When Is It Really Time To Retire?

First off, you need financial resources to retire or you need a business of your own, possibly an Internet business. Automatic Authority Site Builder. Some say that $500,000 was enough for most couples. But you might want to have a few more bucks set-aside before making the leap.

In today's world money is far from being a serious problem and is more often a red herring, an excuse not to retire. Wall Street reinforces this thinking, telling us we need more and more. The point is that your nest egg, however much it is, should go into investments like stocks that throw off decent long term returns. To retire you needed to stop working for our assets (the house) and let our assets (stocks and rentals, for example) work for you.

In the end the choice is yours to avoid the extra years of work. But you need to think creatively. To get housing costs down you can move overseas move to that cabin on the lake. Maybe to a cheaper state or at least a smaller home or apartment. You can decide to get along with an older model car, with neighborhood hotels and economy class airfares, with ordinary scotch. The trade off is clear: early retirement or a longer career.

Once you have the money and numbers under control, how do you know when to act? In our experience an event triggers most retirements. Knowing the moment requires a precondition. To recognize the triggering event when it happens you have to be ready for it. We recommend the two-year test. That is, to consider that the rest of your life is two years. Would you change where you work? Where you live? Who you visit with each day? How you invest and spend? Taking the two-year test every six months or so creates clarity. You may discover much more enthusiasm for the life you live right now. Or, you may find yourself longing to quit the job and do something else. You'll consider alternatives, decide where you'd like to live, run the numbers, and talk it over. You'll be prepared. After that, when the right time comes it will jump out at you. When it's time to go, you'll know. The Retire Early website (www. retireearlghomepage.com), will give you the formulas, rules of thumb, and all the number crunching you'll need.