How to Retire Early and With No Money

I decided to retire early even though my financial advisor said it will be impossible. This is what I did so I could retire

MONEY HACKS

ShayLyn

8/26/20247 min read

When I first started to consider retirement. I was nervous and concerned. I knew my income for retirement would be reduced, possibly by 50% or even more. The problem was that I needed all that I was earning at the time just to keep a roof over my head, clothes on my back, and food on the table.

When I sat down with my financial planner and told him my intentions to retire soon, he tried hard not to break out laughing. Sitting at his desk, he turned on a second monitor so I could watch what he was doing. Then he went to work on his laptop, calculating my net worth and what I would need to have invested to keep living the lifestyle I was currently living. It only took several minutes before he was finished, and I saw the end result. Once he was finished. He looked at me with a concerned look and informed me that I would be flat-broke in about 8 years.

For me to do this, especially financially. I had to make some big changes in my life. I was making low 6 figures for an income. This was above average for my area, and my lifestyle (which matched my income) showed it. In life, I was the type of person where the more money I made, the more I spent. I was also continuously upgrading materialistic things such as my cell phone, personal accessories, cars, and even my home. I always had to have the latest and greatest because I told myself I needed them. After closing the door for the final time after selling my business, and I walked away from the rat race. It was one of the best feelings I had ever had. Over six years later, I still have no regrets and consider this one of the best decisions I have ever made. I am living the life and lifestyle that I always wanted to live.

Thing To Do Before You Retire

For me to do this walk. I put together an action plan and implemented several things within my life before taking this walk to happiness which were:

Get my finances under control
Control my impulsive spending habits
Created a budget and stuck to it
Downsized my lifestyle and spending habits
Re-evaluated my wants and needs in life, as there is a big difference
Started living within my means or just below them
Eliminated all debt
Changed my mindset of not always wanting the latest and greatest
Put in a lot of work the previous year to make this possible
Removed the word greed from my vocabulary and mindset
And finally, I created a side hustle that would generate a passive income

a bag of money and a pen and a calculator

The things I implemented. I will admit that they are not for everyone, nor will they work for everyone. But they worked for me, and yes, when I did all this, I had been a widow for 4 years. I was the only one I had to answer to, which made it easier to implement on a side note. I did remarry two years later. I took the risk and walked away from it all, and the risk paid off for me. I lead a lifestyle of freedom where my new wife and I wake up thinking about things we want to do and not what we have to do. We lead a simple life where we reside in a small beachside community in the Philippines. This has been my dream since I watched a TV episode of National Geographic that featured the Philippines when I was fourteen.

How Did I Get Our Finances Under Control to Retire

This is simple. I adopted a strict approach to tracking my finances and eliminated all duplicate expenditures and wasteful spending. I tracked every penny coming into the household, as well as going out, and where it was spent. When it came to making a purchase. I held myself accountable by asking myself if this was a want or a need. Now my wife holds me accountable, and she is very good at doing that

How Did I Create My Retirement Budget

I am a numbers person. When I streamlined my finances, and my lifestyle. I figured out how much money I needed to live for a year. Once I had that number, I worked it backward, breaking down the amount per month and then per week. Once the budget was created, I stuck to it with no exceptions. I will admit. I did have to make several adjustments to the budget before I finalized it

Downsized My lifestyle and spending habits

I was living by myself when I started this transition. I didn’t see the need to be in a home with 2400 sqft of living space, where I used less than 20%. I downsized and purchased something more practical, affordable, and better suited to my needs. This also eliminated my mortgage payments completely and drastically reduced the utility and property taxes and the cost of upkeep and maintenance.

Just by doing this, my cash flow tremendously increased. I also stopped going to restaurants numerous times a week. I gave myself a weekly spending allowance. If I spent my allowance early in the week and wanted something, guess what? I didn't buy it, no matter how good of a deal it might have been. This allowance was not part of my everyday living expenses. This was separate.

Retirement Mindset

I wanted a nice big house but didn’t need it when something more practical would suit my needs. The house was a showpiece to impress. As nice as it was, it wasn't a home. I wanted a sports car, but I didn’t need it. The sports car was no longer practical and never was what I required from a vehicle, but it was fun. I sold the sports car and kept my SUV.

This was the new mindset I developed when I re-evaluated my life and the direction I wanted life to go. I differentiated between wants and needs. I made all these changes because I WANTED freedom and choices within my life and based my decisions on that end goal in mind. I wanted to live smaller but, at the same time, live larger within my newfound freedom.

Started Living Just Below My Means

This was simple. If I didn’t have the cash for the purchase at the time. I didn’t do the activity or purchase the item, unless it was an emergency. I removed all the impulse spending. It also taught me how to budget my money properly and make a given amount last.

Eliminated all debt for Retirement

If I was making a payment on something, I eliminated it. This meant credit cards, vehicles, personal loans, and mortgage. I made it a condition that I had to be debt free, to do my walk of freedom when I sold my business. I became 100% debt free 3 months after starting this journey when I sold my home and purchased something smaller and better suited to my needs, with cash.

Changed my mindset

I had the mindset of He who dies with the most wins. I changed my mind set to: He who dies with the best memories truly is the winner in this game called life.

When I first started on this journey of freedom. I discovered a lot of the things I purchased, I purchased to impress, not because I wanted the item or even needed it. I was chasing the American Dream and trying to get the approval of people I didn't even know with the things I owned. I started asking myself with every purchase I made, is this a want, or a need? I will be honest. There were times when I did purchase some wants after all. No matter what you do, you still need to live life and have some enjoyment in life, and I did, but I never went into debt for it.

To Prepare for Retirement Put in a lot of work the year prior, to make this happen.

I still put in the same number of working hours per week, 50 – 60 hrs. But I stopped working overtime at my business and only put in a 40 hr. work week. I started investing the extra hours that I now had into investigating various side hustles. I then took this newfound knowledge and started building a passive income stream that I could take with me no matter where I lived, even internationally. I thought my business would suffer slightly due to lessening my workload. It didn't.

I Removed the word greed from my vocabulary and actions.

I think this is self-explanatory. It also changed my outlook on life and my desire to always want more and to never be satisfied with what I already had. I see this as part of the problem when you chase after the American dream that I interpreted as being all you can be never being satisfied with what you have, and always shooting for the stars and never settling, always going for more. Living this dream, I was never happy with my life. I never felt satisfied or fulfilled.

I created a side hustle that would generate a passive income.

I spent the time researching different side hustles that would work for me. Later, my wife also joined and now works by my side. My side hustle of choice was content creation, which developed into content repurposing. Though, I don’t make a lot of money from this side hustle in comparison to what others make. This is due to me now prioritizing life, over work. The lifestyle my wife and I now lead doesn’t require a huge income stream. I also took some of the funds from liquidating everything and invested in an annuity. This ensures that I will get a certain amount every month. My wife and I use the annuity to cover our daily cost of living expenses, and the side hustle income is donated to those in need.

As I mentioned. This is how I went from working full-time to a casual part-time schedule and only working when we wanted to. This is the blueprint that I created to be able to enter into semi-retirement and create financial freedom for ourselves. A big thing that I did discover was this.

You don’t need a large sum of money in the bank to have financial freedom. It all comes down to your choices. I chose to create a passive income stream, reduce my lifestyle, and to live within my means or slightly below them. I now don't always insist on having the latest or the greatest and stopped going after more. Also, retirement is a mindset. When you love what you do that creates an income, can you still call it work.