Here’s How To Retire Early and Quit the Daily Grind

Inside Creative House / Getty Images/iStockphoto

Commitment to Our Readers

GOBankingRates’ editorial team is committed to bringing you unbiased reviews and information. We use data-driven methodologies to evaluate financial products and services – our reviews and ratings are not influenced by advertisers. You can read more about our editorial guidelines and our products and services review methodology.

20 Years
Helping You Live Richer

Reviewed
by Experts

Trusted by
Millions of Readers

The Great Resignation has shown us there is a different way to work. During this phenomenon, workers have shifted their priorities from the 9-to-5 job toward a path that better fulfills a work-life balance or provides greater opportunities.

Read More: 6 Unusual Ways To Make Extra Money (That Actually Work)

A GOBankingRates study showed that while the full retirement age is 67, in some states, the average retirement age is 61. Age 65 is no longer necessarily the golden standard.

6 Tips For Retiring Early

Although retiring early sounds like a pipe dream for many, it can be done — but you’ll need to plan to make it a reality. Not everyone takes the same path to early retirement, but certain steps are common among people who manage to achieve it. 

Maybe there’s a better way to retire, too. Through retirement planning with a purpose, early retirement isn’t out of the question, and it could allow you to quit the daily grind. You’ll likely have to consider at least some of these options to amass enough money to fund a sustainable retirement lifestyle after you stop working.

1. Make lifestyle changes.
2. Increase your income.
3. Make a financial plan.
4. Create passive income streams.
5. Stay on top of your plan.
6. Follow the Rule of 25 for retirement.

1. Make Lifestyle Changes

The more money you save, the more likely you’ll be able to retire early.

Making cuts to your lifestyle is one of the easiest ways to make sure that more of the money you earn goes into your savings. There are plenty of ways to cut spending, from the often-cited “giving up your daily latte” to the more substantial act of downsizing your home. Consider which expenses you can cut.

The more you save money now, the less you’ll have to worry about money later.

2. Increase Your Income

While you’re working hard to save for retirement during your peak earning years, use your professional expertise to make even more money by taking a second job or a side gig.

Work as a consultant in your field, use your crafting hobby to sell goods on Etsy or list a spare room in your house on Airbnb. Put all of it into a retirement account — or invest it. This nest egg of retirement savings is what you’ll be able to rely on later in life.

3. Make a Financial Plan

Once you’re generating savings and earnings to get to early retirement, you’ll have to preserve that money to make it last for the rest of your life.

Find a trusted financial advisor who will look at your current age and your desired retirement age to help you plan a path to get there. Diversifying both your investment accounts and investing strategies can stretch your retirement budget further.

4. Create Passive Income Streams

There are only so many hours in a day that you can work, so cobbling together extra sources of passive income is the way to go.

As the name implies, passive income, such as rental or investment income, flows into your account without you needing to be an active participant in its generation. Thus, you can have multiple passive income streams without any of them taking up significant amounts of your time. The money earned in your side jobs perhaps could fund these investments.

5. Stay On Top of Your Plan

You ask yourself, “How much do I need to retire early at 55?” To successfully plan an early retirement lifestyle, you’ll need to make some pretty good estimates about your income and your expenses for the next 30 years or so. Here are a few takeaways for whenever you plan to retire:

• Retirement income can be fairly easy to determine, based on projections of your Social Security income, pension income and any side jobs you anticipate you’ll continue to work. Your expenses, on the other hand, can be harder to calculate.
• In its Consumer Expenditure Surveys, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics provides data that shows how much a 65-year-old spends today compared with the average spending across the U.S. You can use this information as a guide for your own projected retirement spending, subject to tweaks that are specific to your own lifestyle.
• Once you’ve locked down your projected expenses, focus on the income and savings side of the equation with your financial advisor. No matter what you earn, you’ll need to save a lot if you want to retire early.

6. Rule of 25: Retirement

A good rule of thumb to follow for retirement is the Rule of 25 which essentially means you should be saving 25 times your annual expenses to cover you for the rest of your life after retirement. To figure out your annual expenses, simply multiply your monthly expenses by 12. Then multiply this figure by 25.

The total you come up with is your financial independence retire early number, or FIRE number. Doing this calculation will help you see how close–or how far–you are from your financial and retirement goals. 

Is Retiring Early Worth It?

The dream of early retirement appeals to most people, but if you’re seriously considering it, you’ll have to come to terms with the reality of such factors as social security benefits, Roth, IRAs, annual income and how many working years you potentially have left before you reach the year of retirement. 

The question you have to ask yourself is, how much are you willing to give up? Here are some things potential early retirees should consider:

• If you don’t see yourself stockpiling away such a large percentage of your income, one strategy would be to semi-retire at an early age and still take consulting or part-time gigs.
• Yes, retiring early offers you the potential of a life with more free time and less stress. But you’ll be giving up things along the way, such as social outings, material goods and life experiences. 
• Once you retire, you might be the only one you know with a surplus of free time, forcing you to fill your days with solo activities.

Herman (Tommy) Thompson, Jr., a Certified Financial Planner with Innovative Financial Group in Atlanta, said once you’re deep into your savings plan, you’ll be motivated to continue.

“Eventually, the behavior itself becomes rewarding because your brain knows that the behavior gets you to the next goal,” he said. “This behavior necessitates that you sacrifice some spending in order to save. Before long, you’re saving more and more and adjusting your lifestyle to live well below your current income. A couple of decades of meaningful saving and investing coupled with a lifestyle free from indulgent spending is the recipe to be able to spend your 50s and 60s kayaking instead of commuting.”

Final Take To GO

The best retirement age is the one at which you can live comfortably and enjoy the fruits of your labor. That depends on the individual too. No matter what, you need to have a plan that starts with stowing away as much money as possible. You should retire when you feel like you have all your ducks in a row, such as health insurance, real estate and financial independence.

Jami Farkas contributed to the reporting for this article.