The Downsides to Retiring Early

We all hear about people who retire early and wish we were in their shoes. Most often it’s an athlete who retires in their early 30s because they’re tired of competing. They’ll take their millions and enjoy the rest of their lives shuttling between Switzerland and the Riviera. Every so often you’ll read about a non-athlete who, through frugal living and saving, will make enough money to retire twenty years earlier than the average American. But while many people may fantasize about leaving the rat race so early, is it really a good idea?

Difficult to Raise a Family

Raising children is expensive. Food, clothing, and education take a lot of time, effort, and money. That’s why many of the early retirees you read about don’t have children. It’s a lot easier to retire if you don’t have children to worry about. But what happens if early retirees decide that they want to start a family? All of a sudden the money they saved for retirement isn’t going to last, and they’ll wish they were back in the workplace earning money.

Wonder If You’re Making an Impact

If you retire young you may begin to wonder about all the what ifs. What if you had stayed in the workplace, where would you be right now? What kind of impact would you be making at a company? What kind of influence would you have in your industry? What could you be doing now to impact people’s lives that you aren’t doing now that you’re retired? Is retirement really where you’re meant to be while you’re still in the prime of your life or is there something better that you could be doing?

Changing Your Mind

Some people may change their minds. After they do some traveling and see new sights and experience new things they’ll realize that retirement doesn’t stimulate them as much as they thought it would. They’ll yearn to get back into the work world and face the challenges that they used to take on. But after taking all that time off, many employers will be reluctant to hire them. Even if their skills remained sharp, who’s to say that they might not re-retire in a few years?

Running Out of Money

The major danger in retiring early is running out of money. Once you’re out of the job market, it’s a lot more difficult to get back in. If you find yourself low on money and the need to find a job, once again, many employers would be skeptical about hiring someone who had been retired for a number of years. They would be worried that you wouldn’t have the skills or the self-discipline to be a productive member of their workforce.

The Importance of Saving

It’s important to work and save as long as you can because the future is uncertain. Nobody ever wishes that they had saved less money. Whether you retire early, late, or at a normal age, saving enough money to live comfortably in retirement is important. Better to save up a nice large nest egg than to squander your money and spend your retirement living hand to mouth.

One of the best ways to ensure that your retirement savings maintain their value over the course of your retirement is through investing in gold. Gold maintains its purchasing power over time and is immune to the vicissitudes that beset other financial assets. In fact, during financial downturns gold very often increases in value, making it the best asset to weather financial crises. Thanks to the development of gold IRAs, you can invest in gold and reap its benefits while still maintaining the tax advantages of traditional IRAs, so that no matter when you retire, your nest egg will remain secure.