How My Mom Retired At 55

Today I’m happy to introduce the first guest post on this site with a very special guest: My Mom! As I’ve mentioned a few times on the blog, she was my main inspiration in starting my journey to financial independence. She actually retired the same month I started writing this blog. Hopefully her story can help inspire others and show that it’s never too late to begin your journey. She didn’t start investing in stocks until she was 40 and still retired at 55 with 3 kids and 2 paid off houses. If she can still retire early basically anyone can. Let’s see what she has to say.

Looking back, many of my choices early in life followed the status quo and the advice of others. When choosing college majors I was told that since I was a good math and science student that the natural progression was to go into Engineering. It was the late 1970s and there was a ‘push’ to get more women into the field. So following that advice I applied to Engineering schools, got in and the rest is history.

So You Want To Be An Astronaut?

It should have been a bit of a red flag that I was not drawn to any of the available Engineering majors, but I carried on as normal. I settled on Aerospace/Aeronautical Engineering in the hopes of becoming an astronaut. Those hopes were short-lived after a summer working for General Dynamics. If you haven’t heard of them they make F16 fighter jets as well as many other models that go really fast (I love planes).

My first day on the job I walked into a giant airplane hangar and was struck by how strange everything looked. Hundreds of people were walking around this giant hangar like automatons. My summer job was to work on one tiny piece of software – FOR THREE MONTHS! It was incredibly boring and made me feel like this industry wasn’t for me. I didn’t want to be a tiny, anonymous cog in a giant machine (though little did I know that was basically inevitable).

A Chemical Engineer Who Hates Chemistry

Returning to school in the fall, I knew I was going to change my major, but I had no idea what to choose. So I settled on a process of elimination and chose Chemical Engineering even though I hated chemistry…and didn’t really enjoy engineering (great thought process – I know). I survived the remaining three and a half years at school and then started interviewing for jobs in my field. Following the advice of others had gotten me this far (uh oh), so I should just keep at it, right?

What’s The Best, Worst Option?

I chose my first full-time job for similar reasons that I chose my final major: It was the best of the less than ideal options I had given myself. I accepted a job at a giant company that was in a small town, but also 10 minutes from a large city. I had decided I didn’t want to live far from a big city so here we are.

Live Below Your Means

So now I had a good paying job. My parents had taught me from a young age that I must live below my means, save money in the bank and buy US savings bonds so that’s what I did. I didn’t invest in the stock market and I didn’t contribute to my 401k out of an act of rebellion. Why should the government get to tell me when I can have access to my own money?! So I simply did what my parents did. When I got a raise I wouldn’t spend it – instead I would automatically put it into my savings account and pretend I never got the raise.

Looking For My White Picket Fence

Following the advice of others extended to my personal life as well. I followed the traditional path: I got married, had a kid and got divorced when my daughter was 18 months old (super traditional right…). Since I had followed my parents’ advice I was able to support myself and my child, which I’m very grateful for, but this approach wasn’t going to get me to early retirement in the new world around us – and that was a goal that I was slowly realizing I desperately wanted to achieve.

Is Corporate America For Me?

Throughout my career, I had 13 jobs at 11 different companies. I kept telling myself that I just hadn’t found THE job – the one that would make me happy, but started to realize it didn’t exist because it wasn’t the work or actual job that I disliked – it was everything that surrounded it: the office politics, two-faced coworkers and requirements for when and where I have to be for most of my life. At first, I thought maybe it was corporate America that wasn’t for me so I struck out on my own. I started 4 failed businesses. They never got very far, but at the time this was the only solution I could think of to have more freedom over my time and my life.

A Long Line Of Early Retirees

Luckily around the time of my first big career change, something wonderful happened: my parents retired at 50 on a military pension. They suddenly started visiting me, their other kids and their grandkids with startling frequency (in a good way). They would take a road trip to North Carolina every month to visit their new granddaughter and my mother stayed with me for 6 months to help care for my daughter so I wouldn’t have to pay for daycare — all because they were retired. They would show me pictures from their latest travels to Africa and Europe and I thought “I want that!” So the idea was planted: I wanted to retire at 50. It was an arbitrary number and I had no idea how to do it, but the seed was planted!

The Complications Of Combining Families

A few years later I re-married. My new husband already had kids and even with combined incomes money was looking a little tight. It didn’t help matters that I was not willing to put my child in a Georgia public school, which at the time was ranked as one of the worst in the nation. Private school or bust so we scraped together the money and made it work. These years didn’t help with my early retirement dreams, but joining our families and putting my daughter through a good school was worth it to me.

Welcome To The Stock Market!

The first time I invested in the stock market was in the late 90s. We had heard that it was going gangbusters (I know you know how this ends, but just hold on) and was told that we should meet with a financial advisor. We drove 2 hours to talk to this man a trusted friend had recommended. We had $50,000 to invest and wanted to set up individual funds for our kids. This was in 2000. Needless to say what happened in 2001. Our ‘tiny’ investment tanked 60% and it was terrifying. This was the same time I started contributing to our 401k for the first time. I was 40 and this was my first foray into real investing – and it wasn’t going great. We had been in the stock market 1 year, our investments were down 60% and we were terrified, but we stayed in and kept contributing.

Market Recovery And Reigniting Retirement Plans

After the market recovered and I saw the ‘return’ of our investments is when I first started thinking seriously about my arbitrary goal to retire by 50 – and this time I created a plan to do it! I was 45 at the time and it took me 5 years to convince my husband to even look at my plan. He believed that retiring at 50 or 55 was “crazy talk”. He couldn’t fathom how we could ever have enough money to retire based on what he heard his pension at work would be at that young age. It wasn’t enough to live off of. I had projections of when our kids would be out of the house, how that would affect our spending, when we would have both of our houses paid for (one is a rental) and everything in between. I had a 10 year timeline.

Getting Your Spouse On Board

It took 5 years, but my husband finally agreed to look at my plan. He called an hourly CPA who charged us $500. I gathered all my paperwork and presented it to the CPA and he agreed with me: We could retire early. This plan would work. And my husband still didn’t believe it! He called more CPAs and they all agreed it was possible. My husband finally started to believe it. So we had a plan, everyone was on board and we were just running towards the finish line.

Racing Over The Finish Line

It happened pretty suddenly. Our kids were all out of college. My husband received an end of the year bonus check and with that, we were able to pay off the remaining balance on our home. My husband retired a few months later. Then it was my turn.

Once I decided I would retire at the end of 2014 I worked backward to see what I needed to do. I chose to send my resignation letter at a moment that would provide the least possible amount of time for anyone to do anything about it, like throw me a party or ask questions (not dramatic at all right?) So I emailed my resignation letter the day after Christmas. I gave 2 weeks notice so I would be leaving January 7th and I knew my boss was on vacation until the 2nd. During the week he was on vacation I completed my documentation for all of my projects and cleaned out my desk.

“What Do You Mean You Retired At 55?”

During this transition week when someone asked where I was going next I said “I’m not. I’m retired.” Despite being 55 with silver hair they didn’t believe me. One person said as much, walked away, apparently checked my LinkedIn profile, saw that it said “RETIRED” and came back to say they believe me now. I don’t know why a social profile would convince you, but ok. So after that week I disappeared through the office doors and kissed my career goodbye. I was finally free.

The Ultimate Freedom

So that’s my story. I followed a traditional path and listened to the advice of others, but it took seeing my parents taking an unconventional road to shake me free of thinking I had to follow in others’ footsteps. I made a plan, convinced my spouse and executed it. Even though I only started at 40, I retired at 55.

I can now fly across the country to see my daughter if she needs me without a thought of how many PTO days I have left. I can plan month long trips when my previous record was 1 week over my entire career. I can cook delicious meals with vegetables from my garden and spend unlimited time with the people I love. It’s all I hoped it would be. Thank you for listening.

Have you ever followed a traditional path only to discover it wasn’t for you?

UPDATE: If you want to hear more about my Mom’s journey check out her first media appearance on the Bigger Pockets Money Podcast!