My British 4th July

4th July.

Oh, what a day!

“Hang on a minute, David…

“You’re a Brit, for goodness sake!

“So why were you celebrating 4th July?”

I’ll tell you why.

Because it’s my Personal Independence Day.

You see…

Exactly one year earlier – on 4th July 2016 – I handed in my notice at work.

I hadn’t planned it to be on Independence Day.

But it certainly didn’t go unnoticed.

And one month later, I was gone.

I’d taken early retirement.

Why Should You Take Early Retirement?

I took early retirement for two reasons:

1. Because I could.
2. Because I wanted to spend my time doing something else.

Simple!

OK. I’ll not leave you wondering. Let me flesh that out a bit.

I’d been saving into pensions since just after starting work at age 17.

So I decided to find out if early-retirement was a viable option.

I discovered it was. So I went for it.

But listen…

I had plenty to do.

And that’s important!

No putting my feet up on a beach 24-7 and doing nothing.

Even though a nice relaxing cruise was one of the first things on the cards to get me out of the night-shift work mode, I took along a good book to learn from.

But if I’d nothing enjoyable to occupy my time after retirement, I doubt I’d have made the leap so soon.

If you want to learn more about my early retirement story and what I do now, you can read my guest blog post at the Content Marketing Academy: How to leave your job and do what you love the safe way.

How Can I Know If I Can Retire Early?

Personally, I asked a trusted Financial Planner to tell me.

He worked it all out with his advanced software.

But there are also ways you can find out yourself.

Here are a couple of good books which will help you to work it out and discover if you can afford to retire early.

I’ve read them both.

The first one is “Enough? How much money do you need for the rest of your life?” by Paul D Armson.

It’s a powerful, practical and encouraging book that helps you to find out if you have enough to support your lifestyle for the rest of your life.

And remember, quite a lot will depend on what sort of lifestyle you want!

You can get that book here on Amazon…

It’s a quality book. 

And in it, there are URLs to where you can download spreadsheets to help you work things out.

The author also mentions his own planning software which is for sale. But he doesn’t try to promote it.  It’s just an option to help you if spreadsheets aren’t your thing.

You’ll discover a lot from reading this, and maybe realise that the possibility of early retirement could be closer than you think.

More good news is this: there’s a way to get a free copy of the book.

Paul Armson, the author, was interviewed on the Meaningful Money podcast. And on that interview, he tells you how and why he’ll send you a free paperback copy of his book.

That’s how I got my copy. 

Here’s the podcast. It’s well worth listening to. I’ve heard every single episode of Meaningful Money

The other book is The Financial Wellbeing Book by Chris Budd.

It’s about creating financial peace of mind.

And the good thing is that all the profits from this book go to the Penny Brohn Cancer Centre, which helps people with cancer to live well.

You can buy it here on Amazon – or at the Penny Brohn website.

Similar to Enough, this book also has downloadable spreadsheets.

I lent my copy to a friend, and he found it very useful in helping him prepare a financial life plan towards his goal of early retirement.

Praise indeed.

Want to Retire Early?

Well… if you’ve been asking whether you can afford to retire, I hope I’ve given you a few tools to help you explore the possibilities.

But if you’ve any questions, please pop them into the comments box below. I’ll do my best to answer them.

Happy planning.

P.S.

When my 85-year-old-self managed to send a letter to me across the barriers of time, he congratulated me on this decision. 

Want to read the letter? 

Haha! I thought you might. Here it is: A Letter From My 85 Year Old Self. Enjoy!