130,000 hours until age 40

I wrote before about the blog I created that periodically reminds me that time is slipping away. Today it reminded me that I have 130,000 hours left until I'm 40 years old.

That's pretty frightening. It's not that I am afraid of being old and frail at age 40, it's that so much typically happens to a person by the time they reach age 40 -- that is, so many things that have not yet happened to me, and I only have 130,000 hours until I get there. And 1/3 of that time will be spent sleeping.

130,000. That's just not a very large number. You can fit that many people into some sports stadiums. $130,000 over the next 15 years is equivalent to a salary of $8,760 -- worse than your typical graduate student.

I am generally skeptical of goals and long-term plans but one long-term goal I am consciously working toward is having at least $800,000 in investments by age 40 (assuming current rates of inflation; if not it will have to be higher). To reach that $800,000 goal means that on average I need to add $5.80 to my investment account for every hour I am alive, or $8.65 for every hour I am awake(!). However, I have done the math and it is certainly possible to reach that target even if my salary never advances beyond its current modest level. Praise you, compounding interest.

I chose the $800,000 number because at 6 or 7% interest, that is roughly equivalent to my current salary. In other words, by age 40 I want my primary source of income to be my investments, not my salary. It's not because I want to be rich in money; it's because I want to rich in time. I believe the greatest luxury one can have is being able to do whatever one wants with oneself in this brief time we're given.