At the age of 33, Ed Hawkins, a London journalist, gave up his pen, paper and a busy London city life to move to the south-west of France with his girlfriend. What possessed Hawkins to retire at this very early age? He feared he was missing out on the best years of his life. The years when you can still do things and move were being replaced with a computer screen and stress. And when one is eventually entitled to that time of doing nothing, the body has aged and doesn’t allow you to fully enjoy retirement.

And for this reason Hawkins decided to “retire now and work later.” His logic is “youth is wasted on the young, they say…but surely retirement is wasted on the old?” So he rented out his apartment in London and took to the south-west of France.

You may be laughing at the idea but according to Hawkins there are more like him out there.

Having been in France for six months, we’ve met other couples who want to enjoy life in their prime and received news of friends back home who’ve likewise ditched high-powered careers.

Hawkins questioned slaving away at a career for a decade, working all hours just to climb the professional ladder. Hawkins now lives in a French village and enjoys “country walks and fireside chats.”

With a tight budget, the customary trappings of London life would have to be forgotten. We found a cosy gîte near Toulouse and travelled down in our beaten-up VW camper, an obstinate vehicle that occasionally required a push start.

This from another couple who have retired early and are living in France full time. Yvonne and Lain Morton said:

Working in the City was full-on. I spent the last five years always on call. I travelled a lot and saw more of Heathrow than home. I was on my BlackBerry at six in the morning and it was the last thing I checked at night. Enough was enough. So I’ve retired. Now we grow our own vegetables, go skiing in the Pyrenees in the winter or swim every day in the summer.

It’s relatively cheap to live here. Baguettes, wines and cheese don’t cost that much. We have an income from rental flats in London so we don’t need to work. Iain takes on contract work now and then to keep his hand in or if it’s an opportunity to work with people he really likes. And I know I can always do the same.

These early retirees are serious professioanls, lawyers and IT consultants between the ages of 30 and 45 years of age. Although work is not always guaranteed for those returning to their professions, the life of relaxation and enjoyment seems to trump that of computers, noise and stress.

[Source: IOL News]