Really Early Retirement?

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Legally_dead

Recycles dryer sheets
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Who all is targeting an early retirement before age 40? My goal is to transition to PT work sometime between age 35 and 40 and full retirement around 40.


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Me. Thirty eight. I didn't go into it targeting retirement at any specific age but I did intend on quitting as early as I could manage it. No way I was working till 65. Or 60. Or 55.
 
I am hoping to go part time and earn less than $10,000 when I am 40. My fiance will be 57 or 58 though, so our average age will be about 49. He never really planned to retire early whereas I was almost forced into thinking about early retirement when I started dating someone who was planning on retiring in less than 15 years, and I was only 27 years old. I started saving as much as I could when I turned 30.
 
I am only 26, but depending on how the next decade of my life unrolls and how I decide to structure my life, I may be able to retire between 40-45.

It mainly will depend on whether or not I have a family. If I decide to not have a family, and I can maintain my spending level, I should be able to retire by 45 at the latest. Ideally, though, I'd like to work part time at that point where I could control my hours and not be chained to a desk, and earn anywhere from $10-30k per year to maintain my portfolio and also to keep me occupied.

We'll see how things go though! M


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younginvestor2013 said:
I am only 26, but depending on how the next decade of my life unrolls and how I decide to structure my life, I may be able to retire between 40-45.

It mainly will depend on whether or not I have a family. If I decide to not have a family, and I can maintain my spending level, I should be able to retire by 45 at the latest. Ideally, though, I'd like to work part time at that point where I could control my hours and not be chained to a desk, and earn anywhere from $10-30k per year to maintain my portfolio and also to keep me occupied.

We'll see how things go though! M


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You seem to be following in my footsteps a bit. I retired nearly 7 years ago at 45 after working 16 years full-time and 7 more years part-time, all at the same company. Being childfree, I was never interested in having kids and remain single today (although I have been in a steady relationship for 11 years). For me, this was the biggest reason I was able to ER at 45.

I have been living off the dividends from my portfolio since I ERed and have seen its value nearly double since late 2008, just after the crash.

I hope you can realize your goal to ER at 45.
 
There is a lot of truth in the family thing. I don't think I would have been able to retire @ 40 if we weren't childfree. But, then again, I had to hunker down pretty hard about 10-12 years ago to be fully FIRED @ 40 without kids, so perhaps if they were in the mix, I would have adjusted. I also think a lot of it depends on how much $$ you spend on said kids. I didn't have many "material things" and didn't play 13 sports (as so many kids do today!) and I very much enjoyed my childhood. But...that's not a bridge I crossed, so it's immaterial.


It has become a valid point I use when people query me about retiring so young. As soon as you say, "I don't have kids", they usually respond with something like, "oh, that makes sense". I have even had some clown tell me that if it wasn't for his wife and one child, he would have retired at 27. Really? I guess if you live in a 1978 Econoline van my the river, that *could* be construed as retired. ;)
 
My goal at age 25 was to be able to retire/semi retire at 35-40. I am 35 now with 3 kids (expensive but worth it). I could probably still do it at 40 living a really frugal lifestyle but the wife wouldn't be into that. My goal now is 45. If the oil patch doesn't boom again that could also be out the window. I may at 40 just work 3 month's a year in the busy winter month's up here in Alberta's oilfields until i'm 50 then fully retire but a lot can change in 5-10 years.
Good Luck.
 
37 now, with the goal to not need to save any more at 40. Some PT consulting then and work on other goals. Always meant to get a college degree, but never got around to it.


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I pulled it off at age 33. With 3 kids. We're pretty frugal and only spend around $33k/yr. That doesn't prevent us from traveling and enjoying life. Currently wrapping up week 2 of a 7 week adventure in Mexico with the kids (at a cost of around $1,000/wk).

Here's a shot from today's hike. ER is pretty awesome. :D
 

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FUEGO said:
I pulled it off at age 33. With 3 kids.

<SNIP>
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Heh, heh, I even took steps to never have kids but got 'em anyway - long story. Definitely delayed ER - but worth it. Turns out God gives you kids to grow YOU up, not so much the other way around. Enjoy!

Of course, YMMV.
 
I quit working at age 36 and life without work has been great.
 
FUEGO said:
I pulled it off at age 33. With 3 kids. We're pretty frugal and only spend around $33k/yr.
Click to expand...

Fuego, have you posted your spending by category anywhere? I could live on $33k/year as a young single guy but no idea how you do it for a family of 5.
 
I was very close to pulling the trigger at 39. Decided to wait a year to exercise most of my stock options because I was building a house in a state with 2% less income tax. In that year the bubble burst so I had to keep working. Could be that I had bad luck, or was greedy waiting for that extra 2%, or was just stupid. Or maybe lucky, because I might've reinvested right back into tech stocks after putting my money out and retiring, and then I would've been without a job and not enough money to live how I wanted to. 10 years later, some of them part time, I learned about AA and diversification, and built back my stash so that I could FIRE.
 
FUEGO said:
I pulled it off at age 33. With 3 kids. We're pretty frugal and only spend around $33k/yr. That doesn't prevent us from traveling and enjoying life. Currently wrapping up week 2 of a 7 week adventure in Mexico with the kids (at a cost of around $1,000/wk).

Here's a shot from today's hike. ER is pretty awesome. :D
Click to expand...


Looks great!

I am 31 with one child and a growing family. Current expenses for the last 12 months were aprox. $40,000 (excluding charitable giving and including $5,000 in travel expenses).

I have great health insurance through work, so I would expect the $40,000 to go up quite a bit once I include that expense. That's also part of the reason I plan on transitioning to part-time before full RE.

We'll add a few more kids to the mix so I'll have to keep those costs down too to pull this off.


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Legally_dead said:
Looks great!

I am 31 with one child and a growing family. Current expenses for the last 12 months were aprox. $40,000 (excluding charitable giving and including $5,000 in travel expenses).

I have great health insurance through work, so I would expect the $40,000 to go up quite a bit once I include that expense. That's also part of the reason I plan on transitioning to part-time before full RE.

We'll add a few more kids to the mix so I'll have to keep those costs down too to pull this off.


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If you can live on $40k/yr in retirement, you'll probably be in line for some big Affordable Care Act subsidies to cover much of your health insurance expense. Since we have a household size of 5, we qualify for rather large subsidies on with $40k-ish income (some of that income is Roth IRA recharacterization).
 
soupcxan said:
Fuego, have you posted your spending by category anywhere? I could live on $33k/year as a young single guy but no idea how you do it for a family of 5.
Click to expand...

Forum rules prohibit me posting a link to my blog where I go into great detail on my budget, but here's a table showing where we spend our money. It's a couple years old, so add a few percent to each category to account for inflation.

Detailed-retirement-budget.png


We came in just over budget in 2014 due to a planned major house renovation at $8,700 (new windows, major roof repair, new siding).
 
OK, FUEGO is on an adventure. No wonder I haven't seen him at Aldi's. :)

Enjoy. Looks great FUEGO. So why am I OMYing?
 
JoeWras said:
OK, FUEGO is on an adventure. No wonder I haven't seen him at Aldi's. :)

Enjoy. Looks great FUEGO. So why am I OMYing?
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We found an Aldi's equivalent down here in Mexico. :) Not that things are particularly expensive down here anyway.

So far, after sitting on all these gains from the last few years, I'm glad I didn't OMY. But let's compare notes at the bottom of the next great recession (if I notice it happens :) ).
 
I retired 2 years ago at 38. Best decision of my life with absolutely no regrets.


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diehard1997 said:
I retired 2 years ago at 38. Best decision of my life with absolutely no regrets.


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I'm 37, hoping to be out around 40. I won't call it a "decision" until i weather at least one bad market.


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dallas27 said:
I'm 37, hoping to be out around 40. I won't call it a "decision" until i weather at least one bad market.


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That's a smart way to look at it. The downturn in 08-09 was certainly an eye-opener watching significant "paper" loss.

Having a large buffer seems to be the only way to mitigate this type of fear. Keeping WR below 2% helps me sleep at night.


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