As a career person, you indeed love working on the things you love — the sort of projects that contribute to society. But there might have been some occasions when you feel like getting a long rest and pursue your passion. Perhaps, you have even thought of retiring early.
Retirement, by convention, seems to be a reward for your life-long devotion to work. Workers get compensated with funds, and if you’re lucky enough to work for companies, like Lockheed, you’ll get a large sum of Lockheed pension. However, you do not have to wait until you turn 60 or so before you finally retire.
If early retirement is part of your plan, there are some things that you may need to keep in mind. Here are some of them:
Start early as soon as possible
You’ve been telling yourself to retire early, but it seems that you can’t start right away. The first thing that you need to do is to lay the groundwork for your ultimate goal. Start planning and making some adjustments. You should calculate how much you will need to retire, and this may include the estimation of your retirement expenses. However, things will heavily depend on your preferred age of retirement. And since the goal is to accumulate enough money before you turn a certain age, you will need to make the necessary adjustments in your current lifestyle and expenses.
Automate your savings
You have to understand that the key to early retirement dramatically relies on your savings. In this aspect, you need to make saving up as your second nature. Over the years, you will see a massive increase in your salary, and you may even encounter windfalls now and then. With this in mind, you should adjust your saving, not your spending; this means that you need to make your savings bigger. And if you want bigger savings, you may need to look for other sources of income, such as gigs and small businesses.
Invest, invest, invest
Now that you have savings and emergency funds, the next thing that you need to do is to make your money work for you. The goal, while you are young, is to accumulate money-making assets. In this regard, it would be wise to invest in stocks, equities, and bonds — these are investment vehicles that will make money over the years. Do not be too anxious about short-term fluctuations, knowing that the money you will make from here will be only used once you have already retired.
Plan your post-retirement goals
Life does not end with your early retirement. Some people lose a sense of purpose when they retire early, knowing that they have devoted lots of their time to their careers before. Therefore, you need to have a plan for your life once you leave the workforce. It could be about your passion, travels, and business. More importantly, you need to make sure that your money will not outlive you, so continue investing and finding other ways to make money,
You can do it!
Some people have the impression that early retirement is impossible, but it is not! You have to set your expectations, come up with goals, and see to it that you are going to stick to them.
