When I was still in my 30s living in Europe and working as an IT Engineer it all looked pretty plausible; by setting aside an extra monthly sum of money in an additional private pension fund I could easily retire at 55.
Together with my state pension (which would become active at reaching 65) it would give me an affluent enough life at an age of which I thought I could do still much, and then finally enjoy life after years of hard work.
eBook | Click for details
Well, the dream didn’t come true. Today, I’m 56 and still working an average of 44 hours a week. Moreover, I will (if at all) receive about a third of my state pension (and not at 65, but as the law is today only at 67), and all my savings and investments in my cherished private pension insurance funds are gone.
So, what happened? Now, that’s a long story, but to keep it short: I got into a divorce when I was 39 years old and it ruined me financially. After two years of horrible legal fights and a maliciously shrewd ex-wife, I lost my house, car, savings, and investments, all taken by the wonderful state justice system to simply hand them over to my poor and necessitous ex-wife.
In addition, the judicial forces bestowed an impossibly high alimony on me to be paid for the next 15 years. The latter quickly pushed me into debts, outright poverty, and when I couldn’t pay — state persecution. Subsequently, I collapsed emotionally, quit my IT-job, and saw no other way than to (temporarily) leave the country to see if I could still pick up the pieces.
Temporarily became permanently, and it took me 10 years of wandering about, giving and teaching Thai Massage, teaching English, and doing all kinds of odd jobs before I finally started the website you’re on now — TraditionalBodywork.com. That was in 2018, and only about two years ago I reached the moment I could live from it — albeit humbly — which today is still the case, and will hopefully stay like this.
eBook | More info here
The website isn’t “the big block buster” and it makes just enough to pay the bills, save a bit for replacement of a fridge, a phone, or clothing, and — get by. And, to be honest, in the way the digital world develops nowadays, together with an increasingly monopolized Internet by the “big corps” it will be hard enough to keep things as they are. In fact, it seems I need to do more and more for the same amount of monthly income in a world that is getting more expensive by the day.
But in any case, early retirement at 55 is a dream gone by and I doubt very much if it will be possible to lean back at 65 or even 75. I feel — have this hunch — that I will need to work for my income until my last breath. Yet, I don’t really mind very much; I’m happy to be able to survive, and moreover — I have so little and own no property and such, that there’s literally nothing to take from me, which actually gives me a kind of “reverse financial freedom.”
In addition, I have the freedom to work at home in a little remote and tranquil countryside village without having a boss to answer to, and I can work more or less whenever I want, just as long as I make my 40+ hours to keep the site running. In fact, I realize that in some way I did retire at 55, but then in an entirely unexpected and unanticipated way.
As it is, I retired from my dream of material affluence, retired from having an employer, and retired from this busy, stressful, and unhealthy city life. I suppose things could have been worse. Hence, I made peace with it and as far as it goes — I made peace within.
