A few months ago, Joe from Retire by 40 published the quiz How Serious Are You About Early Retirement? I took the quiz (BudgetsAreSexy did too!) and found it informative and entertaining. I thought it would be fun to share my answers with you and let you know about the early retirement quiz, if you haven’t taken it yet.
Early retirement is a great financial goal to have.
Related articles:
- Early Retirement Myths Busted
- How This 28 Year Old Retired With $2.25 Million
- The 6 Steps To Take To Invest Your First Dollar – Yes, It’s Really This Easy!
For us, I don’t know when or if we will ever completely stop working, but having the option to is important.
Looking at early retirement as a goal, whether you stop working completely or not, means financial stability is a top priority for you. You just never know what may happen, and that stability is always a great thing to have.
Here are the directions for the quiz: “You need to keep track of your own score for this quiz. The questions are just TRUE/FALSE. You get a point for every TRUE. Then simply put your score in the poll at the end.”
Here’s the quiz:
1. You know your net worth
Yes, I know my net worth!
Tracking your net worth with a platform such as Personal Capital is a great way to stay on track and stay motivated.
2. You have a Roth IRA
Yes!
3. You have no consumer debt – car, credit card, etc…
We have no debt. We do some travel hacking (learn how to get to Hawaii for less than $25) but we pay off our credit cards every single month.
And, yes, even our RV was paid for with cash.
4. You have a “retire by” date
We have a date, but we are not super strict about it. We could retire right now if we wanted to, but we have chosen to keep working because we love what we do so much.
5. You have a side hustle or two
I have many different streams of income. However, I don’t currently have anything outside of my business going on. I think I’ll still give myself a point for this because I used to side hustle like crazy 🙂
Related: How To Make Extra Money
6. You have passive income
Yes, I have passive income through affiliate marketing on my blog. This isn’t considered 100% passive as I do need to do a little bit of work, but I’m still going to count it.
Plus, I also have retirement accounts that pay dividends.
7. Your investments are worth more than your house
Yes, our investments are worth more than our RV.
8. You have a post retirement plan – volunteer, etc…
We currently live a very exciting life and will probably be doing something quite similar even when we retire.
9. You save 50% of your household income
Yes, we currently save over 90%.
10. You have backup plans
Yes, we do have a backup plan. If things go downhill, then I am all about workamping – volunteering at campgrounds at national parks and state parks in return for a free campsite and electricity 🙂
Bonus point – You cut your own hair
Ha, nope! My hair is my one splurge. I like to have it colored different ways (multiple times a year), and I do get a haircut about once a year.
Early Retirement Quiz Scoring:
- 0-5: Skeptic. Do you believe in early retirement? Perhaps it’s not a goal of yours?
- 6-7: Novice. You’re on your way to early retirement!
- 8-9: Committed. You’ll get to early retirement soon.
- 10+: Driven. Early retirement is definitely on your mind, or you may even already be retired!
I scored 10 points on this early retirement quiz. And, early retirement is definitely something I am aiming for, although it’s just the independence that I’m crazy about because I still do love to work.
Now, even if your score wasn’t what you hoped, you can still work towards early retirement. It probably just means that you need to be aware of where you are at and where you want to be. Remember, being aware of your situation is the first step!
What was your early retirement score? Share in the comments and let’s start a discussion!
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- 56% Of Americans Have Less Than $10,000 Saved For Retirement
- How To Get Rich: The Steps To Build Wealth Now
- 9 Early Retirement Stories That Will Motivate You
Mrs. Adventure Rich says
Great quiz! We are at a 7 right now, but I’m hoping to bump that up in the next year or two!
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says
You can do it!
Dave @ Run The Money says
Saw this quiz earlier on BudgetsAreSexy as you mention. It is a great quiz as MRR says. I definitely need to up my score of 6 and do a better job!
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says
6 is still great!
Ms. Frugal Asian Finance says
Wow congrats on the nice score! I haven’t taken the quiz yet. I think I’m going to fail it since I haven’t thought much about early retirement haha. It’s great to know that you’re so driven to retire early. I look forward to the day when it’s announced on your blog! ^.^
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says
I don’t know if I’ll retire early anytime soon – I still like my work 🙂 If I announced it on my blog afterall, that means I would be done blogging, haha!
Counting Quarters says
Love it. I’m not so sure I want to necessarily retire. I enjoy what I am doing and would really miss the social aspect of my job. There are definitely days though…
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says
Yes, I love that quiz!
Jalpan Dave says
Thanks a lot for this quiz Michelle! I really loved it. I am at 7. I am starting a blog as a side hustle and am hoping to grow and scale it and build passive income from it. I also plan to funnel most of the profits into my stock market investments for further growth and income until my investments are worth more than my house.
That is where I lost points.
Thanks a lot for your course on blogging. I am struggling with some technical issues in terms of setting up but once that is done, I am raring to go!!
Mrs. Picky Pincher says
I gotta say: for being in debt we’re still doing all right! It’s tough to heavily invest when you’re still getting out of debt, but as long as you’re working on your goal and making progress, I think you’re still taking the journey seriously.
Grant @ Life Prep Couple says
Got an 8 including the bonus question and my sweet buzz cut.
Hoping to check the rest of the boxes very soon.
Lily He-Prudhomme says
Aw I think I’m a 6.5 – that’s not a bad score for a 25 year old (26 in a few days!) I’ll take that any day. I’m having a tough time calculating the retirement date (and amount) because when it comes down to retiring, something tells me I won’t really be “retiring.”
You can’t take the work horse out with just money 😉
Sarah says
I left the workforce at thirty-eight and have been home for several years. And I’ve entered a new season a life and I’m enjoying it. I’m not the sort of person to sit around doing nothing and the extra time has sparked numerous interests and pursuits. Since I’m working on a startup, I wouldn’t consider myself retired. However, entrepreneurship is made better when external and financial hardships are not a concern. I love what I do. That’s the greatest blessing.
Kristin says
I love this quiz! I have a 7…..I hope to gain more numbers in the future if I can figure out a way to monetize my blog 🙂
Adriana @MoneyJourney says
I remember taking the test when Joe first published it and got 7 points. I re-took it just now and got the same 7 points 😀
Not exactly sure if that’s a good thing, but even without a test, I still feel I’m somewhere in between ‘skeptic’ and ‘driven’.
Dennis says
I would loved to have scored a bit higher on this. However, there’s a lot of actionable items to move towards early retirement. I’m going to work on my investing skills without doing any securities fraud to ensure that I have enough passive income to at least get on a better track to retirement. I really like how you have laid it out and made it something we can really think about doing seriously.
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says
That seems like an odd thing to add to this – do you think the average early retiree is involved in securities fraud?
Chad Brown says
Thanks for your good information.
My score will be 7 to 8.
I think I’m pretty good 🙂
Emenike Emmanuel says
Hi Michelle,
This is a great awakening. But planning for retirement has never crossed my eyes. And it’s never cheap. I think saving up for that will make so much h sense.
Emenike
Rebecca says
You save over 90% of your monthly income?! That is crazy! I have always wanted to retire early, and I haven’t really done much in order to achieve that, but reading this post made me think about what I can start doing now to be able to retire at least a few years earlier!
Barry says
I scored a 6 haha…
By the way Michelle, you mentioned you used to… ‘side hustle’ like crazy, and there’s no doubt you’ve got extensive knowledge in this area; I clicked on your how to make money on the side and wow, I was blown away — not just by the sheer amount of different methods you’ve compiled but how you give an explanation/introduction to each and every! Bravo.
Anyways, so what I was wondering was… What are your thoughts on a pyramid scheme? Though many people see it as a scam, there are those that see it as a valuable opportunity. I’m very interested in your thoughts on this, because you clearly have many years of experience and knowledge about ‘supplemental income’, and so your insight would probably be as good as any I can get.
Thank you!
DNN says
Hello Michelle,
This is really a thought provoking blog post. Most young people are incinuited in the moment of having fun and doing as they please without a thought in the world about retirement. I wish I had my mind focused on that when I was back in my youth. I myself was having fun and though I always wanted my own business, I didn’t know back then how to get started with my own business, prepare financially for retirement, nor had 100% support from people. Today is a different story when it comes to working hard toward retirement because there’s literlly no more job security left in America regardless of what type of college degree anyone has. I still advocate for anyone to go to college and gte the highest educational degree possibe as a way to have something to fall back on just in case.
I’m working hand over fist in this era to get myself financially ready in the next 10 years God willing. I don’t party, I don’t and never really did bars, stopped drinking, losing weight now, and cut out all the fake friends. This way, i can focus intensely on building and expending my business, build sustainable relationships with others such as yourself, and set myself up in a positive position to earn passive residual income. Staying the course as an entrepreneur and financially is challenging, but all worth “doing the transformation business work.”
Adam Duncan says
I have been financially independent since 2007 when I started my own business. i do what I want when I want. Now that I am 56 I think about slowing down but I could do what I am doing until I am 70 if my health doesn’t incapacitate my mind and never start drawing on my retirement savings.
Kris says
I scored an 8 including the bonus, my wife cuts my hair.=)
Hopefully I could bump it up to a 10 soon by getting a side hustle for additional income and opening a Roth IRA(currently have a traditional)