Life is full of stuff you can buy, and most of it you don’t need.
Be mindful with every purchase and make the conscious choice to save rather than spend. There are so many ways to save, but these are my favorite:
- Spend less than you earn. Live beneath your means.
- Pay yourself first, invest as much as you can, as young as you can, into a 401K, Roth & SEP IRAs, and no load mutual funds such as the Vanguard 500.
- If you are married or have a room-mate you have two incomes and only one house-hold living expense to help keep costs down.
- Always look for a coupon, coupon code, Groupon, or deal before you buy.
- There are tons of tips on keeping more of the money you earn, use them.
- Figure out how much you need to live on by tracking all your income and expenses.
- If you find the right deal, invest in rental property. Do your homework it’s all about the deal and return on investment, not about how cute the place is. Don’t get emotionally invested.
- Work hard on your mind, keep learning, you will earn more.
- Once the return on the money you have invested, plus/and (if applicable) rental income equals what you need for your projected retirement income, you can retire.
- There is no magic income number to retire. It all depends on how much you personally need, want or will settle for.
None of this is easy, but what in life is? If you really want to retire early you can do it, just be persistent, don’t let your “wants” hijack your retirement plans.
We could have retired earlier if we had saved more, but we wanted to spend some of our income on fun and travel, plus the necessities. What good is life if you don’t enjoy living it?
I have been retired since June 1, 2014 and I am enjoying this new chapter of my life. I had specific plans in mind before I retired. I’m now enjoying learning more about wine, health and finances. I’ve read numerous books. If you are interested in health or marketing you gotta read, “Salt Sugar and Fat” by Michael Moss, an excellent read on how the food industry is getting rich by making us fat. Be warned reading this made me want to eat salt, sugar and fat.
Cheers – Carrie