I just did the math on the several dozen early retirees posting their age at retirement on a thread (Class of 2016) from early-retirement.org/forums. The average age was 54.6 years old. This isn’t a surprise, given the name of the website, but I was curious what a group of early retirement enthusiasts would average out to.
As I wrote in my earlier post How Early Is Early Retirement? I would consider anything younger than 60 as “early” – and retiring before 50 as “”incredibly early”. When I plan on retiring on 4/1/16, I’ll be precisely 49.9863 years old – which means my date is two weeks ahead of my fiftieth birthday.
There are a few reasons I have picked this date:
- I like the idea of saying I “retired in my forties”
- It aligns with spring weather
- It is two weeks after bonuses are paid (charitable fund)
- It is a month before my son graduates from HS
- It happens to be April Fools Day. Perfect!
I can’t think of a better date than that!
Image Credit: Pixabay
MrFireStation 
Nice! We’ll be 38 and 41, with an average age of 39.9. That will let us say “we retired by 40,” which makes us happy. 🙂
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Time, youth & freedom are truly the ultimate luxuries!
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Congratulation !
For us, if everything goes as planned, we’ll be somewhere around 40.
Depending on how much breathing room we want in our spending after early retirement.
(And the final size of the familial unit !)
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Forty years old would be amazing! You know what % of people who early retire at that age? … It’s about 1%. A very clever 1%. Good for you!
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This is interesting. I feel too new on the journey to financial freedom to have a good idea of when I’ll be able to retire. I currently doubt my ability to do it before 40 since I’m 32 with just shy of 150k debt. Unless I can change what I am earning.
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Just take it one day at a time. Focus on paying off your debt first, and then saving towards retirement. If you are diligent, it adds up much faster than you think!
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I’m also increasing my earnings potential, which seems like a great addition. Thanks for the encouragement.
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