For 15 years, Steve Adcock rose through the ranks of corporate America, spent his money cautiously and invested his excess savings with one goal in mind — retiring early.
In 2016, at the age of 35, his efforts paid off. He left his job with nearly a million dollars to his name, and he and his wife began their post-career lives.
For the past seven years, Adcock has been doling out financial advice through his Millionaire Habits newsletter in an effort to help others achieve fiscal independence and retire early like he did.
But the self-made financial coach has received his fair share of criticism and has fielded some of "the stupidest lies about early retirement," he said in a tweet. Among them are that retiring early will incite perpetual boredom, that it will ruin your relationship and that it will prevent you from reentering the workforce.
In an interview with CNBC Make It, the millionaire refuted those claims — retirement hasn't been boring, his relationship is healthy and reentering the workforce might not be as difficult as it's made out to be.
Beat the boredom
"I can count on ONE HAND the number of times I've felt bored since retiring early," Adcock tweeted.
His secret? Having an idea of what he wanted his post-career life to be like.
“You need to know what you’re retiring to, not just what you’re retiring from,” he told CNBC Make It. “If your job is your only hobby, then you have no business retiring early.”
Adcock recommended picking up hobbies and testing them out before biting the bullet and retiring to gauge whether or not you'd enjoy practicing that hobby for the next several decades.
Your relationship might not actually be in danger
Acquiring hobbies can also help save relationships that might find themselves under extra strain from the early retirement, Adcock said.
Skeptics argue that leaving the workforce early forces couples to spend more time with each other than when they were both working, which can be beneficial, in some cases, but is often detrimental.
Adcock said finding hobbies, starting projects and discovering ways to occupy yourself during the day can provide necessary time away from your partner.
You can find work again
Some critics of early retirement argue that individuals who leave the workforce early might experience dire financial straits that would require them to scramble for other sources of income later in life.
And many argue that retiring early destroys those individuals' chances of reentering their career fields.
Adcock admitted that he would probably never get back the job he left with the same salary and responsibilities.
“But the other side of that coin is, I don’t want that same job back,” he told CNBC Make It. “I spent 15 years of my life trying to escape that job. Why would I possibly want to go back to that?”
Retiring early showcases the skillset necessary to reenter the workforce, Adcock argued, so other opportunities will likely present themselves.
Since leaving the workforce himself, Adcock Tweeted that he's actually turned down more job opportunities than when he worked full-time. "It's not even close," he wrote.
He emphasized that acquiring another full-time position might not even be necessary for those experiencing financial difficulties, either — they could find a part-time job they enjoy and make extra money that way. Those who retire early often saved enough money to last the rest of their lives, or so they thought, so they likely don't need another full-time job to offset their expenses, he said.
