"Retire By 55…
It is possible for some people.
We are both 53 and our two kids will start college this year and next. They will live in residence on campus. $150k sits in the RESP to pay for it.
We are in a position to “retire” (leave full-time paid work) any time we want. Yes, we will have two government pensions (cue the invectives and jealousy)
What stops me is the thought of giving up our substantial salaries. Also what stops me is that our spending has escalated a lot and runs at about $120k to $140k per year. (That’s SPENDING after income taxes and not counting investments and we have no mortgage to pay) And really we are not that extravagant but kids in sports and running three cars (none are newer) and taking vacations add up. It seems to me that the typical lifestyle in a City suburb for a couple and two active high school age kids costs near $10k a month these days. It can be done for less, but we choose not to scrimp.
If we move to a rural area and if the kids are on their own I suspect we could live well on closer to $5k per month (assume a paid for house) but I am not quite ready to try it yet.
Also moving sounds like work…
It’s not a bad situation at all. But the point is I could give up full time work just by cutting back on spending. It’s tempting.
And we are from Nova Scotia (Me, Cape Breton, My wife grew up on the end of highway 3 that is closer to Halifax, not too far from the South Shore area and I lived in that area for a while as well). Tempting, tempting…"