3 Big Reasons Why I Retired Early, and my advice for young people

I retired this year at the age of 51, and there's really three big reasons why I decided that this was the time. The first was, I had enough, meaning I had built up enough savings where I was confident that I could sustain my lifestyle throughout retirement. The second was, I had had enough, meaning I was tired of my job and all the constraints and the stress that it placed on me. And the third was, I was ready to become the best possible version of me, without those constraints and the burdens of my job. Stick around and I'll explain each of these in more detail. I'm Michael, and this is BeTirement. Number one is, I had enough. I achieved financial freedom last year in 2024, and this was the point where I was confident that I had enough savings in order to sustain my lifestyle throughout retirement. I did this by saving and investing aggressively, while living frugally. I maxed out my 401k, starting with my first job when I was 23 years old. And fortunately, I was an engineer, I came out of school and I was single, and I earned a pretty decent income. So I saved pretty aggressively back in those early days. Generally speaking, I saved about 20% of my income throughout my career. Outside of my 401k, I was also investing into an individual investment account, and in the last 8 years, into spot bitcoin held in cold storage. I also invested in real estate, and this helped me build wealth, but as I shared in a recent video, I'm no longer convinced that it's the best way to build wealth. I've also lived frugally. Me and my wife are still living in the same house that we bought 22 years ago. We haven't always been trying to keep up with the Joneses, and always move into a bigger, nicer home. We also haven't been driving the newest and flashiest cars. Throughout my life, I've only owned 5 cars, and they were a 1987 model that I bought used out of college, a 1997 model, a 2008 model, a 2016 model, and just before retirement, I bought myself a nice 2025 to last me 20 years. I certainly didn't do everything right. I made some big mistakes. I made some big purchases that I came to regret, and made some investments that did not work out at all. But overall, I think I did pretty well. It was really at the end of last year that I started doing inventory of the savings that I had, and I really gained confidence that I was financially free and able to retire. And the rule of thumb that gave me confidence that I was financially free is known as the 4% rule. And this means that you can retire and live off of 4% of your retirement savings, and most likely not run out of savings. Now, this isn't a hard and fast rule. It's a rule of thumb. But basically what it means is, if you have a million dollars of savings, you can live off of $40,000 a year. If you have $2,000,000 in savings, you can live off of $80,000 a year. So of course, everybody's needs in retirement is going to be different, but I used this rule to be confident that my savings was enough to sustain my lifestyle. The second big reason why I knew it was time for me to retire was I had had enough. I was tired of the grind of my career. Now, I'm very blessed to have the career that I did. Fortunately, I only ever worked for two companies. I worked for one for the first five and a half years and moved on to another for the last 22 and a half years. And between these two employers, I have no complaints. And the jobs provided for my family and gave us a very nice lifestyle and allowed me to save like I did so that I could retire early. I feel very, very blessed and very, very fortunate. I had a great career. I hired in as an engineer and got promoted multiple times into upper management. And with those promotions came a lot of good benefits, but also some challenges. And most of those challenges I didn't really expect. One thing that surprised me was the higher you go in the organization, the less and less free you were. I had to appease both upper management and everybody below me. And there were times that I was responsible for 500 employees in my organization. And that was a burden. I love the people. I love getting to know everybody. I love looking out for their needs. But there was a lot of tension and a lot of challenge to that. I worked for a manufacturing company that was essentially running production 24-7. And this meant that I needed to have my work phone with me day and night. And I would frequently get woken up with phone calls and text messages. This affected my sleep and my health. It was really when I achieved financial freedom last year where certain things that I had tolerated for years really began to bug me. One is as simple as my 25-minute commute. I was spending nearly an hour in the car getting to and from work every day. And I got to the point of, why am I even spending this time? Why am I even doing this when I don't need to? I also found myself as a member of management being expected to go along with the upper level direction even if I didn't agree with it. And some of these were big things. And some were small things that just got under my skin. I'll share a couple just funny examples. One was there was an expectation for members of management to wear a certain color shirt on Thursdays. And this was to show support for a certain cause. And it was a perfectly fine cause that I've supported financially over the years. But I knew that wearing a colored shirt was not helping that cause at all. So I did a silent protest and started wearing my orange shirt every Thursday. And this was just a fun way for me to rebel just a little bit and stand up to some of the nonsense that I didn't agree with. And this financial freedom really allowed me to start doing so. One thing that's funny is there's a woman in my organization named Sharon. And she recognized what I was doing. And she came up to me and pulled me aside one time. She said, Mike, I notice you wear orange shirts on Thursdays. And I sense that it's a little rebellious streak in you. And if so, I love it. And this just cracked me up because she saw what was going on and the silliness that wearing a certain color shirt represented. Another silly change I made after I knew that I had financial freedom is my appearance. I'd always been clean cut and was trying to represent the most professional image possible. And as you can see, I've started to grow my hair out just as a sense of freedom that I can do what I want. And I'm not going to conform to the nonsense that that company was starting to push. In summary, no complaints about my career. It was great. Both employers were terrific. And it just got old. I got tired of that grind. The third big reason why I knew it was time for me to retire was that I wanted to become the best possible version of me, free from the constraints that 28-year career had placed on me. I wanted to be the best that I could for myself, for my family, for my friends, and for my community. And that's really what I've done or tried to do in the last four months since I retired. First, I wanted to look out for myself better than I had been in recent years. I was really not healthy in the later stages of my career. I had gained a lot of weight. I was stress eating. I was eating fast food on the way home from work. I was working late nights and eating late meals. And it really wasn't good. And I wasn't making time to work out and exercise like I should have. Now that I have this freedom of my time, I'm exercising nearly every day. I'm playing pickleball two to three times a week, up to three hours at a time. I'm walking two to three days a week, up to seven miles at a time. And on other days, I'm lifting weights. I feel great. I've lost about 40 pounds. And I feel better. And I feel healthier than I ever have before. Second is family. And really, since I've retired, I have more time than ever to spend with my family. Now, coincidentally, we also became empty nesters this year. So our daughter is away at college an hour and a half away. And our son is away at college three and a half hours away. But I'm always around and available to take their call or even run something to them if they need something up at college. And my wife and I are spending more time together than we ever have in our 23 years of marriage. And frankly, it's been great. There have been no problems at all. We've been playing a lot of pickleball together. And she's even got me playing Mahjong. Now, I even let her beat me 75% of the time in Mahjong. OK, I'm not letting her win, but she's beating me 75% in Mahjong. And she and I are free to travel anytime we want and go wherever we want, especially when the kids are in college. We're free to travel, which I couldn't do when I was working. And I've been able to look after my parents in a way that I've never have been before. Unfortunately, they're 600 miles away from me. So when I was working, it was very difficult for me to get the time to go visit them very frequently. And I just got back from a five-day trip when I was able to go up and spend some quality time with my parents and help them out around their house. They are 88 and 83 years old, but they're doing great. And they're doing a great job taking care of their house. But it's becoming more and more challenging. So I was able to go up and help my dad paint the windowsills around the whole entire house. And it felt great. And he had a snowblower that wouldn't start. And I helped him put a new carburetor on it. It was great time, great quality time. And it really helped them out and made me feel good. And I wasn't able to do that type of thing while I was working. And next is my friends. While we were all working, it was very challenging to get together and spend time with my friends. Now that I'm able to retire, even though many of them are still working, I have that flexibility. I have a friend that calls me when he's on a road trip with work. He can give me a call and we can catch up. Before, I'd be at work and we wouldn't be able to talk. It's been really great. Finally is community. When I was working, I wasn't giving back to my community at all. And that's changing. Now that I have the freedom of my time, I'm giving back to my community. I'm operating cameras at my church once a month on Sundays. And I've signed up to mentor an elementary school student in our local school. So those are the three big reasons why I decided to retire this year. And I feel very, very blessed to be in this position. I made some major blunders over the time too. And I've started to share some of those in this channel. So stay tuned for more of those. Now I'd like to wrap up with some advice to young people. Someone that's in the position that I was back when I started my career in 1997. First is find a lucrative career. Something that aligns with your talents and your interests. But something that provides a good salary to support yourself, your family, and allow you to save for retirement. The second is work hard. It certainly isn't easy. I spent many hours at work, overtime hours, weekends, nights. I traveled a lot. There's no job that's going to pay you well that's going to be a piece of cake. At least I don't think so. And I certainly never found it. So be ready to work hard and put in that effort. Because with that effort comes rewards, especially over time. In the short term, you might not think so. But in the long term, it certainly will pay off. Next is save and save hard. Target about 20% savings and think about the max limit to the 401k. So for 2025, the IRS had set a limit of $23,500. Use that as a rule of thumb. Maybe you're young in your career and that's a bit much for you. So start smaller and then continually add to it every single year. But try to get up to that about 20% range as quickly as you can. Because those early years of retirement savings really have years and decades to grow and accumulate. So that when you're 50 or 55, those early savings are very significant. Much more significant than what you're saving when you're 48 years old. Next is overtime. Before you're ready to retire, work on paying off your house. Because it's really freeing to have no mortgage payment and to own your home outright when it comes that time and when you're ready to retire. So maybe you get a 30-year loan and you make extra payments and get it paid off in 25 years, for example. You don't have to accelerate that too much, but you really want to target to have your home paid off before you retire. Because that's a big burden off your shoulders. And once you achieve that financial freedom, you have optionality. You can keep working. If you love what you're doing and you're happy with everything about it, you can keep working. Or like I, once I got financial freedom and I wasn't thrilled with everything that was going on at work and the constraints it was placing on me, I knew it was time to go. So really, it's about that optionality. But if you don't have the financial freedom, you don't have that optionality. With that being said, make sure you continue to live your life and enjoy your life. Don't save so aggressively that you're putting off today's happiness for the future. You need to live your fullest life throughout your whole career and your whole life. If you have kids, take them on vacations. Go sightseeing. Don't shortchange those. But maybe don't stay in the top-notch hotels. Stay at more budget hotels or even camping so you can have those quality experiences, but also save that 20% a year. I'm Michael and this is Retirement. I hope you liked this video. And if you did, please click like and comment below with what your experience is. And if you like this video, you might want to check out these.