How To Retire At Fifty.

In a word: you shouldn't. I did and it was stupid. I retired at fifty and did all the things that people dream of doing at an early retirement. I am happy to report, five years later, that all you really need to do at 50 is take a year off, down shift, regroup and then go back to work. No matter how much money I amassed in savings and investments, the money could not keep up with rising costs and inflation. Plus, I was bored to tears! Here's the list of what I did after I told my boss adios:

1. Stayed up late and slept late. Wasted my days.
2. Bought an RV, traveled up and down the eastern seaboard and parked at every major beach from Maine to Key West. Yawn. (sold RV for an $8000 loss) Double yawn.
3. Started a catering/service business with my 47 year old girlfriend. Learned the business first by working 6 months for a top notch caterer. After 14 weddings and countless grueling hours discovered that partners (in business) are only good for dancing. Closed business after 9 months.
4. Attended Lifetime Learning Institute for seniors and attended writing classes. I was the youngest student and listened to countless fellow classmates cry and reminisce about their childhoods.
5. Joined the local Garden Club, was elected their Vice President after only 5 months because they wanted 'young blood' in their membership. Couldn't get a single new event accomplished because most of the members were too old to do anything.
6. Volunteered at the local hospital Assisted Living section. After 8 weeks, quit because all my co-workers came down with pneumonia and I couldn't take the chance to get sick also.
7. Traveled to Paris, France and Milan, Bologna, Florence and Venice, Italy. Travel expenses quickly put me in the poor box.
8. Bought a beach house. Although nice, still requires costly upkeep and maintenance. Portfolio liquidator.
9. Bought a sail boat and found out my arthritis disables me from handling the lines. Another portfolio liquidator.
10. Realized part time work was necessary in order to maintain my new found retirement and spent six months at each of these jobs before going back to my original employer and begging back my old job (at part time hours): insurance data- entry clerk, car wash bookkeeper, non-for-profit budget administrator, newspaper office assistant (after employer told me I reminded him of his mother!)

MORAL OF STORY: don't give up your day job! What you really need at the age of 50 (or 55, 60, 62, 65 etc. etc. etc) is just a sabbatical. All I really needed was to take time off, perhaps a year, then just down shift into a newer role. The notion that you can retire at 50 and go live the good life is pure utter folly! And I had half a mill in the bank! It wasn't enough. Plus, I was too young, too energetic and have so much more life in me to live to quit.

The main thing I did that proved to be the most successful was sell the family home, cash out and down size into a smaller home without a mortgage at the age of fifty. That was the greatest achievement. Without a mortgage, I was able to amass a generous portfolio. Luckily for me, my husband is younger than me, kept on working steadily, so we still have his career salary to sustain us. I had tried to convince him to retire with me but now in retrospect I realize that would have been a fatal error.

After realizing that I needed to go back to work, I went on countless interviews only to be shunned at the interview. I heard things like "You're overqualified" (you're old), "You remind me of my mother" (I'm not hiring my mother!) "You'll never be happy with the pay" (you're old).

Thankfully, my original boss is in his mid 60's and most of his employees are in their mid 50's or high 40's. Age wasn't a concern. Only talent and qualifications are. He is sympathetic to my arthritis flare ups and constant quests for individual personal freedoms. (like my yearly quests to Europe and long weekends at my beach house) So, I am blessed and fortunate to have found an employer who understands the baby-boomer generation.

My life is in perfect balance right now. I have no intention ever of stopping work again. I think the real true secret to early retirement is to find some type of employment you love and work part time till death do you part. It is the only way to keep up with inflation, rising costs and most important, to maintain your brain! Working keeps you young, keeps you involved in the real world and with your fellow man.

And so it goes.