On my travels

I came across a blog which is rather interesting. http://earlyretirementextreme.com/

I am currently wading through the bowels of their archives, but even way back then it contained some thought-provoking things, like alerting me to the existence of retirement calculators. And if you find a decent one it can tell you when you can afford to retire.

Now basing it on my current income levels is kind of laughable because I am actually supported quite a bit by my husband's wage. So for the purposes of research for you, dear reader, I based it on my income alone. And I found, to my surprise, that based on what I (alone) bring in from my unemployment benefit and part time hobby-job, that if I continue to save as I do now (50%-ish), I will have saved enough to retire when I am 54 and will have that income streaming in until I am 90, provided I'm content with three-quarters as much cash each month once I retire.

For context, my income is approximately the amount of income that the Finnish government considers the bare minimum to survive and which it demands of EU immigrants coming here (unemployment benefit pays half of the "survival" amount).

Those who earn even an average wage, I cannot imagine why they shouldn't be able to save far more and retire even faster. Actually I can, but it has to do with spending on things that will slow down retirement horribly.

For those who are interested to see their own numbers in action, here's the calculator I used.

https://www.calcxml.com/do/ret31?ctry=ca