Featured in Mumbai Mirror for How To Retire at 40

Last Monday Mumbai Mirror did a story on Early Retirement- How to retire at 40, it featured three Indian families, we were one of them. The article has a good perspective of a mid-40s person who walked away from a successful corporate career to pursue his passion of writing. We are in our mid-30’s not retired fully but pursuing F.I.R.E while also doing what we like to do and living a semi-FIRE lifestyle. In this blog post we will share that article, it is an interesting read. We will also share 6-Steps To Kick Start Your Early Retirement Journey, in case you have not started already.

Please remember it is a process, a long one that too. But do not get intimidated. Remember.

“Journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”-Lao Tzu

Take that step today!

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Mumbai Mirror Article- How to retire at 40

Here is a snapshot of the article. Full article is at the end of the blog post.

It is always difficult to condense how to retire Early for a short article like this, but we think it covers some of the most important pointers for anyone who is just starting out or wants to start out.

We received  couple of e-mails from the readers of Mumbai Mirror and we were very happy to see that there are so many people who are interested in Early Retirement. But for some reason a lot of readers shared that they are unable to take the first step towards their Early Retirement Journey.

So, for all the old and new readers if you are inspired by FIRE and want to retire early, but are not able to start the journey. Here are few key steps you can take to get started:

6-STEPS TO KICK START YOUR EARLY RETIREMENT JOURNEY:

STEP 1. Write down how Early retirement will improve your life

If you need some more external inspiration- read our blog post Early Retirement is the necessity these days,  Top 5 reasons to be financially Independent and Retire early. We have a another post that addresses how to come out of unhappy work environment – Unhappy at work- Get your life back using Early Retirement that you may find useful.

STEP 2. Share your Early Retirement Dream with your family and get them onboard

Do not get discouraged if your family does not come on-board immediately, share your ideas, lead by example and give them time to come around. We have a blog post on How to convince your partner about Early Retirement that you may find useful while talking to your partner and family.

STEP 3 Calculate your Net Worth

Make a list of all your assets- House, Car, Investments, savings, gold etc and deduct all the liabilities (ie. all outstanding debt) from it and you will get your Net Worth. Use this number to track your progress every year. If you are wondering why is it important?

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.”- Peter Drucker

STEP 4. Figure out your monthly Expenses- see wherever you are wasteful and make cuts

There are some great tools that help you to track your expenses. We have been using a free phone app called Spendee to track and control our monthly expenses. We have also written a blog post Track Spending to Find Saving  that you may find useful. Some of the readers highly recommend another phone app walnut and perfios ,a much more comprehensive money management tool. Check them out and use them to track your monthly expenses.

It is amazing to see how tracking expenses for a year or more gives you deep insight into your spending habit and helps you save money on wasteful spending. We have been tracking our expenses for over 4 years and we can see our family’s spending habits and also our family’s year-over-year inflation.

STEP 5. Make a plan to clear out your debt and say NO to new debt

We have written a blog post on How to Pay off your Student Loan in the Shortest Time possible but it is applicable to all sorts of debt. Read it and you may find it very useful in reducing your debt. If you are an impulsive buyer, who maxes out their credit cards every month and pays only the minimum due please read Simple trick to save more money : Use Cash!

STEP 6. Create an achievable goal for monthly savings towards your early retirement

Set a monthly saving rate that works for you. We recommend saving at-least 50% of your income if you are targeting Early retirement. If that is not possible immediately start with what you can and slowly and steadily increase your saving rate.

Remember the great Hindi saying of Kabir,  start right away- no better day than Today!!!

“KAL KARE SO AAJ KAR, AAJ KARE SO AAB, PAL MEIN PARLAI HOEGI, BAHURI KAREGA KAB”

Mumbai Mirror- How to retire at 40 Complete article

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