When I was on my FIRE journey, I found it helpful to follow others to understand what to expect down the line. One blog series that helped me immensely was the “How We Got Here” series by Millennial Revolution. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve read it – because it’s a lot 🙂 . Seeing how their lives evolved and their net worth increased over the years, helped to inspire me and make me believe that where I was at the moment was not how my story would end.
So now that I have retired and completed my own journey to FIRE, I thought it might be helpful to throw my story into the mix since everyone’s life is unique and may resonate with other people differently. So I’m going to be detailing my life, career and how I got to early retirement. This will include what happened as well as all the numbers I’m sure y’all are actually here for 😉 . So let’s turn the time machine back a decade and see what Young Purple was up to. I hope you enjoy the ride!
Year 1
The way my career began was a good indication of how the rest of it would go: It was a frenzy 🙂 . I graduated from college on a Sunday with $5,000 in my metaphorical pocket. As soon as the ceremony concluded, I ran from the crowd to a waiting car – still in my graduation robes. I hopped in, greeted my Mom who was in the driver’s seat and we were off to NYC. I started my first job the very next morning.
The house we drove to was one I found on Craigslist and rented sight unseen. I had met the person subletting a room to me over video chat since I wasn’t in the city, and I knew nothing about it besides the pictures I was sent. When I was sleeping in on a Saturday morning to recover from my first full week of work, I discovered something interesting: one of my new roommates was an opera instructor 🙂 .
How did I know? The screeching coming from the front room at 9am was a heavy indication. I thought it was a cat being brutally murdered, but alas it was someone who wanted to improve their singing skills (and they improved greatly over the next several months so don’t worry 😉 ).
This living situation was my first time living alone in my life and it was an experience. It turns out that the house didn’t have Wifi – just an ethernet cable I had to plug into my computer (into a port that MacBooks no longer have…). Between that physical limitation and my wild job schedule, I barely left my room except to eat and work.
It wasn’t a bad situation until I came home one night to see police cars surrounding the house. (CONTENT WARNING: Sexual Assault) A woman had been raped in our backyard, which is right outside my window, in broad daylight. Understandably I didn’t feel very safe in that house after that, but luckily this was only a temporary situation for the summer until my friend and partner moved to the city so we could get an apartment together. But anyway, welcome to NYC…I guess.
This house was near the furthest stop on the A train, which meant it was about an hour train ride from my office. One positive of it though was that if I fell asleep, I wouldn’t miss my stop because it was the end of the line 🙂 . Also, having about two hours every day to sit on the train gave me time to read and write. I had been journaling what I did each day for a few years at that point and liked having the time to keep that up…maybe that’s why I didn’t mind keeping track of everything I did the first year of retirement 😉 .
The way I got my full-time job was a bit random, but I think it shows how the world of marketing is stupidly about who you know, not what you know. In 2009, my Junior year of college, my graduating peers were still having trouble finding jobs in the wake of the Great Recession. So I decided to plan ahead. I contacted everyone in our alumni book that had anything to do with marketing and asked them to have information interviews with me.
Through that I learned about the industry, what I might want in a position and what to avoid. Several of them also offered to introduce me to their hiring managers or colleagues. This exploration, in addition to schoolwork, kept me pretty busy for my Junior and Senior years. However, it ended up paying off.
One of the people I emailed was the CEO of an ad agency in NYC and shockingly: she responded to my email. That relationship led to me getting an internship in NYC the winter of my Senior year. It was unpaid (because that was still legal back then in NYC) and it was pretty miserable to be honest 🙂 . However, I knew I had to have an internship under my belt in this industry to get a job…which I needed so I could eat. So I kept trucking.
I ended up getting an interview with that same company as well as a few others that I stuffed into a rushed weekend in NYC a few months before I graduated. I showed up to the interview with that same company in my best office appropriate attire, and was told that this was a pre-interview. Shit! I had only brought one outfit and didn’t think I had enough money to buy a new one. So I ended up going back to the actual interview wearing a casual top and jeans. I didn’t expect to hear back after that.
Shockingly, at the end of that weekend, I got a job offer from that same company I interviewed with in casual attire, which we’ll call Company 1. They offered me $35,000 and I tried to negotiate the salary, but was promptly shut down. Well, at least I tried right? They wanted me to start ASAP and I explained that I hadn’t graduated yet – hence the push to start my first Monday of freedom.
The first few months at Company 1 I was working late nights trying to wrap my head around my new job. My colleagues implied that this job would require all of me and praised each other for working late and ignoring family obligations, which seemed strange to me. But at the time I didn’t care because I didn’t know anyone in the city and only had my crappy room to go back to. So I worked my tail off.
By the end of the summer, I was getting the hang of my work and starting to almost enjoy it. I was working for a major international client and got to routinely see the ads I worked on in subway stations, airports and around town. Even though I was just pushing ads around, I felt like I was part of something, like I had an impact on the world (even if it was a bit of a negative one). It was weird 🙂 .
On the personal front, the summer ended and my partner and friend moved to the city. We found an apartment together and moved in. Each of us were paying $1,066.66/month for one of the three bedrooms (yes my partner was technically my other roommate with his own room and rent cost despite the fact we were dating…I know we’re strange, move on 😉 ) .
Back at work, my Mom had suggested that I start investing in the 401K my company offered. This was a result of her not investing in her 401K until she was 40 – she didn’t want me making her same mistakes. She connected me with her financial advisor and he told me to put all my money into a traditional retirement fund, which I didn’t understand at the time actually had a high expense ratio…another reason I don’t trust financial advisors that aren’t fee only 🙂 . Anyway, regardless, I was invested in the stock market for the first time! My investing journey had begun – even if it was in a sub-par fashion. It’s better than nothing!
Outside of my investing portfolio, things were getting a little weird at work. My hectic summer had taught me that in advertising, there is no training – you’re thrown in with the sharks in my experience. There is no rule book of what to do or how to go about your work, you have to figure it out and make it up as you go along. But I finally got a handle on it and got used to the last minute requests, fire drills, late nights and general high levels of stress that this industry seems to pride itself on.
At this point, higher ups started talking about promotions. They laid out the criteria for what you needed to do to get promoted to the next level. I studied that list like it was a final exam and worked my ass off to hit every one of those metrics – and I did 🙂 . Along the way my boss’s boss pulled me aside to give me some ‘advice’.
He said that I needed to dress nicer if I wanted to get promoted. When I pointed from my jeans and nice top to his cargo shorts and t-shirt, he said that he doesn’t need to dress nice, but I do and that he was just giving me a tip (riiiiiight…). I asked for more of an explanation since I was dressed similarly to everyone else in the office and he said that people in client service (our department) needed to dress ‘better’ than everyone else.
This sounded like some “dress for the job you want” bullshit, but I was all in trying to get that promotion, so I listened. I went to thrift stores and got dress shoes, blazers and fancier tops. I started getting compliments on my new look.
(CONTENT WARNING: Disordered Eating) I’m not sure if it was the stress, the lack of time, the pressure to look differently or what, but I also basically stopped eating during this time. I was (idiotically) eating about 100 calories a day and started dropping weight fast since I was literally starving myself. I’d often go to sleep clutching my stomach trying to make the hunger pains go away (…ugh dumb dumb dumb!!!). The even dumber thing was that the more weight I lost, the more compliments and encouragement I got from people at work. So I kept doing it.
My office was a weirdly toxic place where one girl literally bragged about fainting in her 6am soul cycle class because she hadn’t eaten for so long. And at the time, I didn’t bat an eye at this. I was fully entrenched in this warped world. As a result of my dumb food decisions, I lost 30 lbs in about 3 months, got even more compliments from my colleagues and patted myself on the back.
In retrospect, I think I might have been trying to exert control on something because I felt I lacked control in my life while I was also trying to “look the part” for the promotion I was busting my ass for. My time was not my own – I was always working, even at home. My weekends were usually technically free from the office, but my mind was still filled with work dilemmas. It was all consuming.
And for all of my hard work, hitting all of the work goals they set out for me and changing my appearance I got: Nothing 🙂 . In fact, everyone around me, even a dude who routinely did not hit his deadlines and joined after I did with my same level of experience, got promoted while I did not. I was left in the dust and it pissed me off 🙂 .
I ended up talking to my boss about it because I was confused since I hit all the criteria they laid out while others didn’t, and they were the ones to get promoted. She encouraged me to go talk to the SVP who makes those decisions. Big Mistake. I had a meeting with her and she yelled at me saying that I’ll never get promoted and that the criteria doesn’t actually matter, it’s all about “if [she] felt that we were ready.” AKA It’s total bullshit.
I cry when I’m frustrated and I am embarrassed to say that I went back to my cubicle and balled. Luckily it was after hours and (like usual) I was the only one left in the office. I had to finish my work while wiping tears off the keyboard. I was so pissed off. Before this I thought jobs were fair – they laid out a goal, you reached it and got the reward. This was my first lesson that that is not at all the case.
But I wasn’t done trying. They kept stringing me along – though this time without pretending there was any “criteria.” I started doing the job of my boss when she was moved to another team and also her boss while he was on paternity leave. I literally proved by doing it that I was ready for a promotion and then some – and what did they do? After promoting my boss and having an empty position above me, they brought in an outsider to fill the role…an outsider I had to onboard because I was the one that had been doing the job. I was furious.
At the same time, our apartment was proving to be a bit of a shithole 🙂 . Over the course of the year, we had discovered rats, roaches and ants in our place. None of which the landlord was willing to deal with. The icing on the cake is that our heat also shut off during one of the coldest January’s on record…and the landlord wouldn’t return my calls for weeks. After all this while paying a ridiculous amount to live in these conditions, we decided to start looking for a new place.
At work I continued training the person who stole my job basically 🙂 until I couldn’t take it anymore. On top of that betrayal, my workload had obviously tripled since I was doing my job on top of my boss’s and their boss until I could finish training the replacement and the skip level boss came back from paternity leave. I was stressed out of my mind and would often go home and start crying because I was so tired.
Finally my Mom (virtually) and partner (physically) cornered me and said that they hated seeing me like this and that no job is worth this kind of stress. They told me I should find another job. And I listened. I started networking again and taking interviews. A friend who had been a receptionist at Company 1 was now a recruiter at another ad agency and she told me I should interview there. I did and shockingly the team told her they wanted to hire me…but I never heard from them again 🙂 .
I waited by the phone my entire week of vacation in Hawaii – my first vacation since starting my job and heard nothing. Though one good thing about this time was that I started eating again like a normal human being 🙂 .
So after thinking that I could easily find another job and leave my current one behind, I was back to square one. And at this point I was so over it 🙂 . I couldn’t see myself continuing to work at this increasingly toxic workplace with the SVP reigning over us, overloading us with work, not living up to her promises and seeming to thrive on making her team miserable.
When I moved to NYC I had $5,000 saved up from my high school job and some cash my Mom had given me to eat in college. After a year scraping by while adulting I still had $5,000 in my bank account. This amount would have to cover getting a new apartment, which would mean a deposit, possible broker fee and months of rent in advance. Despite those items most likely adding up to the few thousands I had saved, I’d reached my limit. I couldn’t take it anymore. So I said “Fuck it,” quit my job without another lined up and walked out with my head held high.
So that’s the end of my first year of adulthood. Despite all that drama, here’s where I netted out:
Salary: $35,000
Spending: $20,000*
Net Worth: $20,439**
*This spending is estimated. I didn’t start knowing exactly what I spent until 2015/2016.
**This includes my cash, 401(k) contributions and its growth (which was significant).
So what do you think is going to happen next? Will Young Purple find another job? A different apartment? Will she end up eating cat food in a ditch 😉 ? Tune in next time to find out!
Here’s the next post in this series: $5K to Retirement In 9 Years: Year 2 “Avoiding My Problems With Exercise & Consumerism”
Love this recounting of your story. I am so glad you listened to your mom and partner and got out of that toxic workplace. Wiping tears off of your keyboard… hell it’s insane what we endure for a job. This first year of adulthood sounds pretty shitty to me but I’m hopeful for the next few years in this series because I know it got better!
I’m glad you liked it 🙂 . And yeah they seem to know what they’re talking about (don’t tell them I said that haha). It is indeed wild. And that’s so funny you say it’s shitty – I didn’t realize that until I read your comment. I guess I just had it labeled under “life” lol. But yes, happy ending guaranteed over here!
I always love the stories with the life flow. For me is you my inspiration as I need similar financial targets and similar dream life (to travel more, simple slow travel).
I want just to appreciate the hard start as we put so easily the difficult moments apart and we forgot to be grateful for the place we are now … good job, lady, your life wasn’t easy and your success is just because of your hard work.
Yay! I’m happy to hear that. This is kind of a new thing on my blog (just telling stories) so I was curious how it would land. And thank you so much 🙂 !
I love series like this. MR’s series and A FI Life are my two favourites, and I think this will become another!
I’m so mad at your first job >:( They treated you so badly. Young Purple, you deserved better. Yeah, life lessons learned which probably would’ve come along at some point, but that is ROUGH as a first professional job.
It might just be me, but our generation seems to have had a rough start in the workplace and I’m honestly still bitter about it. Unpaid internships, shitty bosses, minimal oversight, unreasonable expectations, and insane politics – I had it too and I still have it. At least the money is (somewhat) worth it now. FIRE will definitely be worth it.
I was kinda mad the post stopped there. Can’t wait to read more!
Ah shoot, I meant Living a FI -__- it’s nearly the end of the day here, my brain is mush.
Haha don’t worry – I knew you meant Living A Fi 😉 . That’s a great point though – I LOVED his posts detailing his job and my brain didn’t put that in the same category since he didn’t go into the finances as much, but that’s totally true and a HUGE inspiration for this as well. Thank you for helping me see that and so I can give proper credit 🙂 . And if this series is associated with those in your mind I am SO honored!
I agree it does seem like it’s harder for our generation (I’ve talked to my Mom and compared experiences and she agrees). And I’m sorry I made you mad when I stopped, but this was already almost 3000 words haha – I had to break it up or we’d be here all day 😉 .
Yikes! Toxic environment for sure–good for you for getting out!
Unfortunately, some people are like that. It’s not worth busting your rear for bosses that enjoy stringing people along.
Yep – I’m all about moving on. It’s not my job to make people into better managers and there are plenty of jobs in the sea!
I’m gonna go out on a limb, based on that little graph at the end, and state that you did not end up eating cat food in a ditch.
But that first year really shows why you were so hungry (no double meanings intended, but it’s there for the taking) to escape the lovely corporate world, or at least that first company. I’m sorry you had to put up with all that, but obviously it’s worked out pretty well since then.
Looking forward to hearing about Year 2!
OR was it a bait and switch (lol – naw you’re right 🙂 ) . And yay! I’m happy you’re looking forward to it.
Hi Purple, I think I’m going to love this series of posts! 😀 😀 😀 I’ve been reading your blog long enough that I pretty much know the overall path that your life has taken… but I will definitely enjoying reading about it in more detail!
I’m sorry your first job was so terrible. Mine was too… it must be a first job kind of thing. I actually used to deliberately do things (not get enough sleep, not wash hands, etc.) that I hoped would make me get sick so I would be able to take off work. Terrible idea in retrospect… I wish I’d just quit! I did quit that job after about a year and a half.
Oh, and I’ve never been promoted at a job, now that I think about it. I’ve had to jump to other companies to get promoted, which I think (I hope!) has made my salary increase faster. If I remember correctly, you know all about that. 😀
I’m so glad 🙂 . I’m glad you know the general path because it sure is scattered on here. Hopefully putting all the info in one place will be helpful. And ugh I’m sorry your first job was bad too – and trying to deliberately get sick oh no! We were both full of terrible ideas back then 🙂 . I’m glad you quit.
And same on the promotions – I’ve gotten several and yep huge salary increases by leaving. Good to know that wasn’t just my experience 😉 .
so, management was willing to pee on your back and tell you it was raining? been there….once. lesson learned.
i think people are gonna like this series. the slog and lessons along the way are truly valuable.
Yep 🙂 . And I hope people will like it!
It really rubs me the wrong way when I hear about unpaid internships; here I’m more focused on how outrageously insulting that $35k starting salary was. The “average” starting salary for new college grads is supposed to be ~$50k, which few folks manage to actually hit. I’m annoyed on your behalf with that insidiously lowball salary. And that’s in NYC to boot, *the* most expensive place to live in the country!!
You would have ended up with that cat-food-in-a-ditch if you tried to stick it out so I’m very glad you didn’t. Excited to read up on the rest of this little series, and thanks for adding that net worth graph at the bottom!
Preach! I’ve actually never heard of $50K starting salaries out of college outside of management consulting or investment firms. Good to know though! Luckily I got out – some people stayed and were making that for years. I’m happy you’re excited and that you liked the graph 🙂 . I wanted to give a bit of a spoiler about how this works out despite my cat food comment haha.
Holy moly! That’s super toxic. Great move getting out of that insane place. This is shaping up to be a fun series.
Yeah it’s wasn’t my favorite 🙂 . And yay!
There’s nothing better than just walking out. Except when the boss doesn’t speak English and he doesn’t understand what resignation means. I still smile thinking about the shock on his face when he finally understood I was resigning. Ahh those horrible jobs certainly teach us something. (For me it was to not put up with it for as long as I did-there are other jobs out there). Hope year two gets better for you!
Oh wow – it sounds like you had an even more interesting walking out story! And yep there seems to always be a lesson to learn. I’m so glad you got out of there! And thank you 🙂 .
100% here for this, YES,
Also, because I’ve really enjoyed reading the comments about people’s jobs and what happened, I’ll add mine: had the same experience of being a rockstar in my former jobs, and it wasn’t until I finally took a job that I deliberately didn’t care about (after a breakup, while I was wrapping up college) that I kept getting promoted despite: 1. Barely putting in any work other than absolutely necessary (meaning I did exactly my job description and not one bit more), and 2. Openly telling my manager to stop trying to promote me because I didn’t want the responsibility. I ended up a step below running the place, and I’ve never forgotten it. The lesson I learned from that was similar to your most recent pre-retirement story (I’d say “spoiler alert!” but I assume most of us know the gist!): unless I’m the owner and getting all the perks, an employer can expect the bare minimum of me: I’ll show up, do my job, and then I’m OUT. I think that attitude brings a certain confidence to the table, and that seems to be the only time promotions appear.
Thank you for sharing 🙂 . And yeah – it’s a spoiler, but I had a similar experience (not almost running the company though lol). The less I cared, they more they gave me. It was ridiculous.
Wow this was like looking at my last down to the same salary at $35k and cold calling my alumni because I was desperate for a job and the economy was shit. Graduating Sunday, going to work that Monday. Living in a terrible dangerous situation. It was such a hard run the first few years. Thank you for the openness and the memories. I hope you’re proud of everything you have become
Yup – it was a wild time. Good to know we’re even more similar than I originally thought, but I’m sorry you went through that. And yeah it’s definitely gets better 😉 .
Great post. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about your start as an adult. Good call on leaving your job.
I’m happy to hear that 🙂 ! Thank you for stopping by.
That was SO riveting to read! And also infuriating! That SVP and landlord suck!
We can definitely trace the start of our FI journey to disillusionment with office politics. So gross! 🤢
We can already tell this series is going to be a favorite! Thanks for the time travel! Hope part 2 is called, “Year 2: Young Purple Takes The Universe!” 🙌
High praise!! Thank you so much 🙂 . And haha they do indeed suck and office politics are gross, but I’m glad I learned in Year 1 indeed of believing that shit for additional years. Sadly that isn’t the title of the second one, but maybe the 4th 😉 .
This is fascinating. The normalizing of eating disorders and bullshit dangling of promotions at work is horrible, but it needs to be told clearly and transparently. Thanks for retelling your story in such detail and with the added perspective of time and maturity.
It is indeed fascinating – and horrible 🙂 . Thank you so much for your kind words though!
I really love your no-nonsense writing style! I am about the same age as you (but far from reaching the finished line…) and having a shit job out of college (the job market in SoCal was absolutely shit in the early 2010s…) was also what set me to the FI path.
The shit job that I had? I also rage-quitted that crap with nothing lined up after one year. I don’t regret it one bit 😉 as I am in a much better position now.
Your journey is such an inspiration to me. I can’t wait to read the next parts!
Thank you 🙂 . And wow – seems like we have a lot of parallels! I’m so happy you’re in a better position now. And yay!
Just a thought! This should be the first chapter of your book. Delightfully easy and insightful to read!
Haha – you make a good point 😉 . And yay! I’m happy to hear that.
Loving this story – oh to be a fly on the wall to see the face of the CEO when you handed in your notice!
Reading your story is like watching a Netflix show where I have to wait impatiently for the next episode. Unless I come back in like a month’s time so I can binge-read it all in one go 🙂
So glad you liked it! And hilariously like many things – the SVP didn’t care 🙂 . She threatened to talk to me again to ask why I was quitting, but then…never did. And oh yeah bringing back the pre-binge days haha. Either approach works! Sometimes I don’t watch or read something for a while until it’s finished and I can read it all at once. You do you 🙂 .
I enjoyed reading this. I like that series from Millenial Revolution as well. I still refer back to it from time to time but since I’ve met them I oddly hear their voices telling the story.
So happy to hear that and that’s super cool!
Hey Purple, I listened to your webinar on femaleinvest and am now reading your blog. Question: is the 35k salary gross or net?
That’s cool 🙂 . Gross salary – I’ve never heard of salaries that refer to the net/post-tax amount personally.
ok thanks, I’m a bit shocked. Forgive me if this sounds rude, but 35k gross isn’t that much even as an entry position and you were living in expensive New York as well! Or is the US tax rate on salaries not as bad as it is in Europe? I usually estimate 40% of my gross salary is deducted on my payslip for income tax, public health insurance and other deductions. I’m keen on finding out how to do the fire calculations with the european finance things in mind. Thanks for the inspiration!
No worries – that doesn’t sound rude. In NYC in 2011 I was told that was a fair salary out of college. Friends of mine in the same city and the same year made $25K or $30K so I thought of myself as lucky. US taxes are definitely less than Europe, but Federal, State and NYC taxes added up to about 30% of my salary if I’m remembering correctly. NY State and NYC taxes are quite high compared to other places (such as Seattle, which has neither).
So yeah – I basically didn’t buy anything but groceries that first year. We didn’t go to a restaurant until about a year in when someone gave me a gift card for my birthday. If you’re looking for European FIRE calculations check out retireinprogress.com for the high end (Switzerland).