An Unspeakable Dream

As much I love the site Early Retirement Extreme, I have noticed that it really unsettles people when I talk about being retired at the age of 40.  My first instinct is to want to say, "hey, listen, Jacob at ERE was able to to retire at the age of 30.  I mean, come on,  I'm committing myself to working 10 years more that!"

But I have found that in communication -- especially when the stakes are highest -- your first instinct is usually wrong.

One trick I have found is to not talk about "retirement," but self-employment.  And while you, fair reader, could stretch the meaning of word "employment," in my case it is actually strictly speaking true. I want to plan on working on average 8 hours a week to get money to pay my expenses.  This will allow my money to compound in case an emergency comes up, and as insurance against infirmity.

I set the number at 8 hours on the theory I am probably half as smart as Jacob at ERE (article on his 4 hour work week), and hugely less cunning and self-promoting than life-hacker extraordinaire Tim Ferris (look up the 4 Hour Work Week for yourself; the dude has enough links).

Another way to speak of my dream is to speak of it as an unspeakable dream.  This has become the euphemism of choice around our household.

I am well on track for my unspeakable dream of bumming around with some causal work thrown in self-employment by 40.