Attaining financial independence and retiring early (FIRE) may not be as exciting at it sounds. Friends of my age, especially ladies, have been talking about it for years but still working until today. I know someone in particular who decided to retire early at the age of 54 but returned to work in less than a year and still working today beyond the age of 60. It has been exactly two years today since I opted for early retirement in July 2023 at the age of 46. Things have been great so far. Given a second chance, I would still choose to retire early. How did I survive? Here are two tips from me.
First and most important of all, you have to have adequate savings to support your lifestyle post retirement. This is of course not something that you start working on a few months of even a few years before retirement. It has to be way earlier. In my case, I started working with early retirement in mind. So I plan and tailor everything accordingly. Savings, lifestyle, loan tenures et cetera. The key is to live moderately below your means. Not to the point of starvation of course. We travel a lot and dine out quite often. We could have done more, but we don’t. That’s the point.
Secondly is to find ways to keep yourself occupied each day. Your mind and body are so used to doing full time job for years and it is not a good idea to suddenly stop everything, though it may sound pleasing. This is the time for you to do all the things that you like and are passionate about, but never get the chance to do because of you were busy with work. Your brain and body need to keep moving. For me, I occupy myself with two things in particular, gardening and investing.
Since most of my investment instruments are based in Malaysia, my days start as early as 3.30 a.m. when funds like Versa and Wahed update their prices, and KLSE pre-opens. I usually get up at 3.00 a.m. for Subuh prayer, depending on the season. Subuh prayer time ranges from 3.30 a.m. to 5.30 a.m. throughout the year here. Between 4.30 a.m. and 6.30 a.m. I’ll be busy preparing husband & daughter for work & school respectively, ironing clothes, cooking breakfast and all. I will resume monitoring investments from around 6.30 a.m. after the leave, until 7.30 a.m. when the market takes afternoon break. Funding Societies and CapBay also usually publish new investment opportunities after and around 7 a.m. as well as crediting any principals and/or profits returned.
During the market break from 7.30 a.m. to 9.30 a.m., I will tend to my plants, wash clothes, which is not done daily and defrosting the necessary to prepare for lunch. Stock market here starts at 10 a.m. At 11 a.m., I will battle for Funding Societies investment opportunities if there are any, and also check on new opportunities that will start at 3 p.m. (8 p.m. MYT). When KLSE ends at 11.45 a.m., it’s time for me to go to the kitchen and start cooking for lunch, which will usually last until after 1 p.m. That will be the time for me to check on the last batch of investment opportunities from Funding Societies that will open at 5 p.m.
At 1.50 p.m. I leave home to pick up daughter from school. While waiting for her in the car, I will check on the performance of Halogen funds, which update at 2 p.m. every weekday. At 3 p.m. and 5 p.m., I will battle for investment opportunities at Funding Societies, if there are any of interest. Throughout the day too, I will check on the performance of various unit trust funds and foreign currencies that update at different times. Stock market here ends at 3 p.m. After 7 p.m., I will check on the investment instruments in Malaysia that give daily returns. Five hours later, often in my dream, I will check on the similar investment instruments here. Then the next day repeats …
