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How to Retire Early [Bryan Hasling quoted in Barron's]
Bryan Hasling, CFP®
May 15, 2025
The FIRE Movement used to drive the old-man-in-me crazy.
“So you ‘retired early’, but you’re still… working?”
But as I watched a few more recycled-TikToks that finally made it to Instagram reels, I realized I was thinking about it all wrong.
They’re not being disingenuous.
They simply updated the definition of “early retirement” to fit something more natural to them.
For most people, that new definition goes something like:
Early Retirement = leaving my soul-sucking (higher-paying) job and switching to a more-rewarding career. I’ll intentionally make less money, but I’ll live a much happier life.
The FIRE Movement rejects waiting until age 65 to enjoy life. And to my surprise, it didn’t necessarily promote eating rice & beans and clipping coupons religiously.
It isn’t easy to achieve, but there is indeed a better way.
How to Retire Early
Over the last several years, I’ve created dozens of Early Retirement (or FIRE) plans. The most successful plans always have these 4 things in common:
1. Large brokerage account (or free cash flow)
Here I am in a recent Barron’s article discussing which account-types to use:
“People have traditionally used their employer’s retirement plan as the main thing that they’re going to use for retirement,” Hasling says. “It says the word ‘retirement account’ so people think that that’s the only thing that you can use for retirement.”
But he has found that the people who are able to retire early are those who have maxed out workplace retirement accounts and have significant savings in taxable brokerage accounts and Roth individual retirement accounts (IRAs), which allow you to withdraw contributions before age 59½ without penalty.
If you don’t plan on touching retirement accounts (like IRAs, 401ks, etc.) until your 60’s, you need a healthy buffer outside of that. Immediately-accessible.
Every successful FIRE plan I’ve made had a larger-than-average brokerage account.
They saved a ton in their working years, and put every extra dollar to work.
Liquidity is table stakes for early retirement plans. There’s little room for private (startup) investing or “alternative” strategies if access to your money is important.
2. A withdrawal plan
Saving money is the easy part - but where do you pull from? Which investments get sold? When?
If you’re heavily invested, you’ll want to be sensitive on which assets you’re selling to support your lifestyle. Taxes are one thing, but market timing is another, and you want to feel confident on all.
3. Planned healthcare
If you leave your employer, your health insurance might shoot up. Wayyy up.
Rates will certainly vary. But a safe starting point might be to budget anywhere from $500-1,000/mo per adult, and add on more for kids.
If you’re income drops very low, you might get government subsidies. And at age 65, you’ll get highly-subsidized coverage from Medicare.
4. Know how much income you still need to earn
If you retired early but still need income to cover your lifestyle (without reducing anything), you need to know:
a) how much to earn annually
b) for how many years.
Of course, a lot more goes into it. And there are an overwhelming different types of FIRE sub-definitions that I’m not an expert in.
But if this sounds like something you’re interested in charting out, you can reach out any time.
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