Over 60% of Social Security recipients claim their benefits before their Full Retirement Age. Is that the right decision? How can you determine when you should file for your benefits. What is the best age to file for Social Security? Should you really worry about all of the headlines saying Social Security Is Going Bankrupt? In this video, I give 5 reasons why you should file for your Social Security early and 5 reasons to delay filing for benefits.

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When most people think of retirement, they think of being in their 60s after spending decades working. But for some, the thought of working into their 60s is not their ideal plan and being able to retire early is their number 1 goal. I’ve talked to hundreds of people who retired early some in their 50s, some in their 40s and even a few in their 30s and they all had 4 things in common So let’s jump into the 4 habits of successful early retirees

Hey everybody I’m Johnathan Rankin, the founder and CEO of Theorem Wealth management and my firm and I have been helping clients plan and execute their retirement plans by focusing on 3 key areas in retirement, maximizing retirement income, optimizing investments and reducing taxes. If you are thinking about retiring or already retired, make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss any of our retirement videos or episodes of our retirement podcast called the retire once show.

Alright so number 1, every successful early retiree was hyper focused on their goal of early retirement. This was not a passive decision for them to retire early. They didn’t just wake up one day and think, you know what, I don’t feel like going into the office anymore.. like ever.  It is not easy to stop working a full time career and financially support yourself at a young age. There is a reason why Social Security doesn’t start until your 60s, medicare doesn’t kick in until your 65. The system wasn’t built to retire early. That is why every decision that was made was intentional. If you have ever met an ironman athlete or marathon runner, they know they need to train their bodies for endurance. and every decision they make from how often they train, to what they eat, down to what shoes and socks they wear is thought out. The same goes for retiring early. Depending on what age you want to retire you could possibly have a 50 or 60 year retirement. That is a very long time to make sure you are financially secure.

That brings me to number 2. Every successful early retiree was an aggressive saver. That doesn’t mean they made the most money. In fact I have met so many people that made a modest income from their primary job, but they had side jobs they did to bring in any additional income they could. And that income wasn’t going towards a car or vacation, it was going into savings. Every single person I’ve talked to who retired early was able to think about specific examples of things they sacrificed so that they could retire early. For some it was driving an older car for longer, for some it was not upsizing their home and for others it was just specific purchases they remembered they didn’t buy because they knew that money was better saved and invested than spent.

Number 3, Every successful early retiree was a true long term investor. There is a big difference between saying you’re a long term investor and being a long term investor. A lot of people say they are a long term investor until a bear market hits and they start making a bunch of changes in their portfolio based on emotion. Successful early retirees rarely focus on the investments because they know it is out of their control. They either work with advisors like our firm to handle that or they just invest passively on their own, but their focus isn’t the day to day or week to week swings in the market, it is about how they can earn more income to save and invest more.

That brings me to the the 4th and final habit of successful early retirees. And before I jump into that, if you liked this video can you do me a favor and hit the subscribe button. Also if you are thinking that you would like to retire early or you just want to make work optional and don’t know where to start, use the link below to schedule some time to connect with an advisor at our firm. We would be happy to go through a detailed retirement analysis with you to see if youre on track to retire early.

Ok back to number 4. Every successful early retiree had a specific plan for what they were going to do with their time. Retirement was not just about not going to a day job anymore and sitting around watching tv. Each and every person had a passion that was going to fulfill their life. Almost every single one of them started by answering the question, if you could do anything without ever having to worry about money, what would you do? For some it took years to answer that question, for others it was quick, but almost every time that I saw somebody who wasn’t fulfilled with their retirement, they almost always went back to work in the field they left. They didn’t do it for the money, they did it to bring back that purpose in their life. One of the stages of retirement is what is called disenchantment. Where the honeymoon phase of retirement is over and people find themselves wondering what to do with their unstructured days.

Early retirement can be amazing, but it takes a lot of hard work to get there and it takes a lot of hard work to stay not just retired, but happily retired. If youre thinking about retiring soon, make sure you check out this video where I talk about the 5 Worst Things You Can Do After You Retire, I’ll see you there.

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