In the past one week, I have been looking at my retirement funds and was thinking how much exactly do I need to retire. Do we need to retire with tens of millions of ringgit or do we need to retire with few hundred thousands?
For me retirement is about reaching financial independence in which you do not have to work to make money to support yourself and pay your debts. As such there are few questions that I need to answer before I retire:
- Have you paid all your debts?
- Do you have a passive income to pay for your “operational debts”?
- Do you have passive income to support the things that you’ll do during your retirement such as travel?
- Do you have passive income to pay for your operational cost?
So the whole goal of retirement is really to look at how we can be self sustainable without the need to work. Obviously we can do something to make money but then those money will just add to your retirement war chest. In fact that money can be counted as a truly disposable income in which we can use for my fun adventures.
What do I want to do then?
I am targeting to be able to retire by age of 46 – in which I want to travel the world. I want to see the world and have fun. There are so many places in the world that I have not seen nor experience and I believe by retiring at an early age I would be able to have the right health to go around. In fact, in the next 6 years it is extremely important for me to upped my health so that I would be able to travel in peace!
6 years is not a very long time but I will need to dream, because a dream will help me to drive my goals and actions. No more capital expenditure for the next 6 years. Everything will be focused on the following things:
- Retirement war chest – must get to target amount in the shortest time possible
- Health – need to reach a level that I am all good and strong.
- Zero debt – zero capital and useless debts. I.e All debts minus hire purchase. Hire purchase technically an operational cost as long as I keep to one hire purchase!
I seriously want to be focus. As I move to big 4 – it is extremely important I think about this. I know life starts at 40 but I think I have wasted so much money in my 30s that I could have done this year. I didn’t have any dreams. I should have a dream and a dream will help to propel us to the next level.