Naturally, I support the idea of saving money. While it’s true that saving money alone won’t do a damn thing to enable a blissful destruction of your alarm clock, "Office Space"-style, for the rest of your life, it’s flat wrong to plainly state that saving money has nothing to do with it.

I like to think the equation that solves the early retirement riddle is actually quite simple: Your money’s purpose + Your motivation = Your chances of getting free.

Let’s say you have all the motivation in the world to call it quits. All right, you have one element of the equation firmly in hand. You want out, and bad. The other element revolves around your money’s purpose. In other words, is your money working for you or are you working for it? If the former, you’re in good shape. If the latter, you’ll probably celebrate your 60th birthday sitting in an office building somewhere.

Invested money has a purpose, and the more money that you have to invest, the easier this equation becomes. And the sooner you’ll be sipping a Sex On The Beach while at least sitting on the beach.

I’ve burned through a hundred additional words to basically say this: Invest your savings. Simply “not spending it” isn’t enough. That dough you saved by ordering water in restaurants instead of your Coke or Pepsi? Don’t just “not spend it.” Invest it. Get that cash in the market and let compound interest run its course like it has for so many of us who enjoy life outside of the confines of a full-time job.

It works, guys. Trust me, it really, really works.