YOYO 27 Year old obsessed with retiring in next 5 years

[bigmarley4]

Apologies for the juvenile title

I am 27, live in DC region and am obsessed with at least semi-retiring in the next 5 years. I live with my GF, we're both doing great financially, and we want a goal of retiring while we are still young enough to enjoy life and try some new things. Neither of us is enamored with material possessions, but we both LOVE to travel.

I've been lurking for a while but decided to post finally. Wish me luck and thanks in advance for all of the great advice!

bigM

 

[MasterBlaster]

You can do it - Just aim low

If you live cheaply you hardly need anything at all.

A bag of beans once in awhile along with a few varmits you catch and you are set.

- don't work for - The Man...Start livin' the good life right now

 

[bbbamI]

Let me tell ya...at your age ER never crossed my mind. I wish it had because I may have reached my goal earlier than I did.

Welcome to the forum bigM...and good luck.

 

[GoodSense]

Welcome to the forum! You're in good company as a young person obsessed with ER!

 

[plex]

The best way to realistically do it in 5 years, is to get a very accurate idea of how much you are spending. Also plan out what your expenses would be

• Healthcare being a big one, you may have able to live on $15k as a couple, but then healthcare insurance/expenses are easily going to be something like $4-6k/year averaged across your lives, not sure if you would qualify for Medicare, depends on if you will both have worked at least 10 years.
• Mortgage is another, or factoring in that you will be renting for a long time
• Travel costs (I am guessing you will be backpacking, but that still has costs)

After you know your present and future expenses, predicting when you can early retire is very easy. If you both are going to need $20k/year, you need to have $540,000 saved up between the two of you (assuming a 3.7% SWR, which I think is reasonable for retiring in one's 30s).

 

[Walt34]

Maybe you're in the wrong line of work if you're 27 and can't wait to get out of it.

At age 27 I enjoyed my job very much and retirement was something so far over the horizon I couldn't see it.

Read What Color is Your Parachute by Richard N. Bolles. Amazon.com: What Color Is Your Parachute? 2010: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers (9781580089876): Richard N. Bolles: Books

Like to travel? Turn that into a job. I read of one couple who were truck drivers. In their words "The company is paying us to travel all over the country".

That's clearly not for everyone but it works for them.

 

[bigmarley4]

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I actually love my job right now -- I work as an independent consultant, make my own hours, work as much as I want, etc. But I also spend most of my time on this planet either working or sleeping, so I would like to at least semi-retire (go down to working 15-20 hours/week) in the next 5 years. I would love to write travel books as a career, but am too conservative to change professions at this point. Think I'm better off working my butt off for next 5 years, saving like crazy and then dropping hours dramatically.

GF and I are both of the same mindset and track all expenses and so forth, we aim for the $1mm mark. I'm not ready to divulge financials yet but will do so to the forum for specific advice at some point.

 

[RAE]

Since you are making good money right now and enjoy your job, I think bearing down and working hard, saving as much $$ as possible over the next 5 years is probably the best thing that you could do. As you approach that 5-year point, you can reassess where you are at and whether it is realistic to drop your hours dramatically and turn your attention to things you would rather be doing. Retiring at 32 would be awesome, and it is not impossible, but it will take some serious focus and discipline in both saving and spending, as I'm sure you are already aware. Best of luck to you.

 

[FreqFlyer]

Welcome!

I like to think of life as a series of chapters. Nothing wrong with setting a goal of 5 years to transition out of your current employment. You can skip paid work for awhile (years, a decade or more) or experiment on a new field or business. Once your reach FI you have the power.

I'm hoping to hit the FI mark at 44 or sooner and then who knows what I'll decide to do. Maybe I'll change my mind and keep working at what I'm doing, or maybe I'll get bored and move on to something new before I hit my goal.

In any event following a path of LBYM gives you OPTIONS!

I look foward to hearing more about your plans. I too hope to spend more time traveling (non-work related).