Yes. But only if you stop thinking about retirement the way society taught you to.
I retired at 35. Spent the next five years living in Panama and hiking across Europe.
Not because I earned a lot. Because I stopped solving the wrong problem.
Most people have a number. Some giant figure they need to hit before they’re allowed to stop working. $4M, $6M, numbers that take decades to reach. They hand their money to an index fund, grind for 30 years, and hope the maths holds.
That’s fine. It works. It’s just slow.
Here’s what I did instead.
There are two levers. Most people only pull one.
Everyone focuses on earning more. Save more. Invest more. Compound more.
Nobody talks about cutting the cost of your life at the same time.
Pull both levers simultaneously and the maths changes completely.
Lever one: generate income from your portfolio
Selling options isn’t passive investing. It’s a skill. It takes time to learn, it has losing months, and it isn’t for everyone.
But in the right market conditions, experienced options traders target monthly returns in the range of 2%.
On a $250,000 portfolio that’s:
- $5,000 per month
- $60,000 per year
Most people hear that and think it’s not enough. It is — because of what happens when you combine it with lever two.
Lever two: stop paying Western prices for your life
Your expenses are a choice, not a fixed cost.
A comfortable life in London, Sydney, or San Francisco costs $6,000–8,000 a month. The same quality of life in Medellín, Chiang Mai, or Da Nang costs $1,500–2,500.
Same food quality. Same internet speed. Same sunshine. Fraction of the price.
Here’s how I’d structure the year:
4 months in Medellín, Colombia. Good coffee, warm weather, excellent food, a functioning expat community, and a modern city that most people haven’t discovered yet. Under $2,500/month.
4 months in Thailand. Chiang Mai if you want mountains and infrastructure. Coast if you want beaches. Either way, one of the best quality-to-cost ratios on the planet. Under $2,500/month.
4 months in Vietnam. Da Nang for the beach. Hoi An if you want one of the most beautiful towns in Asia. Fast internet, great food, almost no one complaining about the cost of living. Under $2,000/month.
The numbers
Annual living costs: under $27,000 per year. Options income at 2% monthly: $60,000 every year. Surplus to reinvest: ~$33,000. Every year.
That $33,000 goes back into the portfolio. Next year you’re generating income from a larger base. The year after, larger again.
Twelve months overseas. Every year, and you still end up a millionaire in 9 years without climbing the corporate ladder, dealing with a tenant’s broken toilet at 2am, or working 60-hour weeks.
Why most people don’t do this
It’s not complicated. The maths is simple. The information is free.
The barrier is that it requires you to live differently to everyone around you. Different country. Different skillset. Different definition of what retirement even means.
Most people won’t do that. They’ll keep pulling one lever, waiting for a number that keeps moving further away.
The people who pull both levers at once tend to get there faster. That’s the whole idea.
The system
Build a portfolio. Learn to generate income from it. Move somewhere your income goes further. Reinvest what’s left over. Repeat.
That’s it. No secret. No shortcut. Just two levers and the discipline to pull both at the same time.
If this is the direction you want to go, I cover the geo-arbitrage and location-independence side here on Substack every month.
For the options income side, the actual strategy, setups, and month-to-month mechanics, start with The Lazy Formula, my free options trading Discord (QR Below).
Ready to go deeper? The paid community is The Alpha Desk, where we work through live setups and monthly income targeting together.
Cheers
Andy
Valencia
Options trading carries significant risk including potential for substantial losses. Returns are not guaranteed. All figures are hypothetical examples for illustrative purposes only and not a prediction of future performance. This is not financial advice.