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My Early Retirement Plan In Detail

My Early Retirement Plan In Detail

As I have been refining my goal to retire by the age that I am 27 (meaning that I work less than 3 days a week to maintain passive income streams), I have received a lot of helpful feedback. One of the biggest critiques that I have heard is that I need more specifics. I need specific goals and target dates to help push myself. As I have been working out the details, I have put some details on paper. I figured I would share with you my detailed retirement plan that will allow me to retire by the age of 27. I hope you will understand that there are still some details that I need to nail down, but this is a huge improvement.

Phase 1 – Increase Online Income / Quit Day Job

I have been working hard to expand my efforts with various blogs. I know own 3 blogs by myself, contribute to a couple others, and have a few partnerships. I think I have the base established for what will become a diversified portfolio of blogs. If I can build up my three blogs that I own myself, I think that will be enough to help me reach my target amount of income for phase one.

Target Income: $2500

As part of the 30k Challenge, I am working to earn $30,000 from blogging in 2012. In order to reach this goal, that means that I have to earn $2500 each month on average. I think it will be difficult in the first couple of months, but I have a great base that should reach beyond this amount to compensate for the first couple of months. Since I am already aiming for this goal and it is close to what I currently make, my goal is to earn $2500.

Target Date: 1/1/2013

Because I know that I cannot continue at the pace that I am going forever, I do suspect that I will quit my day job. My plan is to quit my day job by January 2013. I need to stay at my current job for certain benefits that will continue through the end of December and I might as well "work" through the Christmas season to take advantage of the paid holiday. This isn't set in stone, but I will do it as long as I have 3-4 consistent months at or above my target amount of income.

Phase 2 – Expand Online Empire / Cut Back Time Commitment

Once I quit my day job, I plan to expand my online empire and start delegating tasks. I will hire staff writers for some of my blogs in order to free up some time and allow me to continue my cycle of building up profitable blogs/websites. I will make this shift gradually so that I don't over-commit my income from blogs. I believe that if I can create / manage the blogs to a point where they are successful, I can delegate tasks to reduce my time commitment. That is what part of my retirement goal is all about – giving me more time to do what I find meaning in.

Target Date: 6/1/2013

I want to reduce my time commitment while also increasing or sustaining my net income from online efforts, so that I can begin to diversify beyond online income.

Phase 3 – Diversify Beyond Online

By the time I have reached this point, I hope to have a sizable down payment saved up in order to invest in real estate that will generate a positive cash flow. This will allow me to have a long term investment. I plan to continue to invest in real estate as I can afford the down payment(s) from my online income. This will provide me further diversification and an extra cushion should online income cut out in the future (who can guarantee that this will continue forever, right?). I hope to have 1-2 properties by 6/1/2014 (before my 27th birthday). Once I reach this state, I will decide whether I want to continue to expand into real estate or work on paying off the mortgages earlier. For these kind of details, you will have to wait to see what I choose to do.

I will continue to restrict myself from working more than 3 days a week so that I still have the freedom to enjoy life. While I do want to stay busy (retirement isn't just sitting around all day), this early retirement plan is ultimately about the freedom that it will allow me. I don't want to become a workaholic just for the sake of earning more money. I believe I can live comfortably with this plan and still help others along the way.

So, stay tuned for more information. I have put up a progress bar on the right hand of this site that will be updated as I make progress. Each month, I will update my latest income report figure for everyone to see on a quick basis. If you want more de