I’m 24 and My Gen-Z Friends Are Already Planning Retirement—Even With a Good Salary

Last week, my friend Maya turned down a promotion. It came with a 20% raise, a corner desk, and a title she’s been chasing since graduation. Her reason for saying no? “I don’t want to trade my Sunday mornings for a salary that only pays for my mental health, so that I can survive the job.”

In my circle, we’ve stopped talking about “climbing the ladder.” Instead, we’re talking about “The Great Preservation.” We’re 24, and we aren’t planning for retirement because we want to sit on a beach at 65. The real reason is that we’re doing it because we are tired of our mental health being the collateral damage of a 40-hour work week.

Choosing peace over a career.

We’ve started practicing what I call “Internal Retirement.” It’s the mental shift where you stop tying your self-worth to your productivity. For Maya, that meant staying in a “lower” role that allows her to log off at 5:00 PM sharp.

We’ve seen our parents burn out, and we’ve seen the “hustle culture” of the 2010s crumble. Now, my friends and I are protecting our “bandwidth.” We aren’t saving money to buy things, no. In reality, we’re saving money to buy silence (and, hence, happiness). When we talk about our “good salaries,” we don’t measure them by what they can buy at the mall. We measure them by how much security they give us. More specifically, by how many months of freedom they represent if we ever need to walk away for our own sanity.

Overworking is not a choice anymore.

Between the constant pings and the pressure to have a “personal brand,” our brains are red-lining. That’s why my friends are planning their exit strategies now. I have a group chat where we check in on each other’s “Burnout Score.” If someone is hitting a 9 out of 10, the advice isn’t “work harder” or “get organized.” The advice is “scale back.”

Yes, we are realizing that the most expensive thing you can own is a peaceful mind. To afford that, we’re choosing smaller apartments and older cars. We’re trading the appearance of a successful life for the feeling of a manageable one.

We choose compassion every day.

For us, a retirement fund is a safety net. It means I don’t have to say “yes” to a toxic environment out of fear. Well, one thing that I want to mention is that this isn’t about being lazy or “not wanting to work.” No. It’s about recognizing that our energy is a finite resource.

My Gen-Z friends are planning for retirement at 24 because we want to ensure that the best years of our lives aren’t spent in a state of chronic stress. We are reclaiming our time, one boundaries-heavy conversation at a time. We aren’t retiring from work; we’re retiring from the version of work that breaks people.

Next article: I Found the Key to Workplace Success Thanks to These 5 Light Habits