TIE #038: Why 9-5 Jobs are a Scam
Renting your time for an hourly wage doesn't make sense anymore.
Apparently you hate money. If you didn’t, you’d be using Rakuten every time you shop on websites like Walmart and Target to make a little extra money.
Rakuten has paid me over $9,400 in free cash for things I was already going to buy anyway (click here for proof).
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Back in 1985, working a 9-5 job made more sense.
The internet didn’t exist, businesses were harder to start, and your income went twice as far towards buying a home:
That “traditional” path that we were all sold as teenagers is no longer worth your time.
(It never really was, but we’ll ignore that for now)
To make it crystal clear, take a look at this beautiful example below:
According to this post, even if you somehow:
Land a $200,000 salary right out of college
Get a 10% wage increase EVERY YEAR
Save 20% of your PRE-TAX income
It will take you 20 years to hit a net worth that would allow you to have your freedom back.
20 YEARS.
If this feels like a major gut punch, don’t worry. I felt that way too when I discovered this many years ago.
My last job was an aerospace engineer for the VC-25B presidential aircraft and my salary was under $100,000 and I never got an annual wage increase over 10%.
Despite having what many around me described as a “dream job”, it would have taken me over 30 years to hit my escape number.
No amount of “stability” is worth three decades of:
Waking up to an alarm you’d rather not set
Commuting to a place you’d rather not go to
Listening to someone you’d rather not listen to
Spending 40-50 hours/week away from the people you love most
Even if those things don’t bother you, your purchasing power is diminishing faster than it ever has.
This is what I mean when I say the 9-5 lifestyle is a scam.
If you’re still reading this, you probably have one glaring question:
Great, so how do I escape then?
The answer:
You need to make a lot of money.
Not just any kind of money, but money that is not directly tied to the amount of hours you work.
Money will allow you to buy your time back so you can spend your life doing the things you actually enjoy.
There are a million ways to do this (and no, none of them are easy), but almost all of them require you to start a business.
I recommend a one-person business that leverages the world’s most popular marketplace: Amazon.
It’s what worked for me and what I’d do if I was starting over tomorrow.
You may not like that idea. You may think life shouldn’t be this way.
But it’s the truth.
You can either accept this and use it to your advantage or you can continue to give away hours of your time to a business that doesn’t appreciate you.
That choice is yours and I can’t make it for you.
When you are ready, there are two different ways I can help you:
If you are interested in starting an efficient one-person online business, I recommend starting with one of the following:
Textbook Flipping Mastery - My in-depth guide on how to start a high-margin Amazon e-commerce business.
LEGO Investing Mastery - My in-depth guide on how to start a long-term “buy, hold, and sell” LEGO investing business.
The Conference Room - My private mentorship community that includes the two guides above, for free. Pay once and stay a member for life.
If you are interested following along with my personal LEGO investment portfolio and getting exclusive alerts when I add a new set to that portfolio:
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