Always said I’d never retire: a young man’s hubris. Been working for thirty years and now feeling it. ;D Wondering what it’d be like to retire early before 50!
Before someone goes on about “advice on a forum” I know many of ya’ll to be professionals- perhaps a few saavy and retired homebrewers. I’m looking for strategies and pointers in various scenarios.
Is it possible?
I retired at 49, moved to Hawaii and started two business. I am working on starting two more.
The secret to success is do what you like and it’s not a job. I don’t see myself ever stopping “work.” I’ll just hand the businesses over to my son or sell them when I cannot do it any more.
While it was not permanent retirement, I took off for year (actually, a little over a year) before opening the brewery. It was great to take some time off to focus on things around the house, catch up on some reading … catch up on some naps. 
Have to agree with puna though, it’s more fun to have something you really want to do that doesn’t feel like work and that doesn’t become routine, or becomes pleasant routine. Maybe you could take some time off with the goal of starting a new business. I have greatly enjoyed having the challenge of a young business to grow in the middle years of my life. It gives me energy I might not otherwise have.
turning 50 soon. i never wanted to stop working but when i was in my mid 30s out of the navy i realized i couldn’t do what i was doing forever. told my self what would i do if i hit the lotto. answer was go to med school. then i sez to my self, self why wait? now i have a job that i could do for another 20 years, the problem: is that i pretty much have to do the cost of starting up. our big question is where we want to end up. soon to be an empty nester and kids in the service, family scattered all over… don’t know if that helps or what your situation is but for us it is how to stay close to family that matters
I retired at 56. It has been good. Whenever I think about going back to work, I remember the stress and all of the BS from working at a big company. The guys I have lunch with now and then say it has gotten a lot worse.
You work because you want to, or because you have to. Someday the want to might get strong enough that I will do something low stress.
I’m lucky enough that at 28, I can see semi-“retirement” happening in about 10 years. But, I think it depends on what you call retirement. Our plan is to go into overdrive with work, pay cash for a house and land, make sure all of our debts are gone and then open the brewery with no loan, using that for income and keeping some side projects coming in for savings. That way in about 8 years of (really, really, really) hard work we’d be more or less financially independent. That vision figures heavily on us being able to cover all of our expenses with the brewery operating with three brews a week, and the rest of the time is spent homesteading so we cut our expenses in as many ways as possible.
Perhaps spending 4 hours a day in the garden plus 6 hours every other day brewing is not ‘retirement’ but it sounds pretty durn good to me 
I’ll turn 53 in April and am looking to retire in the next several years. The best advice I could give is to plan ahead and start early. Our current house is paid off and we paid cash for our retirement property this past December. No debt and lots of retirement savings (401K, IRA, etc.) seems like the way to go. Oh yeah, we’ve got one still left to get through college but we’ve already got that put away too.
fixed that for ya! I left the house before 8 yesterday AM and didn’t get home until close to 10.
Yeah, but my brewery is next door to my house, so even if it’s 12 hours it’s not quite the same thing. But I totally see what you mean.
All I can tell ya phill is - you better hire a gardener.
I already have a wife! Hiyooooo!!!
I just passed 60 and I don’t know when, or if, I’ll ever be able to retire. But I sure think about it a lot!
All good answers. I too would like to work in the garden or go fishing. Maybe tour the country on the cheap. I studied and trained hard to attain my current skills but working for the “Man” is starting to wear me down. Will turn 45 soon and can only see myself working another ten years.
Consequently, I have two 403b accounts (Fidelity & Metlife) and a pension through the same corporation. Have payed aggressively into these annuities especially during 2008 through last fall, when it made sense to back off a bit and use cash to pay down debt. The pension I just found out about- had no idea there was one for me.
Dave Ramsey has influenced my financial philosophy to a certain degree. I only hold debt on my mortgage and student loan which total less than 30k. Not bad huh? Soon these will be payed off.
Have wondered about immediate annuities both fixed and variable and if a sufficient lump sum might provide an income until retirement and beyond. Or at the very least augment my current income to where I could work less hours per week. A semi-retirement if you will. Any ideas about annuities?
I plan to talk to a professional advisor because without a realistic plan it’s all a scary pipe dream. :o
I don’t even think about retiring. We save for retirement and everything, and I expect to change jobs again at some point (or several points) and at some point I might be doing something that pays less or not at all, but I don’t really think about not working on something.
If the historical data is anything to go by, my family is bad at full on retirement. So the less I think about that, the better.
My neighbor retired at 55 with a $1000 per month pension. He hustles though. Buys and sells stuff. Odd jobs. He is happy and still provides for his wife, daughters and grandkids.
Right now he has a lawnmower torn apart and is working on it.
When I was 35(1992) I quit my day job and went into consulting figuring that for what I charged per day I could work 9 days per month and earn the same. But success has it’s costs and soon I was working 25-40 days per month and things were great. But working that much(lots of times I was at one site for 5-8 days sleeping an hour or 2 at a time in my pickup) took it’s toll and so in 2005 I was offered my old job back. I expect to work another 8-10 years and be done with the oilfield forever. My wife can retire from the public schools in 6 years with a full pension and maybe by then I’ll have enough money that I can retire. The problem really is that we plan on living a long time so retiring too early might leave us poor by age 90. And with the current political BS going on we may not have access to Medicare or SS so that’ll be another consideration. I’ve payed into both for 40 years and will be more than a little upset to see them yanked away just when I plan to start needing them.
Only 40 days a month? What a slacker! ;D
I don’t even figure SSI into my calculations and ruminations. My fear also is living too long and running out of money, which is easily compounded by retiring early…
The ones who do best seem to be the ones who spend less time retiring from something and spending more time retiring to something they enjoy doing.
Is anyone familiar with what is called the Boeing curve?