Summary
Co-produced With PendragonY
High Dividend Opportunities understands that investing is just one piece of the retirement puzzle. There are many factors and situations that can impact your options or provide additional opportunities. How can you make sure your retirement plan is safe and secure?
50 reasons why should retire early
Many people retire earlier than planned. Surprisingly, many people end up retiring earlier than they planned due to circumstances. There are many reasons to retire earlier than you originally planned. Let's take a look at the reasons that people retire earlier than they planned, and then we'll look at specific examples.
Let's take a look at the Numbers
This study is about early retirement. The study reveals interesting facts about the retirement habits of many people and how they make that decision.
The first chart shows both the percentage of people who intend to retire at a particular age (the grey bars) and the percentage who actually retired at that age, the red bars. The ages that most people plan to retire at are 62 when they become eligible for Social Security and 65 when they become eligible for Medicare. This is not surprising, as these are the most natural ages to retire. Only one-fifth of people intend to work beyond age 66.
Surprisingly, the earlier a person plans on retiring, the higher the likelihood that they will be able to retire before reaching their retirement age. Notably, more than half the people who had planned to work until age 66 died before they reached their retirement age. Even one-fifth of people did not reach age 62 before they retired.
Let's now take a look at the reasons people have retired early. Not finding a replacement job was the largest factor that led to early retirement. Next was the move of a parent. These two factors are difficult to predict ahead of time.
Due to the fact that not everyone will reach retirement age when they originally planned, and the unpredictable nature of the most likely causes of early death, it is a smart idea to create a plan to help you retire earlier than your current plans. This will ensure that you are ready for whatever happens and you can be prepared in case of emergency. You can still work even if you're financially stable to retire.
Real-Life People Retiring Earlier Than Planned
Let's take a look at real people who retired earlier than they had planned.
Let's start with Valerie. After graduating from college, she entered the workforce. After she was married, she quit full-time work outside the home to care for her children. After a divorce, her children were all in high school, and she returned to the workforce years later. She thought she had found her ideal job when she was first hired by the county probation department. She enjoyed helping people make mistakes get their lives in order. Over the years, she lost the joy of helping the truly poor and was frustrated by people making the same mistakes over and over again. After her children had left home, she decided that she would rather retire as soon as possible than continue working as long as she could. Valerie's pension was the main factor in her retirement date. It determined when her pension would be fully vested, and when enough income would be available for her. It was one month after her 65th birthday. She was a month earlier than expected (her father, for example, had worked up to his late 70s), but it wasn't all that unexpected.
Joe always wanted to become a teacher but, by the time he graduated college, these jobs weren't very lucrative and were scarce. He became an engineer. He started his own company and it was sold at a nice profit. His salary was no longer needed. He was 55 years old, his children had fully-funded retirement accounts and college accounts. His wife's salary covered their remaining expenses. He decided to take up his dream job of teaching high school Physics and retired.
John was an entrepreneur from the age of a young child. His parents owned a house right next to Tiger Stadium, so John earned money by parking cars on the lawn during game days. After completing his training in computers, he joined the Navy. He knew he would always work because he was always working. Until someone forced him to stop. He was then laid off by the company he worked for. Employees nearing retirement age were offered incentives to retire early, as well as long service records. John found the incentives package to be quite attractive and, when combined with the fact he could retire early and save the job of someone he had worked with, decided to take his retirement.
Joe, Valerie, and John are three examples of people who have retired earlier than planned. They are all real people. Although they weren't forced to retire, each of them was in a position to be able to take their time and make it happen. One suggestion in the article is to create a plan that will allow you to retire earlier than planned. These are the suggestions.