If someone had laid out the ERE plan to me when I was 17 I've been retired at 30.
I'm smart and I'm motivated.
I got programmed with the usual BS by my parents and society.
I've broken free of that programming in about 3 separate steps. The last of which was reading MMM.
Sadly I'm 45 so I can't retire early like someone who is 20, but I am going to accelerate my retirement from 67 to 50 and start working less every year from 45 - 49.
I'm stoked!
-- Vik
We were programmed to think that the earliest that DH could retire would be age 55 (the earliest that his company offered pension and retiree medical) so that was our goal.
The reasons that DH was able to do it:
1. Pension: He was a "lifer" and survived downsizing, layoffs, RIFs, etc. over the 33 years of his career.
Many of his co-workers were not as "lucky". Baby boomers entered the workforce at a time when being a lifer was still a possibility. Within the first decade of his career, downsizing and layoffs were not uncommon.
He does get a pension, but over the years the pension formula was adjusted several times offering less and less of a benefit.
2. Retiree Medical: He retired with over 30 years of service so he receives the maximum retiree medical subsidy. In spite of that our premiums are over $700/mo. for an HMO plan. When we started out, retiree medical was paid for 100% by the company. 10-15 years ago, it was heavily subsidized and retirees paid only a fraction of what employees paid. Today retirees pay more than employees and the benefit can be dropped by the company at any time.
3. Profit Sharing / 401k: We began contributing as early as was allowed by the company, not because we thought we'd need the money for retirement, but because we saw it as a good investment. Within 2 or 3 years, the profit sharing program (after tax contributions) became a 401k (tax deferred). We didn't like the fact that we would not be able to access the funds until our late 50s (because at the time we believed his pension would cover our retirement income needs); but we liked the match and needed the tax break, so we continued to max out our contributions.
4. Lack of Consumerism: We were always low on the consumerism scale and high on the saving scale.
So as you can see, some of our success was DFL (dumb f.... luck). We were lucky that DH did not get laid off along the way. We were smart to invest in the profit sharing program/401k and based our spending on our net income (after contributions) and never looked back; but we also were lucky because as it turns out, we need that "investment" for our retirement due to the decrease in pension benefits/increase in the cost of retiree medical over the years.