Posted by Canadian Dream on July 28, 2010
Occasionally I will end up reading a post by another blogger that total rings a bell with my own life. I recently had that experience when I read a post by JD over at Get Rich Slowly called Downshifting: The First Day of the Rest of My Life. I can complete sympathize with being overloaded in life and the utter freedom of finally having some time again. I can can really relate to the concept of being rich in time rather than just rich in money. Over the last month I finally feel like I’ve recharged my batteries for the first time in months.
So how did I recharge my batteries? Well that was easy while on a recent trip I made sure of one thing above all else. I would do absolutely nothing related to work for one full week. No day job work, no trustee job, no writing … absolutely nothing other than minor things like washing the car. It was like heaven for the first few days but by the end I knew my batteries were starting to get charged as I was getting creative bursts where I was itching to start writing again.
Now that I’m back at the house I’ve been digging into my ‘fun’ work with a vengeance during this last week of my vacation. I’m actually looking forward to writing again and managing to get some work done and some much needed planning on how to get to finish off several outstanding projects that I’ve been working on. It’s sort of refreshing to be able to sit down at a computer with a smile on my face and look forward to writing something like this post.
I think also my family can tell I’m back so to speak. I’m smiling more and much easier to be around and much less likely to get angry over silly things like spilling a drink at the table. I’ve also just enjoying the simple things like having time to read a book strictly for entertainment rather than a book review or research.
This is exactly why I wanted to ‘retire early’ and now I’m getting it now rather than waiting 13 years or so for it to happen. Time is not refundable and so I’ve taken to watching were mine is going a bit more carefully lately to ensure I’m enjoying life and still working towards my dreams as well.
So how are you charging up your batteries this summer? Vacation away from home? Resting around the house?
Posted by Canadian Dream on May 12, 2010
So there is another round of thought running around the blog world about is early retirement selfish (see here and here)? The answer of course is: yes! Yet not in a bad way. I think everyone is inherently selfish to a degree. How much varies from person to person, but in the end we all are a bit. The issue with early retirement is people for some reason assume you are no longer a productive member of society and thus try to put that selfish bit in a negative light.
The issue of course is life isn’t so simple. Let’s examine a few things. Is buying a new TV selfish? Yes, I think we could argue no one would die without a TV so it isn’t a need. So if that is true then buying a big house is selfish, and so is buying a new car every five years. Yet when you choose not to buy the new TV, the big house or the new cars is that selfish by choosing to save the money instead? On the one hand is you are just keeping some savings for emergencies or regular retirement I think people would consider it more prudent planning than being selfish. Yet if that is the case, where is the line between prudent planning and being selfish? If you retire one year early are you selfish? Likely not, so why is doing it five, ten or even twenty years any different? In reality there is no difference other than the difference you build in your mind. So why do you feel there is a difference? I’ll take a stab at this, you feel guilty about retiring early.
Which brings us back to the concept of a productive member of society. I think for some reason people assume that early retirement means doing nothing and thus you are not productive. Yet that is a false assumption. People are never doing nothing. Kids who are five and under don’t attend school and don’t have a job, so in some people’s definitions of productive would be seen to be doing nothing. Yet in reality we know small kids are learning machines who are figuring out balance and gross motor control, fine motor control, language skills, defining their environment, learning object permanence and literally thousands of other little things that you take for granted every day of your life. There are definitely not doing nothing. The same applies to early retirees, they might appear on the surface to be doing much but the reality is they are learning gardening or a new language, helping others, starting small business, driving up your property value by picking up trash on their morning walk…you get the idea. If you try to call early retirees unproductive members of society you might as well extend that to small kids or even artists since they don’t produce things that people need or pay enough tax. The label of unproductive is really, again, just in your head.
So after deconstructing those two concepts it easy to see early retirement is only selfish (in a bad way) and unproductive if you want it to be. Yes early retirement will always be partly motivated by selfish goals, but that doesn’t mean it is a bad goal. Early retirees do have the difficultly of adjusting to find more meaning in their life than just their career. Most working people don’t have to think of how they contribute to the world, they just assume it is their job. Which is sort of silly when you consider how many useless paper pushing jobs there are out in the workplace. It’s entirely possible by retiring early you will contribute more to society than you ever did as a working stiff.
So in the end you need to find your own answer to: why do you want to retire early? I won’t judge the answer, but you will in our own mind. If you get it wrong, then you will feel guilty. So be honest with yourself and really think about the question.
So why do you want to retire early? In my case, I want more time to learn and write. How about you?
Posted by Dave on March 23, 2010
Have you ever read a book or website that has completely changed your way of thinking? I was thinking about this as I was reading the book “Good Calories Bad Calories, Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control and Disease”. Although I am not finished it yet, I have found it very engrossing as it challenges the majority of nutrition wisdom around low fat/low calorie/low cholesterol eating that North American health professionals adopted as gospel in the 1950s and have carried on to today. Although not necessarily a “game-changer” this book definitely has got me thinking about why I eat the way I do. Although there are many more people than I am going to list below, I thought I would highlight a few writers that have inspired me, personal finance-wise.
When I first graduated from University, seven years ago I had very little knowledge about money and what I should do with money. I had a bunch of student debt a decent paying job and really no plan. Enter The Wealthy Barber – for someone who had no plans or aspirations, the easy to read and understand story told gave me money goals and aspirations to strive for. I gained a basic level of personal finance knowledge that I followed over the next five years, where I paid off my student loans (approximately $25,000 worth), bought a car with cash (for which I got a lot of comments like “it must be nice to have that kind of money laying around”) and religiously saved 10% of my pay for the future. I will forever be grateful to David Chilton (the author) for writing this book. I own it, I bought my 21 year old sister a copy of it when she graduated from college (hoping she might have the same type of reaction as I did) and would tell anyone who needs a plan to read this book.
I followed the advice for several years, basically planning on leaving the workforce at around 55 or 60 like most people. About two or three years ago, I picked up a copy of Derek Foster’s “Stop Working, Here’s How You Can”. Although I don’t necessarily agree with the author essentially bailing on his iron-clad investment tactic in what seems a fit of panic during the economic downturn (when I believe his book states to look for these opportunities to boost your portfolio) in general his book changed my whole thinking on retirement. He offered a plan that would that would allow me to retire in around 12 years. For someone with around 40 years of work ahead of them, cutting that down by 75% is very attractive. I understand the riskiness of living on just the dividends from stocks promoted by his book, but there is a certain level of hopefulness offered by this book that gave me hope.
The final author, which eventually lead me to this site (it’s listed in his blogroll) is Jacob from Early Retirement Extreme. This author offers a method of leaving the workforce in around five years. I read every post he had on his site over a two or three day period – eating up what he was saying as it made sense to me. Although I don’t know if my spouse and I could live on $10,000 to $15,000 per year, he provides a method of doing so and has proven that it is not only doable (he did it himself) but enjoyable to be retired in your early 30s. Although I have gravitated more towards Tim’s site and his more “moderate” stance on early retirement, striving to copy Jacob’s method and discipline may shave a couple of years off of my retirement date.
So, these are the people that have lead me on my current financial path. Do you have any writers that have inspired you financially (or otherwise)?
