My spending is about 10k a year, so I'm able to save around 50% of my income but that's only 10k, so reaching financial independence in less than 20 years sounds impossible.
I don't know how growth rates in the Spanish/Euro stock market work, but in the US, with some approximate long term growth rates, a MMM reader created this chart:
https://networthify.com/calculator/earlyretirement?income=20000&initialBalance=0&expenses=10000&annualPct=5&withdrawalRate=4 (goes along with this post:
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/). It's all in dollars, but if all the numbers are in Euro, you shouldn't need to convert anything. This shows that a 50% savings rate would lead to FIRE in about 17 years.
• What motivated you to want to retire early?
Spain. I went when I was 16, decided I want to live there eventually, told my site leader that I dream of living internationally, and he told me that wasn't an option (he was a German working in the US at the time, I think that was the worst part of the conversation)
• How old were you when you early retired and how many years did you have to work for it?
I was 32, and I have been working since I was 10, but graduated college and started making real money at 23.
• How did you do it?
I am naturally frugal, and have been saving a good chunk of my paycheck monthly since I started. I never tracked it, but I'd say my savings rate in my first 6 years working was about 40-50% without thinking about it. I was relocated to a high cost of living area, where I got a COLA adjustment and a pay adder for the location which added about 35% to my paycheck. I started heavily tracking my savings rate after the above conversation, moved to a shared house saving over $1000/month in rent, and hit ~73% savings rate for a couple years.
• Is it necessary to earn a lot of money to retire early? What’s the key factor?
The key really is the savings rate. If you make $20,000 and save 10%, you will be able to retire in the same amount of time as a person making $200,000 and saving 10% if there are no major life changes.
• How would you define your investment strategy? What do you live from now?
I'm a buy and hold person, with very low cost index funds and a few hand picked company stocks.
I've got a cushion of cash in the bank that I could live on, but at the moment I am volunteering in the Peace Corps (US organization started by John F. Kennedy) in a small developing country. I get a tiny (currently about $110) stipend which is enough for me to live in a small city with provided housing. If I wasn't doing this, I'd be pulling my dividends out instead of reinvesting them, rolling money out of my retirement account to another investment account slowly (US thing), and pulling about 1.5% out of my investments.
• Which were your biggest hits and your biggest mistakes?
Mistake: When I started, I tried to diversify myself, and ended up with 15 funds that were overlapping with a huge variation in their fees. I wised up and traded all the high fee funds for the low fee funds I already owned to simplify. Also, a year into my career, the 2008/9 market crash happened. My company was selling for 10% of what it is now. Many of my co-workers moved substantial amounts to this stock and were able to retire at 50 because of it. Hindsight is 20/20, but I think it the same happened, I still wouldn't buy but that's the non-risk taker in me.
Hit: About 4 years into my career, I heard a co-worker say something about the bond market being unstable. I sold most of my bond funds and bought them back a few months later at a ~25% discount. This is another thing I probably wouldn't do now.
• If you had to give some advice to people that’s starting, what would it be? Whats your recipe to reach early retirement?
Live below your mean. Know what makes you happy, spend your money on that, and don't spend your money on things that don't. Know the difference between a necessity and a want - cell phones may be necessary, but to me a $700 phone with a $80/month plan is not.
• What do you do now with your time? Was it worth it?
I am now a volunteer in Eurasia teaching English. I'm considering working with the Sports and Education department in Spain to become an English assistant in Madrid or in northern Spain so that I can live in Spain with a purpose and get a 1 year visa.