Following on from last time’s Reasons to retire #1 – Appraisals and targets and the excellent discussion it generated, I thought we could continue with producing a list full of reasons to retire. Many of us take for granted our belief that early retirement is something good to work towards, indeed most of the personal finance information and blogs I come across go into great lengths about how to save money and retire earlier.. without giving too much consideration into why you should retire early.

I believe that most of the reasons to retire can be divided into 2 categories:

 The pull of retirement

These are advantages or benefits of living a financially independent lifestyle. The positive factors associated with being financially secure and no longer having to work to maintain your chosen lifestyle. Typically advantages that would fall into this category might be:

• More Free time
• Less stress
• Flexability
• Greater security

The push of employment

At the opposite end of the spectrum we have the push of employment. These would be the negative factors associated with having to work full time to support yourself. Often I find people are more aware of the negatives associated with employment than they are with the positives of retirement which leads to a slightly strange situation of people openly complaining about their jobs without ever wanting to change anything. Examples of these would be:

• Threat of redundancy
• Enduring poor management
• Commuting expenses
• Job boredom

As last time was clearly a push of employment, it seems only fair to talk about on of the pulls of retirement!

There’s a whole other world out there

For the past week I’ve been fortunate enough to have been assigned a remote project which has allowed me to work from home. Not only has this given me greater flexibility and saved on the wasted commuting time.. It’s also allowed me to explore the strange and mysterious experience of not being in an office from 9 to 5 each day. By restructuring my working hours to continue slightly later into the evening; I’ve been able to venture outside during the working day and experience this whole other world.

Despite living in a usually busy village with a high volume of through-traffic, the streets were unexpectedly quiet. Queues of frustrated drivers rushing to be somewhere by 9am were replaced with the occasional car driven by an elderly couple or white van man on the way to a job. I saw a cyclist go past at a casual pace, not the usual sight of one forced to peddle at break-neck speed for fear of angering the every growing queue of traffic behind him. It seemed as though the whole world had slowed down giving more time to enjoy the moments.

On Wednesday I needed to head to the local retail park to pickup some items. Normally this journey would take a good couple of hours followed by the inevitable queue to be served by an over-worked frustrated employee at the till. Instead I was able to cruise down the local back-roads without having to endure any jams. Whilst in the store the staff seemed relaxed and cheerful, clearly having far more time in order to go about their activities. Grateful for the distraction I expect, many said hello as I passed or inquired if I needed any assistance.

Having to freedom to choose when and how I worked allowed me to enjoy some of the excellent weather this week. Normally 5/7 days are spent in a dull office staring out of the nearest window. Instead; I grabbed the laptop and setup a table and chair outside in the back garden, finally able to hear the bird song without the distraction of a busy road nearby.

It’s odd to think that going outside or running errands during the normal 9-5 weekday can be such a different experience, but it is… and it’s a world I want to frequent more often.