Early Retirement

[thaifarang]

I work as a freelancer, as a digital nomad .

Yes that is the ideal solution. There are however 2 requirements:
1) You need to possess the type of skills which allow it (not all jobs are suitable for working from home via a pc)
2) More important: you need to be able to handle the insecurity which comes from it. I mean if you are a freelancer there is constant pressure to look for new customers/assignments when your current assignment ends. You also need to manage your relationships with previous customers - to keep the bond warm - so they will think about you next time they need someone for an assignment.

The advantage of being an employee is you don't have these kind of stresses. You know next month comes my salary and it is the same as previous month. You know if I am sick for 2 weeks I will still get paid. As a freelancer there can not be an income next month (or a very low one) if you fail to find an assignment that month. It is not suitable for everyone. Your personality must be made for it.

[windwalker]

thaifarang, as undaunted previously posted, looks liked you are fucked.

[thaifarang]

thaifarang, as undaunted previously posted, looks liked you are fucked.

Absolutely not. Around age 58 I will sell my house. Which gives me at least 8 yearly salaries. Enough to survive till legal retirement age and I can live as a prince in Thailand.

Further if I start saving now, I can save for even a few extra years. Say I save now 300 EUR every month. I think retirement at 55 is then possible (provided I sell my house).

If I also have an inheritance (I am not an orphan yet) before that time I can retire maybe already 53, 52.

But I can even already retire NEXT MONTH. If I am lucky and get a minor back injury (which doesnt hamper me much, certainly not when sex is involved) which makes it believable for a physician to trigger him signing a paper saying the injury follows the legal requirements for work disability social seucrity, I will move to Thailand and will be able to live very well on that social security income. I will be far from the only expat living in Thailand on social security (I looked it up: 7.2% of working age people in the Netherlands receive social security because of a work disability).

[Captain Kirk]

There's plenty of folk in the UK today who retired from all work as soon as they left school, if they even went there in the first place.

[Jun]

There's plenty of folk in the UK today who retired from all work as soon as they left school, if they even went there in the first place.

Unfortunately our socialist security system taxes the productive people and redistributes too much of our money to bone idle people who never have any intention of working. Before the government put our pension age up to 67, they should have done something to get all those idle bastards to pay their own way. It's a bit of a cheek asking some people to work well over 40 years, whilst paying others to never work.

Anyhow, if you want to stop working and live off money saved up yourself, I think that's perfectly OK morally. Unlike sponging off the state for life.

[loke]

You are confusing getting a pension with retiring.

No I am not confused , I am aware of pensions vs early retirement.

But how many Americans can save money and have an early retirement at the age of 50 ? I would say maybe 5% of the population in that age group ? I mean in my country very few have the opportunity to do this and I would imagine it is the same all over the western world.

So my point is that the people that can choose to do the early retirement in their 40's or 50's are an exclusive group of people.

[Gaybutton]

people that can choose to do the early retirement in their 40's or 50's are an exclusive group of people.

I'm happy to be one of them. I don't know about the way it works in other countries, but in the USA you have to be at least 62 years old to be eligible for a smaller retirement Social Security benefit or opt to wait until age 65 for the full benefit. I don't see it as taxpayers supporting me. I, along with every tax paying American citizen, paid into it all their lives. I also paid into Medicare all my life, but I get nothing from it at all. It is useless outside of the USA.

As for retirement pensions, it depends on the policies of the job you hold. Many jobs are just like mine - you're entitled to the full pension after you've worked 30 years no matter what your age is.

I get my retirement pension benefit every month. Three days later I get my Social Security benefit. I get a guaranteed 3% pension raise every year. Social Security raises don't happen very often.

People living under the same kind of retirement benefit are not an exclusive group. Many Americans get retirement benefits just as I do. If I had made lucrative investments all my life along with it, as Jun suggests, I would have even more.

My only complaint is even under retirement I still lose a lot of money to taxes. Oh well, can't have everything . . .

[thaifarang]

There's plenty of folk in the UK today who retired from all work as soon as they left school, if they even went there in the first place.

But still there are obligations. Like proving you are looking for a job. Only with a work disability there is no obligation (besides the one time proof you are disabled enough for work). Only with the last one it is possible to retire to Thailand, with the other one you need to stay in the Netherlands and prove you do your best looking for work. How is that in UK?

[Jogger]

There's plenty of folk in the UK today who retired from all work as soon as they left school, if they even went there in the first place.

Unfortunately our socialist security system taxes the productive people and redistributes too much of our money to bone idle people who never have any intention of working. Before the government put our pension age up to 67, they should have done something to get all those idle bastards to pay their own way. It's a bit of a cheek asking some people to work well over 40 years, whilst paying others to never work.

Anyhow, if you want to stop working and live off money saved up yourself, I think that's perfectly OK morally. Unlike sponging off the state for life.

How right u are about the bone idles in the UK. Our taxes go to provide them with everything. These cockroaches also get free social housing, decent education and a NHS service which they use to the limit and they pay nothing.
Often the worst abusers of the system are muslims who actually hate the UK and would have all gays executed.

[thaifarang]

You are confusing getting a pension with retiring.

So my point is that the people that can choose to do the early retirement in their 40's or 50's are an exclusive group of people.

Has also been my point throughout this thread.

I suspect the many younger expats in Thailand, 40s, very early 50s live there on social security. They will say 'I am a freelancer', 'I am a digital nomad', 'I live from my blog' but for some (of course not all) when I see them it is very hard to believe. For once: living from your blog is as good as impossible for 99.9999999% of all blogs out there. Very untrustworthy if someone gives this as reason to me. Just my personal view. Intuition. Not scientific proof.