The first time you quit your job just to not be working is pretty liberating. I do this all the time; I work for 2-3 years and take a year or so off. I'm in the middle of a year off right now. Of course, I'd love to be rich enough to come and go as I please, or have a passive source of income, but instead I save money and take off when I have enough. I've been referring to it as "retiring one year at a time".
There are downsides, of course. It's a lot harder to do if you've got family to support and a mortgage to pay, but I don't have either. And I'm absolutely sacrificing a "real" retirement in the process; I don't have anywhere near the retirement savings that I'd have if I'd worked straight through. But I also simply couldn't have worked straight through; I'd have gone insane by now.
I'm already jealous of my friends who've managed to retire in their 40s and 50s. But they've been jealous of me for decades of travel and freedom.
I had cancer eight years ago. While I'd already taken a few year-long breaks before that, cancer reinforced the idea. While I'm not particularly worried about it coming back, I'm certainly not going to bank on living until 90. I also don't have kids right now, but haven't entirely ruled it out. And even if nothing kills me off early and I don't have kids, it's still a lot easier to travel while younger. I've avoided traveling in Europe because that'll be easier when I'm old and arthritic. I don't expect to be backpacking around Africa or motorcycling through South America or sailing around the South Pacific when I'm 80, but I could do a nice railway tour of Western Europe or a cruise around the Mediterranean at any age.
Oh, that must have been tough, glad you're doing better now. Yes, that definitely helps to put things into perspective. Similarly, I had already thought about doing this kind of thing before. Then my mother, who worked her whole life, passed away shortly after retiring, so that only reinforced the idea too.
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[ 2.0 ms ] story [ 15.5 ms ] threadThere are downsides, of course. It's a lot harder to do if you've got family to support and a mortgage to pay, but I don't have either. And I'm absolutely sacrificing a "real" retirement in the process; I don't have anywhere near the retirement savings that I'd have if I'd worked straight through. But I also simply couldn't have worked straight through; I'd have gone insane by now.
I'm already jealous of my friends who've managed to retire in their 40s and 50s. But they've been jealous of me for decades of travel and freedom.
You can't even know if you're going to live until retirement so you might as well enjoy life now while you can and have the energy.
Exactly, that sounds like a good plan!