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Please, provide proof of that statement. I think it's baloney.
I think the rest of that list is fairly accurate but I agree about this point being a little dubious. I only know a few people who retired early or plan to and most are kind of middle of the road on this.
--Work for a company/agency that provides defined benefit pensions and lifetime med/dental insurance. Continue working there for 25+ years and take advantage of any other retirement account benefits.
Until healthcare is fixed and made available at a reasonable fee , the majority of people will NOT being able to retire very early no matter how much they save.
All it takes is one curable cancer or heart attack to wipe out years of savings and derail long term plans.
Anything is possible. I am involved with a business where some have built there organizations into Million dollar a month business's. Imagine that? A regular person builds a business that has a sales volume of $1million a month or more. They will get a check for 8% of that. At the end of the year they have earned $960,000. Do that a few times and maybe you could retire and walk away. You could walk away from the normal 9 to 5 lifestyle. Plenty of people call it retiring when in essence they still have a business bringing in money. My goal is to hit the $200,000 a month range.
One of my friends that I have known my entire life has a five location business. I am also friends with one of his managers. She told me he does not come into work anymore. The business runs itself. I would guess he is retired and has been since he was about 45 years old. We are both 50 now.
[quote=evilcart;39764277]Until healthcare is fixed and made available at a reasonable fee , the majority of people will NOT being able to retire very early no matter how much they save.
All it takes is one curable cancer or heart attack to wipe out years of savings and derail long term plans.[/quot
Whether retired/ insured or working/ insured such a illness can mean either you have the financial ability to cover or you don't. Its like any other emergency funding at any age. Either you have it covered or your have insurance that does. Even Medicare age people often face the same if not financially prepared. No matter what health treatments will never be fix; its just now you or government pays for it; in end it has to be paid for with consequences in other areas. Certainly Greek people are learning that nothing is really free now.
Our neighbor told us his goal is to retire at 45 and that he is on target to do that. I asked how and he said he invests in the stock market, puts most of his paycheck in retirement, and has minimal debt.
I'm disabled but my hubby works. We don't own a home and have basically no debt. Is this something that is practical? We cannot afford to give more to retirement than we do already (I think my dh gives like 5% of his paycheck or something). Is this a possibility or a dream?
my step brother retired at the age of 38. Well he worked for for a huge polpular food grocery brand warehouse, Gordon I think, a but anyways because of the hard labor you can retire after 15 years but he did 20 years. He got a monthly pension and everything. He gets about $4,000 a month not even including his other investments. House is paid off and his car and now he works partime consulting own his own time
I don't think an inheritance has to be involved. The common threads I see from early retirement bloggers:
--Often are engineers/computer programmers...Folks in this profession have a certain personality type that allows them to not care about what other people think and understand the difference between true needs and wants.
--Above average, but not necessarily fabulous, incomes.
--Often are part of 2 income couples.
--With the exception of very high earners in finance, they usually don't live in the highest cost metro areas (SF, NYC, DC, Boston, LA).
--Often don't have any kids, or have only one. And the kid was planned, not an "accident".
--Divorce & out of wedlock child bearing are very uncommon among this group.
--Often ride bikes or share one car (usually bought used and driven until it's not worth fixing) between two earners.
--Try to live as close to work as possible so they're not car dependent.
--Usually are homeowners but they live in smaller living quarters than most people of the same age and income level (i.e. they bought much less house than the bank said they could afford).
--They tend to shun or at the very least, de-emphasize what's going on in pop culture and they do not spend a lot on concert tickets, eating out, etc. A fair number don't have TVs or at the very least don't have cable.
--The above lifestyle choices, combined with above average incomes allow them to save 50% or more of their after tax incomes which results in early financial independence.
Mostly accurate for us, retired at age 50.
Never had or will have any inheritance.
I was a mainframe computer systems supervisor for a very large corporation.
Reached above average income during my career.
Two income couple.
Lived in the north Texas area.
One biological child and two throwaway children that we took into our home and reared from early teen years until adulthood. We did this without any government or state involvement.
Married for more than 50 years now.
No bike riding, commute too far. We did drive two used cars.
In 1968, after almost nine years in the military I was offered an entrylevel hourly job with the company at $1.95 per hour. I had to drive 120 mile round trip for two years until we moved closer and 25 mile round trip.
We owned many houses, every time we moved up we would keep the old one as rental property. Also flipped houses during the late 70's and early 80's. This practice almost ruined us financial. In 1983, I purchased a new $250k house with a 16.5% interest rate, plus owning 7 or 8 rental houses. The RE marked crashed in Texas, and I had to make payments on some vacant property plus the new house. This almost wiped out our savings.
We seldom go out for entertainment unless we had a coupon in the early years.
We invested in the markets and had spectacular returns until the dot-com crash and lost about one million.
After retirement, I have free health insurance for life. We sold off all the rentals, and my retirement, profit sharing, and 401K are in aself-directed IRA. We are multimillionaires again and life is great.
Get with a good network marketing company and be all in for 5-10 years. The big thing about early retirement is cash flow for the next 20-30 years. If married it might be a good idea to get a large life policy just as a bit more of a guarantee just in case.
But then he isn't fully retired or even typical. I think what is being discussed is typical middle class earner here. Just as a single person versus a married is different financial cost during working and during retired years. Securing the future is different depending on many things. Couples with and without children also have different considerations. I retired at 52 first having set a goal of at least by 55. I couldn't have secured the future at below 40 near like I did by then nor did I really want to retire at 40; to tell you the truth. But then if you have no plan to do so early I think it very unlikely to happen for most. If I had had to wait until later by circumstance then I would have just accepted it. It was a goal after all and many things could have set it back I knew. No matter the age I think retiring well takes planning on many fronts.
The comments posted Originally Posted by mysticaltyger are right on target.
To that I would add a defined-benefit pension is also very important, no matter the amount, it gives you a base for your pension that is not subject to market forces. Good luck finding one. Even the Federal Government got rid of the defined-benefit pension in all but name in 1984!
Starting early. I started my daughter ROTH IRA at 15 when she got her first job. Ten years later she is pushing six digits in her account. I started at 26. That was a little late, though we did catch the entire market run starting in 1982.
Continue to pour money into investments. We stopped putting additional money into retirement funds somewhere in the early 1990's when we realized we had sufficient resources for retirement in 15 years. Oh well, those trips and my wife not working full-time were worth it then....now it would have been nice to have some more money, but you have to make choices.
Health care in retirement is really a non-issue these days. Your ObamaCare subsidy is based on line 37 of your 1040. I know a couple of multi-millionaires that receive substantial subsidies since they are LOW INCOME even though they have a very high net worth.
Check everything above line 37 for tricks like ROTH IRA's instead of traditional since they do not affect line 37. Municipal bonds and dividend paying stocks are other good places for income that is NOT really INCOME showing up on line 37.
Get a business running into retirement. That gives you even more flexibility in scheduling income and deductions.
This really brings up the last point. IF you really want to retire EARLY and do NOTHING in retirement, you probably won't make it. Your mindset is wrong.
The most successful early retirees I know retired from their JOBS, but not their CAREERS. They kept working because they loved their CAREERS, but hated their EMPLOYER. They are working less than half-time in most cases as self-employed.
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