La retraite à 40 ans ("Retirement at 40")

You have to admit that it sounds like a dream. At 40, our professional life is over. We have every day off and we're still in great shape. You may have children, and you can watch them grow up as much as you want. In fact, you can literally do whatever you want for the rest of your life.

This book promises to teach us how to make this dream more attainable than it seems. Because you don't have to earn a huge salary or stumble upon a gold mine to achieve financial freedom faster than anyone else.

The game plan

In fact, it couldn't be easier. First of all, you have to set a goal based on our expenses and not on our income. The best thing is to make a modest budget, so that financial freedom will be easier to reach. Then, we do a simple multiplication: if we look at the historical average, we can reasonably expect to get a 4% return on our investments. So, the amount necessary for our financial independence is equivalent to our annual expenses multiplied by 25. If we live on $25,000 a year, we will be free when we have raised $625,000. If we make $50,000 a year and save the rest of our income, we are potentially 16.6 years away from retirement.

That's it. Simple as that.

To reach this amount, we must become a pro at frugality and invest all our savings in the stock market or in real estate. The book explains how to do all this. The more the amount invested increases, the more profitable it is, and it creates a snowball effect. This is what allowed the author, who originally planned to retire at 45, to finally retire 6 years earlier.

Impressions

This reading made me dream. I never thought it was that simple, and I saw my horizons open. Also, I like the idea of under-consuming and making the capitalist system work for me and not the other way around.

So I seriously asked myself: is this the path I want to take? I am 25 years old, I am not ready to finish my studies, and I am excited about my future career. I don't feel like in 10 or 15 years I'll have done it all (or saved enough). So do I want to put a lot of my energy into finding deals and avoid anything that is not essential? I think not.

But I can still do some pretty basic things, like educate myself a bit, rethink my priorities, budget my money, put my savings in, live simply. It would certainly allow me to stop working sooner if I wanted to. And most importantly, it would allow me to feel free.

I highly recommend this book, even if, like me, retiring early is not your biggest dream. The sense of freedom it gives us is worth it. It reminds us that we are in control of our future and encourages us to think outside the box. Working is optional, and everyone deserves to know that.