Early retirement? Scary? anyone else done it?

[Mr Bump]

I left school at the age of 15 and started a 6 year apprenticeship. During those 6 years, I watched so many 'old boys', retire at 65 and drop dead within 12 mths, that it had a profound effect on me. - I promised myself that I would work hard and retire by the time I was 50.......

.......Twenty years ago, I did retire at the age of 50 and moved here to the Dordogne in S W France.......I only have one regret........should have done it earlier!

Life is too short and the older we get, the quicker it goes and the less we are able to enjoy it!

funny you say that if it hadn't been for covid i would have been retired at 53 i just couldn't get the pension stacked so it through me up the line by 18months

 

[munch]

As we are all different, the effects when we retire are all different. I retired when I was 55 and personally I am loving it. The health issues my wife had coming up to retirement an now would have happened regardless of me working or not. But being retired means I can "be there" for her. I a certain in my own mind if I had carried on working, work would have killed me.