Thomas Frank. Thomas Frank When he was 14 years old, Thomas Frank learned a valuable lesson about saving money.

He wanted cash to buy a video game, so he took one of the few jobs available to someone under 16: detasseling corn.

"You're basically pulling the tops off corn. It's a very difficult job, very hard work," he says.

The job only lasted for three weeks, and Frank earned more than enough to cover the $350 for the game. However, the money was burning a hole in his pocket.

"I saw all this money I had never had before and thought, 'I should just let myself have fun with this. I'm going to eat out with friends and buy school clothes and stuff,'" says the now 23-year-old Ames, Iowa, resident. "All of a sudden it was gone, and I didn't have that cool, awesome thing that I wanted. It was the first illustration that it's really easy to spend money if you don't think about it, and you don't have what you wanted to save for in the first place."

That lesson stuck with him. Before he graduated from Iowa State University in 2013, Frank started an online business that generated enough income to pay off nearly $15,000 in student loan debt. He graduated debt-free.

Today, he still runs that business, College Info Geek, which gives college students information about being more productive, getting better grades, landing their dream jobs and graduating without debt. In addition to blogging, Frank hosts "The College Info Geek" podcast and the "Listen Money Matters" podcast.

Frank is aiming to "retire" by age 40, although his vision of retirement doesn't include shuffleboard and rocking chairs. Instead, he hopes to have enough saved to finance his life without needing income from work.

"It's not so much that I don't want to work anymore, but I want to get to the point where, permanently, I've built up enough savings that it can provide a living for me and my family. I want to continue creating value," he says.

In college, Frank began reading personal finance books. One of his inspirations was J.D. Roth, a financial blogger and author of "Your Money: The Missing Manual."

He also saw family members who were attempting to invest but pulled out of the market in the 2008 financial crisis. "Over years and years, they had nothing to show for it, so I came to this realization that I had to sock money away and not touch it," he says.

Frank graduated debt-free from Iowa State University. Flickr / SD Dirk

During his sophomore year of college, Frank opened an account at Vanguard with $1,000 and began saving.

In late 2013, he opened what's known as a SIMPLE individual retirement account. SIMPLE stands for Savings Incentive Match Plan for Employees. The accounts are popular with small-business owners whose companies do not sponsor any other retirement plans. As a business owner, Frank is eligible to contribute to this type of plan.

These days, Frank strives to contribute $1,000 per month to his taxable Vanguard account, which includes a Standard & Poor's 500 index fund and an index fund that invests in real estate investment trusts. He has about $11,500 in that account.

In his SIMPLE IRA, Frank invests in the Fidelity Advisor New Insights Fund, a large-cap growth fund, and the Virtus Emerging Markets Opportunities Fund. Both were recommended by his financial advisor.

Frank likens his money management system to a pipeline. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson He has about $19,000 in his SIMPLE IRA. Because he is saving to cover living expenses at age 40, Frank must save a portion of his money outside a qualified retirement account, which carries penalties for withdrawals before age 59½.

Frank's goal is to save $900,000 by age 40. To make that happen, he wants to invest $25,000 per year, in today's dollars. Along with that, he is working to increase his income to $90,000 per year. He acknowledges that he may have to stash away more money as he grows older, but hopes to front-load as much as possible to take advantage of compounding.

The secret to Frank's saving success lies in automation. "I'm a fan of externalizing basically any system that you can," he says. "I automate everything."

He has set up automated contributions to his investment accounts, as well as automated bill payments. He likens his system to a pipeline, in which money flows in and is diverted into the proper accounts.

Another key is envisioning his future self, an exercise that's generally difficult for people of all ages. For example, he contemplates not only having children to support someday, but other scenarios, such as caring for elderly parents or not being able to work.

"I want to be like Batman. He's got a plan for everything," Frank says.

Frank doesn't intend to spend his 'retirement' in a rocking chair. Flickr/Yellowstone National Park

Frank and his girlfriend don't intermingle their finances, but Frank says their status will likely change in the not-so-distant future. His girlfriend is on board with his saving and early retirement plan. Frank says it's crucial that couples communicate openly about their financial goals.

"You just have to be on the same page," he says. "I won't say that money is everything, but a lack of money can be everything. So you really want to have that hashed out with your partner."

Although he is saving steadily and has clear goals, Frank says his lifestyle is not as frugal as what's advocated by some bloggers, such as the pseudonymous Mr. Money Mustache, an engineer who retired at age 30.

"If I asked myself honestly, I could be a little bit better, because I tend to spend more than I need to on eating out and things like that," Frank says. "But as long as I'm hitting my savings goals, the spending is not a huge issue."

One of Frank's other financial goals is to help more students graduate college without debt. He makes loans to Kiva, a nonprofit group that funds projects aimed at alleviating worldwide poverty.

"Since my business is in education, I want to fund education. I help people go to school in different countries. If I can get my income to that goal level, my big, audacious goal is to eradicate student debt," he says. "If I can set up some kind of scholarship fund, that would be amazing."