What triggered you to retire early?

[Alan]

The year I was 40 my mother died at age 62, only a few years after my dad had retired at age 60.

We decided then that 55 was to be a target for RE and we started saving.

Since then we have seen other friends and relatives including MIL have their retirement enjoyment ended by illness or death in their early 60's.

The closer it gets the harder it seems to be to drag myself to work each day. Feels like running a race with a rubber band around the waist. The closer the finishing line gets the harder it is to run.

Only 14 months to go .......

 

[Texarkandy]

Why did I ER? Illness and Death. I have lost my mother at age 63,cancer, father at age 79, alzheimers. Uncles at 73, parkinsons, 75 Cancer, 48 Heart Attack. I am turning 52 and growing older with every passing day. Some day it will be cancer, or parkinsons, or dementia, or heart attack or something else for me (and you).

You get the picture.

I wanted TIME to myself, not have to be anywhere or responsible to anybody else for awhile. Markets go up, markets go down. Our lives are literally sand in the hour glass and it never stops flowing and never refills.

When this line of thought goes from abstract to real you will figure out how to ER if that is what you want to do.

Being able to stay ER's is a probability, illness, infirmity and death a certainty.

Good thoughts - exactly what keeps me committed to my planned semi-ER date of 12/09 despite this sucky economy.

Sometimes lately I catch myself thinking -well, maybe one more year - but then thoughts like you expressed (bolded above) bring me back to myself & "the plan".

 

[UncleHoney]

After 35 years it gets easy to answer the two prerequisite questions most people ask themselves before retiring. Do I have enough? And, Have I had enough?

I had enough several years before I retired, but I was enjoying the work so I stayed on. As time went on my job started to turn into more paperwork and documentation with less design and engineering. When the last project ended in June of 2007 I decided that was it.

 

[Achiever51]

Had a job I loved and was very good at it. Worked with great people until my last boss...he had no moral compass or ethics and expected his staff to "cover" for him. I was very uncomfortable playing that role, so I started to look at other options. When I realized I could afford to leave...and was able to use the increasingly negative work situation to my advantage (i.e., I negotiated an early retirement package)...I was GONE! I never once regretted my decision.

Talking to some of my former colleagues confirmed that I made the right decision.

 

[Koolau]

Got my BS and started working for Megacorp. in my field of study. Assignments varied from boring to not too boring. Found/helped develop a niche specialty at Megacorp. which they needed and I thoroughly enjoyed. At age 37 got MS in my new field and was promoptly rewarded by being put in an assignment for which I had no school, experience or interest. It was then I decided to ER. Got serious about becoming FI.

By the time pension vested at 51 I had already returned to old, enjoyable assignment so I stayed on and got even more FI.

The assignment was once again yanked from under me several years later and I retired with 3 days notice. You should have seen the look on my director's face. It was priceless!

 

[youbet]

Got canned by MegaCorp at 58. Never took looking for another job very seriously. Lately (at 61) I've been refering to myself as retired as opposed to unemployed.

 

[haha]

Got canned by MegaCorp at 58. Never took looking for another job very seriously. Lately (at 61) I've been refering to myself as retired as opposed to unemployed.

This is similar to me, only in my case it was a business running down. I considered myself unemployed rather than retired, but that was only a little game I played to trick my work ethic and allow me to continue to mess around without a lot of guilt.

When I came to this board in 2003 I was still short of 65, but not much, so I admitted that I had no desire to return to working and began to openly say that I was retired. I am "retirement age" now, but still I don't talk about it much as very few of the people I know are retired. If they are well to do, they like work, or the cash flow or the social position and stimulation that comes with work. If they are less well off they need to work.

I don't exactly like the state called retirement, but I do like having full control over how I spend my time.

Ha

 

[bruce1]

I was 53 and nine months and planning on retiring at 55 when my pension stopped growing. I got a new manager two levels up who I knew was a proceedural stickler. Then came the thought that I would no longer be able to work a four day compressed work week but have to come in five days so the office was covered in case someone visited. This happened about three times a year and normally by appointment so realistically was not a factor.

I went home on the day he was appointed and calculated the difference between my pension at 55 and 53. Announced my retirement to all in an email two days later, gave seven weeks notice, booked five weeks vacation, had my get aquainted meeting with the new manager two days later in which he was going to discuss our proceedural failings. I was covering two and a half positions at the time and had no time for B$ cover the bosses A$$ crap. This turned into one statement from him to the effect of How the heck does your office get so much done.

The new guy who I knew from a past life is not really as bad as this sounds. He gives credit where credit is due and is generally a not bad guy but it turned out I was right. No one is working a four day week now and everyone is behind but the paper work is up to date

 

[gandalf42]

After a 22 year career at Megacorp, they moved all of the division's work to asia and laid everyone off. I took a job with a very small company and everything was fine until a management change caused everything to turn sour as a working environment. I quit the job for health reasons (to get a transplant) and while I was off, an inheritance amount became clearer what would be left after taxes and lawyers. So..with $ at the FI level, the experience of months off from work living without a paycheck, and a job I could go back to that was becoming increasingly toxic, the choice became easy. I would like to say it was due to great planning but it was more due to a confluence of events.

 

[frayne]

Once I got into the witness protection program, it was a no brainer !

 

[Eagle43]

Original plan was to never retire. I think of people I respect, like Paul Harvey and Peter Drucker who opined that to stop working was to die.

However, MegaCorp also had its effect. First, there was a nice retirement package at ago 60. I also had a military check and TRICARE. My 401k was fat. So the financial needs were covered. Second, and most important, the work was becoming more and more unpleasant. Godawful meetings, unnecessary deadlines combined with inept bosses helped make my decision.

Upon looking back at it, had I planned it I could have retired at 50, certainly by 55.

 

[Dawg52]

Once I got into the witness protection program, it was a no brainer !

Does it pay well?

 

[Retire Soon]

Unquestionably, the housing bubble was my primary motivator for ER. I retired in June of 2006 soon after the humungous bubble had been pricked with telltale evidence of the hissing sound of air slowly escaping. DW and I lived in San Diego at the time and figured it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to sell our home with windfall profits.

Two years before ER, we flew to Central Oregon on Memorial Day weekend and paid cash for a house at a cost of less than half of what we would eventually receive for the sale of our house in San Diego. ER is much easier financially and emotionally when you don't have to contend with house payments.

There were also some secondary reasons for ER: 1) I turned 55 the year I retired, which is the earliest I could begin collecting a cola'd pension. 2) My employer subsidizes health and dental insurance for retirees until the age of 65. 3) I wanted to escape the traffic congestion and over-crowded conditions of life in a large city. 4) I wanted to be free.

 

[ziggy29]

So is there anyone here who has done it without a pension? I think some of us 401K-dependent unfortunates would love to hear some success stories.

 

[shotgunner]

No pension

Ziggy I have done it with no pension. I guess in my case an inheritance tipped the scale in my favor vs. a pension. (But I do have, let the flames begin, a large variable annuity from TIAA-CREF).

 

[REWahoo]

So is there anyone here who has done it without a pension?

We are still talking about retirement here, right?

Yep, we managed to reach what I [-]think[/-] thought was FI and R semi-E at age 58 without a pension (or an inheritance, or an annuity). We probably could have done it a few years earlier if we had not built a new retirement home at age 52 and decided to wait until the mortgage was paid off before pulling the plug, or had been willing to lower our living standards a bit.

 

[frayne]

So is there anyone here who has done it without a pension? I think some of us 401K-dependent unfortunates would love to hear some success stories.

Had the choice of a pension or lump sum, took the lump sum, does that count ?

 

[haha]

So is there anyone here who has done it without a pension? I think some of us 401K-dependent unfortunates would love to hear some success stories.

I am strictly self-financed, and also pretty well financed my ex.

Ha

 

[ejman]

So is there anyone here who has done it without a pension? I think some of us 401K-dependent unfortunates would love to hear some success stories.

No pension here. ER'd at 52 after working part time/telecommuting for megacorp from my little ranch for 3 years.

 

[kumquat]

I have a small DC pension amount, since its value moves with markets and withdrawals are fully taxed, to me it's another kind of savings. FWIW, all living expenses to date have come from saving/investing/ESOP and these are 80% of invested net worth.

 

[socca]

There's a big difference between doing something because you want to rather than doing something because you have to, even if it's the same thing. Right now, I'm doing engineering because I enjoy it, which is much different than doing it because I need the money. Also, the type of engineering I'm doing now is a heckuva lot more interesting than the mind-numbing cr*p that the megacorp/warmongers had me doing. It would be nice to make a little money down the road, but I've got substantial flexibility in that regard unless our society collapses . To me, retirement appears synonymous with death, so I prefer to call my current adventure "Early Retooling" rather than "Early Retirement".

 

[youbet]

I don't exactly like the state called retirement, but I do like having full control over how I spend my time.

Same here Ha. If I'm asked when I "retired," I usually state the last day I was employed by Megacorp. But in reality, I drifted from unemployment to "retirement" over a year or two. Even today, since DW and I count on investment income to cover about half of our expenses, I consider portfolio mangement a part time job. And spending some time to keep expenses under control by maintaining our home and cars and being a smart consumer has a bit of the flavor of a part time business, no?

 

[Independent]

I enjoyed this thread. In fact, I think it could be a poll. I thought there were 35 responses to the original question. I tried to summarize them below. Note that the total is more than 35 because I counted all "mentions". My apologies for over-simplifying some really interesting thoughts, such as the neat "Have enough? Had enough?" questions.

5 - Just had enough, stress, butting heads
4 - New (bad) Boss/Management
4 - New (bad) Assignment
4 - Silly corporate BS
4 - Laid off
2 - Health

3 - Planned for years
2 - Opportunity to work part time
5 - Wanted to live, be free, reflect, pursue passions
2 - Move to beautiful area

5 - Mortality, deaths in family, life is short
1 - 9/11

1 - Took advantage of housing bubble
1 - Working after early pension date is working for half pay
1 - This board

It's somewhat discouraging that I count 17-29 "negative" comments compared to 7-12 "positive about life after RE". That may reflect my counting problem, or it may be the OP question.

I was generally positive about the idea of retiring. But it was bad stuff at work that finally pushed me to make the move, not a compelling "have to do it now" vision. It could be that I'm fairly typical. (Looking at the list, I could have mentioned 7 of them.)

My advice to a 30-40 person who is feeling pretty competent and satisfied in a career would be, "Things can change. You may be surprised at how you just aren't willing to put up with the same old ___, get charged up for the new boss/merger, or look for a new job after you get outsourced. You may want to retire earlier than you can imagine today."

 

[CyclingInvestor]

So is there anyone here who has done it without a pension? I think some of us 401K-dependent unfortunates would love to hear some success stories.

No pension here. Got a big 401k rollover (14 years) in 1997 into an IRA, that grew into more than enough to retire on (via 72t withdrawals)(with another 401k plus after-tax savings plus a paid-off house) by 2006.

 

[FurBall]

Why ER?
New CEO; it wasn't fun any more; chance to get a generous severance package; knew we had enough to FIRE

Best career move I ever made!