I retired at 34

I retired at 34.

For a while, this site said 33. The mistake was mine — my bad, I never remember my age. I stopped keeping track of the date years ago, and apparently the age went with it. So let's carve it properly this time: I stopped trading in April 2022, took a flight to Lisbon, and I was thirty-four.

People assume a story like this starts with a windfall. Mine starts on a bicycle.

Somewhere on the road around the world I tried trading prediction markets, briefly, and proved the concept: I could price probability better than the people setting the odds. That's when it stopped being a curiosity — it was something I could exploit to retire on. I finished the round-the-world trip, and the next thing I did was start doing it full time.

The end, when it came, was nothing like the montage. A couple of months before finishing I took a whole month off. The last two months I was extremely relaxed — the decision was old, the edge was proven, it was just rounding up the number by then.

I wasn't even following the exact figure. I knew that month I'd hit it. So I booked my flights and got ready for Lisbon.

No celebration. No speech. Just packing up and moving on.

If you're waiting for the champagne scene, that's the honest report: there isn't one. The loud part had happened years earlier, on the day I decided. By the time you actually cross your number, the crossing is admin.

Who did I tell first? I genuinely don't remember. But I'll give you the better story: by the time my parents held their retirement party, I'd already retired.

What almost went wrong along the way? Nothing, truthfully — and that's not luck talking. Whenever I find an obstacle in my way, I work out how to beat it and come out on top. That method is older than the trading.

The question I haven't managed to retire is the airport one: “So — what do you do?”

I've been through many versions. Mostly I dodge it by asking first: “What do you do for fun?” Kills the work conversation on the spot, and usually improves the whole exchange.

If someone insists, I pick from the honest pile: I enjoy life. I do whatever I feel like doing. I'm retired. Or I reach for whichever old hat is convenient — web designer, IT guy, photographer, blogger, writer, wealth manager, investor, perpetual traveller, adventurer. I've genuinely been all of them.

And the thirty-year-old me — mid-bike-trip, living on a few euros a day? If he could watch one ordinary Tuesday of this life, the money is not what would surprise him. The cheap travelling was a choice: for the rush of it, for the fun of it, because I enjoyed the adventure. I finished those five years around the world with more money in the bank than I'd left with.

What would genuinely confuse him is the address. This is the longest I've lived in one place as an adult — and I'm chilled about it!

So that's the exit, told straight. No drama at the line, because the drama was all in the decision. If you're circling a number of your own, expect the same: the crossing will be the quiet part. The deciding is the loud one. When's yours?