Of course the next 10 years won't be as strong. We spent the last 8 years recovering from a crash. If you plan on retiring in a very short period, it will be determined on your income FAR more than your investments.
They are called high cost of living states for a reason. Many of the costs aren't optional, like state income tax.
What's your major? If your goal is to retire ASAP, I hope you picked something with a relatively lucrative future.
Exactly, that's why I'm thinking hardcore right now how I could increase my income or rate of return (real estate). Thats a very good thing to consider, optional and non-optional costs. Accounting was randomly given to me by my college through a scholarship. Normal paying major really, nothing like engineering related jobs for example.
According to bls.gov Accountant:
starting salary for my area: 40k probably can work my way up to 60k
Financial Analyst: 44k probably work my way up to 67k
Starting my own accounting business: Can make negative money, little money, or a lot of money, depends how well I do.
Some spots in California start at 60k and work your way up to 78k depends on area. Depends what area.
*Can make more than these ranges but I'm being conservative using 10th and 50th percentiles.
Yahoo here has this program for becoming a financial analyst with them where you work with them right after you graduate, you do rotations in California and stuff (maybe I could stay in Calfornia after I graduate if I got into this program) then this whole idea popped into my head.
Yes to the idea of relocating to a high salary area and keeping expenses very low. It can be done.
But only by the poor and those who are not complainypants. :)
Will the stock market returns for the next decade be significantly lower than the historical average? No one knows.
For every reason you can come up with for it to be low there's someone else who has a good reason why it will stay on track.
Personally, I think trusting to the greed, intelligence and energy of hundreds of thousands of key employees around the world is a good bet.
Yes to using real estate in addition to index funds. Done right, it's a great way to accelerate your FIRE date. But you have to do the research on how to do it right. Real estate is a numbers game and an unwillingness to learn how to do the numbers is an invitation to lose your shirt.
You are right, know one knows 100%. If I can increase my income though, it can't hurt though regardless of what the returns are. Freedom is very important to me and worth the materialistic sacrifices to me. If I can accomplish my goal without real estate, I'd prefer this route because index funds look much easier, I'm still open to real estate though.