Move Your Body

A good early retirement strategy is built on maximizing three aspects: Income, expenses, and savings.

To build your early retirement strategy, you need to determine your retire early or financial independence (FI) number. It is the amount of money you need for work to become optional. Be aware that the number will (and should) change as you change, and your desired lifestyle evolves.

Based on a series of papers known as the Trinity Studies, you need to save 25-30 times your expected annual expenses to have enough money to last you for the rest of your life.

This multiple is based on the percentage of your investment growth that you would be able to withdraw per year. A safe early retirement withdrawal percentage is between 3%-4%.

Difficult decisions are mostly about weighing the long and short term values. Making objective decisions is difficult because we are biased towards short-term rewards and pre-existing beliefs.

Ask yourself, knowing what you know now, is there anything you are doing today that you wouldn't do again if you were able to?  

Be willing to stop doing what no longer works. Sometimes it is best to cut your losses and try something else. Be prepared to take risks and understand the potential failure that goes with a new course of action.

Acquire relevant skills, experience or industry knowledge necessary and ensure you have the passion and competence for what you are going to work on.

A good start is to monetize the skills you already have that are related to the side hustle you want to establish this. And if you lack key skills that relate to your interests or the side hustle you want to create, there's no better time than the present to learn them. 

Your side hustle idea may seem awesome and disruptive to you, but your potential customers will likely ignore it like most “brilliant ideas” or even not have a need for it. So, ensure you're not creating a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, as this is one of the top causes of startup failures.

You can do that with objective feedback from potential customers and asking them to join a waiting list, pre-purchase your solution or hire you as a service provider. 

People who have high self-control aren’t missing out on enjoyment. Not being able to resist temptation and enjoying life are not the same things.

They tend to eat in a healthily way, exercise more, sleep better, drink less alcohol, smoke fewer cigarettes, achieve higher grades at university, have more peaceful relationships, and are more financially secure.

Research showed that self-control is ultimately limited by our biology. We can’t exercise effortful self-control indefinitely – the brain has to do regular maintenance to remain functional.

Bad investing advice can come from many quarters, such as wealth expos or financial advisors. If anyone promises you any type of return over 12%, 99% of the time, they are probably playing you.

There are great financial advisors out there, but many people who sell investment products just want your money. However, it's not that hard to invest for yourself.

1. Never buy a financial or investing product from someone you just met.
2. Getting returns over 12% per year is ridiculously hard. If it sounds too good to be true, it is.
3. If you don't understand it, don't invest in it.
4. If one of your friends recommends an investment that's making them a lot of money, they are probably suckers too. If you see the "results not typical" on any marketing materials, move on.
5. There are no "secrets of the super-wealthy" that anyone will sell you for $500 or that you can take advantage of unless you have hundreds of thousands of dollars.