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Is anyone seriously going to be able to afford early retirement right now? Or is that just a CF myth?

My DH talks about early retirement, but we also have home improvements/travel/mortgage etc. to consider before that will be a reality. Are there really people out there who are actively saving enough to enjoy the early retirement benefit of the childfree?

We are Our plan is to be able to retire at 50 and no later than 55 (still pretty late but it is better than 65!). We have strict ira/investment/savings plans that we pay into before we do anything else. We made a lot of financial decisions like how big of a house to buy, cars, etc. based on how much we wanted to be able to save for retirement.

In the office I work at, we just had a woman 'retire' at 39! Her husband is a little older and worked longer than her, but they had the same idea and had been saving hard since their 20s. They don't have kids either and they plan to just travel from now on, living in places for a few months at a time. I wish I was there already!!

Yes...we are on track to retire by age 50. I might work part-time for a couple of years until maybe 52, but because I want to not because I will have to.

We had our starter house paid off by age 35 and will have our new home paid off in 3 years. Both of our cars are paid in full and we travel at least 3 times a year, not including weekend excursions. No way would we be where we are financially if I had had a child. I would've been resigned to the "mommy track" and would be making far less money.

Realistically, anyone can do this. The key is to start early. We started saving for retirement at age 24 and have contributed regularly ever since. We have never had credit card debt. We don't believe in paying interest, so we save prior to buying. The only loans we've ever had are student loans, which I paid in full in 3 years, and our mortgage.

Yes!!! This is such an important part of being able to save enough.

It's funny. We don't deny ourselves anything either. People seem to think if you're saving you don't get to spend and have fun. Not true.

When you don't pay interest, you get so much more money to "play" with! When our first house was paid off, we had a year while we were building our new home to save. We bought a tonne of stuff BUT still made it a priority to save X amount per month, no excuses. You need to pay yourself first, just like any other bill.

In Canada, when you save in a registered retirement savings plan (RRSP), it generates a tax refund. We always put that on the principal of our mortgage every year.

Thanks for your responses!

I will show this thread to DH and generate some conversation on the topic. I know that he would love to retire early as he works hard, but we're putting everything into the house right now. Time to seriously discuss a proper retirement savings plan--as you have suggested!

A key thing to ask is what retirement means to you. I know a TON of MNK couples and literally none of them really want "to retire" - I.e. to stop working. They are doing things they love. They want to keep doing them. They would be bored if they stopped doing what they are doing.

Now, my mom dislikes her work as does my stepdad. So both of them *do* want to retire as in leave their jobs. But they'll still be actively doing things that bring in income, like writing about wine. That is what they want to do. So that is a win-win. They will be doing things they love, and making money to continue to live a fun lifestyle involving international travel.

I also want to agree that you can easily live a healthy money lifestyle and save a lot of money every year. There are tons of tricks and tips to doing that. We talk about that regularly in our money sites like Frugal Living and Home Finance -

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If you set up a monthly auto-transfer into a savings account, you don't even have to think about it. It just happens, the money is out of sight, out of mind. Interest accrual is a powerful force.

I definitely agree that wise money management is the key whatever your life goal is. There are many tips and tricks which can make it "painless" to get to your goals.

Early Retirement ,in my opinion must be considered if there are some serious health issues and the going gets really tough.

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