From the Employment Ice Age to True Poverty: The 100 Million Yen Quest to Escape a Black Company

Becoming a millionaire through saving and saving money!

The term millionaire refers to investors who have built assets worth millions. Typically, these are individuals who have succeeded through investments in stocks or cryptocurrencies. However, the person featured here, Absolute Quitter, achieved over 100 million yen through saving and saving money. Working at a low-paying black company during the employment ice age, experiencing the Lehman Shock, and enduring prolonged deflation, how did they become a millionaire? This journey can also be seen as a warning about the current investment boom.

Profile: Absolute Quitter

During the peak of the employment ice age, he joined a black company. On his first day at work, he decided to save 50 million yen in 10 years in order to quit as soon as possible. From then on, he embraced an ultra-frugal lifestyle, dedicating most of his income to savings. Giving up on conventional happiness, he achieved 100 million yen in assets by the age of 46, becoming a savings-based millionaire. His blog, Ice Age Generation Challenges Early Retirement from a Black Company, and his book, How to Save 100 Million Yen: From Zero Savings to Becoming a Millionaire through Extreme Frugal Living (published by Diamond Inc.), are also receiving great acclaim.

What is a savings-based millionaire?

The millionaire featured this time, “Absolutely Quit My Job Man” (hereinafter referred to as Quit Man), is called a savings-based millionaire. Typically, millionaires featured online have made large profits from stock investments or foreign exchange trading (FX). However, Quit Man is a rare case who became a millionaire mainly through savings, though he also made some profits from investments.

First, let’s track the progress of his assets. When he started his career, he had almost zero assets, or more accurately, he started with a negative balance due to student loan repayments. After three years, he reached 10 million yen, after nine years, 30 million yen, and by December 2017, he had accumulated 50 million yen. Finally, in January 2024, he reached 100 million yen! — While this sounds like steady asset growth, behind this success lies an extraordinary lifestyle that goes beyond the usual phrase hard work and perseverance.

On the first day of his career, Absolutely Quit My Job Man was born

The moment “Quit My Job Man” decided to start saving was entirely driven by his desire to quit his job.

“I had a gut feeling on my first day that this was a completely black company,” says Quit My Job Man.

His intuition proved to be right. For the following years, he endured a life of arriving at the office at 8 AM, with the workday often extending past midnight. On top of that, overtime was capped at 20 hours a month, with most of it considered unpaid overtime.

“Back then, unlike now, the option of changing jobs wasn’t even a consideration. We were in the worst period of the employment ice age, and even if someone lucky enough to quit found a new job, they would end up at an even worse black company.”

So, he decided on the way home from his first day at work that he would save 50 million yen over the next 10 years and quit. From then on, he embarked on a lifestyle of extreme frugality.