Retirement - the easy route!

TheStar.com | Ellen Roseman | Retiree, 37 did it the easy way

Ellen Roseman at the Toronto Star often finds little gems of information that she is happy to share with her audience, and this is the latest one. This article reviews Canadian retiree Derek Foster's new book: The Lazy Investor: Start with $50 ... and No Investment Knowledge.

Mr. Foster seems to have done things the old-fashioned way: he actually looks into stocks at a more-than-superficial level, analysing what he buys and then holding them for a good long time , and reinvesting the dividends thereof - hmm, does that remind you of what all the financial advisors have been telling you forever and a day? It sure does me!

The incentive to follow this plan? Mr. Foster's own success story: he retired, on his own terms, at the age of 34! Not a bad precedent to emulate, that!

There is another interesting angle here: Mr. Foster manages to enjoy a great retired lifestyle supporting a young family (4 kids) on $36,000.00 per year - far less than what a lot of financial planners will tell you to estimate to support your retired lifestyle. Today, every financial planner seems to think that the average retiree (retiring at age 60+) will need well over 1 million dollars in investments to throw off enough annual income to last the rest of your lifetime. Mr. Foster is living proof that this is not true: his portfolio is far lower than a million, and he's actually got a family to support!

How is he doing it? The slow way: buy-and-hold. And it still got him to retirement at an age when many of us are still looking at a minimum of 20 to 25 more years of hard work!

There are many ways to financial freedom, and each of us must find our own path - the one that resonates with us and is enough in congruence with our own lifestyle that we will follow the necessary steps without too much resentment and rebellion, of course. This is one that may not be as glamorous as winning several million dollars on a reality TV show, but it is also one that has a realistic chance of you achieving your goals without a whole lot of pain.

Not for the thrill-seekers, this formula will nevertheless certainly help you reach your financial freedom goal without losing your beauty sleep - after all, at 34, you will have a whole lot of life left to live: you might as well look your best! And for those of us past that golden age, it still offers a stress-free way to accumulate enough for our own ideal retirement!