Many of us want to retire early. That early retirement age might be 35, 40, or 50, but the idea is to retire sometime before the age of 65 and start enjoying life — before age and infirmity catch up with you.
The reality, though, is that the dream of early retirement will remain a dream unless you take action.
Here are 5 steps to take that will help you reach your goals of early retirement:
1. Make Early Retirement a Priority
You say you want to retire early, but have you made the necessary commitment? Look at the way you use your financial resources. What do your actions say about your financial priorities? If you really want to retire early, you have to make it a priority — and you’ll have to make tradeoffs. That means that you have to give up less important things in the present in order to achieve your long-term priority of early retirement.
2. Be Realistic in Your Expectations
Next, you need to look at your financial situation realistically. If you’re 35, have no savings plan, and $10,000 in your retirement account, you’re going to have to make some very big changes in order to retire by age 50. Look at realistic investment returns (not the 10% predictions that many tout for stocks), and plan for conservative returns. Any plans you make must be based in reality.
3. Create a Plan
Armed with the willingness to commit and realistic expectations, it’s time to create a plan. Your early retirement plan should help you save enough money each month to reach your retirement goals. This means that you have to consider cutting your expenses, and changing what you do with your money, in order to meet the requirements of your plan. And don’t forget about having an investment strategy, as well. Investing is the only way to build up enough wealth to retire early and comfortably.
4. Make Your Plan Work
You need to put effort into making your plan work. This might mean cutting unnecessary expenses from your budget. It might mean spending less and hoarding your money until you reach your goals. It’s true: trying to retire early can mean sacrifice now.
Another way to make your plan work is to increase the amount of money you make. If you know you won’t make your goal of early retirement in 20 years and you just can’t cut it anymore, try to earn more money. Improve your marketability so that you qualify for a pay raise. Start a side hustle. Look for ways to increase your income so that you can put more money towards making your early retirement plan work.
5. Don’t Forget Diversity
Don’t forget diversity as you invest and adhere to your plan. You need the right asset allocation to see retirement portfolio success. It can also help to build diverse sources of income that can help you weather various storms before and during the retirement years. With the right income sources and asset allocation, you can get through setbacks without putting your early retirement goal at risk.
Do you want to retire early? What steps have you taken to make it possible?
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{ read the comments below or add one }
Today’s financial repression has made it impossible to save and invest your way to retirement. The combination of low interest rates, high inflation and taxes on “gains” that are actually purchasing power losses, are stealing more purchasing power than you can possibly save and invest. CPA DanielAmerman.com has a great explanation of how this works.
Today, with REAL inflation running nearly 10% (ShadowStats.com) and most investments returning only 3%, 95% of all savers/investors are LOSING 7% of their purchasing power when they save and invest. Governments don’t give you credit for inflation, so they then tax those 3% “gains,” taking another 1%. So most savers/investors are LOSING 8% per year in purchasing power, despite their rosy investment statements stating they had a gain.
Only 1 in 10,000 investors realize this is happening. Savers and investors are being sheared like sheep.
Worse, savers and investors have virtually NO security and no way to respond when banks or the stock markets plummet or fail. Most banks and investment houses only have 3% cash on hand to pay people who withdraw their funds. The rest of their “assets” are invested in over-priced and highly leveraged paper that will not have enough underlying value to cover the remaining 97% of money owed to clients to make a withdrawal.
You are trusting your entire life’s work and savings will be returned to you by the same people who have created today’s corrupt financial hell. You are giving these people real money today, for pieces of paper that promise payments in the future. Mathematically, most savers and investors are going to get massively (and fatally) burned.
There is only way to avoid this — stop blindly “investing” your money with others and become your own expert!
Good luck!
Moneytree
I believe the biggest issue is living within your means and having a lifestyle that is cheap yet comfortable instead of extravagant and wasteful.
Hello Miranda Marquit:
Excellent article! Excellent advice!
I retired at age 50. My work to retire early plan consisted essentially of the 5 steps you recommend.
Therefore, I recommend your 5 step plan. I know your plan will help your readers reach their goals of early retirement.
I was a government worker for over 40 years. I worked hard on my job. Our pension plan doesn’t take overtime into consideration. They go strictly by base pay. They take your high 3.
You can work all the overtime allotted but it won’t count towards your pension.
Recently retired
Life is short. Ok save for retirement but you have to have some fun…go on vacation, see the play, spend time with the kids…you never know when it may all end. My mom saved every penny and just dropped dead at the sink one day. Never took a day off….I and my brothers and sisters benefited but the lesson learned for me is that it is only money and while nice, I want to value good times and spend time with those I love now.
I’m financially independent. I retired at age 52 but had I known what I’m sharing with you now, I’d have been able to retire at age 25. When you’re financially free, it’s such a high that you want everyone else to experience it too.
People fail to see the obvious. Rather than work and scrimp and save and invest for 40 years and build up $1 to $2 million and hope to live off the interest, there is a way to retire NOW, within a few months.
Just buy an existing income stream. In some cases, you don’t need ANY money to do that. And some of you already have enough saved in “retirement” accounts to buy an income stream with the traditional bank-required down payment.
You don’t actually need a million or two in cash to retire. You just need a passive, monthly income that you can touch and see and control. Once you gain a passive monthly income that exceeds all your personal bills, you no longer have to work a job. You can “retire” right now.
Here’s the advice in straight language:
Forget jobs and savings and stock markets. Those are for suckers.
Money DOES grow on trees. It’s called food. The rich buy the trees that produce the food that the poor buy. Buy enough “trees” and you never have to work for “food” again.
This is a spin on the Rich Dad philosophy that the rich buy assets (things that put money IN your pocket) and the poor buy liabilities (things that take money FROM your pocket).
There are many ways to earn enough to retire early. The truth is that anyone with normal intelligence, strong desire and a library card can “retire” from the world of employment by age 25.
One way is to learn how to buy multi-unit income-producing residential real estate like trailer parks and apartment complexes. There are many ways to buy these with no money down (you’ll need desire to self-educate yourself by reading how others do it).
Once you buy a large enough property there is enough income to pay a manager to run it and enough left to pay all property expenses and your personal expenses too, freeing you to “retire.” Properly-run properties (more self-education needed) provide a controllable monthly income that frees you from having to save 40 years to amass enough to retire. You can “retire” as soon as you buy one property. As long as you expand your definition of “retire” to mean 95% passive income, freeing you from any schedule so you can spend 95% of your time however you like.
Working a job for decades and scrimping and saving in this world of inflation, taxes, manipulated markets and thieving brokers and bankers is the absolute WORST way to create income and try to get rich. Yet “respected authorities”
continue to promote it as the only way to retire.
B.S. It’s just stupid, eats your life and is unattainable for most people. Jobs are good for learning new skills, but horrible for earning income because employees are taxed at the highest rates and salaries mostly lose ground to inflation.
With REAL inflation now running nearly 10% (www.ShadowStats.com) there is no way your income will ever keep up with inflation. Any “savings” in 401Ks, or gains in stocks will lose all their purchasing power long before you are eligible to spend “your nest egg.”
NOW is the time to retire. Two to four months of self-study and self-reading and conversations with people who have already succeeded is all you need to start trying to buy one property that is large enough (30 units or more) to allow you to retire NOW. This gives you CONTROL. If inflation starts to ravage your income, you can raise rents, lower expenses or buy another property.
This doesn’t mean you become a slum lord either. You provide clean, functional, affordable housing at market rates as a service that people willingly buy. Without you and your properly running properties, people might be forced into crappy properties with lesser owners. You provide a needed service, are rewarded fairly for it and are serving humanity in a way that allows you to sleep well each night.
Humans are capable of attaining much more. But it starts with realizing you must become your own expert and then go out there and self-educate yourself (college is another horrible cost-benefit scam) to become that expert. If you want to become one of the 5% who are financially secure, you have to ignore what the “normal” 95% say and start listening to that 5% who have achieved what you want.
Decide what you want and go directly toward it. That desire, partnered with self-education and ACTION, will be enough to reveal each step along the way. Take the first step and the next will be revealed. You can do this. You are meant to be financially free.
I agree with everything you mentioned in your post about self educating. I have read all the main stream authors which was a good starting point but I am ready for more. Any recommendations?
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If you have family and friends in the States, moving to Asia is probably not going to be desirable. But finding a lower cost American city is possible.
I agree… Asia is on the other side of the globe and it can be emotionally difficult if one of your values is being involved day-to-day with your grandchildren. Top Retirements has a good list of cities and towns in the U.S. where you can compare cost of living for relocation. He has them listed by below cost of living, at cost of living or above cost of living. It’s worth a look.
Get a science/engineering degree in the west and and a good job in the east with a big western MNC. It worked wonders for me. Of course you have to work your ass off, but it’s also a lot of fun living in an asian country. After 10 years, you are done, thinking of retirement in a nice place, somewhere in the tropics or subtropics. Just avoid any residence in the west and its tax system like the plague. The point is to be at the right place at the right time. 10-20 years ago it was technology startups in Asia, 5 years ago it was mining in Australia. Now? No idea…
Let’s see……..The number of jobs for low-skilled laborers continues to decline; couples with higher IQ’s are choosing to have fewer or no children; and the typical American school is struggling to teach the 2nd to 3rd generation drug-exposed students who lack the attention span and/or ability to obtain an education that will lead to a successful career field. Factor in the 4 out of 10 suffering serious mental illness, the habitually unemployed, etc., and only an ignoramus would believe that anyone will have any kind of investment or retirement here in the U.S. Within 2 years, the only property you will own will be what you can hold onto until that is taken away as well. Any investment is speculative unless it goes to ensure the safety and security of your family during the turmoil ahead. Say what you will, but when ex-CIA pay contractors an absurd amount of money to build underground bunkers for their families before summer arrives, it is just one more warning sign that danger is coming fast.
i cut Time Warner and bought a roku with netflix – saving about $90 a month. Also bought a tracfone for $10 a month and saved $70/mos instead of verizon…..Cut the land line = $60 – thats $220 right there. Make a budget & dont deviate from it. Thats 2460 annually and $ 24600 over 10 years….the cost of a freakin car
Invest that money with advice from someone smart and start compounding that interest
depending on your tax bracket, some people may have to earn 49K in order to pay the 24600. good job!
oh boy no savings numbers were listed. last time i looked you needed 1.25 million banked in order to retire at your current quality of life in the USA. Most pensions are very low now lucky to get 1.5k a month with survivor benefits. A couple trying to live on 36k a year is not pleasant, health care is going to eat at least 5k a year, rent or low mortgage another 12k, add the other expenses and the price of gas! new car every 5 years as when you get older who can still spin a wrench. the best I see is 6% from metlife on savings so if you only have 300k in a combined 401k that gives you another 18k a year. now its all taxable too so knock out 15 to 20% depending on what state you live in. do the math, my dad told me that you spend more on vacation stuff even if you never travel for restaurants and going to shows and such when retired since you have all this free time now. so don’t leave that ranch or farm, it gives you something to do all day and not have to live in one of those old age homes.
….and this is where tinkering with the interest rate has screwed us while helping politicians look good…..time was you could invest and make 15%+ annually – those days are gone and there is a huge retirement issue brewing as you alluded
Hi RD,
How much $$ one needs for retirement varies from person to person because there is no one-size-fits-all retirement style. What one considers to be comfortable or “required” could be ostentatious by another’s standards.
No doubt with the consumer culture and peer pressure alive and well in the States, it’s more challenging to live on less and feel “satisfied.” But the States are not the only option for a retirement destination. Granted, many people won’t opt for living well overseas in affordable countries for all sorts of personal reasons… But overseas living IS available as a choice.
We personally know thriving singles and couples (ourselves included) who live on 2k +/- a month (in Mexico, Thailand, Guatemala, etc.) with access to good health care.
It all depends on what one wants to do and how they want to live.
How do you retire early you ask? Easy:
Look at what your friends and coworkers do and how they live and do the opposite. Don’t be a follower. It’s that simple folks.
You make a good point, Paul. Peer pressure and the need to fit in or gain the approval of others is very poweful. Learning to think for ourselves and make our own choices changes our lives.
30 years ago my wife and I met with a fund manager. He was pushing his companies ability to make us money by letting them manage our cash. My wife invested with them and to this day her portfolio has gained maybe one percent. I declined and told the manager I would invest in things I understood and could control to which he responded I would fail as I didn’t understand markets. I had $25000 saved and borrowed $75000 and bought a piece of farmland. Today I still own the farmland which provides an income of $50000 year and is worth 1 million. Who’s the idiot? Point is, look after yourself first and invest in yourself. It will yield bigger returns than some jackass that is motivated to make trades because the only way he gets paid is by trading regardless of the outcome.
Here’s my SUCCESSFUL strategy to full retirement at age 54:
Take a job in the state system (education), and work 20 years. During the last 5 years of work, make 11 years of service purchase using IRA rollovers and payroll deduction, based on previous work that did not result in having access to a retirement system.
Then I will work double time with additional part time jobs in the state system during my last three years to double my base salary used for retirement calculation. With this plan, I can retire with 120% of my salary at the time of retirement. 🙂
This is exactly the “game the system” thinking that put America in this economic death spiral. And I am sure you voted for Obama. Its the people like you who manipulate the system to get more than their fair share that will burden our counrries deficit spending well into the future. Be sure to thank my children for your lavish 120% of salary retirement. You dont care, you derserve it. But do the children.
George, he didn’t game the system. He used it to his advantage and followed the rules.
Should I apologize to your children for cashing in my stock options? Should I apologize to your children to deferring compensation so I pay lower taxes?
Maybe I should write them a letter and express my concern for them as I have figured out a way to reduce my taxes in retirement?
By the way George, my only governmental employment was in the US Army so I did all these things as a engineer/businessman. Understanding he system and utilizing it our benefit is nothing to apologize for.
BTW, the poor government employee spent years earning a substandard wage and working in a stultifying bureaucracy. Me, I traveled all over the world and made a very good living.
You?
No he didn’t game the system, but the system needs to be redone as we the taxpayers can no longer afford to pay these state and federal employees such a lavish pension with health care for 2o to 30 years. It is truly disgusting that many people will have to work into their 70’s to pay this person to retire early.
Time to do away with the defined pensions for government workers and put them in the same boat with the rest of us.
Hey Pati,
Perhaps if you wanted a “lavish” pension, you should have enlisted or joined a commissioning program to enter the service, deploy 10 times over a 20+ year career, move every 2, 3, or 4 years (loose your shirt on each house you sold or throw money away renting all the time, stand watch sometimes into the wee hours of the morning, work 20 hour days regularly for no overtime pay, ingest Agent Orange, sliver through the jungles of Vietnam, walk the streets or Iraq or Afghanistan, miss birthdays, anniversaries, school plays, miss watching your kids grow up or even missing their birth.
I say again Pati, if you want a “lavish” retirement, perhaps you too should join the service. Otherwise, carry on smartly. Go protest congress in Washington, those are the chicken-hawk criminals getting away with murder.
What is this? Promoting a portfolio?
What has diversity to do with me thinking about early retirement? If I don’t diversify or if I diversify is all but my own preference.
There are many locations overseas where the cost of living is more affordable, weather is more temperate, medical care is available and excellent. It is very wise to look elsewhere for optional places to retire.
Chapala, Mexico has a large Expat population, as does San Miguel de Allende, Puerto Escondido, Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlan. Guatemala is an overlooked retirement destination. We have lived in these countries for years and have received very good medical care.
We give more information about all of this on our website, or write to us to ask your questions.
Morocco is also a good choice because of the low cost of living and quality of Moroccan people. Nice views of this country are a great opportunity to retire early
Hmmmm. I don’t think 5-year plans work. It didn’t work for the USSR.
I work when there’s work to be had.
I save when there’s an opportunity to save.
I do without if I don’t have the cash to pay for something.
I’ve been called a “workaholic” many times in the past. My “workaholic” ways may have led to my divorce. But may be it is because I really cannot tell work from play.
Now I’m officially in ‘forced retirement’ and it is too early. But I know I’m lucky. I inherited a home from my parents 12 years ago in the Philippines and I have family and a social life to go back to after living four decades in Upstate NY.
When I lost my job in 2008 (the start of Obama’s first term), I started calculating how many months my savings and my unemployment benefits would stretch at my current cost of living in Upstate NY. I did the same for the cost of living and healthcare in the Philippines. I also calculated how much a move would cost in CASH (shipping furniture, plane ticket, and travel documentation) and how much a move would take in TIME (a year). I also had to factor in what it would cost to fund years of unemployment before I can touch my retirement funds without penalty (assuming there was no job to be had in the Philippines either). The break-even point was last year. If I did not find a job somewhere in the US within two and a half years, I had to be ready to fly out of Upstate NY and move back to the Philippines. Of course, it helps that I have family in Upstate NY and the Philippines.
I arrived in the Philippines November 12, 2011.
The best surprise I had was discovering the actual cost of living and healthcare in the Philippines was at most half that of my estimates. And I overspent on gifts.
For now, I have enough money saved to see me through to 59 1/2 (I just turned 58 in September) when I can safely tap into my retirement funds.
I find it surprising that I enjoy staying home. When I was younger, I could not imagine — much less dream of — retiring.
Hello Miriam,
your wrote an interesting comment. May I ask, how much was your estimate before you discovered “the actual cost of living and healthcare in the Philippines was at most half that of my estimates”?
I know costs depends on life style and expectation, but let’s say considering the cost of living to cover local Asian food and living a normal life outside major city centers without excessive luxuries.
There are many small cities across Asia that offers comfortable normal living. You can get by easily with $1000 USD per month in my city Kota Kinabalu, rent food with transportation included. The kicker is that the amount is even less in other towns.
Perhaps the dumbest “principle” of investing is that of rebalancing. Where would I be if every year I sold off some of my Apple stock because it is making too much money for me?
You would be about 25% ahead if you’d sold your Apple stock at $700.
if you were not retiring this year and if you had extra investment $, buy AAPL now. once it goes back up to $1000 or more set limit sell orders for $100 below market to protect your gains, as or if is sells off, get the money into a metlife income fund where they guarantee 5, 6 or 7% and lock principle each year it can make more % but never less. when on a fixed income don’t mess with the markets anymore, its way too dangerous.
I am 100% against diversity for diversity’s sake. You might buy three or four companies to hedge against sector cycles, but the old idea of investing in several mutual funds is ridiculous. No one benefits from such diversity except the fund managers. I got out of T.Rowe Price’s Science and Tech fund years ago, when I realized they would never sell any of their precious Microsoft or IBM and buy any Apple even after many emails from me begging them to step into the 21st century. I have made more in the past ten years by owning Apple and Google than that pig-headed fund manager ever dreamed about.
We retired at age 38, over two decades ago by doing the following. These tips still work today.
1.) Track your spending so you know where your money is going.
2.) Assess where you can cut back and put money towards your retirement goals.
3.) know how much you are spending on a daily average.
4.) Refer to point #2
5.) Look at creative ways to live, i.e., share a car, find a renter to help pay for your mortgage, pack your lunch for work, don’t buy packaged foods and instead eat fresh, etc.
6.) Refer to point #2
I like your advice!
Thank you! These tips work!
And get a job that makes lots of money for 20 years, apparently. Nobody can retire at 38 unless they have a job that makes very good money or live in their parents basement. To make a regular income of 20,000, which wouldn’t be enough for most, based off of interest alone would require at least 600,000 in the bank. 600,000 at 6 percent interest – 3% towards inflation costs = 600,000 at 3%. That is 18,000 yearly. Thats not in IRAs, so that is probably taxable income.
I disagree Eric. I have served in the Miliary for 8 years and while I am an officer, I don’t think you would consider that I make a lot of money. What you do need is a decent paying job and hardcore dedication to saving. I have saved $500k in 8 years. I am 33 years old. All you need is a decent paying day job, a little creativity to earn extra on the side whenever you can and unwavering dedication to early retirement.
Many people are quick to say it cannot be done. Instead, I say too few people actually exercise the dedication necessary to get it done.
I agree with Christian. Many people do not have the discipline and focus to save and the personal creativity to find ways to make their lifestyle pleasant without feeling deprived. My husband and I worked day and night for years and were never big consumers. We made personal decisions for ourselves – which sometimes put us at odds with our peers on a values or financial basis. But we left the working world at age 38 and chose our own course in Life; A road less traveled.
Congratulations, Christian!
I agree with Christian. Too many people “want” in this world without the willingness to put in the work. Amen Christian! Good on ya.
– John
Christian, if you had $500k at time of retirement at the age of 38, I wouldn’t say that was enough money to retire. I am amazed that you would retire at such age with such little money.
Julie,
I never said I would retire at 38 with $500k. My goal is simply to remove myself from the 9-5 slavery that most have learned to accept as the norm in this world. By age 45, I will exit the rat race.
While I know people who live a lifestyle that would allow them to retire at 38 with 500k, I, personally, would require at lot more than that. Can it be done, absolutely. I was simply saying most of the people who complain about never having enough money to save, are the same people who have giant mortgages, a new car every 5 years, the latest apple product, large flat screen TVs (in every room), etc. Honestly, most people do not do what is required to save properly for retirement.
Hi Julie,
Actually, my husband and I were the ones who “retired” at the age of 38 with that amount of money — over 2 decades ago. We are still traveling the world in comfort and we don’t regret our decision. While not everyone would choose to leave the conventional work world at this age and with this amount of money, the purpose of our website is to offer alternatives so one can piece together their own dream life.
Would like to retire in a couple of years. Any ideas what I should do to get ready?
Buy Berkshire Hathaway “B” shares & you will be better off in retirement.
Just left employment at 50 and would like to learn valuable business tips
if u haven’t learned valuable business lessons by now chances r ur never going to learn them
If you left employment at age 50, like I did. You must have more retirement income than wages you were making. My rainy day nestegg is kinda small as I hope my problems will be. Been under budget 3 years and counting. Just be careful how much BS you read on the internet. Enjoy the cheap things in life, there are many, if you do the research.
well, the Federal Reserve is working hard to reflate the market with vast amounts of liquidity, debasing the currency. whatever you do, do not save US dollars. that will only keep you in the rat race. the harder you work, the faster our government can pile up on national debt.
If our net income is $50.000 and our net value is $500.000 in paper based asset classes, then we can stop working, because at current (real) inflation rates of around 10% we are just treading water. And half a million is not enough to support our retirement, far less though in 5 years time if current inflation is accounted for.
The US government is bankrupt, all asset classes are in bubble territory except precious metals (gold and silver) and market forces desperately want to correct valuations and wash out bankrupt and corrupt market participants. However political interference is meddling with markets. The Fed prints money equally desperate trying to reflate the housing market in order to keep banks and consumers alive. This is not going to work forever. Markets will deflate eventually all debt based asset classes, then bring inflation on commodities and consumer based products. And inflation is the reason we should not retire early, but instead invest in gold first, keep working secondly to keep an income.
To conserve money and invest them in sensible shares or properties is a great way to get a return and be able to retire earlier than 65 years
Awesome article! It’s smart to budget and save at any age. Remember it is never to late to start! Researching for budgets and investments is a great way to get started. No one is really going to remember if you owned that “super car”. What they will see is you enjoying your retirement!
It is very important to have a solid plan that you follow with discipline. Invest wisely, avoid wasting money on things with bad ROI like a really expensive supercar and so on.
-Jean
Agree!
agree too!
I friggin LOVE my Audi A7.
And, that’s fine. If you have a vehicle that you truly love and have no problem driving it for a long time, then your overall costs are less than someone who trades a cheap Ford every 2-3 years.
Then again, I have a cheap Ford that I’ve driven for 16 years. A car just gets you from point A to point B. Saving money will let you be able to see more A’s and B’s in your lifetime.
By saving a larger percent of your income you will be spending less. If you carry that lower level of spending into retirement you will nnot require as much savings because you will essentially have less income that you need to replace to maintain your standard of living…