SeekingSecurity wrote: Mon Sep 01, 2025 5:10 pm
My spouse retired from a stressful position five years ago when he was 53 (I was 49). I love my job and will continue to work for probably another four years. My salary and health insurance cover our needs, so our situation is a little different from yours.I will say this: five years into early retirement for my spouse and we have zero regreats. Life is so much easier without the stress of a bad work environment. Plus, there are all kinds of other benefits to having one spouse with such a flexible schedule.
1. He gave up a full-time salary and good benefits. We knew that keeping that income coming in for another 9 years (our target retirement date) would substantially boost both our discretionary income and our retirement savings. But we also knew we had enough (more than enough, really) without that extra income. Being miserable just wasn’t worth it to have even-more-than-enough.
2. It felt like an immediate, enormous relief. It still feels that way five years later.
3. We ran the numbers about a million times until that nagging voice finally gave up!
4. Have some ideas about how you want to spend your time. My spouse has a great hobby. He’s also taken over the lion’s share of the household maintenance time tasks.
5. We were pleasantly surprised at some expenses that came down after he retired. We were clearly eating out because we didn’t have enough time to cook more than we realized. And, our health has improved (both of us!) because we are eating so much more healthfully.
Thank you for sharing your experience, I hope you understand how helpful information like this is!!
This sounds like our family only with the roles reversed. I won’t say that he loves his job, but he doesn’t hate it, it pays well, and the benefits are wonderful.
I’m so glad to hear that his decision to retire early is working out so well for you both.
I can totally understand running the numbers over and over, I’m still doing that
I’m starting to let myself think about what my days will look like if I’m not working. I’d like to put some more time into my side hobby so we can continue to vacation the way we have the last few years. There are also so many things in our house that need organizing, purging, or deep cleaning. We may look at moving closer to our daughters school at some point (it’s in a great college town with lots going on), and this would involve downsizing quite a bit in order to remain within our budget. Lots of stuff we’d need to get rid of.
I’m so happy to hear that you also noticed expenses like eating out went down. This is a major focus area for me and I really think it’s lack of time that is driving up the costs. We really don’t love eating out that much (except on vacation), it’s just easier when there’s no food in the house or no time to cook. I also know we could and should eat much healthier. At home we won’t pile on the salt and sauces as much as restaurants do and that alone would improve our diet.
Thank you again for sharing your experiences, this is so incredibly helpful as I finalize my decision and plan out what’s next.
