Hahaha. Btw, BH min age is 45 and $4M + 2 bend curve beating SS projections. Plus factoring my kids second marriage costs
I like the conservative nature of the forum as it helped during the grinding/messy middle years.
La I envy you OP. You are living the dream in a great part of the world. Must be fun! Tell us how you spend your time ?
langelgjm wrote: Thu Sep 04, 2025 2:17 pm
OP, the Boglehead retirement plan has a minimum age of 40 and a minimum net worth of 3 million (excluding home equity). And that only applies in places you wouldn’t want to retire.Jokes aside, my spouse and I are in our 40s, with two young kids. I finished my PhD at 29, left academia and spent the next 7 years in tech, left tech and became a diplomat, left that after a few years and moved to France. For Bogleheads and parents I say we’re on an “indefinite sabbatical,” for everyone else I mumble something about contracting for former employers.
I’ll just offer some broad observations:
When I was 33, I took a 5 month sabbatical from my job. I was burned out after a rough project. I taught English part time in South America on my own; my spouse stayed in the US and continued working. Fellow teachers came from all walks of life, including a couple that retired early from corporate life to travel, and now live full time in Mexico; recent college grads heading to graduate school; and lost souls who seemed to just be stringing together volunteer stints that offered them room and board. It was a great experience for me, and allowed me to come back to my job and stay with it for a few more years, which eventually led me to an even better job.
Most Bogleheads tend to be quite traditional/conservative, and happy to work a typical, full-length career. So many posters on early retirement threads can’t understand “what will you do all day”, etc. For us, at least, between young kids, new house, establishing life in a new country, spouse and kids learning a new language, making new friends and exploring, finally getting to projects that have been put off for years, there’s never enough time in a day.
Most Americans have no experience with substantially lower COL (for Americans) afforded by living outside the US. So when you talk about living on $2k a month in Spain, people think about what it would be like to live on $2k a month in the US. But outside of a handful of places, much of the world where you’d want to retire offers substantially less expensive housing, healthcare, and education, with quality that is competitive with US offerings. Fuel may cost $7/gallon but that’s more than offset by the thousands in savings on health insurance (plus cars are more fuel efficient and people drive less).
My dad’s death a few years ago caused me to reevaluate what I wanted out of life and try to make some more direct progress rather than just gliding along. My spouse and I also realized that in the not too-distant future, caring for our remaining parents may mean we need to come back to the US, so continually putting off plans to leave the US may mean that it never happens.
The New York Times just had an article about a finance guy who left his lucrative career at 41 to become a paramedic; he’s now one of the most highly-regarded emergency medical personnel in the FDNY. If he posted his plan here, Bogleheads would have given him some serious pushback (though some posters probably would have encouraged him to go for it!). The point being, you can afford to step back for a while, pursue something different, and if you change your mind, figure something else out.
Good luck!
