Retirement at age 30?

I do not ordinarily listen to the radio on Sundays but yesterday I was stuck in my car waiting on friend. Flipping through my radio channels I came across a talk show on money issues.  Being interviewed at the time was a young woman who had recently lost her job and is currently exploring not looking at not going back onto the job market and retiring.  She feels she has enough in retirement assets and savings to make that choice.  Many questions started running through my mind and I decided to continue listening.

Now I have no idea what she did for a living or how much she was earning either.  Her savings and retirement assets were said to be in the six figures.  I waited and waited for some indication of whether this young woman had taken a close look at her expenses vs her "accumulated wealth". I waited also to find out if she had calculated the possibility of outliving her accumulated wealth.  No answers came.  So I thought maybe she is a trust fund kid so none of my questions come into play.

For those of us that are not trust fund kids to retire at 30 you need to make some serious adjustments to the target generally made by people who retire at normal age 65-70 years old.  The latter needs to accumulate wealth to last 30 - 35 years but with a retirement age of 30 your life in double ordinary retirement numbers. General questions that come up would include things like your current living expenses and what items would not be there once you stopped working.  And on the reverse what expenses are present in retirement that are not necessary there while you are gainfully employed.

Another question I would have loved to ask this young woman is - at age 30 and having had an extremely well paying job you could not have had time to build a family?  Do your retirement assets also include children?

I do believe people tend to causally speak about retirement but seldom do they do the necessary preparation for it because its not only the money but also the quality of life for you and your family.  Not to forget today's hot topic - health insurance.  At age 30 she does not qualify for Medicare as such that is an added expense that will probably drain her accumulated wealth.  I am thinking her employer has offered that to date and as such it has not been an issue she has had to deal with.

Yes most of would like to retire early and do the things we love - travel is a common one but that too cost money.  Even the option of the entertainment locally that too costs money. As the program drew to a close I was convinced that if this young woman does go ahead and retire and she is not a trust fund kid then she maybe moving to some remote country where the standard of living is so low that with her six figures she will be one of the wealthiest residents.