8 Reasons We Love Early Retirement

Why It’s Better Than Working

After spending a couple decades working corporate jobs, we took the plunge and retired early last year. We went from toughing it out in high stress corporate jobs to a life that is totally different.

Back in our working lives, we had a highly regimented existence of getting up at the ridiculously early hour of 4:45am, going to the gym, getting to the office by 8:30am, plugging away all day and then repeating the whole cycle over again the next day. It felt like we had barely any personal time or even a chance to catch our breath.

Contrast that with our life today. We’re financially independent, free from working at corporate jobs and spending our time slow traveling the world. 

There are a multitude of reasons why early retirement is so much better than working full time, starting with…

No Sunday blues

This was something we miss the least about working for a living: Sunday blues, that sad feeling because the weekend is ending and Monday is coming up fast. 

We really struggled with Sunday blues every weekend because we had so little personal time while we were working. In fact, Sunday became my most dreaded day of the week because I knew that every hour that ticked by brought me that much closer to Monday morning. It was also the day where we spent most of it doing chores in preparation for the week ahead.

Now that we’re retired, we no longer need to feel sad because the weekend is ending. In fact, most of the time we don’t even know what day of the week it is; there’s no concept of a weekend anymore. We fill our days with things we enjoy so there’s no need to countdown to Mondays anymore. 

No boss

Along with not missing Monday mornings at the office, we also won’t miss having a boss or even being a boss and managing other people. 

For our entire working lives, we always had to both report to someone and also manage teams to deliver results. This meant that we spent every workday getting pushed and pulled in all directions. 

I always wanted to be the boss and manage a team because I thought it was a necessary part of climbing the corporate ladder. But as I progressed in my career and spent more time with the people at the top of the ladder, I realized that they were the most stressed out, unhealthy people in the entire company. 

Now that we’re retired, we relish the feeling of autonomy. We are free to make our own decisions and don’t need anyone else’s stamp of approval. We’re also free to carry out our own plans and don’t need to hand off to a team to do it for us. 

No more vacation days

When we were working, the only thing that got us through the weeks of work was counting down the days until our next vacation. In fact, at the beginning of each year, we would note all the available days and then carefully ration them out throughout the year.

When our vacation days got closer, we would work more and more frantically so we could take a week or two away from the office. Then when our vacation started we would have to magically turn off our stress and pretend that our jobs didn’t exist. And try not to look at our email or think about what would be facing us when we got back to the office.

The saddest thing is that sometimes I would even question whether it was worth taking time away from the office  because of the extra stress before and after. 

Obviously we don’t have any need for vacation days anymore. Since we choose how we live and what we do with our time, we don’t need vacations from our everyday life to relieve our stress. Essentially everyday can be a vacation day and we can spend it as we choose. 

No job insecurity

During our working days, we never knew when our companies would need to restructure or downsize. Even when a company seems to be doing well, you never know when the person beside you might not be there the next day, or maybe it’s you who is suddenly unemployed. 

Becoming financially independent means that our livelihood is no longer in someone else’s hands. We don’t need to spend our days and nights worrying about proving our worth to a company that might not need us next quarter. 

Those were a lot of nos…no Sunday blues, no boss, no job insecurity. Of course, early retirement also comes with a lot of yeses. 

Freedom

Being financially independent and early retired means that we can design our lives anyway we want. We can choose where we live and how we spend our time.

Freedom applies to so many aspects of our lives right now, from what time we wake up in the morning to what projects we work on to where we live in the world. 

A perfect example is how we’re doing our travel planning right now. When we’re planning where to go next, we literally pull out a map of the world and imagine all the possibilities. We’re free to decide where we want to go. 

Variety

We found it really soul crushing to be following the exact same routine day in and day out for years. Show up at the office, plow through emails, sit through endless meetings and keep doing it day after day. Even weekends start to look the same after a while. Our whole lives were ruled by the workweek rhythm. 

Now no two days look exactly the same. Each new city we visit brings something new and exciting to our lives. There’s always a new culture to discover, new food to try, new landscapes to explore. And after we’ve had a month to soak our surroundings, we move onto a new city and a whole new set of experiences to enjoy.

Active lifestyle

Another reason that being retired is so much better than working a corporate job is that it allows for a much more active lifestyle. We used to be stuck in an office, spending the whole day sitting, whether it was behind a desk or in a meeting. 

My only relief was to take 10 minutes each day to go outside and do walking laps around the building. It was my only opportunity to breath a little fresh air and reenergise myself. 

Now we’re as active as we want to be. Some days we go on a big hike up the nearest mountain; other days we take long walks through town. Either way, we’re never stuck inside for long. We’ve said goodbye to those long days being hunched over our computers under fluorescent lighting.  

Those are a lot of things to love about early retirement. There’s also one thing we don’t like, which is answering the question: what do you do for a living? 

Maybe it’s because we’re so new to early retirement. We feel really awkward explaining ourselves when we get asked this question. It comes up quite frequently with our Airbnb hosts as they wonder how it is we manage to travel full time. 

More often than not, we just say we work online. It’s a little easier than trying to explain the concept of financial independence and the 4% rule.