Introduction

So, you want to retire early? Leave the toil and trouble of working life behind and settle down so you can enjoy the finer things in life. For many expats, early retirement is a dream. How can you make this dream a reality without it turning into a nightmare? How soon can you retire? In reality, you could retire whenever you want to. However, the issue is that just because you can retire doesn’t mean that you should retire. Retiring early might be nice, but without the finances in place to fund your retirement, you’re going to run into issues sooner or later. A major part of retirement planning is getting financially ready for retirement. If you want a comfortable retirement, you need to have some basic money management/planning challenges sorted out beforehand.

Things to consider

– What are your major expenses?

– How consistent are they?

– Is there room to eliminate expenses?

– What will be major income sources after you leave your job?

– How long can you count on each income source?

– Do you have enough liquid assets or insurance to cover an emergency (hospitalization, damage to home, etc.)?

Summary

Running out of money in retirement is one of the biggest fears expats face in retirement. The longer your retirement lasts, the harder it is to make the money you’ve saved for retirement last. Another challenge that makes this harder is that when you retire early, you don’t have as much of a chance to build up the kind of retirement savings assets that others who wait until age 65 to retire might have.

Taking a decade off of your retirement age can make a huge difference in the size of your investment portfolio at retirement. Just say, for argument’s sake, that you set aside about $90,000 in a retirement fund by the time you were 25. If that money has an average of 5% growth each year, after 40 years when you’re 65, that money would grow to $633,598.98 even without you adding another penny. If you take ten years off of your compound growth, your retirement value shrinks to $388,974.81 at age 55. That’s $244,624.17 missing from your retirement fund, and ten extra years of retirement to pay for.

With less money and more years of retirement to pay for, there is a greater risk of running out of money in retirement, though it can be possible with sound financial planning.

Additional Information Resources

Additional information resources are available by clicking on the links below:

• Financial Planning
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• Insurance 
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• Tools & Calculators
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You can also view information related to your particular stage of life:

• Starting Out
• Growing Responsibility
• Nearing Retirement
• Retired