I couldn't agree more about what you said about retirement. The odds of finding a job you can work for 30 years that will actually let you stay long enough to retire from are already slim and getting slimmer, and who wants to waste 30 years enriching a soul-less corporation that's going to give you he axe the moment they find a way to profit another nickel for it, anyway? Thinking of the time you miss with friends and family, of how detrimental such a daily grind is to your physical and emotional well-being, and the utter lack of satisfaction such a life provides is more than enough reason to look into other options to achieve financial independence. Retirement is a thing of he past. Going that route now leads to working like a beast of burden until you break then stuggling to survive with nothing until you die.