Choosing when to retire is a decision that takes a lot of planning, timing, and thought… but how does one know when the right time to retire is? Well, this question is actually pretty easy to answer… When they want to and when they can. Heh, of course the answer has questions that come with it such as when can they, but the part I am going to focus on is the, when do they want to part.

Deciding when a person wants to retire is more complicated than one might think. It seems easy enough as most people think they understand their desires just fine, but the truth is I don’t feel that’s the case. Especially as it seems man people work well off into the ages past when they could have been retired.

Well first, let’s think about what it means to be retired. TO be retired means, quintessentially, to be free! It means you no longer are tied to one place because you have to go somewhere every day. It means you no longer HAVE to wake up at 6 in the morning nor do you have to go to bed at 10 at night. It’s at this time one can truly just relax and enjoy themselves. Do things that they’ve always wanted to do and not have to worry about making it into work the next day, oversleeping, or missing class.

Now each and every person out there is going to have different requirements to life when it comes to retiring, based on how much it is they feel they need. There are some people in this world that live essentially retired their whole lives, as they do not desire to have all that much. They work hard enough to cover their basics such as food and shelter… maybe gas and a little extra spending money, but that is mostly it. They work to be free, which is really what we are all doing if one considers retirement freedom.

With this in mind, be careful when finding luxuries you feel you need, for every luxury comes at a cost and that price takes away just a little bit more of your freedom. Whether you are saving money for retirement, or just working hard enough to remain mostly free… In either case, every luxury desired takes away just a little bit more of our free time.

So again, when does a person “want” to retire? Well the answer to this should mostly be always! IF a person is lucky enough to love their job, then they are basically never truly working, or always retired .