Retirement 2

In my last post, I wrote that there are two schools of thought to retirement:

• 'Extreme savings' : You scrimp and save so that you can retire early
• 'Work to enjoy life' : You continue working and have a late retirement to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle

 After thinking about it, perhaps there is a third school of though to reconcile both and have the best of both worlds. That is, the 'financial freedom' school of thought:

• 'Financial freedom' : You work to achieve financial freedom. This means you have earned enough to maintain your current lifestyle, and you are able to quit if and when you want to. You don't necessarily have to retire from work, but the point is you are no longer working for the money.

I think this is what I should aim for! Financial freedom!

So now, a quick analysis on how far I am from financial freedom:

Monthly expenditures (this includes everything from groceries to monthly mortgage to child education expenses and insurance policies) = $4100

Monthly passive income (from stocks, bonds, savings deposits, fixed deposits etc.) = $391

Hmm...well...seems I have some way to go...

Retirement

I had an interesting conversation with my wife last night. I told her that I will like to retire early, and accomplish this by extreme savings ie. eating out less, buy cheap stuff, cut back on holidays etc. However, my wife disagreed with me and said she will rather work longer so that she can enjoy life ie. eating expensive food if she feels like it, maintaining present lifestyle and so on. It seems these are two different schools of thought.

The 'extreme savings' school of thought partly came from the articles I read on Marketwatch, one example is:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-to-retire-early-35-years-early-2014-01-17

From the article:
"One secret to their success? They live on very little for a family of three: about $25,000 a year. They own a car, but mostly bike. Dining out is an occasional luxury. And shopping for stuff? That’s best avoided. But their philosophy goes beyond mere scrimping, says Mr. Money Mustache. It’s about enjoying life with less."

But after listening to my wife and her arguments I'm no longer sure which school of thought I belong to...hmm....