घर का खाना खाया, सर्दी में हीटर नहीं चलाया और 12 करोड़ जोड़ 40 में रिटायर हो गए…पैसे बचाने की ये कहानी चौंका देगी – how this kanjoos couple achieved early retirement at age 40 by saving money life story tvisp
Nowadays, amidst rising inflation and daily needs, saving money for the future is no less than a difficult task for people and in such a situation, even thinking about retirement first seems far-fetched. But there are some people in the world who do so much planning from the beginning of their career that by the time they reach the age of 40, they take freedom from work i.e. early retirement. Today we are going to tell you the inspiring story of one such couple who has surprised the whole world with their smart strategy.
How this couple retired at 40
This is the story of Alan and Katie Donegan, an English couple who live in the southern part of England and every year in winter they avoided turning on the heating system in their house.
Winters in England, America, Europe and many countries of Asia are not like India. There the mercury goes into minus, so to keep the houses warm, their floors and walls have to be heated, due to which the electricity bill increases a lot.
Regarding this, Alan says, ‘Instead of heating the house, we used to wear more clothes and use hot water bottles. We made it a game. This was not a problem but a strategy.
The couple admitted that other people considered them strange and crazy for adopting this method of saving money, but Alan says that they were completely focused on their freedom.
By independence, she means early retirement, which the Donegan family achieved seven years ago, when Alan was just 40 and Katie was just 35.
Learn frugality from this couple
Both of them rarely ordered food from outside and always took home-cooked lunch to work. Alan says, ‘Just by that one lunch habit, we saved 40,000 pounds (about Rs 6 lakh) in 10 years.’
‘We would also charge our phones when we were out and look for discarded Nectar vouchers. You can decide whether this is madness or wisdom, but we benefited from it.
Before starting a training and life-coaching business, Alan worked as a landscape gardener while Katie was an actuary or risk assessor in a financial firm.
Apart from good earnings, his habit of saving a lot was to enable him to retire early and he invested as much money as he could in investments.
Katie says, ‘Every money we invested was a step towards the life we wanted to live. When his savings reached 10 lakh British pounds i.e. about 12 crore 73 lakh in Indian rupees, he left the job.
Alan and Katie are part of a small but rapidly growing global movement called ‘FIRE’. FIRE stands for ‘Financially Independent, Retire Early’.
This was a little-known idea 15 years ago, but now the FIRE discussion board on the social media site Reddit has nearly a million members, and major financial institutions also publish guides on the topic.
Make a habit of saving money like this
Its main principle is that you should live very economically during your job so that you can retire as soon as possible.
For most of us, being able to retire early from job is just a dream. Due to rising cost of living, high property prices and student loans (loans taken for studies), we will have to work longer, not less. Statistics also show the same.
According to government data, last year the average retirement age in the UK reached a record high of 65.8 years for men and 64.7 years for women.
The situation is similar in America also. According to a long-term study, the average retirement age for men and women has steadily increased since the 1990s and will reach 64.8 and 63.3 years, respectively, in 2025.
Amy Minkley’s strategy will surprise you
Nevertheless, 49 year old Amy Minkley, who believes in ‘FIRE’ (Financial Independence, Retire Early), is fully committed to her goal. This middle-school teacher from America took retirement at the age of only 44.
To achieve this goal, he worked in international private schools in countries like Japan, Singapore, India and Thailand. Minkley says that there he got a chance to earn more money and the cost of living there was also much lower than living in Texas.
He also tried to spend as little as possible. Minkley says, ‘I was not interested in adopting the typical lifestyle of people living abroad.’
‘I rarely bought expensive clothes, used electronics until they broke, cooked most of my meals at home and thought carefully before purchasing any major item.’
She says, ‘While living in Singapore and India, sharing my house with a housemate helped me save even more. Also, in many countries I did not need a car, which kept my expenses low.
Minkley now lives in Bali, where her retirement income is more useful than going back to the US.
Carol Schleiff told the other side of the coin
Carol Schleiff, chief market strategist at BMO Private Wealth, a Toronto-based financial advisory company, says FIRE (early retirement) is still possible for many people, but most of her clients are paying more attention to maintaining their work-life balance. So instead of being in a hurry to retire as soon as possible, he is focusing on striking a balance between a good career and living as per his income.
Schleiff says, ‘If you retire early but don’t have friends, good health, or a purpose in life, then you’ve achieved one goal but sacrificed other things. You have to think whether all this is right.
‘Nowadays people are adopting a more flexible approach. They are looking for ways to enjoy life while still reaching their retirement goals.
Sarah Coles, head of personal finance at UK investment platform AJ Bell, warns that adopting the FIRE philosophy is becoming difficult. Most people are not able to adopt this method.
Still, he says many of the principles of FIRE are useful and can help people retire a little sooner, such as starting to save early and increasing pension payments each time their salary increases.
‘A balanced path can give you the retirement you want, when you want it, without breaking your bank,’ says Coles. There is just a need to keep it a little more thoughtful and closer to reality.
Some people in the FIRE community are now taking this less difficult route, creating new categories like ‘Barista Fire’. In this, the focus is on saving so much money that the income from your investment can meet most of the expenses of life. After this you meet the remaining expenses by working part-time.
However, for some FIRE followers, saving heavily is the best way to achieve early retirement and they find it a sacrifice worth making in the long run. However, the final decision will depend on you as to which path you choose.
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