Getting Ready To Retire Early And Travel

Countdown To Early Retirement

It was only a few years ago that we used to be stressed-out expats working in Singapore. We were very busy climbing the corporate ladder and having very little personal time and telling ourselves that that’s just how life is. 

Instead of changing our situation, we used to spend a lot of money on fancy dinners and vacations trying to make ourselves feel better. We also spent a lot of weekends wishing that life could somehow be different. Then it would be Monday and the whole cycle would begin again. 

And now here we are today. Everything we own is in a couple of suitcases. We’re based in a new city every month and we’re living out our dream of traveling the world slowly. 

Obviously a lot happened between then and now. We didn’t just wake up one morning, quit our jobs and head off for a life of adventure. There were a lot of steps over a two year period that got us closer to our big goal. 

Two years

The countdown to early retirement and a life oftravel starts at the two year mark. This was when we first discovered the concept of financial independence and early retirement.

Although that’s not exactly true. Early retirement was something that Gillian had been thinking about for many years, ever since the first day at her first job when she sat behind a desk and thought: I can’t do this for the rest of my life. 

She understood the concept behind financial independence, meaning at a certain point, the returns from investments would be enough to fund living expenses. However it wasn’t until she stumbled upon the FIRE movement and all the online communities around it that she realized it could be something more than a fantasy.

Of course, I had never heard of such a ludicrous thing as retiring early.

I just assumed that everyone worked as long as possible because that’s how things are done. I certainly planned to keep climbing the corporate ladder as long as possible. Unfortunately or fortunately, I eventually burnt out and, at that two year mark, I was ready to finally have a conversation with Gillian about this financial independence concept she had been going on about. 

With both of us on board, we started educating ourselves about FIRE concepts. And by educate, I mean that we binged for months and months on blogs and vlogs and podcasts.

Once we had a better understanding of the concepts, we realized we were in a good position to achieve financial independence really soon, in fact in just two years. This is thanks to our lifetime savings habit and a solid base of investments. It didn’t hurt that we were working in Singapore, where the personal tax rate is extremely low. We talked about this more in a recent video about what we did right on the path to financial independence. 

The two year mark was a time when we were focused on calculating our target financial independence amount. This is the amount where the returns on our investments would cover our living expenses on an ongoing basis. 

We were also trying to understand how much our living expenses would actually be in early retirement. We started tracking our expenses for the first time ever and discovering that our lifestyle had a lot of fat that could be trimmed. For example, we were living in an expensive condo with a second bedroom that we never used. We could instantly save $900 USD a month just by downsizing. 

One year

One year before early retirement is when our dreams really started to take shape. We knew we wanted to travel during the first few years of early retirement but…where would we go, how long would we be there, how much would it cost? We spent our evenings and weekends reading travel guides and discovering a whole new world of blogs and vlogs and podcasts. 

After six years in Asia, we knew we wanted Europe to be the first stop on our world travels. So we spent hours researching routes on Rome to Rio and Google Flights…we compared cost of living for different cities on Numbeo…we looked at monthly rentals on Airbnb.

All of this was to come up realistic plans and budgets for our dream lifestyle of slow travel. And our research paid off; we were feeling confident about our financial independence number and knew that we could make our dream a reality. 

Six months

At six months before the launch of our new lives, it was time to get into the practical details for life on the road. This was when we decided on which health insurance to buy, which travel gear we needed, what bank accounts had the lowest international ATM fees. We also selected a mail forwarding service and got global SIM cards. 

Of course, we also needed to book our travel. Nowadays we like to keep our travel flexible and not plan too far ahead. But at that time we wanted everything locked down in advance so at this point we also booked our plane tickets and Airbnbs. 

Finally we took this as a good opportunity to get our affairs in order. We updated our wills and power of attorney. 

Two months

Now with just a couple months to go, the pace really accelerated. We gave our notice at work and turned most of our attention to downsizing a lifetime of possessions that we had accumulated. Some personal effects like photo albums and momentos we decided to ship back to Canada where they could be kept for the long term. But most things had to go. 

We used a local marketplace app called Carousell and sold 200 items, everything from our cabinet and coffee table to measuring cups and mixing bowls. During this time, our lunch breaks, evenings and weekends were spent meeting up with buyers and trying to find a home for all our belongings. 

One week

At the one week mark, we were down to the wire. This was the time to say goodbye to our colleagues and all the friends that we had made in Singapore. It was also when our remaining furniture disappeared: one day no more chairs, another no sofa until finally our bed was gone.

One day

We had one full day left in Singapore, with our flight to Poland scheduled for midnight. This was when we finally tried to fit everything in our suitcases and discovered that we still had too much stuff. Some tense negotiations followed about what to keep and what to toss but we were ultimately able to get within the maximum weight allowance for our flight. The lesson here is not to wait until the night of the big flight to weigh your luggage. 

Finally, after two years of planning and preparation, what’s the one thing that we didn’t do that we wish we had?

When we headed off for our new life of early retirement and long term travel, we didn’t know anyone in the fire community. Sure we had been reading a ton of blogs and listening to podcasts but we weren’t active members in any forums. 

We waited until we were actually on the road before starting our YouTube channel and connecting with others. This meant that our first months on the road were a little quieter than we would prefer. We would encourage anyone thinking of this path to take the time to find your tribe in advance and build connections in community.