I think many people fall into two groups when they think of an “early retirement lifestyle”.
One group thinks that since you’re not going to save for the same amount of time as everyone else (30-40+ years), you’re likely going to retire with very little. If you retire with very little, you’re going to live a very meager existence so you don’t burn through all of your savings quickly.
The other group may think it’s possible to save enough to have a nice retirement in a shorter time period, but that means you’re going to have to live an incredibly frugal life now. Personally, I think living frugally is what allows you to have margin in your life for the things you want, even if that thing you may want is early retirement.
I don’t believe that saving for early retirement needs to be either of the extremes above. Life is short, and anything can happen between now and early retirement, so you need to be able to enjoy life now as well as in the future. An important balance needs to be struck so chaos doesn’t rule.
Many of the topics I’ve written about up to this point have been about how to save money on a variety of things such as internet, cell phones, and even a trip to Disney World. If you’ve followed any of the advice, you’ve hopefully got some extra financial margin in your life. If you haven’t decided what to do with it yet maybe now is the time to go on this journey with me.
Perhaps you’re in a place where you really can’t imagine working for the next 20, 30, or 40 years and you question whether you’ll have enough to actually retire in the end. If that’s the case, than exploring this topic may help you realize you can make plan and live it out for a better future.
There may be some of you who aren’t in either of those two categories, and if that’s the case, that’s okay too. Let me know in the comments below what kinds of questions or skepticism you have. I’ve read stories in the past of people “retiring” by the age of 30 and figured that their situation was different from mine and that’s why they were able to pull it off. I’m 33 now, so I’ve already passed the age that some of these people were able to retire by. It’s never too late to step on the gas pedal and accelerate full speed into the future that we want. No one is going to do it for us!
Photo by Tax Credits
A big part of retiring is knowing what your life will be like having retiring. For some it may be a second career based more on a hobby or interest they have before retirement. Others may choose playing golf or travel, etc as their main retirement activity. No matter what direction you choose, knowing ahead of actually retiring is important for your financial planning for retirement.