I’m 33 and wealthy enough to retire, but that feels like giving up

A young Reddit poster is in a good financial position to retire. He’s 33, single, has no kids, and has plenty of resources to stop working and support himself. But, he isn’t sure if he wants to pull the trigger because he’s afraid of what life will look like after his job stops giving purpose to his days.

So, should the poster quit work because he’s in a financial position to do so, or should he stay in his job to continue giving him much-needed structure?

Concerns about early retirement exist despite financial readiness

The Reddit poster explained that there’s no question he can stop working, since a very safe withdrawal rate of just 2.5% would provide him with enough income to live on. That’s true despite the fact that he’s expecting his spending to increase by 40% after retirement to give him a buffer, as well as to give him money to travel and pay health insurance premiums with. 

The issues holding him back are psychological, not financial. Specifically:

• He inherited most of the money, and his wealth has grown substantially, so he feels undeserving of early retirement
• He received a much larger amount of money than he expected and was surprised by his ability to achieve financial independence
• He doesn’t know how to explain early retirement to others in his life since most people don’t know he’s financially independent
• The stress and effort he’s spent on his career feels like part of his identity, and he’s worried about losing that
• He’s worried he’ll waste his days watching TV and scrolling threads online and not find anything useful to do. 

At the same time, while he’s reluctant to quit, he feels like earning a salary feels pretty pointless given the size of his nest egg. He also said that while his job is OK, he doesn’t like it that much, and he’s not living up to his potential. So, he’s torn about what the best move is. 

Should you retire early if you have the money but no plan?

With plenty of money to leave work, the Redditor is in an enviable position. However, his concerns are valid ones. Since early retirement isn’t something the poster dreamed about, sacrificed for, and saved for, it’s not surprising that he’s ambivalent about it because it wasn’t originally part of his life plan.

While retiring at 33 and having decades of time to fill can be a good thing if you have many life dreams you want to achieve with that time, it can also be a huge mistake if you don’t know what to do with your life going forward. He’ll likely have few peers who are retired to spend time with if he stops work at 33, and while he says he’d hope to find something meaningful to do, the fact that he is already worried about how he is going to fill his time is also a bad sign since it means he has no specific goals or projects in mind.

The good thing is, though, his money has given him the chance to do work purely because he enjoys it and not because he has to. If he wants to use that gift wisely, the best thing he could do is to make a clear plan before he takes any action. For example, he could get another job doing something he loves that he thinks is meaningful instead of staying in the stressful position he doesn’t care about.  He could also commit to volunteering, start a business or nonprofit, or go back to school to learn new skills that would open up the door for his dream career. 

The Redditor may want to talk with both a financial advisor and a therapist or life coach about how he can shape this vision for the future while maintaining financial security. He has an opportunity most people don’t to live exactly the life he wants, and he should not waste that chance by just quitting his job since he has the cash without deciding what great things he’s going to do next. 

The post I’m 33 and wealthy enough to retire, but that feels like giving up appeared first on 24/7 Wall St..