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Wednesday, May 28, 2008

How to retire early and live the life you dream of living

Until 1991, Billy Kaderli had a career as a manager of a stock brokerage house, and his wife Akaisha ran a restaurant. They were two ships passing in the night. Billy decided there was something wrong with their lifestyle and suggested they retire. They were only 38 at the time, and Akaisha’s first thoughts were “how will we survive? How will we live our lives?” Billy worked on a plan and Akaisha went along with it, they quit their jobs and took a nice six month vacation to a small island in the Caribbean, Nevis. Then they came back to the US and cruised around in an RV, ending up in Mesa, AZ. But they decided they wanted to travel internationally as much as they could while they were young, and use the RV later when they were older. So they went to Mexico for what was intended to be six months and ended up being four years. The couple is mobile because they got rid of most of their stuff, keeping in mind that what is important is each other and their health. So what exactly is the Kaderli’s secret to early retirement? Are they “loaded”?

A numbers guy, Billy calculated what his cost of working was, meaning the cost of dry cleaning, meals out, driving. Billy realized they really weren’t spending that much money on themselves – only about $25,000/year was what they needed to spend. After crunching the numbers, the Kaderlis sold everything and invested it in tax efficient equity funds like the S&P 500 index . The money generated from those investments is what they live on. The couple has traveled the world, living as locally as possible in each of their chosen destinations, where the cost of living is generally low. When they go somewhere, they stay a while to make the cost of the plane ticket pay off. Additionally, when they arrive at their destinations, they localize their health care plan. The Kaderlis are on a never ending vacation, where they relax, adventure, meet people they would have never met while sitting in their car driving to work or hanging out in their house in California. The couple has a fantastic website http://www.retireearlylifestyle.com/, which showcases where they are living on a particular day, what activities they are doing, and tells you how you too can make this lifestyle happen if you choose. They have also written a book, which they sell on their website. Fascinating.

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