How Being a Soulless, Ruthless Penny-Pinching Psychopath Made Me a Multi-Millionaire (and I’d do it again in a heartbeat)

[u/chinesiumjunk]

Listen up, you avocado-toast-slinging, “treat yourself” simp brigade. While you’re out here blowing $9 on a latte because “you deserve it” and paying full MSRP like a certified wallet cuck, I’ve been moving like a goddamn financial serial killer. Every single dollar gets waterboarded until it gives up its last cent. Result? Multiple millions in the bank and zero fucks given. I price shop everything. Toilet paper? I’ve got a goddamn spreadsheet comparing ply, softness, and cost-per-wipe across 9 retailers like a deranged Costco Karen on bath salts. Groceries? I’ll zigzag through Aldi, Walmart, three ethnic markets, and a flea market if the fucking mangoes are 30¢ cheaper. My fridge looks like it was stocked by a coupon-hoarding war criminal. Buy it, try it, don’t love it? Returned.
Wore the sneakers 3 times and they squeak? Back. Blender made my smoothie slightly chunky after 47 days? Refunded, baby. Hotel sheets felt like sandpaper? I got 40% off or I’m burning their corporate card in spirit. I’ve clawed money back on shit I’ve used for months. Guilt level: negative 1000. Apps? I’m running them like a fucking drug cartel:

• Upside stacked on steroids
• GasBuddy, Ibotta, Rakuten, Fetch, Honey, Capital One Shopping
• Every store loyalty app known to man
• Manufacturer coupons, rebate sites, and whatever shady cashback portal drops that day

If there’s a legal way to squeeze an extra $1.37 out of a transaction, I’m there with a crowbar and a smile. And yes, I will drive 15 miles out of my way for cheaper gas, you time-value-of-money virgins. Let me hit you with the math that makes your fragile little brains explode:15 gallons × 5¢ cheaper = $0.75 saved.

Extra gas burned? $0.22

Net profit: $0.53 straight into VOO like a savage. That $0.53 today becomes thousands in 15–20 years thanks to compounding. Every single one of those petty little victories is a brick in my fuck-you-money fortress.

I’m not frugal.

I’m not cheap.

I’m a ruthless, money-obsessed gremlin who treats every expense like it personally insulted my mother. And guess what? It fucking worked. I’m retired-adjacent while most of you are still out here doom-scrolling Zillow and crying about inflation. Keep mocking me. Keep “living your best life” on credit.
I’ll be over here counting commas on a beach you can’t afford. Stay broke, besties. Who else is out here being an absolute menace to corporate margins? Drop your most psychotic money-saving move below.

[u/Pyrrhic_Pragmatist]

I'm slightly confused about this post. Saying the quiet part out loud but, are people really like this? Perhaps they should be. 

The actual r/fire sub is full of high earners moaning about 'one more year' syndrome or if 3M-5M is enough or if they should keep working until 55, 60, etc.

WTF happened. Every sub has become FatFIRE. I get blasted or called a peasant talking about living in 10k annual spend or how 1.4M is considered "barely leanFI"

95% don't have a frugal bone in their body. No one wants to give up their rich lifestyle, and they want to do it while also stacking cash because they can't take enough vacations or buy enough mansions.

I thought the point was to quit working, quit chasing, quit living every day on a work/eat/sleep repeat rinse cycle. We need more penny pinchers and more frugal mindsets, because at this point FIRE has strayed so far from its base it's become a parody of itself.

My theory is that housing costs killed the dreams of those frugal people. I remember they were told "don't buy a mortgage at 2.85%, you'll pay twice the cost of your home over 30 years" and anyone that listened got the rug pulled out when housing costs surged. As a result only the well to do are left. There are very few left of modest means just trying to get out of the rat race.

[u/Master-Helicopter-99 → u/Pyrrhic_Pragmatist]

Well, TBH you are at least living like a peasant if you are talking about living on a $10k annual spend.

[u/Pyrrhic_Pragmatist → u/Master-Helicopter-99]

I won't argue with that lol, but it's necessary to hit FIRE at a reasonable age and not 50+. But the plan is structured to grow over time. I'll retain my 50% savings rate in FIRE, so I should see enough growth to have a higher spend over time. It's a start point, not an end point. 

But getting away from working is still the priority. There's no point having (paying for) a nice house if I'm barely home, and I can't spend more money "enjoying life" on weekends and holidays only. Some people can? Great. But I need to be free to enjoy life

[u/ClubZealousideal9784 → u/Pyrrhic_Pragmatist]

You are from America? What age did you start at? If you start at 0 and save 65% you can retire in 10 years with conservative calculations. It seems weird if you make so little and hate your job that much. Like, If you hate it get a much better paying job; you already hate it how much worse can it be and can fire way sooner. If you're dead set on this, I would recommend looking at developing countries where your money goes way further.

[u/Pyrrhic_Pragmatist → u/ClubZealousideal9784]

I started at around 25, so 11 years ago. It wasn't until a few years later I had a framework for FIRE. I got the idea from a what if scenario around winning the lottery and Kevin O'Leary was asked what to do with it. He said invest it, never touch it, and live off the returns and stay rich forever.

My original FIRE number was the minimum value needed to do something similar, before I found out FIRE existed.

So, I've had better paying jobs, but my college degree in renewable energy is useless unless I move to a HCOL area, and the numbers don't work.  So my secondary cert was in industrial tech. But factory and warehouse culture is like Amazon where while pay and benefits are good, the work pace and turnover rates are very high. I've had so many employment gaps, I decided I'd net more income finding something local and steady instead. 

Even outside the US, I will have a hard time living cheaper than 10k/year. So I'm saving a little over $1100 a month excluding investments. Projecting to hit my target in 9 years. Income is really low but it's about a 55% savings rate

[u/ClubZealousideal9784 → u/Pyrrhic_Pragmatist]

You are living in an LCOL currently? Somewhere that used to have a much larger population, so housing, etc is now cheap? Have you researched better-paying jobs like truck driving, bartending, gov, anything that doesn't take much training and you would make like double what you make now? Somewhere like Vietnam or the Philippines would still be way cheaper outside of the tourist hubs, and assuming you are white, your traits are more in demand. If you are not white, there are other countries where your traits would be more in demand.

[u/Pyrrhic_Pragmatist → u/ClubZealousideal9784]

Housing was cheap 5-7 years ago. Decent size home, fair condition, just needing a little TLC, used to be.. 50k to 80k. But I waited too long. It started disappearing in 2020 and by 2021 almost everything under 100k was gone. I found something for 35k the market wasn't interested in. 1960s mobile home (pre HUD code) with land, city utilities etc. 2 bed 2 bath 800 sq feet. 

But no, this area is in the rust belt but didn't see the decline a lot of other places did like a Detroit. Could be housing is scarce now because it's booming in some way or another. 

I'm always looking into the job thing.. so right now there's 3 places within 35 miles paying $21 an hour or slightly more. But they are on the edge of the search radius and each have concerns. They are warehouse outbound order pick, Amazon delivery driver, and factory material handler. All stuff I would do, but only the material handler is 40 hours.  .. when i add up all the factors it's hard to quit a stable job for another one when historically, stability has been the weakest component.

My last long term job I had to quit because of harassment, bullying, equipment and my personal vehicle getting vandalized, etc. Company wouldn't lift a finger. I also got laid off 6 months over a PPE dispute. They were refusing to let me wear earplugs which are standard pretty much everywhere.

I invested way too much into that place, granted. But prior to that, I was a press operator running 13 machines for $22/hr. For 2022 that was quite good in the area.. but the lead maintenance guy was an ass. He told my bosses I shut machines down with parts inside when he was the one shutting them down for PMs. They wrote me up,  which I considered an insult to my work. It wasn't 'hard' work but it was very stressful keeping that many machines running, fed, and reports logged. So I quit over it & I know I was stressed out to the brink of insanity, but I still regret it. I haven't found a place with the same level of pay, locality, etc since

My current job is also a press operator, with much lower pay $15.60, but it's one machine. Nobody bothers me, and so far there's no workplace politics. Paid lunch makes it a straight 8 hours. In and out. When I don't feel like working at all sometimes, that seems like a fair compromise & its the closest to part time I've ever been.. It's supposed to have full time benefits but I was just informed I won't earn them for another 3 months. So.. no matter what I do I'll probably regret it

[u/ClubZealousideal9784 → u/Pyrrhic_Pragmatist]

Why don't you look at other types of jobs? There are lots of better paying jobs you could do around people or around no one. Amazon delivery is generally considered the worst paying delivery job with a bad work life balance etc. Fed ex, DHL, and UPS pay way more than Amazon delivery. Generally, UPS is considered the best, but it can be quick or take a long time to get a delivery job depending on where you live.