I want to retire at 40!

In the course of my stay in the US, I met several working professionals of Indian origin in the 30+/- age group, who want to retire early (40-45) and go home to do nothing ??.

A deeper discussion suggests that beyond a certain age they don’t want a life where they have to continue working hard for money. They would rather create an equity in the first half that handles their routine needs and they can focus on pursuing the passion of their life in the second half.

At the same time, they don’t mean to stay at home – lazy and motionless, but be able to live a life where as one of them put it "purpose of work is not having to earn bills" but to do things which they are passionate about but may have to miss doing in the first half.

World over this trend is catching up so fast that a new term called FIRE has got coined and is doing the rounds among working professionals. FIRE Financial Independence Retire Early. People are now calculating their "FIRE number, which is the amount of money you need to live on for the rest of your life,” says Grant Sabatier the author of “Financial Freedom.”

Knowing and working on your FIRE number helps you retire decades earlier than expected.

My own understanding is that your desire to FIRE up, means that you are looking not for just financial freedom where your passive income exceeds expenses, but also a lifestyle freedom where money is not the reason you do anything, and you don't have to Yes or No to something because of money.

A recent CNBC report talked about the 22-year-old Google employee who wants to retire at 35 with Rs 41 crore (about $5 million) saved. Ethan Ngu learned from his parents that investing money is more valuable than keeping it in a savings account because savings can decrease over time. For people with India in the heart and back of mind, this is so simple to understand. Rs 5 Cr just 10 years back was USD 1 Million, while as today you would need something like Rs. 8-9 Crore to call it a million dollars. Your money just got washed off even after factoring the FD interests and you are back to where you started.

This leads us to the question as to what could be the possible Investment options which will create a passive income to help me FIRE up at 40!

There are several answers, and in the age of the internet, vetting the same is a matter of few minutes of desk research. The challenge in fact would be making the right choice.

In this #FIREUP series of articles I shall be speaking with you of one these options. An option that has the potential to help you FIRE up at 40!

Stay tuned and look forward to the next article in this series here