The only saving money hack, made exclusively to protect your freedom. Ages: college to retirement.

If you’re under 30 and seeing this, chances are, a blog post or 2, (or 10) has yelled at you about how screwed your generation is when it comes to your future. Your saving accounts don’t earn interest, you don’t even have emergency money, your income is low, and your student loans will keep in debt for decades.

If you find yourself in this broken equation of modern money, you’ve also likely aware of the issues with real estate inflation, wage stagnation, and rising education costs. Today’s un-affordability is making tomorrow’s un-affordability take a back seat.

Living to 100 seems great, but thinking about how to pay for it, is a whole other layer of problem. It’s especially hard to focus on when most retirement advice is to work one job your whole career so you can save up and retire at 65 or 70, as the “light at the end of your long, unfulfilling tunnel.”

The Future’s Guide to Surviving Retirement

Despite this all too common advice, more and more people are choosing not to live like that. Meaningful work is taking priority over the ability to save money month to month. People are turning hobbies into careers and creating their own jobs when they can’t find any. Economists and psychologists are finding, that as people live longer, they’re developing the need and the desire stay economically / socially active for longer. Many can’t financially afford to retire at 65, but many don’t really want to. There is a shifting mindset, regarding old age and what that lifestyle should look like. An expanding generation of people are saying that working a fulfilling job for a lot longer is desirable over working for 40 years then stopping altogether.

There is a big question around money, retirement, and our future that’s causing many to think, do I even want to stop working altogether? Why save for the day of retirement, if that day may not even happen? Previous generations of workers have retired out of physical necessity, but maybe our bodies won’t need that at 65. Technology will make working from home easier. Plus, many age studying economist predict that by the time twenty somethings reach ‘traditional retirement’ age, much of this age-specific stigma against working won’t be around anymore.

It’s not until you consider the flip side of working till the day you die, could sound unappealing. It’s not working or contributing that is an issue. It’s needing to work and contribute, that’s an issue. Being forced to work, even if you enjoy the work, because you need a paycheck every month to live, that doesn’t sound appealing. No one wants to be a slave to money. You may want to work in your older age, but NEEDING to work at 65 vs working because I want to, when you want to, are two different things.

The Eff Off Fund

That principle should apply at any age, which is why I love the idea of a Fu** Off Fund. Originally made popular by feminist circles, as a “rainy day fund” to protect against workplace harassment/problems, the concept is this:

The more money you can scrape aside from each paycheck into your fuck-off fund, the less sh*t you’ll be forced to tolerate, just because you need the paycheck. It’s a plan for freedom. At last.

It’s not about saving for retirement and it’s not about the level of your income. All it is, is saving whenever you can, to ensure you won’t be totally screwed for deciding to leave a job, start a side project or whatever you want to do.

Flexibility is freedom. The most secure and least stressed people seem to be the ones who have options. Options, because they’re not any more reliant on their side business, than the company they work for, than the paycheck they earn from either.

The ability to scrape aside a small amount off the top of your earnings, in moments of prosperity, will give you options later on, when you need them the most.

So, don’t build a retirement fund, build a Fuck Off Fund. Set aside a portion of any money you earn, whenever you can. Then, if you need to live off it for a few weeks or months, you can.

Later on, once you get good and building up a Fuck Off Fund, learn the best ways to take care of it this fund.

How much you save and how well you take care of your savings, are the two only things you can control. Not your paycheck. Or your job stability. Or the world around you.

In moments of prosperity, take a little and save it for later. Not for “retirement” necessarily, but for flexibility. For freedom. Make that a benefit you give yourself, at any age. Because not a 50 thousand dollar degree, nor a million followers can guarantee you security.