It's very easy to quit your job and achieve early retirement, you just need to reject most social norms and conventions. If you do so, it is possible to retire in your early 50s, even if you're an average income earner!
The contents of this handy guide on how to be free are as follows:
Chapter one presents an overview of the mainly U.S. Based Extreme Early Retirement (ERE) 'Movement', which includes a summary of Jacob Lund Fisker's excellent book Early Retirement Extreme, and an outline of some UK based individuals who are aiming for early-retirement.
Chapter two presents a statistical critique of the ordinary life of the everyday worker-consumer. This is done through comparing a statistically-averaged individual who spends the UK average across a range of categories with a hypothetical construction I call the frugal-consumer who spends as little as possible without completely cutting themselves off from society. I imagine a scenario where both individuals are 35 and earning the national average wage, and demonstrate that the expenditure levels of the former 'average-consumer' effectively tie them into working for a further 33 years, or until the current projected standard retirement age of 67-8, while the later 'frugal-consumer', assuming they maintain their frugal level of consumption, will be able to retire when they are 52, or 14 years earlier than average-consumer earning the same wage.
Chapter three offers some simple strategies for consuming less across each of the main expenditure strategies and suggests some alternative pathways through life which are less money-dependent.
Chapter four provides an outline of my own early retirement strategy – which consist of working until I am 48-52, at which point my mortgage should be paid off, when I intend to become a hob-capitalist and travel for 8-12 years living off the rental-income from my flat, until my pension kicks in at 60 when I will use accrued savings to buy some land and build my own personal, highly individualised ecotopia.
