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Jamal Robinson didn’t come from money. He started at the bottom, working as a church janitor at 14 before landing a minimum-wage job at Taco Bell, working long shifts while also going to school.
Today, at 40, he’s an American expat living among the glittering skyscrapers of Dubai. He has a $3.5 million nest egg and is pulling in $185,000 a year using the 4% retirement income rule. His secret? Relentless saving, aggressive investing, and a laser focus on financial freedom.
“I didn’t see a lot of people that were happy with work,” Robinson told CNBC. “In my mind, I always thought that it made the most sense to compress that amount of time in my life. So at 17, I set the goal to retire early at 45, which I wound up hitting six years earlier than expected (1).”
Robinson’s journey from minimum-wage worker to multimillionaire retiree is an extraordinary example of the FIRE movement (Financial Independence, Retire Early). Advocates of this approach make a ruthless commitment to saving and investing so that they can retire as young as possible.
This philosophy has drawn criticism from financial experts, such as Suze Orman, who wrote in a 2018 blog post, “The math of that makes absolutely no sense (2).”
Though she was broadly sympathetic to the idea of working towards financial independence, Orman raised concerns that the 4% rule wasn’t made to handle the strain of someone with a far longer drawdown runway than the average retiree.
“[T]hat strategy was designed to work for someone who retired at 65 and wanted to make sure their money had a solid chance of outlasting them. What works for 25-30 years shouldn’t be assumed to work for 50-60 years,” she wrote.
After high school, Robinson hustled through college, earning a computer engineering degree at Tennessee Tech on a full-ride scholarship while working at the same time. Over time, with an MBA, nine certifications, and expertise in generative AI, he eventually reached an income of $1.1 million per year.
But instead of chasing the next promotion, he chose financial freedom. Old habits die hard: As he progressed in the tech industry, Robinson banked huge sums — at one point socking away nearly 90% of his income. Then, in 2024, at just 39 years of age, he retired with $3.5 million in savings and investments. He now produces music and DJs in his spare time. He’s also writing a book and producing a podcast.
Robinson’s story most likely doesn’t resonate with the average American. According to the Federal Reserve’s 2023 Survey of Consumer Finances, which is published every three years, Americans ages 35 to 44 have an estimated net worth of $546,600 (3).
While Robinson’s hard-earned success may be an outlier, it’s a blueprint anyone can follow: finding a way to save small amounts while spending can also help boost your retirement portfolio.
Robinson didn’t rely on luck or hot tips when it came to choosing where to invest his money. He invested deliberately and stuck to a long-term plan.
If you’re looking to build a portfolio with the same kind of intention, expert insight can help point you in the right direction.
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Jamal Robinson proved that directing extra income into investments can shave decades off your working years. The more you save now, the faster your money can work for you.
Saving and investing are only part of the equation. Protecting what you’ve already built matters too. That’s why some investors consider adding assets designed to hedge against market risk.
Gold has historically been one of the most popular safe-haven assets. Amid rising market volatility due to both recession concerns and escalating geopolitical tensions, gold prices hit a record high of over $4,300 per ounce in October (4).
One method that many people use to invest in gold is a self-directed gold IRA.
A gold IRA allows you to invest in gold and other precious metals in physical forms while also providing the significant tax advantages of an IRA.
If you’re not sure where to start, you can check out some of Moneywise’s top picks for gold IRAs to compare your options for free. Just keep in mind that gold is often best used as one part of a well-diversified portfolio.
Real estate investments could also be a potentially lucrative way to diversify your portfolio, and new investing platforms are making it easier than ever to tap into this market.
Crowdfunding platforms like Arrived allow you to enter the real estate market for as little as $100.
Arrived offers you access to shares of SEC-qualified investments in rental homes and vacation rentals, curated and vetted for their appreciation and income potential.
Backed by world-class investors like Jeff Bezos, Arrived makes it easy to fit these properties into your investment portfolio regardless of your income level. Their flexible investment amounts and simplified process allow accredited and non-accredited investors to take advantage of this inflation-hedging asset class without any extra work on your part.
Another option is real estate platform Mogul, which allows you to invest in the top 1% of single-family rental homes nationwide.
Founded by former Goldman Sachs analysts, Mogul’s team vets every single property, ensuring they offer a minimum 12% return even in downside scenarios. Across the board, the platform features an average annual IRR of 18.8%. Their cash-on-cash yields average between 10% and 12% annually. You can earn monthly rental income, as well as real-time capital appreciation and tax benefits — all without the need for a hefty downpayment or 3 A.M. tenant calls.
Every investment is secured by real assets, not dependent on the platform’s viability. Each property is held in a standalone Propco LLC, so investors own the property — not the platform.
Getting started is a quick and easy process. You can sign up for an account and then browse available properties. Once you verify your information with their team, you can invest like a mogul in just a few clicks.
In 1999, the S&P 500 peaked, and it took 14 long years to fully recover.
Today? Goldman Sachs is forecasting just 3% annual returns from 2024 to 2034. It sounds bleak but not surprising: the S&P is trading at its highest price-to-earnings ratio since the dot-com boom. Vanguard isn’t far off, projecting around 5%.
In fact, nearly everything feels priced near all-time highs — equities, gold, crypto, you name it.
That’s why billionaires have long carved out a slice of their portfolios in an asset class with low correlation to the market and strong rebound potential: post-war and contemporary art.
It may sound surprising, but more than 70,000 investors have followed suit since 2019 — through Masterworks. Now you can own fractional shares of works by Banksy, Basquiat, Picasso, and more.
Masterworks has sold 25 artworks so far, yielding net annualized returns like 14.6%, 17.6%, and 17.8%.*
Moneywise readers can get priority access to diversify with art: Skip the waitlist here
*Past performance is not indicative of future returns. Investing involves risk. See important Regulation A disclosures at Masterworks.com/cd
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see oureditorial ethics and guidelines.
CNBC (1), (2); Federal Reserve (3); Apmex (4)
This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.
