I’ll be the first to admit I’d love to retire, or even downshift to part-time, if given the opportunity. I have some things going for me in this regard. One, like my buddy JD (Not really, but he did send me an email once?) I’m childless by choice. Two, I’m relatively young (but I feel old?) at 24. Finally, I don’t have expensive tastes, and often enjoy inexpensive forms of entertainment.
I wonder though, when I read articles like this, how feasible retiring early is at such an early age. As I’m sure you’ll notice, Mr. Foster made some daring, risky investments and reaped the benefits. As such, even though he wasn’t saving a ton of money, he still managed to make a couple hundred grand by age 35. It could of course, have gone the other way, with Altria getting buried under legislation and lawsuits and going out of business, driving the shares to 0. Even great savers like Canadian Dream only hope to reach this point at 45, if that. It’s mind numbingly frustrating to try and figure out a time-line for retirement at my age.
I don’t know how equities will perform over the next decade, I don’t know how much farther the dollar has to fall, and how bad inflation is going to get. I don’t know what healthcare costs will be like 10 years from now. That’s the bottom line, I don’t know, and so gaging the possibility of early retirement, at this point, is a silly task. I’m going to closely monitor my investments, savings rate, and expenses and go from there. I’ll be sure to keep you all updated as well!
There are a lot of personal factors that go into this too. I could live a comfortable existence at 30k (USD) per year. I strive to keep my expenses annually around 25k, and everything above that is gravy (invested, saved, or used to pay debt). Others though, like 2 million blog, would consider that a pretty paltry lifestyle. I can’t tell you what’s right for you, but it’s important for you to know where you stand. If you can find out what your comfort zone is in terms of income, you can start setting goals and estimating the amount of time it will take to reach that point.
Here’s to being an early retiree!
-Xias
on Nov 10th, 2007 at 9:58 am
[…] Earliest Retiree: Xias has a great attitude about money and what he wants it do for him (not what he’ll do for it). Read the article that he links to in the Globe and Mail about another early retiree. (@ The Finance Castle) […]
on Nov 23rd, 2007 at 2:39 pm
It’s true the further out you are from ER the harder it becomes to predict. In your case you really got a hard time being as young as you are. There is a huge number of things that can change for you from now until your retire.
The other side is being as young as you are compound interest is your best friend. Just keep saving and it will come together I promise. I can totally relate to your fustration as some days I even feel it now.
Just remember to enjoy your life now and don’t always look to the future.
Tim
on Oct 12th, 2011 at 9:27 pm
[…] Earliest Retiree: Xias has a great attitude about money and what he wants it do for him (not what he’ll do for it). Read the article that he links to in the Globe and Mail about another early retiree. (@ The Finance Castle) AKPC_IDS += "257,"; Categories: linklings […]