Why do you want to retire early?

[Caoineag]

I want to know I have choices. Both DH and I have a multitude of interests but you can't really switch up your career every few years due to the financial consequences. Having financial independence will let us choose what we want to do with our time. Also, like Disneysteve, I am one of those people who never has enough time in the day to do all that I want and still won't when I retire. Keeping busy won't be difficult.

[LMA]

I do not want to retire early. I want to be financially independent soon.

The idea of retirement is "old school" and probably if you want to retire is because you are doing something you don't want to do anymore. Why would you want to retire from something you enjoy?

I ask myself a lot, what is retirement? and I am really not coming up with a meaningful answer that makes any sense for my generation, the opportunities I am pursuing or what I want to do with my life.

[bjl584]

This morning it was 10 degrees. I had to drag myself out of bed, get ready, scrap ice off of my car, and then drive 30 minutes to work.

How I would love to sleep in just once, wake up when I feel like, make a cup of coffee, and then look out the window at the winter weather before easing into my chair to watch the morning news.

[disneysteve]

Retirement is a pretty modern concept right?

That's true and is for a combination of reasons. Primarily, people live longer today. When Social Security first came into existence, they set 65 as the retirement age at a time when the average life span was 63. So the expectation was that most people wouldn't live to collect benefits and the ones that did, wouldn't collect for very long.

Today, however, people are routinely living into their 80s and beyond and being pretty functional. My mom is 79 and people think she is 10 years younger. She is active, drives, shops, cleans, does everything without any assistance. I have numerous patients in their 80s and even their 90s who still live alone, maintain their households, cook and clean for themselves, etc.

It is perfectly reasonable, I think, to work for 40-45 years and then retire to hopefully enjoy another 10-20 years of leisure.

[EEinNJ]

Great topic. Like many others, I can think of plenty of other things to do besides work. For those of us "stuck" in full-time employment, I think telling the boss where to stick it and then going to do those things is a day dream that helps us cope. But people work for reasons beyond financial, perhaps even taking them for granted- to feel productive, purposeful, for social interaction.

A few years back I had a life changing event, and I quit a dull corporate engineering job. I went to work for a small start-up, working from home and at a customer's site part-time. I felt like I got my life back. Though that company didn't last, I went on to several consulting jobs, a long term contract job at my old employer, even tried my own company. During that time, I had several periods of "pre-retirement". After a couple of great summers, eventually one winter the novelty had worn off and I had to get back to work. Now I'm back in a full-time job, but I've "downshifted" and it's a lot more fun.

Even if you don't retire fully, early, it's still a great idea to be ready. These days many people in their 50's get put out and replaced with younger workers. 65, a pension, and a gold watch, is pretty rare.

[elessar78]

As disneysteve pointed out, people are living longer. I met with an insurance agent who said that actuarial tables project our baby's life expectancy to be about 120!!

With that in mind, I think that people need to really consider if they've planned enough to not outlive their money.

[reallyprettyhappy]

It's not necessarily that I want to retire from 'work' so much that it is that I want to retire from stress. Our first goal is financial independence. Once we achieve that goal, we can have the freedom to chose to do what makes us happy, even if that is still work. From there we have the freedom to work or not work as we choose. I honestly don't imagine that either of us will really be ready to 'rest' until we are well into our 60's. We're just two people who are naturally driven to work. It will just be nice to do something that we love and are passionate about.

[am_vanquish]

As disneysteve pointed out, people are living longer. I met with an insurance agent who said that actuarial tables project our baby's life expectancy to be about 120!!

With that in mind, I think that people need to really consider if they've planned enough to not outlive their money.

Mortality tables used to assume everyone in the population dies before/at age 100. They now assume a small portion of the population live beyond 100, but everyone dies by 120. Just wanted to clarify that they don't suggest all of our kids will live to be 120 on average.

There is a LOT of discussion regarding how quickly life expectancies are changing right now and how quickly we can monitor/evaluate these changes. When you're talking about the entire population , small changes in life expectancy have incredible impacts on life insurance, personal retirement programs, and government-sponsored post-retirement benefits (Medicare, Social Security, etc.).

To be honest, many people are under-estimating the probability they will out-live their money because there's only so much that can be done to predict future life expectancies.

That said, I agree with the consensus that you should enjoy things like vacationing before "full retirement" while you still have the health to do so.

[disneysteve]

It's not necessarily that I want to retire from 'work' so much that it is that I want to retire from stress.

Very good point. I have thought about what "retirement" might look like for me and the thought has crossed my mind that instead of working 5 days per week seeing 6 patients per hour for up to 11 hours per day, perhaps I would be happy working 3 or 4 days/week, seeing 3 patients/hour for 5 hours/day. I would also want a lot more vacation time, like 8-12 weeks. If I could find a practice that would accommodate me working on a part-time schedule like that, I could see myself continuing to work for a while.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Some people retire early or early-ish due to health problems. We might be living longer, but we have not yet conquered health problems all together. In fact, sometimes our work may contribute to health problems that push us into early retirement.

I think, for example, of a nurse I know who had just a small amount of arthritis in her hip joint in her early twenties. Now in her early 50's she is still on her feet all day long. In fact she has longer shifts now than at the beginning of her career. She has had her both her neck and back injured in the course of her work (patients more or less attacked her--not bad ergonomics). So she goes to work in pain every day. I really do not see how she possibly could keep working in a job like that until age 65. I know that she has tried to get nursing jobs that were less physically demanding, but it just has never worked out.

She has also seen many older nurses physically suffer in the last years of their work life. So she has kept in mind that she may have to quit early. I know she has saved for retirement, and I hope she's been saving for the possibility of early retirement. If not, I hope that she can quit nursing and find some sort of other work that would be easier on her body, even if it is not related to nursing.

Social Security Administration says a lot more people are retiring early with disabilities than did back in the 70's and 80's.

Anyway, early retirement is not always a happy thing and is not even something people necessarily plan for.

[feh]

I dig my job, but there are other things I'd rather be doing for 40 hours a week. Whether that's spending time w/ my wife, working on a hobby, or some other profession.

I'm on track to retire at 55, but it won't be the "stay in pajamas all day and watch tv" retirement. I'll probably get a part time job in some line of work that has always interested me but doesn't pay much.

[cschin4]

The interesting thing about retirement talk is that most people seem to assume they are going to retire on their terms. In most cases, I see people who want to continue working but developed physical ailments or other problems who could not. Then, I see those who were downsized, laid off or let go earlier than expected. I think that people need to prepare for the reality that you may not feel as good as you do now and you may intend to work for years but might not.

[Beppington]

I haven't heard anyone yet say that Obama is gonna provide me with all the early retirement resources I'll need. Drat.

[Beppington]

The interesting thing about retirement talk is that most people seem to assume they are going to retire on their terms. In most cases, I see people who want to continue working but developed physical ailments or other problems who could not. Then, I see those who were downsized, laid off or let go earlier than expected. I think that people need to prepare for the reality that you may not feel as good as you do now and you may intend to work for years but might not.

Yet another reason to at least plan for early retirement.

[disneysteve]

The interesting thing about retirement talk is that most people seem to assume they are going to retire on their terms. In most cases, I see people who want to continue working but developed physical ailments or other problems who could not. Then, I see those who were downsized, laid off or let go earlier than expected. I think that people need to prepare for the reality that you may not feel as good as you do now and you may intend to work for years but might not.

Yet another reason to at least plan for early retirement.

I agree that this s a reason to shoot for early retirement. If you plan to be financially ready to retire at 55 and something happens to prevent you from working longer, you'll be all set. It is also a good reason to have a good disability policy. If something happens to prevent me from working, I'm insured for that, no matter how old I am when it happens.