The Blog
Real strategies, real numbers, and real opinions on retiring early — without the fluff
-
The Money’s Locked Until 59½. Here’s How Early Retirees Get To It Anyway
A guy at work found out I plan to retire at 40 and hit me with the “Must be nice. Most of my money’s locked up until 59½.” No it isn’t. A portion of his money sits in one account with one rule on it. And he let that one rule decide the next 25…
-
Sequence of Returns Risk: The Thing That Actually Wrecks Early Retirements
Your FI number can be perfect. You can run the math ten different ways, hit the target to the dollar, and hand in your notice right on schedule. If the market drops 30% in the third month of your retirement, that perfect number won’t mean a whole lot. That’s sequence of returns risk. In my…
-
How Much You Actually Need to Retire at 40 (It’s Less Than the 4% Rule Says)
Type “how much do you need to retire at 40” into Google and every result tells you the same thing. Save more. Withdraw less. Aim for 3.5% instead of 4%, because your money has to last 50 years instead of 30. The thing is…the man who created the 4% rule already disagrees with it, and…
-
The Stock Market Has No Risk. The Investor Does.
Let me be clear about something right up front. I am not saying the market never goes down. It does, often, and those drops can feel brutal when you’re watching your portfolio lose 20% in a matter of weeks. I am not predicting future gains or guaranteeing things will always work out. Markets go down.…
-
Stop Diversifying Away Your Returns
Somebody told you to diversify. A parent, a coworker, an advisor, something you read at 2am on Reddit. Spread it around, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. It sounded responsible, so you did it and never questioned it. The part that they didn’t mention is that if you are under 25 with decades…
-
Why the 4% Rule Is Too Conservative and Inflates Your Retirement Number
After taking your target annual spending, multiplying it by 25, and getting some number that felt like it was three decades away, somewhere in the back of your head, you started wondering if early retirement was actually possible for you or just something other people do. That number is wrong. This isn’t my controversial opinion.…
-
I Have Just Under $1 Million in Investable Assets at 33. This is How I Got Here.
My friends used to get so annoyed at me in college. We’d be thinking about going out, somebody would suggest doing just about anything, and before they could even finish the sentence, I was already saying it. “Uh, that costs money.” Gas? Costs money. Going to the movies? Costs money. Literally just existing near a…