlier than expected (1).”

Robinson’s travel from minimum-wage idiosyncratic to multimillionaire retiree is an bonzer illustration of the FIRE question (Financial Independence, Retire Early). Advocates of this attack marque a ruthless committedness to redeeming and investing truthful that they tin discontinue arsenic young arsenic possible.

This doctrine has drawn disapproval from fiscal experts, specified arsenic Suze Orman, who wrote successful a 2018 blog post, “The mathematics of that makes perfectly nary consciousness (2).”

Though she was broadly sympathetic to the thought of moving towards fiscal independence, Orman raised concerns that the 4% regularisation wasn’t made to grip the strain of idiosyncratic with a acold longer drawdown runway than the mean retiree.

“[T]hat strategy was designed to enactment for idiosyncratic who retired astatine 65 and wanted to marque definite their wealth had a coagulated accidental of outlasting them. What works for 25-30 years shouldn’t beryllium assumed to enactment for 50-60 years,” she wrote.

After precocious school, Robinson hustled done college, earning a machine engineering grade astatine Tennessee Tech connected a full-ride assistance portion moving astatine the aforesaid time. Over time, with an MBA, 9 certifications, and expertise successful generative AI, helium yet reached an income of $1.1 cardinal per year.

But alternatively of chasing the adjacent promotion, helium chose fiscal freedom. Old habits dice hard: As helium progressed successful the tech industry, Robinson banked immense sums — astatine 1 constituent socking distant astir 90% of his income. Then, successful 2024, astatine conscionable 39 years of age, helium retired with $3.5 cardinal successful savings and investments. He present produces euphony and DJs successful his spare time. He's besides penning a publication and producing a podcast.