Early Abdication
So, you want to retire early, huh?
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Or really, you don’t want to have to work in order to live. If you’ve seen my earlier post, you know that ‘retirement’ is kind of a bad word. I can feel your eyes becoming glassy as I mention it. Nursing homes and cream of wheat are filling your vision.
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Wealth Managers everywhere should be running focus groups to find a suitable replacement. I’m going to use the word ‘abdication,’ because we’re all Kings and Queens (slay!) or so I’ve heard. From now on, We will also be using the ‘Royal We.’
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After presiding over a lucrative (and hopefully short) career We abdicate Our thrones to some ex-FAANG SEC grad and gaze serenely down upon the poor chap as he wrestles with the vicissitudes of Our former job.
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How did We arrive here?
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Indeed, We can Manifest this reality all We like, but We’ll soon find that the path to early abdication is not as straightforward as that.
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Imagine, for a moment, what the finances of an early abdicator might look like. We notice some patterns emerging.
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1)??? We have moved to Thailand. Every 1 of Our greenbacks is worth 36 of their Bahts and Our plate of Drunken Noodles only cost Us $3. They were the best Drunken Noodles We’ve ever had. Thai is a more difficult language to learn than We thought.
2)??? We have inherited money. We lie to our friends and co-workers so We aren’t bullied as much.
3)??? We have won the lottery. We immediately head to the local golf course, expecting a perfect, 18 stroke game. After a triple-bogey on the first hole, we are struck by lightning.
4)??? Our start-up is growing quickly because of something Our business partner calls ‘leverage.’ He refuses to say it like Jack Sparrow in Pirate of the Caribbean no matter how much We ask. We decide that visiting Porto sounds better than being CTO one moment longer and decide to cash out. We have fun in Porto, richly.
5)??? Our stock options which We got as part of our compensation package so that the company could save its liquidity, have defied all expectations and significantly increased in value. We decide to sell them because We know how this company is run and that is WAY too high of a valuation.
6)??? We have used Our income to build additional streams of income. Those Buzzfeed articles lied. There was NOTHING passive about buying and managing rental properties but those monthly bank statements kind of make up for it.
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We think that some of these things are more likely to happen than others. Some are completely dependent on luck or circumstance. Others require active effort on Our part.
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Abdication requires Us reaching a certain dollar amount through savings and investments (this amount is lower if We decide to move to Thailand.) We will arrive at this number in one lucky swoop, or, far more likely, consistently and deliberately.
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Either way, certain things will stay true. Our magic number increases by the day, thanks to inflation. The earlier We start, the earlier We can abdicate.
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What is your number, Your Highness? Captain Jack would tell you the beaches on St. Lucia are splendid.