Stop believing privilege is the key to early retirement

Stop believing privilege is the key to early retirementStop believing privilege is the key to early retirementWhen it comes to early retirement, is it pure luck or good decision-making that makes it possible for so many people to quit the rat race early? How much influence doesgood fortunereally have?My short answer to that question? Some.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreHere is my longer answer The thought that achieving financial independence andearly retirementisa privilegestrikes me as an arrogant and unfriendly way to describe early retirement. The problem is privilegemakes it seem as though early retirement is only handed to those who areworthy enough, and thats not the message that we in the early retirement community want to give out.As most of you know, my wife and Iretired at 35and 33, respectively. We travel full-time in ur 30 Airstream and love every minute of it. An d, we wouldnt trade it for anything.The pursuit of this wonderful goal is not a privilege by that, I mean it is not only available just to aselect few of us, or only the smartest among us, college-educated or those who come from perfectly-manicured families in well-to-do neighborhoods.Truthfully, this subject is a bit of a pet peeve of mine.While there is no question thatgood luckandpositive fortunehelps tremendously with our ability to retire early, I do not believe that good fortunes are the primary enabling factor behind retiring early, and too much emphasis on pure luck brazenly downplays the influence that our decisions have in our lives.Its a slap in the face to those of us who worked our aspirin off to achieve amazing goals.After all, highly paid professional sports starsgo broke.Lottery winnersblow it all and leave themselves penniless. And growing up a privileged kid doesnt necessary mean youreset for life.The truth is the decisions thatwe makethroughout our lives havea sig nificant impact onour ability to achieve our goals, financial and otherwise, and early retirement is available to morepeople than many of us mightrealize.Privilegeandgood fortuneonly go so farAm I lucky to be in the position toset myself up for early retirement?Though I acknowledge theadvantages that I have had in my life,I refuse to believe that I am privileged in my goal of early retirement. I dont buy the argument that pursuing financial independence and early retirement is just a lucky happenstance that falls into our laps.To me, that thought is nonsense.Nobody handed early retirement to my wife or me on a silver platter or even on a bronze one.The fact is that even with a normal and relatively stable upbringing, retiring early takes a good amount of dedication and sacrifice to make happen, and its not obtainableonly by those of privilege.To me, even using the word privilege is a far too imperious way to describe good fortune.In this post, I am going to take the opportunity to come clean about the things in my life that helped us to achieve our goals. Below, I take a look at some of theadvantages that Ive hadin my life (privileges?) as well as thechoices that Ive madeto put me in the position that Im in.Where Ive had good fortuneIve never made it a secret that my upbringing welches extremely solid, but in case you havent read through the entire site (I dont blame you, by the way), here are the bullet points.I was born to a loving family There is no question about the impact that a stable and loving family has over the upbringing of kids. My dad was gainfully employed throughout my childhood and made enough money to provide for our family, positiv some. Both my mom and dad were present through the majority of my younger years, especially after my dad retired from the Navy when I was very young.I had no student loans after college My dad wanted to make sure that I didnt start out life in debt, so he completely paid for my college, leaving me with no student loans to repay after joining the professional working world.And there was no real question about whether or not I would be attending college, either. After high school, that was the next step in life.I was taught about debt from an early age As a child, I was taught the value of budgeting and how integral saving money wasto myability to, well,have money. Credit cards, for example, were a way to spend moneywithout having to carry around cash rather than a way to spend money that I didntyet have.Credit card debtwas never an option in my family.My dad retired relatively young I was exposed to the idea of early retirement soon after college as my dad retired at the age of 49. While I never did embrace theconcept of early retirement until much later in life, I got to see with my own two eyeshow possible it was, and more than that,what it took in order to retire early working smart, making wise choices and remaining focused.Early retirement is a choiceThough Ive enjoyed a solid upbringin g, it doesnt takemy upbringingto retire early. So many people, from all walks of life and varying backgrounds, achieve financial independence and retire early.Its a choice, not a privilege.I chose to listen tothose wiser than me I was never really a stubborn child. While it istrue that I enjoyed excellent financial advice as a child, I was under no obligation toactually accept it. I chose toaccept,embraceandtake advantageof all the advice I received throughout my life and worked very, very hard to take control over my life, and I am definitely a better rolle because of it.I chose a relatively high paying careerInformation technologyis one of the highest paying industries, and I decided to make that my career even though my true interests were primarily science-related (specifically meteorology). I had planned for the longest time to attend Penn State University (because they were one of the few colleges at the time that offered a meteorology program) but decided instead to pursue IT because its barrier to entry was much lower and offered a significantly higher payoff potential.Note While a respectable salary is helping me to retireon my schedule, one certainlydoesnt need a high salary to retire early. It helps, of course, but early retirement can be achieved on almost any salary. Yes, it may take more time.I chose not to saddle myself with debt Aside from a reasonablehome mortgage, I made the decision not to spend moneythat I did not have. While I made plenty ofpoor financialdecisionsin a previous life, mostfinancial decisionswere madeafter acquiring the funding to support the choice. Sometimes, that would mean that I had to wait several weeksto accumulate the necessary cash before making a purchase.While we cant control expensive medical emergencies, we can control our spending habits and, we can try our very best tohead off a disaster before it hits us.I also made the mistake of financing a car in an earlier life but paid it off well before the loan was up. No expensive vacations. No mansion. No movie channels. No credit card debt.I wanted to retire schwimmbad enough to adjust my lifestyle Pure and simple, if people refuse to do what it takes to accomplish their goals, then life probably wont feel as happy or satisfying. I want early retirement bad enough to do some of theuncomfortable thingsnecessary to make it happen, like downgrading our TV service, foregoing the yearly cell phone upgrades, cooking at home rather than going out to eat and finding cheap entertainment options (hello hiking).We also sold everything that we had andmoved into an RVwith a living area less than a tenth of the size of newer homes.I married well Although my wife Courtney and I never had the retirement talk before marriage, I recognized her ability and willingness to approach life with a very level head and objective mind. She was established in her career and made it easy to see that she was a forward-thinking, smart and determined person, unafraid to pursu e the road less traveled (shes a female rocket scientist).By the way, she came from a familywhowent bankruptwhen she was a kid, hardly the mark of a privileged or fortunate childhood.We enjoy good health While we cant controlgetting into a life-threatening car accident that requires hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical care, or eating a bad piece of diseased meat that sends us into the hospital for days,we do actively prioritize our health. We are avid gym goers, eat primarily vegan when at home and go the extra mile to ensure we are as healthy as possible.In the end, ourdecisionsare more powerful than privilegeYou dont have to be smart orcollege educatedto retire early.In fact, Istruggled with a learning disabilitygoing through grade school. I struggled to pick up new concepts and needed extra help throughout the day to get my work done. I didnt simply breeze through school, and I dont even consider myself to be one of those smart cookies Im a normal, everyday person.For exa mple, I worked at Safeway in high school to earn money for myself, just like a lot of other kids. This included working outside in the freezing cold winters and hot, humid summers loading peoples cars with groceries and managing the shopping cart situation The job sucked, but it provided me with some spendable cash and taught me the value of money.You dont needto come from aprivilegedorelitebackground, either. For example, my dad the son of a minister came from a very poor family and started his adult life as an enlisted service member in the U.S. Navy and barely earnedenough to provide for his family when I was super young, but he still managed to retire at 49 through smart choices.This article first appeared on ThinkSaveRetire.You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds10 lessons from Benjamin Franklins daily schedule that will ersatzdarsteller your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people