Decision: 3.5 Years to Retirement

I’ve made a decision. After a lot of thought, calculations and consulting with the people closest to me I have decided that I am going to retire on the eve of my 30th birthday in 3.5 years. I’ve made this decision for several reasons:

• It would be the best 30th birthday present ever 🙂
• I cannot stand waiting additional years to be with my Mom more than twice a year when (warning: sad truth alert) our deaths are fast approaching – statistically hers faster than mine. My original original plan of retiring at 35 in 2025 would mean my Mom would be 66 years old. Not exactly an age when we would be able to take on the world together. After moving to Seattle that time decreased to a little over 5 years given my reduced living expenses and increased salary, but with this new plan I will be 29 turning 30 and my Mom will be 60. Much better.
• I am a serious candidate for One More Year Syndrome: Always finding excuses to work one more year because this statistically improbable thing might happen! This is completely something I would do and a trap many stronger than I have fallen into (GoCurryCracker and to a lesser extent the Mad Fientist). I recognize that in myself and want to combat it. Setting a hard date – regardless of what happens – and having people that hold me to it will help me not sabotage myself.
• Mathematically it works out. Subtracting the extravagant 5 star vacations my mother loves from my budget brings me in line with $14,000 a year spending. And that spending assumes the budget needed to live in the middle of a large urban center like Seattle, which I do not plan to do in retirement. With that in mind I no longer need the nest egg of half a million that I was aiming for, but instead $350,000. At my current salary I will hit that number right before my 30th birthday.
  • Going back to the lack of 5 star vacations in my budget: I came to a few conclusions:
    • (Warning: more sadness) the budget for those vacations will only be needed as long as my Mom is well enough to travel – a number of years that are quickly diminishing
    • On top of that we are already cutting our costs more than in half when I convinced her to go to less expensive places (Vietnam and Thailand instead of the Maldives and Tahiti) and let me travel hack our First Class flights
    • Currently I’m planning to be a frugal vagabond – at least for a few years. My current budget assumes I would be maintaining a house while traveling – doubling my cost. In retirement my current plan will not reflect that. I will actually live in Europe, South America, Asia and across the US without having a home base that’s sitting empty, eating up my money
    • Lastly, I know that I will earn money in retirement. There are so many ways to earn an easy buck without leaving the comfort of my home that I am certain I will do it and earn a few dollars even accidentally. I have 60 years of life ahead of me and cannot imagine a scenario when I spend all of them not creating something that accidentally produces revenue. So if travel hacking and trying to convince my Mom to go to lower cost of living places doesn’t work I can still pick up some money here and there to fund these vacations if necessary – though I imagine the cost of them will be significantly reduced since we can now both travel whenever flight deals are best instead of when our employer allows us to 🙂

• Most likely I will exceed my goal FIRE amount by my 30th birthday. My current countdown assumes I will make my current salary for the next three and a half years – which is a virtual impossibility where I’m concerned. I get bored fairly easily and have already had a few soft job offers come my way for more money. Even if the stock market does poorly the additional money I will make in the coming years that I have not accounted for will put me in a strong position to retire in 3 years, 5 months, 8 hours and 45 minutes no matter what.