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Frugal millennial Anita Garcia only pays $510 a month for subsidized university housing.
Courtesy of Anita Garcia
31-year-old Anita Garcia started investing when she was 18, then joined the FIRE community in 2020.
To retire early, Garcia is living on 52% of her income, then saving and investing the rest.
She slashed her food and housing costs, and started maxing out her retirement savings.
Two years ago, frugal millennial Anita Garcia, 31, learned about the FIRE movement. FIRE stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early. The goal is to save and invest as much of your take-home pay as possible so you can retire before 65.
Garcia tells Insider, “I was inputting some numbers into a retirement calculator, and it let me put in my age. I thought that was interesting. I thought there was just a default retirement number, like 65 or 62 or something.”
After experimenting with the calculator, Garcia realized she could retire earlier by increasing her retirement contributions and learning how to invest on her own.
According to records viewed by Insider, Garcia has a net worth of $196,283, split between savings and investments.
Garcia started investing $25 a month when she was 18 years old working at a local pizzeria. She continued the habit while in college, and later when she started working full-time. Before joining FIRE in March 2020, Garcia already had a net worth of $55,000. Now, Garcia works part-time at a university near her hometown making about $4,000 per month.
She managed to cut her expenses down to $2,100 a month while investing the rest of her income, which includes money from side hustles. She documents her investing journey on her Instagram page, The Retired Millennial.
Five strategies are helping her get closer to her early-retirement goal.
1. She lowered her living costs
Earlier in 2022, Garcia was living in a one-bedroom in-law unit above her landlord’s garage by herself and spending $1,100 a month on rent. Since quitting her job and taking a position at California State University in Monterey Bay, her housing costs have dropped dramatically.
“I have very affordable housing right now through the university, so I get partially subsidized housing,” says Garcia. She lives with her boyfriend, and the two of them chose a smaller floor plan to cut down on costs. She pays $510 a month for her share of the rent.
She also changed her grocery shopping habits to cut down her spending on food.
“What really helped was changing where I shopped,” says Garcia. “I used to order from Thrive Market and go to my nearest grocery store. But then I became a little better at shopping bargain.” These days, Garcia strategically plans out each grocery run and buys what she needs in bulk, ensuring she makes fewer trips and spends less overall.
2. She saved over $770 a month by getting roommates
In 2020 and 2021, Garcia lived in a two-bedroom apartment with her boyfriend that cost $1,290 a month. She found roommates to help her save $770 a month on rent, which she then invested in index funds and ETFs.
3. She invests her earnings from social media
According to records reviewed by Insider, Garcia earns an extra $6,600 from social media, through brand partnerships, affiliate links, and a link where people can buy her a coffee. Aside from a portion set aside for taxes, Garcia invests 100% of those earnings.
4. She invested $10,000 that she earned from flipping furniture
Garcia has a knack for finding and refurbishing old furniture. On her blog, she documented her journey of turning free furniture into $1,000. She found the cheapest materials possible to refurbish and sell the free furniture, then invested the profits to refurbish and sell even more pieces.
According to records viewed by Insider, she made a total of $10,000 flipping furniture in the last two years, then invested that money in the stock market.
5. She maxes out her retirement contributions
When Garcia first began her investing journey, she thought she would be working full-time as a software engineer until she hit $1 million — her FIRE number, or the amount she’d need to quit working entirely — in her investment portfolio. That is, until Garcia learned about two other types of FI:
Type of financial independenceHow much you need to save in your retirement fund before you retireAnita’s goalTraditional FI25 times your annual expenses, including discretionary spending$1 millionLean FIYour investments only cover basic necessities, like food, transportation, and housing$600,000Coast FIYou’ve saved enough in your retirement accounts that if you let your money grow, it can support you when you retire$100,000
To reach Coast FI, Garcia maxed out her IRA contributions and used a separate brokerage accountto invest in index funds on her own.
She says, “Once I hit $100,000, it was enough for me mentally to know, worst-case scenario, I’ll have $1 million at age 65. And I’m totally OK with that.”
Maxing out your retirement contributions is an expert-recommended strategy for early retirees, but it should be considered along with your other goals.
Jay Zigmont, financial planner and founder of Childfree Wealth, cautions savers to make sure they’re leaving enough money in the budget to pay their bills, and to remember that they will eventually have to pay taxes on pre-tax savings. Plus, he says, if you’re applying for a mortgage or other loan, a lower AGI on your tax return might qualify you for a lower loan amount.
Onlookers on Instagram have criticized Garcia for living frugally. She says in response, “When people see that I live on $25,000 worth of expenses a year, they really don’t equate that to happiness. I actually live a very happy life.”