How to retire at 40

I also found the program a total let down,as for the two lads buying a property in London together to make/save money,no one pointed out what would happen if we have another property boom reversal!
Mind after retiring at nearly 66 i wish i could have done it 10 years earlier.

Ganga wrote: »

I also found the program a total let down,as for the two lads buying a property in London together to make/save money,no one pointed out what would happen if we have another property boom reversal!
Mind after retiring at nearly 66 i wish i could have done it 10 years earlier.

Yes, that property bit was nonsense. If they wanted to show something that fitted with the premise of the program it should have been people with multiple rentals that could live on the rent income.

That is the other common FIRE technique aside from equities that people on the US forums use. Mind you, they have the advantage that there are places in the US that have both a good job market and low-cost property. Not like here in the UK!

I had also heard of the "not spending for 5 days" rule. But the guy who presented that particular subject made out that it was such a hardship; walking for 3 hours to a job interview and then surviving for 2 days on a bit of old bread and veg...the point is that you need to plan.


I reckon they tried to squeeze too much into a single episode, while trying to keep it entertaining! It would have been more useful to commission a 6 part series that could tackle each specific subject area in a single episode...so one episode would focus on high savings rates and what to do with the money, another on rental properties (upside and downside). I also felt that the "taking a risk" portions didn't make sense. So quit your job to do another job? OK fine, but that's not early retirement. They mentioned a statistic about 66% (?) of people setting up their own business, but never mentioned the fact that most startups fail in the first year. I think the show failed because it needed to take itself a bit more seriously, not treat the whole idea of early retirement as some sort of "shhyeah right!" joke.

The presenters drove me crazy, all hype and over the top reactions. I also thought the show content was actually quite poor.

I have retired this year at 56. I have two daughters 28/30 and as per others retiring at 40 would have been a challenge. I would also have missed the last 16 years of the best job I had!

Jerry