Extreme Saving Method Speeds Up Early Retirement Option – AARP

When Nicole Gosz and her husband started following FIRE, “we focused on living on as little as we could,” she says. She spent $12 in one year on makeup, for example — beauty e-tailer SkinStore reports the average woman spends $8 per day on makeup — “and I coupon and layer that on top of sales.” She says she and her husband eat 90 percent of their meals at home.

And that’s not even the hard part. Retiring early from a full-time job means having to buy health insurance, the cost of which goes up with age, and living without the safety net of Social Security, which can’t be claimed until age 62.

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