“Early retirement is just for lazy people.”
“I don’t want to save money and retire early, because I’ll be bored.”
The two myths above, along with many, many others, are things I often hear people say when they talk about retiring early.
I’m not sure why there are so many negative feelings about early retirement, because I personally love the idea of people striving to retire early and not be “normal.”
I mean, just think about it: Don’t you want to retire early, so that you can have the financial freedom to do whatever you want to do?
What’s bad about that?
Whether you want to travel, continue working, spend more time with family, or whatever else, retiring early gives you the ability to choose.
Plus, early retirement can be whatever age you want it to be, it doesn’t have to be that you retire early at age 30. If you are able to retire at age 60, that’s awesome! The point is just to beat the “norm.”
Sadly, there are many out there, who do not save enough money when preparing for retirement. According to Zacks Investment Research, 72% do not save enough for retirement each month. Also, according to a different survey done by Bankrate.com, 36% of people in the U.S. have absolutely nothing saved for retirement.
Due to the above, I think it’s obvious that more people should make saving for retirement a priority.
While I have not retired early (yet!), it is a goal of mine.
Now, don’t get me wrong: I absolutely love life and my online business. However, I would rather be safe, because you never know what may happen later in life. As you know, I’m a worrier and I would much rather be safe than sorry. Something medically may occur, the industry may change, I may change, and so on.
You just never know what may happen in the future!
To me, having the ability to retire early is all about freedom and flexibility.
This is why others may want to reach early retirement (or financial independence) as well. Reaching early retirement may mean that you have the option to do what you want to do and not feel as bound by your financial situation. You can, therefore, feel free to seek whatever it is in life that you want to seek out.
Related: Reaching Financial Independence IS Possible And Here’s How You Can Do It
Now, I’m not going to automatically assume that extreme early retirement is for everyone. However, the majority of the population does not seem ready for retirement at any age, so to discount early retirees altogether just seems crazy to me.
If you are new to the topic of early retirement, here are three great articles on other websites that I highly recommend:
- Meet Mr. Money Mustache, The Man Who Retired At 30
- My Name Is Jeremy, And This Is How I Retired In My 30s
- How A Couple Of ‘Frugal Weirdos’ Are Saving 71% Of Their Income, So They Can Retire At Age 33
Below are several early retirement myths I have heard along with why I don’t agree with them.
1. Myth – “You can’t have fun, while saving for early retirement.”
Most of you know that this is a myth I despise.
Just because you are saving for retirement aggressively doesn’t mean you are eating Ramen noodles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. However, this is a myth that is often associated with early retirement.
Sure, a person who seeks early retirement or who has already retired early may be frugal, but I highly doubt that the majority of early retirees live boring and uneventful lives.
There are plenty of ways to have frugal fun, eat on a budget, and so on. You can even see the world, while saving for early retirement, too. We currently live in our RV, while traveling North America (yes, I know that’s not the world), and our budget is the lowest it has ever been.
Remember, the best things in life are free. The outdoors, spending quality time with those you love, laughing, and more are all FREE.
Related: What Is Financial Independence, Retire Early? Answers To FAQs About FIRE
2. Myth – “Early retirement is for the lazy.”
Yes, this is a myth I’ve heard as well. I would think that people would have a completely opposite view of those who aim for early retirement, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Those who strive for early retirement are not lazy. I believe early retirees are hard workers who want to live life on their own terms.
3. Myth – “A person will be bored if they retire early.”
I don’t know how much fun the average person has while working, but I’m fairly positive that the average person is not in love with their job. Yet, I still hear this myth all the time.
An early retiree isn’t just going to sit around all day. Even if that’s what they want to do, who cares?! That doesn’t mean if you were to retire early that you have to be bored.
You could volunteer, pursue a passion, find fun things to do, take up multiple hobbies, and more with all of the extra time you would have after retiring early.
Heck, you could even continue working, if that’s what you truly desire. Early retirement just gives you choices in case something changes in the future.
4. Myth – “You’ll hate your spouse, if you spend all day with them.”
This is a huge myth. I spend all day with my husband, because we work from home, and I can tell you that I don’t hate him (haha!). Plus, we even live in a small RV and I still don’t hate him!
If you do end up getting sick of spending 24/7 with your spouse, you can always find ways to have time to yourself. You could volunteer somewhere, do some solo traveling, go on a daily walk by yourself, and so on.
5. Myth – “Early retirees don’t plan for the future.”
This is a weird myth that I hear all the time about early retirees. Many like to assume that early retirees haven’t thought about possible future expenses, such as from having children, health insurance costs rising, inflation, and more.
However, if someone has planned for early retirement, why would they just skip over planning anything else?
A person, who is planning for early retirement, is thinking about these things. While no one’s calculations are going to be exactly correct down to the penny, it is possible to factor in possible future expenses.
6. Myth – “Early retirement isn’t possible.”
There are many people out there who don’t believe that early retirement is possible. I believe this has a lot to do with how everyone thinks you should only save 5% of your income so that you can retire between the ages of 65 to 70. However, this is a huge problem, because many people aren’t even saving that amount!
Early retirement IS possible.
By saving enough of your money and living off a designated percentage of your savings or invested income each year after you retire early, you will find that early retirement is possible.
Before throwing the whole idea out, you may want to look into how it may be possible for you.
I recommend checking out the article on Mr. Money Mustache (this blog is a MUST read, if you want to retire early) The 4% Rule: The Easy Answer to “How Much Do I Need for Retirement?”
Here are some articles that may help you save more money, so that you can retire early:
Are you interested in early retirement? Why or why not? When do you think you’ll retire?
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Great post! You can totally be frugal and still have fun, it drives me crazy when I hear people infer that you must not be living your life if you live frugally.
I agree!
There are many myths attached with early retirement. Early retirement is possible with good life ahead. If you plan for early retirement you must be aware of the financial consequences and sure about how much savings you have to sustain.
Are you preparing for early retirement?
P.S. For future comments, please leave your real name.
I’ve just written about this! We’ve decided that although we still want financial freedom, chasing early retirement is no longer the focus. Mainly because we’d have to give up travelling overseas every year in order to save our big pot of cash to retire on. Instead, we are building a location independent business and my husband will likely work a traditional job when we are at home – perhaps taking 6-9 month contracts. This plan excites me as much as the initial idea of early retirement did, so I think it’s an acceptable alternative.
That said, it is totally possible for people to retire early if they put their minds to it – and start young! The younger the better.
When do you think you’ll retire?
I guess it’ll still be earlier than the traditional age – I’d like to be able to give up work completely if I want to when my youngest finishes high school, so perhaps mid-fifties.
That’s still early to me 🙂
Haha, I guess it is! I’m just so used to reading about extreme early retirement that 55 seems old 🙂
Haha 55 is awesome! We meet people all the time now that we’re RVing who have just retired at around age 55-60 and it’s so awesome! That’s still a lot earlier than the norm.
Definitely interested in early retirement although I feel the term “retirement” probably needs to be changed to something like financial freedom.. I’m interested because for me there’s so much out there to see and do and help out in the world :).. Not sure I’ll ever retire, it’ll be a case of working on new and exciting products
To me, early retirement can still mean that you’re working. To me, it just means that you have the option to stop working if you wanted or needed to 🙂
I would love to hear more about your RV living. Do you have plans to post about your travels?
Yes, I really need to do more posts on RVing but I’m always afraid to leave people out who aren’t interested. You can read some of my other RVing posts here – https://fund-rise.live/tag/rv%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
We should be able to retire fairly early – in our mid 40s. I’m not sure we’ll quit working altogether, but it will be nice to have that option. I can see us scaling back our work and putting in part-time hours at a certain point. I don’t get it at all when people say retirement will be “boring.” I can think of a million fun ways to fill my days!
Yes, same here. I don’t see myself ever not working, but I know that life can change things in an instant so I would much rather be prepared.
I never understand the being bored part. I have never lacked ways to keep myself occupied. Hoping by 40! But 35 is my more aggressive goal 🙂
Haha, I know! I don’t think I’ll be bored.
I’m SO focused on getting out of student loan debt right now, that I rarely think about retirement! Once I’m out of debt, my mind will shift to the investing and retirement focus, but for now, it’s just not there. Although I still enjoy learning about it and reading about it!! 🙂
I was the same way. It’s definitely hard to think about retirement when you have student loans.
Great post! Sadly we haven’t really thought about retirement (and we’re already 30!). We’re more focused on getting out of debt (almost there!). I think a lot of myths come from people who either a) don’t want to work towards it and are finding excuses or b) trying to rationalize why they won’t work for it.
Thanks Sarah!
Exactly!
Haha, right?
“Early retirees don’t plan for the future.”
Ha.If anything, Early Retirees (or people planning to RE) are the kind of people who over-plan for the future. We have to be the only people who run 10 possible futures for our lives on a spreadsheet. People who don’t plan to retire early are in my opinion the ones who are not planning ahead 🙂
I agree! These myth drives me crazy.
The one I hear the most is definitely “I’d be so bored”. I don’t know why people think that retirement means you sit and do nothing all day! To me, it just means that I have options if I could retire early. I can work if I want or I can change jobs with less stress. I have the freedom to fill my time with meaningful activities! I’d love to retire early!
Yes! It’s so weird. I was always extremely bored at my day job – now, that was BORING!
My father seems pretty bored. I wish he had a retirement job so he’d stop emailing so much. Volunteering and having a dog just don’t take enough of his time.
I’m totally on board with financial independence, but I don’t see myself retiring any time soon. I like my job which is not boring. My husband likes his job which is also not boring. And I like financial remuneration and benefits and being able to pay to not do things I don’t enjoy. One of the benefits of having a high skilled job is that the quality of the jobs and availability of jobs is much higher.
I agree with what you’re saying, but I think reaching financial freedom and early retirement is also great because you never know what may happen in the future. Plus, you can always continue working.
Great post packed with truth! With the value of compound interest + time anyone can retire wealthy. Retiring early means choices and thus freedom. It’s hard to object to either of those!
Yes!