Sometimes, the stuff that people say about early retirement (and early retirees) is terrible. It is assumed that early retirement is the end of productive life and that unless we’re swimming in millions in cold hard cash, early retirement will eat us alive.
Today, it is my distinct honor and pleasure to debunk five of the most common of these myths, which also happen to be the ones that I hear most often.
As I said in my one-year early retirement performance review[1], early retirement is all that it’s cracked up to be.
It’s a remarkable feeling of control, each and every day. It didn’t take long before I forgot entirely that I didn’t have any major income coming in. That part just didn’t matter. My wife — the money master in the family — worked the budget so we are able to travel the country and have fun doing it without much thought about our financial picture.
I rarely get bored, but that’s also because I had set up a plan of attack. I knew what I wanted to do with myself before I quit. That’s essential. If you have no hobbies, then you probably won’t be happy sitting at home doing nothing. Doing nothing isn’t what early retirement is all about[2].
Here are the biggest myths of early retirement:
You will completely lose your purpose in life
To believe a statement like this, you must also believe that your job is the only source of purpose in your life. Respectfully, that just sounds devastating. A single point of failure. And, it does not represent my life. At all.
There is more to life than your job. At least, there should be.
What keeps me busy and full of purpose in early retirement?
Full-time travel. We sold both of our homes and travel the country for a living. Full-time. Our Airstream is our home. Yes, our only home. We pulled out of the KOA in Tucson, Ariz., April 1 of 2017 and began our new lives of travel (we are temporarily back in the KOA, but we’re leaving once again for permanent travel).
Rockstar Finance. For near the entire year of 2016, I worked closely with J$ as his primary technical resource. I built out the entire Rockstar Directory from scratch (with J$ delivering the vision, of course). Today, I manage the operational side of Rockstar Finance after ESI Money bought Rockstar Finance[3], and I couldn’t be happier. [ESI Money columns also appear on MarketWatch.]
YouTube channel. My wife and I spend time running a growing YouTube channel[4]. I’m the one filming the majority of the videos, and I’m also the guy who edits the videos and puts together the final product. Our talking videos only take about 30 minutes to edit, but...