What risks do you take to retire early?

[34saving]

I second/third everyone's notion on healthcare. If it wasn't for healthcare I'd have the retirement puzzle figured out. Keep in mind that often only one of you has to work for both of you to have health benefits. You and your wife could alternate retirement (One year she's retired, the next year you're retired . . .)

[jmjj215]

Instead of focusing on the costs of healthcare (12k per year, or more, anyone's guess), I'd focus on building something that would create an extra 12k of relatively passive income to cover healthcare.

If I wanted to spend an extra $10k per year on vacations in retirement, I'd focus on building up some passive income stream that footed the bill.

Instead of sticking at a normal 9-5 job, even part-time, just for benefits, I'd look into making enough money that it wasn't an issue to begin with.

[scfr]

Originally Posted by jmjj215

Instead of sticking at a normal 9-5 job, even part-time, just for benefits, I'd look into making enough money that it wasn't an issue to begin with.

Bravo! Frankly, I don't understand why people are willing to take so much risk investing in publicly-traded companies where they have no control over what happens and where the top executives may be skimming all of the cream off of the top, when they won't invest in "stock" in themselves!

[disneysteve]

Originally Posted by jmjj215

Instead of sticking at a normal 9-5 job, even part-time, just for benefits, I'd look into making enough money that it wasn't an issue to begin with.

True. Rather than taking some lousy job to get insurance, do something you really enjoy where you earn enough to buy your own insurance. For me, it would probably be selling collectibles on ebay. I could make $1,000/month easily if I was retired.