Modesty Allows for Early Retirement

The following is a guest post written by Corey at Passive Income to Retire, where he is sharing his progress toward early retirement.

How do you picture your retirement? Do you envision it sitting on a beach, with a fancy drink in hand with nothing to do? Or, do you imagine it living with your children to save money on housing and living off of social security? I’m sure no one plans for the latter, but the idea is that what you see yourself doing in retirement changes when you will be able to retire.

Typical Retirement Plan

When I grew up, I always thought of retirement as one thing. Essentially, it was working until you are forced to retire for bad health. In retirement, it meant sitting around the house, watching TV, and playing golf occasionally. I don’t know if it is just me, but this image no longer sounds appealing. I hate the idea of waiting to live my life.

My aunt and uncle changed my perception of retirement a few years back. They were smart with their money, both worked at jobs making decent salaries, and most importantly, lived a modest life. They inherited a house from my aunt’s parents and instead of selling it or getting the biggest house they could afford, they stuck with the modest 3 bedroom house that was built well before they were born. Their story isn’t anything radical, but they did decide to retire in their mid fifties. Prior to this, no one in my family had even thought about retirement until early 60’s. This got me thinking. If they can retire in their fifties, why can’t someone else retire much earlier?

A Shift in My Retirement Plan

Recently, I started thinking about how retirement doesn’t have to be the same for everyone. The possibilities are endless. That doesn’t mean that you can just choose what you want to do in retirement and not start working towards achieving that goal.

I used to think that I would like to work for most of my life, live frugally, and have enough money saved to not have to worry about money when I went to retire. That was until recently. I began to see retirement planning differently. Instead of trying to save up a lump sum from which I will live the forty years (if I live that long) in retirement, I began to see retirement as having a certain income. Once I transitioned to income each year, I began to wonder why I have to wait my whole life to do what I want.

Instead of waiting until my 60’s to retire, I plan to retire in the next two or three years. My alternate retirement plan involves having enough passive income to replace my day job by the day I turn 27. Most of this will come from online sources, but I plan to integrate real estate investments as well. I created a new website to help document my goal for early retirement. The other limit that I put on myself is to work less than I don’t work. In other words, only work 3 days a week. It is retirement, after all. Well, kind of – it depends on your definition of retirement.

Why I Can Achieve Retirement This Soon

There are several reasons why I think I can achieve this early retirement. Beyond being determined, I also know that my wife is on the path for a successful career. With her salary, it takes a lot of stress off of me. If we had to, we could survive on her income. This gives me a lot of possibilities. The number one reason why I think I can achieve this is that I plan to live modestly. Because I don’t plan on eating out or living in a big house, I can get by on a decent income. The simple fact is that by cutting down your overall expenses can make retirement come so much sooner.

When Do You Plan to Retire?