Poll: How did you find out about early retirement?

[StetsTerhune]

I'm always surprised by how many people in the forums seem to have discovered the entire concept that they could retire pre-62 (or 55, or whatever) from MMM himself, either after seeing something about it in the mainstream media, or googling him on bikes or construction or whatever.

I'm basically a lifer, I can honestly remember being 12 years old and thinking about how much money I'd need and how I'd have to live to be able to not have to work. I have no idea how this thought first occurred to me, and I can't say I've been fully dedicated to it the whole time, but it's basically been in my mind my whole life.

[Mississippi Mudstache]

I had the idea of a modest number that I could retire on as far back as my early teens. I remember talking to my friends about what we would do with a million bucks, and my answer was to put it in the bank and live off the interest (I used to get 6% interest in my savings account, so I figured $60,000/year would be plenty). But it never occurred to me that saving up a million bucks was something I could do without a lifetime of employment.

In college, I had the idea that I would just work for about five years, save up $50,000 bucks or so (saving $10,000/year seemed pretty ambitious at the time) and then just build a log cabin in the woods and become a hermit. Glad I scrapped that idea.

When I started working, I figured I would just make my fortune in real estate, buying old houses to fix up in my spare time while living in them. Everybody on HGTV seemed to be doing great. I started work in January 2008. Ask me how that one worked out :(

A few years ago, I remember reading a news article about a couple that retired at 38 to travel the world. I think that's the first time I had actually heard of another real person who did what I wanted to do (not so much the travel the world part, but the quit work at 38 part). It inspired me, and I began crafting a plan to save up enough money to buy a B&B in cash by the time I was 40. I know a B&B is not "retirement" to some folks, but I think my wife and I would have enjoyed it.

Finally, I discovered MMM, who showed me the the True Path to Enlightenment. It was after reading this blog that I truly became motivated and watched my savings start to soar.

[pachnik]

A copy of the WaPo article about MMM from about 2 1/2 years ago came into my in-box via the Globe & Mail Personal Finance. 

I didn't know anyone IRL who had retired earlier than say 62 years old or so other than a friend who had inherited big.   I am sure the information was out there but I simply didn't think it was possible for someone with a median income.  Anyway, I was 48 years old when I found this site so no early retirement for me but by applying the principles I will retire earlier than I thought I could.  Sometimes I feel like a bit of dummy that i didn't figure these financial things out on my own, but the reality is I didn't.  So am very grateful that I found this place.

[HenryDavid]

Thoreau's book Walden! Life changer. Read as a teenager.
Your money or your life--makes it very concrete.
Plus being a lifetime student who never embraced middle class ness too much.
Been retired the whole time in some sense . . . .

[Hank Sinatra]

Figured it out for myself quite  early in life.  Most people I knew didn't make much money anyway  so I knew you could live and have a life without "being a millionaire" a la Howard Hughes or Thurston Howell.  I hated school and the idea of working after graduation did not appeal to me.

Just save your money and try some of that "investment" stuff. Mr Howell was always talking about his investments ie making money without working.  Gomez Addams was always reading his ticker tape saying "Buy Amalgamated! Sell Consolidated!" and otherwise had no job.

When I became a young adult the  mosaic of life and finance began to take shape and the actual calculations became something real and doable.

[zephyr911]

The Motley Fool was running radio ads during my senior year of college (1999-2000), which sparked my interest in investing, and led to various readings on living below your means and retiring early. Sadly, I failed to execute my own plan for a full decade, between two divorces and all kinds of dumb buying choices. I started making baby steps around 2010 and then got really serious in early 2014; found MMM just after and SR skyrocketed. W00t!

[MandyM]

I read an article that discussed 4 people's stories on how they got to retire super early, I think it was on MSN. I was intrigued and I noticed that 3 of the 4 mentioned Your Money or Your Life. That was probably 6 years ago. I found MMM 3 years ago and that is when the whole the really took off. Before MMM my stretch goal was retirement by 45; now my estimate is 40 or just before, with a buffer. 

[geekette]

Due to our medical histories, we could never retire until both of us were 65, but that changed with the ACA. 

Thanks, Obama.

But really, I stumbled, somehow, onto MMM a couple days after my DH was laid off a couple years ago.  Some number crunching later, he ended up retired!

[Eric]

A copy of the WaPo article about MMM from about 2 1/2 years ago came into my in-box via the Globe & Mail Personal Finance. 

I didn't know anyone IRL who had retired earlier than say 62 years old or so other than a friend who had inherited big.   I am sure the information was out there but I simply didn't think it was possible for someone with a median income.  Anyway, I was 48 years old when I found this site so no early retirement for me but by applying the principles I will retire earlier than I thought I could.  Sometimes I feel like a bit of dummy that i didn't figure these financial things out on my own, but the reality is I didn't.  So am very grateful that I found this place.

Pretty much the same here.  There were a bunch of us that showed up after that WaPo article.  Luckily, one of my casual acquaintances friends on facebook posted the link and I read it.  It all just seemed to click.  My wife and I always thought about retiring early, but never really put the correct steps into place.  We were semi-frugal, but still wasted a boat load of money.

[StockBeard]

I've seen my stache grow over the past 5 years, and reaching levels I never thought would be possible. Talking with friends I reached the idea that I was getting richer than most of them (in hindsight: this is because I'm much more frugal. Most of them make more than I do), and I started wondering how much one needs to actually generate passive income.
without knowing the right words to search for, I went with simple queries such as "how much money do I need to retire"... which led mostly to spammy sites trying to sell you some sort of insurance, or mainstream sites telling it's impossible, or financial bloggers who don't discuss the possibility of saving more than 5% of your paycheck, and who assume you will need "80% of your revenue" in retirement.

As I was getting despaired, I stumbled upon ERE. I was excited at first but found that his way of life was way too extreme for me. I could have attempted that kind of frugality, had I been on my own, but with my wife and Kid it made things difficult. This is how I found out about MMM, probably the first article I read was the "talk" to have with your significant other. I instantly liked MMM's much more reasonable approach to frugality. ERE made it sound like a bunch of recipes, most of which did not work for me. MMM made it about understanding that frugality and intentional discomfort are one of the good ways to increase the level of happiness, and that saving money is just a side effect.

So, my answer is I discovered it on ERE, but MMM is what convinced me it is actually doable for me

[zephyr911]

Pretty much the same here.  There were a bunch of us that showed up after that WaPo article.

I'm not sure if I've seen that article before - a lot of it seems familiar but some doesn't. I just read (re-read?) the whole thing now, and made the mistake of looking at some comments.

It's amazing how easily people will jump to the conclusion that someone they've never met is lying, delusional, crazy, or stupid. I had to resist the desire to wade in and individually facepunch every single one, 2.5 years after the fact >.<

[pachnik]

Pretty much the same here.  There were a bunch of us that showed up after that WaPo article.

It's amazing how easily people will jump to the conclusion that someone they've never met is lying, delusional, crazy, or stupid. I had to resist the desire to wade in and individually facepunch every single one, 2.5 years after the fact >.<

I am so glad that when I saw the article 2.5 years ago I never looked at the comments.  I just googled the MMM website and got to work.  i think if i'd seen the comments I might have said to myself "Yeah, they are right.  This isn't possible."

It is amazing how people jump to those negative conclusions.  But I think it is just because their way of life (lots of spending, little saving, more debt) is being challenged and no one likes to appear foolish. 

[Kaspian]

I'm still pissed off the idea never occurred to me.  I always had no debt and put away what most standard financial sites said you should (10%).  One year I began watching "'Til Debt Do Us Part" and began getting more interested in my savings and started putting away 20%.  I began reading Gail's blog, which eventually led me to Len Penzo, then "Get Rich Slowly", then a year later to MMM.  I almost fell out of my chair at work.  It suddenly felt like I could breathe and had been underwater for longest time.  That was July 2012.  It's been uphill in a badass way ever since!  :D   ....But damn, still surprised I never thought of it myself.  "Save 10-15%.  Work until you get full pension.," is what everyone out there tells you.  Crap advice now that I know better!!

[StockBeard]

  "Save 10-15%.  Work until you get full pension.," is what everyone out there tells you.  Crap advice now that I know better!!

So true. Financial advisors have all told me "average savings rate is 5%, so if you can get to 10% you are ahead of the pack, let's work on these numbers together..."

[mlejw6]

I had an older friend when I was in my twenties. I knew he was rich, but I learned that he was mainly living off investments while pursuing his dreams of being a race car driver and amateur pilot. But, I still didn't think it was anything I could do. I didn't have a billion-dollar start up idea. I didn't have wealthy relatives.

It was only when I found MMM in 2014 (via YNAB) that I realized what was possible. Now, I know! And, I'm not wasting another second!

[AllieVaulter]

I chose MMM, but a real life friend referred me here, so...  maybe I should have chosen "Someone in real life" in the poll. 

I've always been frugal, but I had zero knowledge of investing (I had no concept of what size 'stache I'd need to live off it).  I've never earned much money, but I would save it all in a bank.  Inevitably I'd look at my bank account and say, "hey, I can go to Europe!" and so I'd go blow a significant chunk of my savings on some big trip.  I wouldn't consider it wasted, but I do wonder how big my 'stache would be if I hadn't been in that cycle for 10 years. 

Anyway, my friend knew I didn't make much money, but still managed to do fun things, so she figured I'd be an easy convert.  And I was!  With some minor adjustments to my life and a bit of forethought I realized just how possible it would be for me to retire early.  I'd heard of people who retired early, but they were always people who were huge money makers, not regular people.  I'll always love that friend for pointing me this way!

[2Birds1Stone]

Figured it out myself.

[DoubleDown]

Also mostly figured it out myself 10+ years ago. However, MMM put it all together for me and led me to realize that I could retire much earlier than I had even considered. Having a real-life example plus all the other info MMM provided really helped it all click for me. I thought I was pretty badass saving like 25%, then I discovered how truly badass people such as MMM save 50%+.

[K-ice]

I know of one real life person who retired at 40.  But he worked his but off and has had RealEstate success.

I am naturally frugal and have saved quite well, never had consumer debt, killed my mortgage, invested in my own rental RE, got a good degree and  a good job with a potential classic retirement close to "freedom 55".  I would say all of that is on my own & with my SO but without any outside fianacial guidance. 

My biggest weekness is lack of investment knowledge. I was reading up on financial stuff in the Globe and Mail when I found MMM earlier this year. 

So MMM really gets the credit for making me see how early retirement is possible. The "simple math" and all that is very inspiring.  I could be somewhere between 2-5y from ER depending on what I want.

[gt7152b]

I have known about the concept for most of my adult life but was discouraged by comments from colleagues and friends about "never being able to retire" due to needing $2M or more in today's dollars. Seemed out of reach for me too. I still saved pretty well and lived frugally because I didn't want to worry about having enough money for my lifestyle. I've always had a great job but never thought of it as something that would be absolutely secure. Seen too many layoffs to trust in a steady paycheck. MMM just helped me realize that it wasn't so far out of reach and there were several optimizations I could make to bridge the gap quicker. Wish I had figured it out much sooner as there was a lot of waste that could have been turned into a shorter path to FI. Would have saved me some stress during certain years when I wanted to up my savings but couldn't find the extra dollars due to some unnecessary expenses that I considered vital at the time.

[Jupiter]

The idea that you retire at 65 or whatever the age is was never put into my head as a child. No number was given to me thus I assumed that answer was "whenever you like" (and for me that was sooner rather than later as I hated the idea of work). Growing up my parents kept buying investment properties and I was excited buy the idea that you could by a place and have rent of $300 rolling in each week. They kept buying one after another and once they had 4 (with a 600K loan) and their own property was paid off I watched the loan go down excited and looking forward to the day they could finally retire and spend time with me (I was home alone my whole childhood, puzzles, video games and soon the internet was all I had, my parents practically didn't exist). It never happened though, they sold them all for an upmarket apartment penthouse worth 2 million where they now reside still working full time with no time to even enjoy it.

The loan hit 500K then 400K then 300K and by this time I was 14. I remember being asked at school (we all sat in a circle and had to answer this question) "Where do you see yourself in 10 years" (thus 24). My response was a single word... "retired". Everyone around my laughed and said "get real", "that won't happen". I'm now 21 and have been working for 3 and half years (36K per year) with a net worth of 152K(I have internet jobs and investments thus why I have saved more that what I have earned with my full time job). I'm about to start up my own business which will help me earn a lot more (initially around 60K per year but potentially in the future to earn 7 figures if I expand out that far but that would require decades of work and I'd rather retire early (30 is my goal).

[Norioch]

My dad retired at age 49 (with a pension). He's been retired for most of my life. I just grew up thinking that a leisurely retirement was normal, and it's always been my goal.

[frompa]

Thoreau's book Walden! Life changer. Read as a teenager.
Your money or your life--makes it very concrete. . . . .

Both of these were totally the case for me, as well.  I was fourteen when I first read Thoreau, and his writing hit me like a ton of bricks.  He remains a favorite (and it's been many many years since I was fourteen.)

When Your Money or Your Life first came out, I read it and found its current day practical advice to be an excellent supplement to Thoreau.  We used that book as an organizing tool in our community for quite a number of years. 

[fa]

I was always a saver, never had any debt, and lived fairly frugally, but never for a planned early retirement. I always saved more than 50%.   Mostly just because it felt like the right thing to do.  One day was very rough and I googled "early retirement".  Mostly as a way to let off steam.  That's when I discovered I could have retired years ago.  The math was eye opening.  That was my release from Plato's cave.    Still working, but the knowledge that we can retire whever we want is such a feeling of freedom.

I discovered that I don't have to retire to feel liberated.  Just knowing I can at any time is sufficient for me.  I essentially found out that my handcuffs were made of paper.  I really enjoy my job, so I guess I am retired.  I can afford to do whatever I want to do.  I still work simply because I choose to work.  Just like MMM is blogging, building houses, etc., so he is doing the work he chooses to do.

[FLA]

nurse, invested in Vanguard Indes Funds in 403B and Roth.  Every extra penny went there.  I met with the gut work pays to review your retirement, he showed me even if I slowed done investments during the college years, I could retire at 55? Had enough money in Vanguard to get free financial planning session, said same thing.  I wanted to retire at 62, it never occurred to me to retire at 55. 

and I won't.  Became ill, disabled, cannot be a nurse at all.  But that retirement money should cover me.  I called both advisors panicked when I realized this was it, you are leaving your job, you are disabled, now what are you gonna do? Both said I can take some monthly off the principle and never run out, I was so panicked, I don't remember how much that was, it wasn't a lot. 

so I'm kinda retired in a miserable way at 45, lol

[kib]

I seem to be one of the few people who was completely and totally turned from a course of yuppie treadmill existence by One real life couple.  Perhaps that's what made me such a radical, I knew it was possible because I saw it in action  and the whole experience of meeting them at all felt like it was magically handed to me on a plate.

[beaster]

When I was in university (15 yrs ago!) I was procrastinating studying and picked up a booked called "how to survive without a salary" - then the lightbulb came on!

[EricL]

The very first inkling was in 1980 when I read The Hobbit. Bilbo Baggins did nothing.  Then he went on a big adventure and came back to doing nothing. (Albeit more aggressively) part of me found it quite intriguing but I never put the pieces together until I stumbled on ERE.

[Megma]

I was very lucky in my first property purchase to have a big financial windfall, enough for me to pay off a student loan and put a down payment on a slightly larger house in my new lower COL area that had already decided to move to. Thankfully I resisted buying a bigger house that I don't need just because I had the money! I was googling around about investment to figure out what to do with this pile 'o cash, first time I'd really had lots of money and I found ERE. I thought, hey this is an idea. This guy is crazy extreme but something like this could be possible and then I found MMM, a much more digestible version. I was saving enough before to get employer match in my 401k and did not have any cc or car debt, so I was in a good place but MMM really put me on a structured path and helped me develop my personal plan for FI.

[FrugalWad]

The hard starting point was finding Your Money or Your Life while also finding Early-Retirement.org. Before that was a run-up by way of a photocopied non-religious version of Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace Revisited (I can never remember the guy's name who wrote it) a guy at work was handing out to our division. that was back in 2008, before the recession hit. It was an awesome time to jump into investing.

[Stopwatch]

I was a college student educating myself about personal finance. I read Millionaire Next Door and various investing books. This was in the middle of the recession, watching the world go crazy. It was a good cautionary tale, and I learned some from it. I found Get Rich Slowly, which I followed for years, and Mint. I was living within my means and saving a little bit, and figured I would be able to retire comfortably at 65.

I'm not sure how exactly I stumbled on MMM but I think he did a guest post on Get Rich Slowly. Although I didn't want to retire early (I was very passionate about my subject of study and the job prospects seemed good enough - I wanted to work in it for 40 years) there was good money-saving advice there that I couldn't ignore. I liked the FI part too, even though I didn't want to ER. It would allow me to pursue my passions and not have to worry about money.

I've recently graduated and found a job in my major, but while I enjoyed learning it, the work itself is quite dull, so I'm now planning on ER.

[tallen]

I understood financial independence from a fairly young age but had never heard of early retirement. I remember when I was quite young my family and other familys always complaining about having to come up with the rent payment. Everyone had to come up with a bunch of money to give this "landlord" fella. Decided I wanted to be a landlord when I grew up and be the one everyone gives money to, then I wouldn't have to work for money like everyone else, they'd all work and just give me their money. I think I was about 5 when I had this epiphany lol. Well, I've almost got enough saved now to buy my 1st rental so the dream of a 5yo is still alive and well ;)

[Nancy]

Read a Jane Austen novel in high school where a male character was living off £10,000 pounds a year or some such amount and decided to figure out how that was possible.

[1967mama]

Posting to follow -- was definitely MMM that introduced us to this idea, although we are too old for ER, but maybe it will be earlier than 65!

[3Mer]

I had a friend who introduced me to Dave Ramsey.  I had never been bad with money, but just wasn't utilizing it like I could and had fairly high spending.  That was the first stage for me.  I learned to use the zero-based budget and drive my money further. I paid off all debt except the mortgage and saved 6 months of expenses. 

It became not enough for me to just keep doing the baby steps, I guess.  My impatience led me to internet searches for other money management philosophies.  That's when I came across ERE.   But like others said, it was a bit too extreme for me.  I found MMM about a year ago, and have been here ever since. 

I'm 48 and still aways from FIRE, but hope to make it by 55 or sooner.

[Spork]

It was roughly 30 years ago.  I was around 20 years old.  I had this super cool uncle I always loved, even though we never really spent much time together due to distance.  He was a psychologist.  One day he just closed his shop, sold the farm he lived on and bought a sail boat.  He and my aunt lived 10+ years on that boat, sailing all over.  He is almost 80 now.  He never worked again. 

*THAT* was how I found out about early retirement. 

[badger1988]

Short version: Self-Discovered

Long Version:
My third grade teacher picked a handful of students to do a special extra unit. He had us each choose a company's stock to "invest" in (I chose a local company, Northland Cranberries), and we learned to look up the tickers in the newspaper and understand how the value changed. We followed our stocks throughout the year, and that was when I first began to understand the idea of investing and making your money work for you.

In 8th grade I got my first summer job at the municipal swimming pool. I remember telling my mom that I would save 50% of what I made, and planned to keep that up for my life. Should be easy, right? Its not like I actually needed to spend anything. My mom thought it was a good idea, encouraged me, and also said that I probably wouldn't be able to do that once I had to start supporting myself. Proud to say that since 8th grade, my savings rate has continued to be >50% every year :)

After high school, I had the fortunate situation of having a surplus of scholarship money. So, I did some research and came to the conclusion that I needed to start maxing out a Roth IRA and compounding some money for an early retirement. Unfortunately, the stock market quickly crashed, and I lost a lot because I had picked a bunch of crappy individual stocks (my strategy was to just pick the highest dividend yield stocks with a S&P Stars rating of >3). However, I just considered it all a grand experiment that really didn't matter, and continued plugging away. I landed some good internships and worked two jobs (~30 hours per week) through college. For the internships I even tried to get into their 401k programs, but was never eligible. By my senior year of college, my future wife and I were engaged. She had ~15k in student debt, but even better frugal tendencies than me. I decided to start giving her money to max out her own Roth IRA, and we graduated/got married/started some good engineering careers in 2011. As soon as we were elgible, we also began maxing our new 401ks. My wife's first year she wasn't eligible for her 401k until October, so for the last three months we set her contributions to 100%...This really confused HR:) Somewhere along the line about 2 years ago I discovered MMM, and thought it was cool that there were actually a lot of other people doing this.

Fast-forward 4 years, we now have three-month-old identical twin boys, and my wife has left the workforce to become a SAHM. Net worth is sitting just north of $400,000, and I figure I've got about 5-10 more years until FI, at which point I will probably keep working if I enjoy my job as much as I do now.

[LLCoolDave]

I was always frugal but I bought my house in Vegas in 2009. I got a good deal but after a year I looked at my mortgage statement. Huh, $8k in interest and $2k in principle. Fuck that. I started making extra payments.The next three years I made $45k in payments each year. I follow the Bill Burr method of money. "I love my dog, I hate bankers, I have issues with women. In my head I'm a great guy."

[step_away]

I figured it out myself.

I did well enough, but I'd never liked school. Though I like learning, I hated the pressure of homeworks and exams. It's worse than working without pay since you gotta pay tuition.  School was only a means to an end (ie getting a well paying job). Even then I already figured that there is no way I'm working 45 years.

I guess what drove me is insecurity since I was a child.  I never went hungry but having 4 siblings means there were certain things we had to do without.  So I figured I'll earn the money myself to buy whatever I want.  But by then saving becomes ingrained and each expenditure beyond needs has to be justified.  I find that having the money to buy it actually lowers my desire of having it.  Since I don't buy just whatever I want, I don't see why I need to work longer than securing my needs (plus cushion).

When I have sufficient saving, I opened an account at Vanguard, putting the idea of FIRE into action.  I first heard of Vanguard as a case study in college and like the idea of a company being owned by its customers as their interests are aligned.

[winostache]

I found MMM after googling around for what to do with a raise.  I still had student loans and a car loan, so then answer ended up being pay off the debt early so I could get started saving for FIRE.

I am a saver by nature but I think that was a tipping point where I could have inflated my lifestyle since I alread had a few saving goals chugging along (ex. downpayment).  Instead, I learned the simple math to FIRE and have been optimizing ever since!

[Moustachienne]

 A few things opened my eyes:

1. In my 20's I read a Ruth Rendall/Barabara Vine story in which the (criminal!) protagonist chose to live on a small annuity rather than work a 9-5 job.  This meant she lived frugally, shared bed sits, etc. but it stuck with me as a viable choice that people could make.

2. a fee-based financial planner at a retirement seminar a number of years ago pointed out that it was nonsense to think that CPP and OAS government pensions (Canada) would disappear.  For one, CPP was restabilized in the '90's (thanks Paul Martin!) and secondly, if the pension systems collapse, it'll be because our societies have way bigger things to worry about.  His bottom line argument was that the financial services industry had a lot to gain by getting us to fear unlikely events, over save, and over work.

3. A couple of years later I was waiting to fill a prescription and idly picked up a MoneySense publication left on a bench at the drugstore.  It had an earlier version of this article, which makes very clear that a middle class retirement is totally doable on much, much less that people think. http://www.moneysense.ca/retire/magic-number-how-much-you-need-to-retire/  $40,000 per couple is the "lower end" here.  Higher than MMM, of course, but well within the reach of non MMMers and "a really nice life" to quote the article.

4. Then I discovered MMM.  The blog and forum removed my lingering doubts that we could retire "early".  And I'm talking 60!  But seriously, the societal message that everyone will have to work till 80, and will love it, is so strong that it's been hard to feel that we're even allowed to retire before 65.  We don't plan to lower costs as much as many MMMers but we do want to optimize our saving and spending to reflect our values.  MMM has really helped to ratchet back some of the hedonic creep we were letting in and look hard at how to add value to our lives.  Fun!

[NearlyThere]

Was starting to make money in my business and was looking for ways to reduce tax. Trying to figure out pensions I was led to monevator.com and from there to here. I read the entire site in a weekend.

[Daisy]

I'll say "figured it out myself" but used people's examples to help craft the plan.

Possibly the main reason I want to ER is Imposter Syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome. Maybe not as extreme as that link suggests, but I'm a non-techie person working in the tech world. I figured I'd end up getting either tired of the tech work, or not be able to move up in the corporate world, so I'd better figure out a way to exit early gracefully.

I'm not sure what led me to read Your Money or Your Life, the 4-Hour Workweek, and The Millionnaire Next Door about 15 years ago, but it lit a FIRE in me. I wasn't as diligent in the planning until a soulless position about 5-7 years ago inspired me to start running the numbers more diligently. I had been good at saving and investing before that, but didn't know the actual numbers to make it work.

I would search online for people ER'ing and found it inspirational. MMM was one of them. What keeps me around here is the forum and the feedback I get here, or else I probably would have moved on from MMM like the other sites I visit.

[powersuitrecall]

I had a friend retire early about 3 years ago.  I knew it was his goal for a while, but when it actually happened it shocked me.  When I discovered that it was a possibility for us, it was like one revelation after another:

<number crunching>
man! we could retire in 15 years!
<number crunching>
When you consider our pensions it could be 10 years!
<discover MMM and starting budgeting>
Holy crap!!! We could be FI in 5 years!!! Let's do this!!!

That was about a year ago.  I'm only now starting to come down from the high.

[shzm93]

My husband and I just discovered the MMM blog this week!

We happen to be on a mini retirement of our own right now (we saved for two years to afford a year-long, round-the-world trip), but we're still doing some freelance/part-time work to fill the extra time and to save for future pursuits. I've always been a saver (I started working when I was 15 and kept literally everything I made up until getting married at 20), and my husband is the same way. We got into real estate about a year after getting married and now we're trying to focus as much time, energy, and money into that as we can, since that ought to be the thing that really propels us into being able to retire early. We have made some poor financial decisions, like buying a horse that we barely used (luckily we managed to find an amazing new home for her), and driving a big old Jeep around for a year (loved that car!), but overall I think we're on the right track. I'm so grateful we discovered this blog when we did (I'm 22 and my husband is 26), it makes the future look much more exciting! I genuinely love the concept of cutting costs and learning to live on less.

[MrsPete]

I'm basically a lifer, I can honestly remember being 12 years old and thinking about how much money I'd need and how I'd have to live to be able to not have to work. I have no idea how this thought first occurred to me, and I can't say I've been fully dedicated to it the whole time, but it's basically been in my mind my whole life.

I can relate to this somewhat. 

As a child in a large family born to an alcoholic and a mother who was unprepared for the workplace, I grew up never having enough -- not enough food, not enough clothing, waiting for eyeglasses and shoes, sharing bottles of antibiotics with siblings, etc., etc., etc.  I saw my parents constantly scraping for a dollar, even though we were fairly frugal -- but they had holes in their frugality big enough to drive a truck through.

I realized early on -- probably around the time I started high school, which would've been 13 -- that I could do better through REAL frugal living, and I started to study HOW to make that happen.  I read every related topic I could find at the library, but FIRST I was focused on the idea of spending as little as possible while still living well -- and the idea of no debt was probably the first solid idea that I adopted.  After that I picked up on the idea of investing, though that didn't come as easily to me -- and I studied more.  It was some time after that -- I'll say around mid-20s, about the time I got married -- that I realized I could actually save enough money NOT to work.  If I had considered EARLY retirement before that time, it might've seemed like something that only a very wealthy person could achieve, and I didn't really consider that I could become very wealthy myself.  "Getting there" was a process for me.

Even today retiring early isn't actually my main goal. Unlike a lot of people here, I don't absolutely despise my job; however, I like my own time better!  My real goal is actually to avoid living the way I grew up -- I want to be able to buy groceries the week before payday; to know that if I want a new coat, I can have it; to avoid wasting money by paying interest; and never again to cut cardboard to put into my shoes.  Whether that all happens by ____ age isn't as important to me as doing it well and knowing that I am 100% secure when I retire.  I think that may be kind of common for poor kids:  We always have that fear in the back of our minds -- is it enough? 

[MrsPete]

I'll say "figured it out myself" but used people's examples to help craft the plan.

Possibly the main reason I want to ER is Imposter Syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome. Maybe not as extreme as that link suggests, but I'm a non-techie person working in the tech world. I figured I'd end up getting either tired of the tech work, or not be able to move up in the corporate world, so I'd better figure out a way to exit early gracefully.

I can relate to that.  I remember getting together with a bunch of my college friends a couple years after graduation.  Everyone in that group was at least minimally successful:  We were all working in our chosen fields, most were married and had purchased a first house.  We weren't far down the road, but we were working our way towards success.  Yet one friend made the comment, "I still feel like a kid.  Sometimes I have this fear that someone at work's going to notice and point out to the others -- 'Hey, he's not supposed to be managing people's money!  He doesn't deserve that paycheck and that office!  He ought to still be playing high school baseball!"  This guy was a CPA -- clearly he was a successful adult!  The rest of us all agreed that we felt that way sometimes too. 

Even today, I do sometimes wonder, How did I accomplish all this?  I've already progressed far beyond what teenaged me would've believed. 

[Kris]

Husband and I decided to do it ourselves a couple of years ago... Though our retirement ages will be 60 and 51, so we aren't as "early" as some.  Then we found MMM a little less than a year ago... And as a direct result of that, we have upped our savings/investment so that we will actually have another $100,000 in savings that we wouldn't have had otherwise.

[teacherwithamustache]

Circa 2004 at age 26 I had it all figured out.  I would retire at 53 and be a whole 15 years ahead of the game.  My pension would kick in at 53.  I would just need to save 15-20% of my check.  House Paid for I was going to have score board on everyone else at 53.  I already had 65K saved up so I was on the right track. 

Then I discover MMM in 2013 and if I  would have kicked ass earlier I would be retired at 43.  Now I am pot committed to the pension which is not a bad thing it is just the 15 more years.  I did figure out that I could teach part time (90 days a year) and get 1 years pension credit.  Then when I am 5 years out go full time increase my salary number and then take it to the house Pension wise.  All of which would not be possible without saving 30% of my check every month thanks to MMM.

[druth]

As a high schooler I had a dream of living in a conversion van and busking my way around wherever I felt like being.  I still wouldn't mind doing that, but maybe after the cats pass away.  I definitely realized that you didn't need 90% of what people think they need. 

MMM added the component of making(and saving) the big bucks in anticipation for a few years, and then doing whatever you want.