Opinion
Someone wrote to me last week asking if they should retire at 52. “I have savings to bridge me through to 60 and enough super to fund my life after that,” he wrote.
My first reaction is to ignore the numbers. Instead, I want to ask what this person actually means by retire. Retirement means different things to different people. For some, it’s stopping work entirely.
For others, it’s leaving their first career behind, and starting to work with more flexibility, or for the pleasure and meaning of it. Once you’re clear on what you mean by retirement, the next step is to think seriously about the consequences and risks.
On the surface, this reader, Mark, sounds well-prepared. He has savings to bridge the gap to 60 and a healthy super balance. From a purely mechanical perspective, retiring at 52 may be possible, and it can sound rather sexy.
But the bigger risk at that age is not just running out of money. It is locking yourself into a financial and lifestyle decision that is difficult to unwind, and later realising that what you really needed was change, flexibility and reinvigoration, not an exit.
In my experience, there are six things people often fail to consider when they think about retiring early. They are far better off thinking about them earlier and potentially, reframing the decision.
1. The bridge years are longer and riskier than they look. At 52, most people are still years away from the point where super can legally become their primary income source.
Even if you stop working by choice, you generally cannot access super until 60, which creates a long and inflexible period that needs to be funded entirely by money you’ve saved or income sources you’ve built outside super.
Any decision to stop earning from working in your early 50s commits you to funding everyday life, year after year, from a pool of capital that has no obvious source of replenishment.
The longer that period runs, the less room there is to adapt if something important changes: your marriage, your income sources, your health or even your goals.
This is not about whether the numbers add up in a spreadsheet today. It is about recognising that an eight-year bridge is a massive financial commitment to make in your early fifties, when life is just over half-done for many people.
2. Spending rarely falls as much as people assume it will. At 52, life is still active and often expensive. Many people assume that stepping away from full-time work automatically leads to lower spending, but the opposite is often true in the early years.
Early retirement typically starts with a high-energy phase of life packed with aspiration and excitement. It’s usually a time when people are healthy, curious and keen to make the most of the freedom they have worked hard to earn.
Travel tends to be more ambitious, not less. Health and wellbeing spending often increases as people invest in staying active and well. Adult children may still need financial support, and ageing parents often require time, money or both. None of this resembles the pared-back idyllic lifestyle people imagine when they dream about retirement.
3. Flexibility has a real financial value. For many people in their early fifties, the most powerful money move is not stopping work, but changing its shape. Most people never stop to exercise their ability to take a sabbatical or deliberately redesign how they work, even when they have the financial buffer to do so.
I want you to become financially independent and then choose how you want to participate, paid or unpaid, at a pace that fits your life.
Using that buffer to re-engineer a more flexible work-life balance can be far more effective than cutting income off completely.
In fact, flexibility is an asset most people forget to put a value on – but they should. It might mean shifting from senior roles into project work, mentoring, consulting or teaching. It might even see you step sideways or down into work that pays less but offers you more autonomy and enjoyment.
Or you might choose to combine a small amount of paid work with pursuits that pay little or nothing, creating a portfolio that better matches your passions and values.
And let’s be frank, this is not just about lifestyle. Maintaining some level of income reduces the pressure on your savings during those bridging years, and extends the life of your assets outside super.
4. Sequencing risk matters more for longer. Sequencing risk is the danger of having to draw on your savings during a market downturn early in retirement. If markets fall in those first few years and there is no pay cheque coming in to cushion the impact, you may be forced to sell assets at the wrong time to cover everyday expenses. Once that money is gone, it is much harder to rebuild.
What makes this risk more pronounced in your early fifties is time. The earlier you retire, the longer you are exposed to the order, or sequence, in which markets perform. A poor run early on can have a much bigger impact, even if markets recover later, because your capital has already been reduced.
Add longevity to the mix and the stakes rise further. Retiring in your early fifties can mean funding a retirement that lasts 40 or even 50 years.
5. Exhaustion often signals the need for a reset, not an ending. Many people who talk about retiring in their early fifties are simply exhausted. After decades of intensity, responsibility and workplace pressure, retirement can start to feel like the only available off-ramp. In midlife, retirement is often the only language we have for needing things to change.
But retirement is not the only answer to exhaustion, boredom or being completely fed up with your job. For some people, a sabbatical, a period of part-time work, or a deliberate career shift can deliver the relief or excitement they are craving without locking in a permanent financial decision.
Taking a pause can restore your energy and perspective, and for many people it opens the door to new kinds of work that are more sustainable and, importantly, more enjoyable.
From a money perspective, you might be able to afford to retire, but you might be better off using those savings to fund a reset, a sabbatical, or a year of education and learning.
6. There’s a social reality of retiring early most people miss. At 52, most other people Mark’s age are still working. And while the idea of free time can feel intoxicating, the reality can be a lot more complex.
Having time without a clear sense of purpose, meaning or colleagues can lead to empty days and, at times, a lot of unexpected loneliness. There’s not as many places to find a peer group with similar amounts of idle time to fill with lunch, sports or leisure.
Work can provide a lot more than just income. It gives you routines, identity and a built-in community. Leaving it early means you have to be prepared to consciously replace this because community, social interaction and shared purpose matters.
I know this may disappoint some people who dream of becoming financially independent and retiring early. My aim is slightly different. I want you to become financially independent and then choose how you want to participate, paid or unpaid, at a pace that fits your life, your health and your energy.
Instead of wishing for retirement, I invite you to rethink work for flexibility in your fifties. We are living better for longer than any generation before us and, for many people, sitting on more super than earlier generations ever did. Yet our institutions, definitions and language have not caught up. Work, money and retirement are still largely designed around much shorter lives.
That longer life gives you options. The challenge is resisting the urge to treat retirement as the only one that counts, rather than one choice among many.
Bec Wilson is author of the bestseller How to Have an Epic Retirement and the newly released Prime Time: 27 Lessons for the New Midlife. She writes a weekly newsletter at epicretirement.net and hosts the Prime Time podcast.
- Advice given in this article is general in nature and is not intended to influence readers’ decisions about investing or financial products. They should always seek their own professional advice that considers their own personal circumstances before making financial decisions.
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Bec Wilson is the author of How To Have An Epic Retirement and writes a weekly newsletter for pre- and post-retirees at epicretirement.net.
