Free Money Finance: Retirement Tips from an Early Retiree

I swim at a local high school pool four or five times a week. Since I've been doing this for almost two years now, you could probably guess that I know the lifeguards pretty well.

One of the guards is a retired 61-year-old gentleman who has been working at the pool part-time for five years. He works there off and on when he and his wife aren't traveling (they were gone eight weeks this winter -- in a warm weather climate). He's going to be leaving soon (he decided he wants to fully retire). In talking to him over the past several months, here is what he's said have been the keys for him to be able to retire mostly at 56 and completely at 61:

• Spend less than you earn while you're working and save a bundle.


• Retire with no debt. His words were something like, "If you can retire with no debt at all, you can live on a very little amount of money."


• Keep one spouse working. He retired at 56, but his wife kept working for five years (she's younger than him.) This provided an income for them so they didn't have to dip into savings.


• Have a pension. He is unique in that he was a public school administrator for 25 years, so he has a nice income from his retirement plan.


• Get health care covered. Again, his public school career allows him health care while he's retired. He acknowledged that "without it, I would have had a hard time retiring so early."

Of course his situation is unique (how many of us have access to the great retirement and health care benefits he has -- especially when these are likely to decline even for teachers as states look to trim budgets?). That said, teachers and administrators in theory have taken less in salary gains in order to get better retirement packages. That means those of us in the private sector likely earn more during our careers, but then we need to be responsible and save for our future needs to have anything like what my friend has.

Really, his tips match what we've been talking about over the past few months here: you can retire early if you save/invest a bundle while you work, eliminate debt, and ease into retirement with early semi-retirement. Pretty simple plan -- if you're disciplined.

BTW, many of you may be wondering about the state of my pool if the lifeguards are 61-years-old. He is BY FAR the oldest of the bunch (most are college kids.) He's in GREAT shape and said he hopes to spend his retirement years building Habitat for Humanity homes. Sounds like a pretty cool retirement to me...

Source: http://www.freemoneyfinance.com/2011/05/retirement-tips-from-an-early-retiree.html

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