I will say I am a huge proponent of retiring as soon as you can. We all need money to survive both physically and mentally but let me tell you money isn't everything. Years ago my wife quit her job to go to school full time. Money was extremely tight but it was one of the happiest times of our 33 year marriage. We went fishing at least twice a week. We spent a lot of time together and also had very little stress in our lives because she did not have to deal with an ahole boss or work 70 hours a week for some one who didn't appreciate it. Yep, even though we had to really watch our money we were very happy and had very little stress.
Fast forward over two decades and now I am in my early 50's and I see friends getting cancer, hating their jobs, or worse yet dying from a heart attack and I take a long hard look at our finances and how long do we expect to really have a good quality of life considering family history etc and once again I say to myself money is a necessity but not everything. We still have a huge mortgage and realistically most likely will always have one but we love our home and it brings us a great deal of happiness. We have now been retired for over two years. I left the fire service with a nice pension just before I turned 55. We invested wisely in other savings plans and now have a lifetime income stream that will more than pay our bills. Yes, at the end of the month there is no money left over but who cares, when the next month comes the pot is filled back up.
I have seen way too many people that hate their jobs and their lives for that matter, sit on the fence and never make a move. I say have immediate plans, short term plans and long term plans and figure out what would really make you happy. In my case doing whatever the hell I feel like doing when I get out of bed is what makes me happy.
I am here to tell you life is way to short to be miserable day after day and we all are truly one heartbeat away from a stroke, heart attack or death. Get out as soon as you can.
People ask me how do you like retirement? Being relatively young aren't you bored? I reply, remember your junior and senior year of high school how much fun you had during summer vacation and what a blast beach week was....well that is my whole life right now.
