11 Benefits of Early Retirement Told By People Who Retired in Their 30s

For most, the plan is to retire around the age of 65. However, what if you could retire earlier? Say 30 years earlier. You’d take it, wouldn’t you? The idea of having enough by your 30s to stop working and pursue your interests can seem like a distant, and unrealistic, dream.

But there are those who have achieved this dream. So, it is possible to retire that early and there are plenty of reasons to work toward that goal.

Now, to be completely honest, early retirement is probably quite different than most imagine. Like everything else, retiring early, though absolutely the dream, comes with its own risks. Only some of these risks are financial.

The major risks include Medicare, which is only available to you starting at the age of 65. There are other options for early retirees, but they are definitely not as attractive as medical insurance covered by your employer.

Another major challenge is that you’d have to make your savings last for much longer than if you retired at the traditional retirement age. So, you’d either have to carefully manage your money or make riskier investments.

There’s also the issue of social security and even more importantly, the issue of your mental health. What are you going to replace work with? Work is important to humans because it gives structure to your time and provides the opportunity for social interaction, without which a person might not function properly, both mentally and health wise.

That said, while the risks of retiring early are real, the truth is that the positives far outweigh the negatives. And people who have retired early share the same sentiments.

We’re not advising you to stick your head in the sand concerning the risks that come with early retirement. But these risks are not un-addressable. If you come up with a battle plan, you can go into retirement early and enjoy it to the max. At least, many early retirees believe so. And in today’s article, we are going to be discussing the 11 benefits early retirees share about hanging up their boots early.

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Early retirement can make you age backwards

Being caught up in the routine of going to work every day might make us oblivious to how much stress we put on our bodies.

We wake early, get to work after sitting in traffic, and then work for 9 plus hours with only a brief break in between which we spend by snacking on junk food. Then we get home at night, eat more fast food and then crash.

This cycle goes on for days, weeks, months, and even years, and unknown to us, it takes a huge toll on our bodies. But early retirement might just be the thing to reverse these things and bring you back in shape and good health.

For one early retiree, he observed that his hair started to turn grey when he hit 33. And afterwards, it was like a floodgate opened, the grey hairs proliferated. He had already started to adjust to the sad development. However, he retired a few years later and when he did, he discovered that he started to look and feel better. In his words,

“…A few years into retirement, the graying stopped (along with my receding hairline). The bags under my eyes disappeared. I felt younger. Not working reduced my stress and improved my mental health.”

It could help improve the relationships in your life

Working hard from 9 to 5 every day keeps you extremely busy. And for some, the hours are even longer. Also, because working from home is super convenient, we hardly know when to stop. Most people keep working from the wee hours of the morning until very late at night. It’s so bad that even though we are at home with our loved ones, we hardly see them because we are still working.

As a result, many have strained relationships with their families. And if this continues until you’re 65, you might have no one to spend your retirement years with, because all of your relationships are now strained.

For this early retiree, retiring early was a great opportunity to improve her relationship with her parents. She was able to visit them more and she also realized that spending more time with your parents, especially when you’re still young, is incredibly important because they won’t be strong and healthy forever.

You get the time to become even better parents

For the same reasons we already talked about, it can be challenging to move up the corporate ladder and still be an excellent parent. It is not impossible, but it is not without its challenges. Oftentimes, people end up having to choose one over the other.

If you’re currently doing the admirable, but challenging, work of juggling a career and raising your kids or you decided to put off starting a family until you can make time to raise them, early retirement might just be the option you’ve been looking for.

Retiring early means you get the time to raise your kids while both you and your kids are still young. Plus, you get all the time in the world to form a bond that will be hard to sever in the future.

You might see improvement in your health

You probably already know that prolonged sitting is not great for your health. You could come down with lower back pain, not to mention cardiovascular diseases. A certain early retiree talks about how they used to grind their teeth at night due to work stress to the point they had a sore jaw that took almost a thousand dollars to fix.

Now that they’re retired, they no longer have to sit for prolonged periods, there’s no more stress either. And with more time to exercise and take care of themselves, they feel and look much healthier than they were while they worked.

Early Retirement might help you become more self-sufficient

Now that you have more time on your hands, you can get more done yourself rather than being forced to outsource it. Who knows? You might even find a new hobby in the process. And, of course, there is the more obvious benefit of saving money by handling your repairs yourself.

You might stumble on newer, better ways to increase your income streams

The fact that you no longer work a full time job doesn’t mean that you can’t pursue other activities either for pleasure or money. The good thing about retirement is that you no longer “have” to work for money, which means you get to spend your time doing things you actually enjoy and if they bring in income, then why not?

Some people might say that’s not retirement, but working for pleasure and working to make ends meet are not the same thing.

You have the time to pursue your interests

Another reason that retiring earlier is better than retiring later is that you get not only the time, but the energy and inclination to try new things. You’ll be able to travel wherever you want and try out all kinds of hobbies, including those that demand a high level of physical energy. Who knows, you might even find a new and exotic place to settle.

You may find that you’re happier when you retire early

Especially when you’re working in highly stressful spaces, like finance or food service, the pressure can begin to affect you, turning your usual cheerful demeanor into cynicism. In retirement, you’re not under all that pressure, which means that you can take the time to smell the roses and find true joy and happiness in the present.

You might even spend less

Since you now have more time on your hands, you can actually check out more deals and find more ways to save money on your purchases. Plus, many tourist sites and vacation resorts are much less expensive during non-peak periods, which are now open to you since you no longer work. You save more on many fronts.

You’ll make more friends

Many fear they won’t be able to make friends once they retire. However, that’s so far from the truth. If you’ve ever been at a ball game on a weekday afternoon, even if you only caught it on TV, you know that the stadium is always full of fans.

There’s hardly ever a shortage of fans, because contrary to what it seems, many people do not work the conventional 9 to 5 schedule. So, you don’t need to fear a loss of friendships, as you’ll definitely make new ones.

You get to pick up healthier habits and maintain a healthier lifestyle

In retirement, you have more time on your hands, which also means you can take up activities that help you stay fit and healthy. Plus, you have more time to prepare healthier meals rather than eating fast food that’s bad for you. Getting unshackled from the office table definitely gives you the time to develop new and healthier habits.

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