People living on savings to retire early

Alan and Katie are part of a small but growing international movement called “Financially Independent, Retire Early”.

From a concept introduced 15 years ago, there are now nearly a million members of a major firefighting discussion board on the social media site Reddit, and major financial institutions have now published several guidelines on the topic.

The central idea is to be extremely frugal during your working life, so that you can retire as soon as possible.

For most of us, being able to end working life early is just a dream. From our current high cost of living, to high property values ​​and student debt, we will do without much of a dent. Statistics back this up.

Last year, the average retirement age in the UK was a record high of 65.8 for men and 64.7 for women. Shown public information., External

The same is true in the US, where the average retirement age for men and women has been rising steadily since the 1990s, reaching 64.8 and 63.3 respectively by 2025. A longitudinal study., External

But fire worshipers like 49-year-old Amy Minkley are committed to their cause. An American middle school teacher was able to retire at the age of 44.

To achieve this, she worked at international, private schools in Japan, Singapore, India and Thailand, where Minkley said she was able to make more money and have a much lower cost of living in Texas than in her home country.

She spent as little as possible. “I wasn’t interested in following a certain foreign lifestyle,” Minkley says.

“I didn’t buy expensive clothes, I kept my electronics until they ran out, I cooked mostly in the restaurant, and I stopped before I bought anything important.

“Having a roommate while living in Singapore and India allowed me to save more, and I didn’t need a car in many countries, which kept my expenses down.”

Minkley now lives in Bali, where her retirement income is greater than if she had moved to America.