How to Retire Early and Live Comfortably for The Rest of Your Life

How to retire early? It's not that difficult. Just exercise patience and self control, money wise.

Easy? Difficult? It depends.

If you've tons of self discipline, Will power, able to save instead of spending money and you already start your plan for years, then congrats! You're a candidate for early retirement.

But again, if you don't have these 4 virtues, I'm not saying that you can't retire early. You still can.

How?

I'm giving you 5 ways on the "how tos":

1. Start to save as early as possible, as early as you can, as soon as you enter workforce...

In short, whatever time that's the earliest, shoot!

Ideally, you should start to save in your early 20s.

Don't make up excuses like you can't; you're tied up still with college loans; you want to buy a new car; you want to.....

The power of this good habit is that you've time to grow and compound your money.

2. Save Big Portions

Let's say you want to retire in your 40s or early 50s. Your savings have to be "big time" portions of your paycheck, like 20% to 25%. Anything less than this amount isn't gonna get you there.

3. Manage Your Expenses

Control your expenses and reduce or eliminate debts - sure-fire ways to free up your money, to save more.

Particularly, you need to get out of credit card debts as this one with interest rate of 15% - 20%, can drain dry your money.

Don't spend more than you need for your daily expenses. Think of what you could save before you "splurge" on food, transport, entertainment, travel...

And don't buy things on impromptu basis- you tend to end up paying more and regret the purchase later as you realize you can live without them.

4. Invest Your Money

Research and study investment opportunities/choices available to you. Assess the risks involved and provide a reasonable amount of calculated risk, to your investment.

Look into stocks to get higher returns on your investment. Invest in utility and large company stocks, which on average, have good rates of returns over the years.

That said, you still need to put up a safety net. This is because all stocks carry risk, no matter how good they look.

Spread your risks by putting 25% of your funds into blue-chip stocks, 25% into Triple-A rated bonds, 25% into Treasury Notes and 25% into CDs.

5. Start A 401k Savings Plan That Has Employer Match

Enroll in your company's 401k. And take advantage of its matching program to maximize your savings.

Your employer's match could be 25 cents, 50 cents or more to the dollar or dollar for dollar.

So, each time you contribute, your employer adds money, for free! Free money for your retirement! It increases your chance to retire early!

Due to her strong yearning to retire early in life, Cecelia Yap has been researching on the subject of retirement. She has found the most "viral" way to grow her retirement nest egg and you too can do what she does, at My Passion.