I’m still in my mid 30’s, still decades away from the official retirement age. I’m working all the time, even at night and during week-end and I thought I’ll be doing the same things for another 30 years. Then it hit me. Who says I have to wait that long before I can finally drop what I’m doing and retire? Honestly speaking, there are really times when I just want to drop what I do for a living and go on to official retirement. And who doesn’t? I’m sure there are a lot of people out there who are wishing the same thing as I do. Sadly though, instead of retiring early, what is happening right now is that a lot of people (by choice or not by choice) are retiring late in their lives or are not retiring at all.

My goal is for me to retire before I reach 50 years of age. Now how do I get there is another topic worth another hub. But for now, here are the top 20 reasons why I want to retire at an early age:

• No waking up early in the morning just to get to work on time. I can go to sleep late and wake up any time I want.

• No more long commutes to and from my clients’ offices.

• Taking all my time in the morning to do my morning rituals. Drinking coffee, walking my dogs, eating breakfast – all these I can do at my own leisure.

• No annoying phone calls from people I do not want to talk to during the day. Hey, it happens. There are really days when I feel anti-social and when I get to retire early, I can be anti-social any day I like.

• Go to places on my own or with my hubby without the need to check in once in a while on what is happening in my office.

• No deadlines, no reports, no tax filings (I’m an accountant, remember?) and no rushing to finish the jobs and reports on time.

• No more overtime hours (hurray!).

• No more arguing with my clients and the tax people (What do we argue about? Can’t tell, it’s confidential).

• No more boring meetings or attending seminars that make me go to sleep in the middle of the event.

• No more worrying whether I collect enough from my clients to pay off my people’s salaries, the office rent, the office utilities, supplies, etc.

• I get to read the day’s newspaper from cover to cover.

• I get to read more books, magazines, online articles, etc.

• I have more time to do my hobby - cross-stitching.

• I can study the investment instruments such as stocks, mutual funds, trust funds, etc. (assuming I have the money to invest in these, of course).

• I have more time to learn about SEO writing, keywords and how to earn more on Adsense, Amazon and eBay. I can also take the time to learn Web Programming and Affiliate Marketing. Although by the time I reach 50, I’m sure there are other new ways to earn online.

• I can focus more on creating and building up my passive income.

• I have more time to go online and just surf the Internet.

• I can have more time for my husband and my kids (if I ever have any of those). Right now, I don’t have any, so by the time I reach 50, they will still be like teen-agers.

• I can focus on writing on Hubpages, reading more hubs, writing more comments and participating more on the forums.

• I can afford to do nothing and just relax the whole day.

These are my top 20 reasons for wanting to retire at an earlier age than the usual 60 – 65 retirement years. I guess the bottom line is I just want to enjoy my life as I get older and older. Getting there maybe tough but having the determination to do so, I don’t doubt that I can reach my target age of retirement. What about you, when do you plan to retire? Or do you plan to retire at all?