I've been thinking about early retirement. Like, really early. Around thirty-seven.
This means I have about seven years to go. It means that I need to get moving if I want to stop working a traditional 9-5 job within the next seven years. Is this even possible? I'm trying to find out by doing some extensive online and offline research. There seems to be a lot out there about women and their relationship with money, and how women need to take more control because they traditionally have left that role up to their husbands, employers, pet cats.
I'm thinking there are a few things that need to happen for me to do this:
1) I need to organize my finances in such a way that I can anticipate what my needs will be over the next seven years and beyond, so I can account for those.
That's a long winded way of saying I need a plan.
This plan needs to show me what success looks like, and break success down into little steps to make it work.
2) I say I don't want to work in a traditional nine-to-five job, but that doesn't mean I don't want to work at all. There's a lot of talk about people 'finding something they are passionate about and getting paid to do it'. People say if I do this, "I'll never work another day in my life". So far I haven't found a job eating gummi bears for a living, so I'm either going to have to keep searching for that niche, niche job.... Or, I need to find a way of getting some passive income flowing my way. See point 1 - planning.
3) Figure out if this is really what I want to do. I put this last, because I'm sure I can change my mind along the way. I think that's something a lot of people think they can't do. This is why people stay in crappy jobs, failing relationships, etc.
So just three easy steps to getting what I want. Now to begin.
