The golden cage: is retirement a right or a choice?

In Belgium, one can retire at the age of 65-67. In my case, I would be able to go 1 year earlier. We are programmed to follow the road our parents have followed. My parents are great, loving people and inspiring to me. They are both retired and do as they please. I know I won’t have the luxury to retire at the age of maximum 60. This doesn’t sound like YOLO, right?

In Europe, this concept has been introduced by O. Von Bismarck in 1889. Life expectancy from a German man was 40 years. They could retire at the age of 70 years, which has been decreased to 65. This age became accepted worldwide, but is nowadays questioned. Clever man that Bismarck, a difference of 25 years. That difference is on the other side now, that’s why the system doesn’t work anymore.

The question is, until what age do I have to work until I can retire? Retiring sounds like a luxury to me, something I might not enjoy. One has to make choices to reach this goal. Social Security is questioned, life expectancy is growing, so retiring is not certain, they might add years, lower the amount you receive…

One can approach this differently:

• Just stay in the golden cage, work 9-5 and make ends meet, living life as ‘programmed’
• Just stay in the golden cage, work 9-5 and make choices about habits, spending, and leave this cage regularly
• We can control retirement and choose toretire early and leave the golden cage permanently

The last approach is somewhat ‘terrifying’, because we don’t follow the planned route and that we are in charge. The second approach is pretty much doable. The first approach is what we always say, plan Z, you know it’s there.

Of course, there are also some other possibilities like becoming sick, losing your job etcetera, we assume that you can always work and try to get some.

Let’s do this together and support each other.

We CAN retire early,any time, any place, doing whatever we want.

We will need extra income to do so, one of these can be real estate, index funds, sidejobs…

What is your approach and how do you do it? Feel free to comment below.