Saturday 24 May 2014

Early Retirement Extreme

I've been guided by this massive goal of retirement early to develop investment knowledge and education and to take action to make things happen. Its property number 7 now. I'm extremely proud of my achievement thus far and I'm able to share with more people about my method, yet, I'm apprehensive. I'm not too sure where would all these lead me to...

I've been scouring the web for retirement formulas. I don't believe the financial planning nonsense about creating a nest egg which can be destroyed overnight in a financial crisis and when that happens at age 65; it would be a disaster. I've been impressed with Mr Money Moustache  and his philosophy of life. Mr Money moustache and his wife are financially savvy people who decided what kind of parents they would like to be when they eventually have a kid. That is the driving force towards their retirement plan. Being financially savvy gives them the knowledge how to do it and with $600,000 earned and invested in a basket of stocks, they were able to live off the dividends of $24000 a year for their next 60 years of life. Sounds great? Where does that lead us to? I questioned?

Today, I stumbled upon a new blogger, Mr Early Retirement Extreme, a nuclear physicist by training and a philosopher in deeds. He managed to lived on <$7000 a year! wow! This is extreme frugality. When I recalled, I was able to get by with $20 a day... $600 a month and roughly $7200 a year extrapolated, I found his argument intriguing. 

Early retirement extreme is a wonderful blog about the philosophy of living, choices, sustenance. Whilst Mr Money Moustache is a mathematician and statistician, early retirement extreme is much more philosophical in discourse. Do read it.

Nearer home, we found a more down to earth more mortal level of dealing with retirement planning. My 15 hour work week is written by  a civil servant who had invested in a basket of stocks that gives him a dividend yield to supplement his income. He still lives a rather "normal" life, goes to restaurant, buy the stuffs he needs. 

Where does all these lead me to? What drives me to work further? I'm drawn to the early retirement extreme in philosophy as the philosophical discourse is why I ditch the corporate job in pursuant of an utopian ideal in civil service. Alas, that too ended up broken hearted... there is no utopian in this world. Its everyman for his own life. 

My plans guided me to retire by 45 latest. A goal which is yet still attainable and the above 3 blogs are guiding me to a philosophical living when the time comes.
“A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.”
— François-René de Chateaubriand


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