These are 14 Steps to Early Retirement that I have more details about on various pages on the Leisure Freak site but I wanted to list them as 14 steps as a quick read for those on the go.

1. Figure out what financial condition you are in. What is your income, what percent are you saving, and in what kind of accounts, 401K, IRA, Roth IRAs, non-retirement brokerage accounts, Etc.
2. Figure out what your current lifestyle cost. How much do you spend to live the life you are living now?
3. Envision your retirement lifestyle and figure out what that will cost to live. Is it a lot like you are living now or different in some way? Some costs may go down but others may go up depending on what you are envisioning. Don’t forget to include your spouse in this retirement lifestyle vision.
4. Take control of your financial life now! Time to find ways to spend less and save more. Develop your custom Strategic Retire Early Plan. Make a budget of everything you pay for now and look for ways to cut waste. Anything that isn’t important to you or doesn’t bring you happiness should be looked at for cutting. If you have a spending weakness, mange it and keep your early retirement in focus. Make a plan to pay off all debt aided by your budget savings and ramp up your savings rate as soon as you can. This includes retirement accounts which you can easily tap after age 59 ½ and accounts you can finance your retirement with if you are retiring before age 59 ½. You are creating a Strategic Retire Early Plan to live a smart-frugal and balanced lifestyle that you can live without feeling it is a deprived life. It must be sustainable for the length of your entire plan and beyond.
5. Identify an investment strategy for your Strategic Retire Early Plan that will offer the greatest rate of return within your risk tolerance so that you will stay the course. If your weakness is risk aversion then manage that because you have to take some risk to get a return rate that will help you reach your early retirement goals. Investing in stocks has historically provided the highest rate of return but carries higher volatility. Investigate your options and decide whether you feel more comfortable with investment diversification. Keep it simple and with low-cost funds. Get help if you need it.
6. Make sure you are contributing as much as you can to your 401K to take advantage of any of your company’s match that they may offer and the tax benefits that 401K plans offer. It is easier to save when the money is contributed before you get it.
7. Investigate your IRA and Roth IRA options and take full advantage of contributing them. There are income limits when you have a company retirement plan to be aware of. Look at your current income tax rate and if you are in a mid to lower tax bracket then seriously consider the Roth IRA.
8. Go to the Social Security Administration site (http://www.ssa.gov/myaccount/ ) and even if your benefit start date is far off in the future get an estimate of what you will receive at age 62, full retirement age (66 – 67) and age 70 for your long-term retirement funding strategy.
9. If you have a pension benefit where you work, investigate all you can about it. When are you vested? How much will you receive if you left on the earliest vested date? How much would it go up per year if you stay longer? This will help you decide your target early retirement date. Never underestimate the power of a monthly pension check to make early retirement a reality. If your company or place of employment is in financial trouble and the benefit offers a cash (lump-sum option) buyout, investigate the pension plan funding health and seek help in deciding the best way to go.
10. Consider retiring to a passion-driven mindset where you are open to the “retire early and often” lifestyle. Look at what you are passionate about and consider doing paid work in that field to help supplement your retirement or to simply add any income you earn to your net-worth/wealth. If you decide and plan for this awesome lifestyle before you retire you have time to build any new required skills to retire early and follow your dream endeavors.
11. Plan for early retirement health insurance, what it will cost and where you will likely get it. Leaving behind employer supplemented health insurance means it will now take a bigger bite out of your budget. Look at your health needs and decide if you can go with a catastrophic high deductible plan or you need a low co-pay, low deductible plan which will have a higher monthly premium. There are many factors to consider about health insurance.
12. Assess your current housing situation and whether it is the right place to be for your retirement. Are you happy right where you are at and is it paid off or near paid off or should downsizing to buy a less expensive smaller home or renting your current home out to give retirement income be considered? This is a tough assessment but worth going through before you retire. You can always stay put through early retirement with a plan to sell and move or rent it out at a later date. It is your plan.
13. Run the numbers. Go to the FireCalc retirement calculator site (http://www.firecalc.com/index.php) and plug in your savings, any future pension, your estimated future Social Security you will receive and your retirement lifestyle cost numbers so you can understand how much money you need to have saved to support the retirement lifestyle you have envisioned. Run the numbers often as things in your life change so you can be sure you are on target or even ahead of targeted goals. Check FireCalc or another retirement calculator like it just before you retire so you can leave with a big smile of confidence on your face. Remember to always consider taxes. The point of running the numbers is to make sure you can generate the retirement income you need to live the lifestyle you envision.
14. Before you pull the plug, know exactly what you are retiring to. You should be retiring to something not from something. Envisioning your retirement to have more travel, spending more time with family, hobbies, etc. is great for planning the funding of your retirement but unless you decided to save a lot of money, you won’t be traveling 365 days a year and your family would get tired of you too if you were around that much. Understand and plan for the non-financial aspects of retirement and know exactly how you will spend your new freedom.

I hope these 14 Steps to Early Retirement help you to give yourself the option to one day retire early. For more details on the topics provided in the 14 Steps to Early Retirement, please visit the Leisure Freak site pages.

Let me know if there is anything I missed or any comments you might have.