One of the things I am currently obsessed with is planning an early retirement. I want to retire by the age of 50. I don’t want to wait until I turn 65 before I stop working to enjoy the fruits of my years of toil. The idea of retiring early came to me when the pandemic hit. I know it’s cliché but life is truly short. You never know when you would stop breathing so I figured that I will live, love, and laugh.
I have my vision board at my home office to motivate me to work harder and smarter these days. Debt-free. Insured, invested, and with a fat savings account. On vacation perpetually. Happy and contented.

Let me tell you the three things that I have began doing since the pandemic hit and this idea of an early retirement came to me.
Slowly changing my lifestyle. I am eliminating things in my life that is taking a toll on my health and overall well-being because what is the point of planning an early retirement if I will not be able to enjoy it being sick. Right? I am eating healthy by saying no to junk food. Yes, I still eat processed food from time to time but these days I am really working on being friends with greens and whole grain food.
I am trying to stay in shape by walking for, at least, an hour a day. I make sure to absorb as much sun as possible before nine in the morning. I am not a fan of working out religiously but walking and just basically moving around so my whole body is getting an exercise of sorts is totally find with me.
Organizing my finances. I currently three bank accounts: expenses (bills, etc.), savings, and retirement fund, I have set up a retirement fund separate from my savings account. I have a goal to save for that fund as per the retirement calculator from SavingsCalculator.org. In the past, before this pandemic, I haven’t really thought about setting up a retirement fund, even when I was reminded by a good friend of mine to do so. She told me that I would need it if I want to really enjoy my retirement and not to think about a life without cash flowing in as much as it used to. She’s right, and now I have one.
I have said goodbye to a few credit cards that I had for quite some time. I have chosen one that gives me cash back for every purchase and another one that I can use when I travel abroad. I seldom use my cards nowadays, though. I made a promise to myself that if I don’t have extra cash with me, then I won’t buy anything that is really not a necessity.
Working smarter not harder. And by that I mean working for the hours I am being paid to. In the past, I used to work beyond eight hours. I would spend the time in the office to work a little, socialize, do stuff that was not part of my job but favors asked of me. Then, I would go home and work my ass off at night. These days, I work the eight hours in the office. When I go home, I do side hustles that give me a bit more earnings that I can save up.
I have a couple more years to do these things but I am happy that I am slowly building the life I want to live by the time I turn 50.



a friend of mine. She lost her job middle of last year. She was devastated when the company she was working for the past couple of years closed shop. Bankruptcy. She immediately looked for a new job but since a lot of people lost their jobs, too, competition was really stiff. After a month of job hunting, she was forced to accept the fact that a new source of income was needed.
What do we do if we know that competition is stiff? We reveal an ace up our sleeves! To be able to do that, you need to actually have an ace up your sleeve, and by an ace I mean something that will make you outshine your competition.