If you never had any kids, don't have to buy the latest fashion, and can handle staying in and cooking at home, you should be fine.

It is never about how much you make, it is about how far you can make it last.

My girlfriend was shown out the door at Home Depot after 30 years.

After she lost that insurance she looked into the ACA(obamacare). She pays 50.00 a month now for really good health insurance.

It can all be done.

Personally I never trusted the markets, and I have 3 rental houses, and I have been self employed forever.

I plan to never retire, and I plan to never get a job working for anyone.

I enjoy the work I do, good exercise, make a few bucks, and get up at the crack of noon most of the time.

Boy....I don't know how people get such cheap insurance. I pay almost $800 a month for my wife's insurance, and that's the super high deductible. Shopped Obamacare and it cost even more. Luck for me I'm on Medicare or I'd pay that much or more for me.

Really good health insurance for $50 a month? Details please.

$50 / month for AFLAC or dental insurance maybe.

This could not only be it’s own forum, it would make all of Pinside look like a single tweet.

1. Early retirement is not in my plans as I really enjoy my work. I have prepared for unplanned early retirement with disability insurance and savings.

2. I am unaware of any health insurance hacks. The challenging reality for most is that we get less healthy as we age so the cost of our health care goes up. You can’t change your DNA, but you can exercise, eat healthy food and avoid known unhealthy habits.

3. Getting to retirement quicker is a combination of saving more and spending less. There is no solid consistent shortcut outside of random twists of fate.

4. Slow and steady wins the race. Start early with retirement plan funding. Learn to truly understand what compound interest is and how to use it to you advantage. If you have debt, pay on it consistently and pay extra principle to decrease overall interest payments in the process. Use retirement opportunities to put away money. Small amounts now make big differences down the line.

5. Unexpected things are difficult to predict. A market crash, for example, will hurt you less if you have slowly changed your risk tolerance to less volatile products as you near retirement. The time to grow your funds is before retirement.

It’s pretty obvious by my answers that I’m conservative financially. My wife and I share a vision and work toward it together. We don’t always agree on spending habits, but we both agree on spending the money we have each month after debts are paid and retirement payments are made.

DadofTwins may I ask how old are your twins? In my experience kids get much more expensive before they leave home.

I retired recently but had planned the path years in advance. First of all, get the excellent
pamphlets put out by SS and Medicare. There's a lot of important info in there, too much
to go into here. There are some real pitfalls with retiring before your fully vested year
which can be between 65 and 67 or more depending on when you were born.
There are limits of how much you can earn outside of SS if you retire early.
Go over that and you loose benefits fast. I blew this one.
One of the best things I did was pay off all debts (mortgage, cars, etc) well before
retiring. Another thing I did was evaluate your expenses and eliminate things you
don't really need and replace them with things you enjoy (pinball!).

My wife and I retired two years ago. I'm 44 now and can tell you early retirement isn't complicated, it's just not popular. Between misconceptions about retirement...and work...people usually just plan to "work forever". The #1 best site I can think of is mrmoneymustache.com. It literally changed our lives.

For specifics, I'll just address "3. Ways to get to retirement quicker" and "4. Investing/savings strategies".
#3: Always spend waaay less than you make. Always. I've done this since I was 15 when I was making minimum wage, and I did it when I was making "a bit more" at the end. If you find appreciation in everything around you, you often need less to be happy. That could be housing, clothing, toys and cars. For example I just sold my 2018 GTI to get a 2010 Mazda5 minivan because I decided I just don't need that much car for my winter driving! I own a 2000 Miata for the summer. I could own two brand new cars, but I've learned to appreciate what I have.
#4: Buy high quality, diversified and usually boring investments and hold them for long periods of time. High fees, constant trading, and chasing performance will kill your results!

If you haven't already, research the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement online. Again, it's a life changer!

Unlearn what you've been taught about "saving your way to retirement". There's the occasional Bill Gates and Henry Ford, but the overwhelming majority of wealthy people got there via real estate.

You want "X" amount of monthly income to retire. Acquire income generating assets to achieve that goal. Single family residential rental houses are one of the most popular ways in history to do just that. If you have 10 houses generating $400 a month each, that's 4k a month. Rinse and repeat.

My parents and grandparents have all owned rental properties My dad gave us books when we were young, "Rich Dad, Poor Dad", "The Millionaire Next Door". My younger brother bought his first rental at 19 and is retired already. I didn't start as early as he did, but my wife and I have a couple properties that pay our current mortgage. One is paid off already (thank you, tenants), the other in about 4 years (thanks again, tenants). When we want to, we will sell them and bank the money, well over a quarter million dollars in property that was paid for by someone else. In the meantime we will continue to collect about 2800.00 a month in rent.

I realize you're probably well into your careers in your 40s, but it's never too late to think outside the box.

Check out the landlord thread on Pinside, lots of guys on here own rental properties. Regardless of the stock market, people need a roof over their head.

I want to retire when I hit 50 too. I'm 32 and make good money. If my wife and I flexed our financial muscles we could do it by 40 but what then? Most everyone I know is working from 9-5. You need insurance. Right?

Start by figuring out your retirement budget. Then ask yourself what do I want to do in retirement. For me I'm going to keep working, maybe at a jewelry store, maybe at a hardware store or a low stress, high people store.

Retirement means having a paid off house and not needing a terrible boss. It means freedom.

Hacks: save more, spend less, invest. Go check out mr money mustache as previously stated.

A couple things

Don't owe any money and don't go see any doctors.

Pay off your house.Seriously.That was the make /break point for myself and coworkers(similar seniority+age) when my airline offered a retirement package this summer.I know most of them who did not or could not take it regret it tremendously as healthcare was thrown in for the first time in 25 years.You don't want a mortgage payment on a fixed income.

...or even show me good ins for $500 a month! Obamascare was more expensive for my wife than BCBS!

I save by only buying used cars, fixing whatever I can myself, and paying my credit card off every month.
Rentals are the way to go for me.
I’ll look to buy another when the housing market turns.
Here’s my daily driver that I paid $2k for five years ago.

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When my girlfriend lost her job, and her insurance through work was being canceled, she called the ACA about insurance.

Long story short, to qualify you have to have a income, her income is a small pension.

She has a Ambetter silver plan that costs over 900.00 a month, but she only has to pay 50.00 a month.

She just lucked up and was able to meet all the qualifications to get the best deal.

If you have a good accountant they may know all of the exact details.

I got $1 a month health insurance when it was forced upon me. They made me buy it.

Ya know, that's like one game of location pinball or 12 in a year.

I'm 55 and could be retired if I wanted to but I have a higher spending lifestyle and don't mind my job, I cut back to 3 days a week but still work enough hours for the health insurance and benefits. I had wanted to retire but the closer I got to the magic number felt that I would miss working and it's good to make a paycheck plus benefits (for a smaller number of hours).

I'm working 3 days a week with 4 days off (including weekends) so I call it semi-retired. I am making enough that I am still able to pay all my bills and contribute more to my eventual full retirement nest egg.

On a side note, I think that the market is well elevated price and interest rates are super low which is the double whammy to future returns (lower expected stock growth and when interest rates go up current bond prices will fall). So my nest egg while large, I can't be sure it won't be a good bit smaller after the correction.

If your young enough join the National Guard serve long enough and you can get healthcare at 60 as a restatement package (it’s not VA).

Probably too late for this conversation...but it’s on deck for me (still serving)

It’s not without risks and the guard does get involved in conflicts these days but it’s one of the few jobs that promise you healthcare after you retire.

Interest dollars are only good when they come your way . $ high interest credit cards go first . Pay all incoming credit card bills full balance on time . Car 2nd . Book lost car payments into EZ access emergency fund ( cars break and house repairs ) . Do not raid emergency fund no matter how great a deal you are getting on another pinball ( tough to be a grown up ) . If relocating well and septic rather than water district bills.
Buy home in low tax county . Public transportation as backup plan for mobility .

No divorces or boomarang kids .

Control present and future expenses as best as able.

Drive revenue X lower expenses choice may not be correct over time as world economy shifts so do best you are able .

And as always enjoy each day ! Shane

One more tip for early retirement. Even if you get caught, you end up with three hots and a cot and free medical care.
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Earn, save, invest, and start as young as possible.

I don't aspire to retire early. Instead, I look to live a great and fulfilling life. My wife and I have great career positions and do all of the typical things (no credit card debit, no loans, max 401ks, invest smartly and aggressively, etc). However, we wanted to up level our lifestyle and move towards the water. This is much more expensive than our prior house but our thought was let's do it now when we can enjoy what our new residence and the lifestyle associated with it can afford while we are young and while our daughter is at home. I have worked with too many people that either die young or by the time they can go buy a beach house they are too old to enjoy it.

I am in the young part of my prime earnings period and in a field where you don't age out. I love what I do. My prior sales engineer that I was paired with retired at 75. He could have retired many times earlier but he said that the work that we do kept him young and active. This always sticks with me. Seen too many people retire and then their minds go to pot due to not having any purpose in their life. A lot of people when they retire have the mindset of running out the clock. Not me.

Will see where life goes for my family. We are fortunate to be in the position that we are in. If I have to work longer or one day decide to downsize that is fine. But I am living my best life now while preparing for the future, and don't have any artificial timelines tied to it.

If your employer has a Cobra plan look into that in detail and plan accordingly.You can keep the same insurance/doctors/coverage.It's not cheap.For me and the wife I was looking at a minimum of 16K a year and the max out of pocket could of been 24K if you had issues.I worked a lot of overtime to set aside the $ for that just to get to medicare age.And for those who served in the military and did not retire(we both did 4 years active duty) you can get very affordable VA insurance but you will have to adjust your income down to a cutoff when you apply.Bottom line is you need health insurance or you could end up in dire straits down the line.

I’ve seen too many people save and save, retire, then die of cancer.

I am spending some of my wealth now and enjoying it while I can. Those that live below their means... I get the theory and you definitely need to plan but it only takes one MRI or blood test for it to all go down the drain.

Pay off your debts, highest interest rate first. Invest only in income: real estate or dividend stocks/bonds.

I know several people at the other end of the spectrum (Medical Doctors/surgeons) who can easily afford to retire (as you get older you will have less future life to spend the money). In other words a 55 year old will have (in general) longer time in retirement than a 80 year old. Anyway several guys who worked 40-50 years as a medical doctor who for sure have saved much money but they don't step away and in some cases have to be forced to retire because they are too old. I can not for the life of me imagine working another 20 years like these guys have. I mean if you have made top 1-2% earnings for 30-40 and more years you can afford to retire no need to be a 75-80 year old surgeon, but these guys must love to work or the power and prestige that go with it.

Sound like you're well on your way!

To his point, I would also exercise, give up booze and smoking. Watch your weight. If you are overweight then you're fucked. Cancer, corona, flu, stroke, heart explosion, stairs. One will get you! Edit: also your penis will work better!

It's like saving for retirement.

Then, once you do get there, you can indulge to your heart's content.

Knowing my luck I’ll live it up for a few months on a tropical beach then live to 95 to pay it all back.

Helping folks can be addicting!

Is there a specific FIRE book you all would recommend?

I saw Start Your Fire and Playing with Fire...

amazon.com link »

Jim Collins' blog is equally as helpful. Down to earth and not too gimmicky.

Very true. I changed to a plant based diet few years ago. Feeling better than I did when I was 30.

If you are overweight, your risk of a shorter life rises dramatically.

Awesome. Just downloaded that to Audible, I'll check it out. I've read Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover but it has been a while, if anyone else has any book recommendations for personal finance, I'd be interested to hear them!

Keep working as long as you can, after the Disney trip, Thousand Trails campground tour, it can get monotonous quick.
I worked 25 years for a Corporation that had points, thus my Insurance was guaranteed for a fair price till 65.
Get to retirement earlier by paying off all debts,owning your home is top priority. Pick a place you want to pay off and keep for the long haul. Get out of all debt and do not get back in.
Investment/savings? Save more cash. Invest if you feel comfortable but if you are the worrying type risk no more than you are comfortable losing in the next 3 years.
My advice would have been much different 15 years ago, max out 401K contributions, etc.
Now its owning (not mortgage) free and clear your primary residence. Precious metals as part of your portfolio. At a minimum 2000 bucks a Month in income guaranteed to pay utilities and groceries.
If your Wife or significant other is not as dedicated to living frugally all of your plans are out the window, unless she too becomes economically independent.

What is the magic # people need in their 401/savings to pull the trigger?

I am not a FIRE subscriber (does not fit into my goals or situation) but some of the principals are really sound. As a somewhat controversial book read, I would suggest Money by Tony Robbins. One of the big parts of that book is to really determine what is important to you and to figure out your number. He runs through an example about buying a plane vs having enough money to fly first class, and the enjoyment vs cost and upkeep associated with both. It shaped my thinking a lot on what is important to me and made me realize that my number is not as big as I thought it had to be. It is a really good mindset book.

I think this is a common misconception...

I don’t think you need a certain amount of cash in the bank, you need a constant stream of income.

If you say “right, I got $300 grand in the bank, I’m good to go!”, you’ll soon burn though that cash in no time, if it’s not being constantly replenished.

Property provides a constant stream. Even if the stock market crashes and gold is trading at an all time low, people always need somewhere to live.

rd

be on the ground floor of a new industry
my step-father self funded his retirement at 50yo

his biggest tip, dont spend more money than you have to

want a new car?, buy a 2yo second hand
does not have the latest and greatest mobile phone
does not buy expensive watches
travels overseas every 3 years, not every year

Except here now people are receiving Months of rent amnesty.

"A wise man leaves an inheritance for his childrens children".

I gave my commercial tenants a period of cheaper rent when we had the COVID lockdown here. Didn’t have to, but it was the right thing to do.

Over the last 10 years, they’ve paid me a heap of rent money. A month or two isn’t a big deal in the scheme of things.

rd

Defined benefit pension plans really come in handy. Downfall is you are working for a corporation that usually does not have all of your best interests....

Not anymore. That’s old time serf thinking. My parents are spending their wealth, I told them I don’t want a dime from them.