I think it would be good to give my definition of retirement before going any further with this post: To me, retirement is having the freedom to do whatever you want without having to worry about the consequences of not getting something done. For example, the freedom to go on a week long car trip without worrying about what is happening at work. Or the freedom to work on an unprofitable hobby for a few weeks without worrying about your income.
Starting today at 5PM, that is what I have. It is a goal I’ve had for a very long time, and one that I never imagined I’d be able to accomplish at age 26, but with the help of my wife and a lot of work on my home business, I made it!
I’ll still be doing some work for Affinity4 / Beliefnet / BN Media (my current employer), but that is mainly because: A) I really enjoy my work, and B) the company has treated me well over the past 5 years and they haven’t found a replacement for me yet.
So what am I going to be doing all day? Well, I have a baby that I’ll be taking care of. I’m sure that will take a fair amount of time. I’m going to be cooking the meals for my family, preparing breakfast in the morning, packing lunch for my wife, that sort of thing. I have a few mobile development opportunities that I’m looking into. I’ll be continuing my “one new website a month” goal. I’d like to start exercising more (who am I trying to kid, I don’t exercise at all right now).
I’d like to point out that retiring wasn’t even remotely possible 2.5 years ago when I got married. I’m now making more off my home business per month than I was per year when I got married. I didn’t make some magic website that instantly made me piles of money. The “secret” to my success is consistently creating new websites that require little to no maintenance, and that each make at least a few dollars per day in revenue.
My point is, this is something anyone can do. If you can’t program, buy a book on PHP and learn. Pick an easy project and do something. It doesn’t matter if your code isn’t ideal and your page is ugly, just build something.