How To Retire Early: Your Guide to Getting Rich Slowly and Retiring on Less

I have been reading a lot of books lately on retirement planning. Really enjoyed this one. It is easy to read and has a lot of good information in it detailing exactly how Robert & Robin planned for, achieved their goal of early retirement, and how they are doing now after being retired for several years. I am still trying to get my wife to read the book so we will be on the same page in working for our goal of early retirement. We have already set the date that we plan to retire by and are implementing the plans to get there. We want to retire while we are still young enough to spend more time traveling and doing the other things that we don't seem to have time to do while working our 8 to 5 jobs. I only wish I would have had this book earlier so we could have planned for a much earlier retirement. The book discusses how to figure out how much money you will need to retire, how to safely build that nest egg, and how to live off of it through retirement. There is even a chapter discussing the very important topic of health care during retirement including some basic information regarding the Affordable Health Care Act. There is also a chapter with tips for travel during retirement. Robert and Robin apparently have traveled extensively since retiring. Looking at their website encourages us as we would like to do some traveling as well. If you dream of retiring early and possibly traveling, or just living a life of leisure this book could provide a good framework for planning to do just that.

One of the first books on retirement I read, and really enjoyed it. Easy to read, and I liked that the authors laid out literally everything they did, with a lot of detail on their personal finances. Would recommend it to anyone starting to learn about retirement, even if you aren't planning on retiring early. However, one issue I had with the book is that the authors assume throughout the book that if you follow their example, you too can expect to retire in 15 years, maybe 20 if you have children. I suspect they may be greatly underestimating how important the timing of their investments was to their success - they started in the '90s, when the stock market was doing exceptionally well, and sold their house in 2006, at the peak of housing prices and just in time to avoid the housing crisis. As I recall, the authors acknowledge this only briefly somewhere in the middle of the book.

I am a financial advisor and I enjoyed this book very much. I am planning on adding the print version of this to the lending library I keep for clients- this is saying something- I read and discard probably 6 or 7 financial books to every one I keep to lend. My husband and I are getting close to retirement too and I think this book will be helpful in convincing my husband that it really is okay to retire now- or soon anyway. The Charlton's philsosphy about money and dedication to saving is inspiring, and I wish this could be taught in schools. Many people do not have the dedication to do this but some simply don't know its possible. I wasn't a fan of all of the investment advice, but I concede that its very difficult to give investment advice in a book- the market is situational and clients are individuals after all! This book isn't really about investment advice though- its about saving to meet a goal and I did appreciate the Charltons telling what they DID, warts and all. I found the discussion on taxes in retirement very interesting. Overall I think this is a blueprint that could work for a lot of people. Our situation is different as we have 2 grade-school age children, but it won't be difficult to adjust the calculations for that. I wish they had covered a little more about how they allocated their spending AFTER retirement- I'm pretty good at the saving part, but accurately calculating how much I will need to travel and live in retirement is a little scary for me. Did they calculate correctly, underestimate? Did they forget to include anything in their calculations? I would be interested to know what percent of their income goes to trips and how much goes to daily living expenses. By the way, I wrote down my retirement date- it felt great!

I found this book when searching online about how to retire early. I just had decided to try putting myself on the 10-year plan for retirement or semi-retirement, and wanted to know how to go about doing it. This book is laid out in a very clear and logical manner and explains how to plan for retirement in various scenarios...kids vs no kids, retiring in 10, 15 or 20 years, anticipated expenses in retirement...different ages at retirement, which determines how much of your portfolio should be in tax-advantaged accounts, how big your nest egg needs to be, etc, etc. In this book, I was always able to find an example applicable to my situation, which allowed me to come up with a clear plan. Until now, I had put off any sort of realistic planning for the future, including investing money, because of all of the uncertainty and conflicting information out there. I was paralyzed and just avoided the whole subject because it was ambiguous and “icky.” I’ve had this book less than a month, and I have set up investment accounts based on information I’ve read in it. Now I have a clear plan to follow going forward, while not obsessing about the stock market. Of course there is always uncertainty, but now I have a better understanding of the different variables and it is not as complicated as I once thought. If you are a beginning investor or someone who has avoided thinking about retirement planning because it was too overwhelming, I highly recommend this book!!!

I recently bought this book on How to Retire Early, and first I would like to say thank you to Robert & Robin for all the useful and practical information they supplied. I have received more information than I have received reading many articles combined. Your information and examples regarding the health care subsidy limits has helped us immensely in deciding how health care costs will play into our plans to retire early. We also have a better financial picture of where we want to be. Thanks Again! Update August 2018: I have been retired for the past 8 months, and so far, so good. Thank you again. The information provided in this book helped to fill in the missing piece of using non-qualifying & qualifying accounts. Something so simple to factor in, but because we are all preached to about retirement tax shelters, it never even dawned on me until your book mentioned it. Thank you! Update August 2023: Five years later and I still refer to this book for reminders! It keeps me grounded.

Great book. I've read probably 10 different books on retiring early and most have the same basic approaches (not a knock because the fundamentals boil down to a handful of things). What I liked about this book was the section which talked about once you actually get to retirement how to control your spending. If you're able to live on less in retirement, then obviously your retirement date can be sooner rather than later. This book actually reviews the lifestyle in retirement rather than just stopping the book at the point you reach your financial target. I look at it this way, even if you pick up a single thing that helps with your goal it makes the book worth it. This book is an easy must read for anyone looking to retire early. thank you

This book is well written and contains a wealth of information on early retirement. It guides you step-by-step in understanding the nuts and bolts of retirement, investments, and the value of compounding. What makes this approach different than other retirement books I've read is that it is extremely financially transparent. The author tells exactly how much money they started with, how much they invested per month, how they trimmed their expenses to maximize investments, and what investments they chose to allow them to retire in about 13 years with just under 1 million dollars in liquid net worth. Their salary was not extremely high, yet they managed to retire at age 43. It was refreshing to know that they retired at the start of the Great Recession (2007) and found creative ways to avoid losing their nest egg during that time. I retired at 50 years old and learned a lot from this book, especially information about the new government sponsored Affordable Healthcare Act and how to simply your investments. I also just purchased a copy for my college freshman, I am sure it will help him once he graduates college.

This is a fantastic book. If you are interested in retiring early and want to figure out how to, and I mean not only theoretically, but in a completely concrete and hands-on way, then this is exactly the book you need. I cannot recommend this book highly enough! It is pragmatic and creative at the same time, helping you to think outside the box a little (if you want to). If you are interested in a simple lifestyle but rich with experiences (not a life of material things and status), then you will like the tone and ideas of this book. I have been thinking about the idea of retiring early (or at least partially retiring) for a little while now (I am 43), but mostly as a pipe dream that I always dismissed. Because how in the world would that be possible? In part because I couldn't see how to pay for health insurance. That's why I really appreciated the chapter on health care in retirement in particular. I read this book basically in one sitting because I got so excited as I was reading along because I realized that this early retirement idea could *actually* work! And it motivated me to go out on a limb and throw out a really crazy idea and see if I could retire in 10 years (by age 53). With the help of the Excel spreadsheet from the author's website, I pulled together all of the required financial information and played with several scenarios. And guess what! I think it may actually work!!!! I also went over it with my financial planner who uses her own retirement calculator, but with my numbers, we basically came to the same conclusion. Knowing that I have the option of early retirement (if I actually do it or not) has given me a completely new outlook on my future!

Lovely book! Very practical stories from the authors. They motivated me to continue on a path I was already on. I got this book because they were very honest and straight forward in their approach. I enjoyed the invest in yourself option, that is something we easily overlook today!

A good book and a worthwhile read. As a Canadian, I wish some information had been provided for those of us about to FIRE north of the border.

Great book, the end chapters are very U.S focused, but overall a good read. The spikes in income that the authors had (good job!) can be a bit discouraging, because we have to earn so much more to make it where they did!