Financial Independence & Early Retirement

A route to making work optional: a real spending baseline and savings rate, an FI target built for a long horizon, a funded bridge to pension age, and the routines and exit plan that get you out on time.

Download for Mac Download for Windows

Free · Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows · v1.0.0 · Other platforms

Then open the Marketplace in the app, search for Financial Independence & Early Retirement, and click Install. It goes into your own files, and works offline from then on.

Before you start: this plan is general information to help you organise your own money decisions. It is not financial, investment, tax or legal advice. Check decisions that matter with a qualified, licensed adviser in your country, and remember that investing and trading can lose money.

What it installs.

Pillar

Area

Projects

201

Starter tasks

📈 Wealth & Investing

Financial Independence & Early Retirement

Pursuing financial independence and early retirement with a high savings rate, clear target and plan for the years before pensions start.

Your written reason for financial independence
Twelve-month spending baseline from real transactions
Savings rate formula fixed and first figure calculated
FI target sized for a retirement of 40 years or more
FI-countable assets separated from everything you own
Years-to-FI projection at three savings rates
Map of when each account can be touched
Funding order for FI contributions
Payday automation into investment accounts
Monthly FI dashboard
Monthly spending check against the FI budget
Quarterly FI assumptions review
Yearly FI date recalculation
Pay rise and bonus capture rule
Thirty-day list for purchases above a set amount
Annual challenge to housing, transport and food costs
Monthly money meeting for an FI household
Monthly cash sweep into investments
Withdrawal rate research for retirements of 40 to 60 years
Sequence risk in the first decade without a salary
Early access rules for pensions and retirement accounts
Flexible spending rules and guardrails
Tax on a low-salary early retirement income
FI case studies read with a critical eye
Lean, regular or fat FI target choice
Health cover for the years before pensions and state support
Bridge fund for the years before pensions open
Housing plan for early retirement
Cheaper place to live comparison
Salary negotiation to shorten the FI date
Values-based spending audit
Part-time step-down versus a hard stop
Exit criteria to avoid one more year
Halfway to FI checkpoint
Coast FI point and what changes after it
Twelve-month rehearsal on the retirement budget
Leaving conversation with your employer
Leaving-work benefits and paperwork checklist
First year of early retirement plan
Children's costs inside an early retirement plan
One partner retiring early while the other works
High earner in an expensive city
FI plan for a late start in your forties
Single-income FI plan without a partner's backstop
Purpose and weekly structure after full-time work
Caring duties or health limits in the FI plan
Ten-year withdrawal and tax plan for early retirees
Stress test against a bad first five years
Return-to-work fallback plan
Five-year recalibration after leaving work

Where it starts.

Each project arrives with its purpose, milestones and first tasks written out. Here is how the first three read.

Your written reason for financial independence

Financial independence asks for years of choices that look odd to colleagues, and the people who keep going usually know exactly what they are buying with the money. Writing down what you would stop doing, start doing and protect once work is optional turns a vague wish into a test every later decision can be held against. It also tells you whether you want to stop work entirely or simply want the option.

First tasks

Write three sentences on what you would do with a Tuesday if work were optional
List the parts of your job you would keep if money were no object
Choose between full stop, step-down or option-only and record why
Put a first guess at a target age at the bottom of the note

Twelve-month spending baseline from real transactions

Every FI calculation multiplies your annual spending, so an estimate that is ten percent too low pushes the target out of reach without you noticing. Exporting a full year of bank and card transactions catches the irregular costs that monthly budgets forget: car repairs, gifts, annual subscriptions, holidays and the broken boiler. The result is the one number the rest of this area depends on.

First tasks

Download twelve months of statements from each current account
Download twelve months of credit card statements
Remove transfers between your own accounts
Group every transaction into no more than fifteen categories
Add a line for irregular costs averaged over the year

Savings rate formula fixed and first figure calculated

Savings rate drives the timeline to financial independence more than investment returns do, yet people calculate it in ways that make month-to-month comparison meaningless. Deciding once whether you use gross or take-home pay, and whether employer pension contributions count, gives you a figure that only moves for real reasons.

First tasks

Decide whether your savings rate uses gross or take-home pay
Write down whether employer pension money counts as income and saving
Calculate last month's savings rate with that definition
Recalculate the three months before it for a short trend

Make it yours.

Install Financial Independence & Early Retirement, then tell Aurum the date you're aiming for. It checks whether the plan fits the weeks you actually have.

Download for Mac Download for Windows

Free · Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows · v1.0.0 · Other platforms

Blueprints are general information to help you organise your own work. They are not medical, financial, legal or other professional advice. See the Terms.