I have been looking at this retirement thing for a long time, and i have come to some conclusions.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark

Up until bitcoin, i had only thought of one genuine way to retire.
Buy and pay off a house. Buy 30 years of freeze dried food. Pay for the taxes in advance.
And now you can live for 30 years.

The problem is that every since the Federal Reserve was created, you can never save enough to retire.

Only 3% save enough to retire comfortably. Are people that bad with money?
Sure, there are a lot of people who spend every dollar that comes in as fast as they can, but 97% are like that?
No, you need to go above and beyond to get to a comfortable retirement.

And this is by design.

Many people, especially here on this platform, understand how bad the Federal Reserve Banks is, and they also know that the Infernal Revolting Syndicate was made right after, but i doubt many know that Social inSecurity was also made soon after, and BECAUSE OF the Fed.

Federal Reserve Bank - 1913
Internal Revenue Service - 1913
Social Security - 1935

The thing that the Fed created is negative real interest rates.
If inflation is at 5% and the interest your getting on your money is 4%, you are losing buying power.
Unless you got into ultra-risky assets, for the most part, our money has never kept up with inflation.

Social Insecurity and bankruptcy have been used to hide the destruction that the Fed causes. Because a person falling into bankruptcy is a part of the system. The slowest runners get culled. And if you knew the statistic that only 3% of people have a large enough retirement account, and this happens because of the Fed's money printing stealing what you save, then there would be a lot of angry people.

Just saving for retirement is not enough.
(all those financial planners will find a special place in hell waiting for them)

A different plan is needed to retire.

Almost all of these require a plan of minimizing expenses and maximizing income (or material acquisition)

Just getting a job, a car and a house doesn't make it. Robert Kiyosaki says that "job" stands for Just Over Broke.

You need to work your butt off getting a pile of money to invest into a house.
Then you need to pay off your house as quickly as possible.

Stay away from new cars and other money sinks.

It helps if you are of the entrepreneur mindset, but it is not necessary.
You just have to keep your outgo low, and your income high.

Pay for things that lower your future outflow, like solar panels (on a house where it is sunny) where you pay up front, but (almost) forever, you no longer have to pay the utilities. Here i would like to flesh out this path to live by, because it doesn't actually make sense if you do the numbers (because the numbers are wrong... when seen another way)

If you look at solar panels as an investment, and work out the ROI, then you find that they barely pay for themselves over twenty years. That's a long time to recover your money. To a strict accountant, that isn't worth it. From an investment advisor, you will be told to invest in the stock market instead.

However, this only holds true if you hold everything constant for 20 years.
The stock market will have at least one bad year during that 20, and you will lose a lot of your investment.
The rate for electricity has never stayed constant.
Your future earning potential is unknown.

So, if you have the money now to put into a solar electric system you can spend today's money (known) and get free electricity for a long time. This lowers your overhead costs and so all new money can put to retirement far more quickly. You also have a solar system (a solid thing) as opposed to money in the bank (tenuous) or a stock (risky) and so you are far more future proof. It is a great feeling to have almost no monthly bills. If you get sick or injured, you are more capable of surviving.

When you reduce your monthly bills to nearly zero, then you are close to retirement.

A good method for achieving financial independence is "closing the loop" by Don Lancaster
a couple examples:
Say you pay $100 a year to the utility company. Then buy enough stock so that the dividends paid equal $100. Then you are just taking their money and giving the it back to the utility company.
Each year Don would work for the fire service during, and get paid by the govern-cement and then pay the IRS with the money he got from them.

It may not be the most efficient, but it works really well in your mind, and that is what is important.

So, in my mind, the way to attain retirement is bring your monthly expenses close to zero and then have investment money to cover the rest.

Or, if you had a house and 30 yeas of freeze dried food. You would have shelter and food for the rest of your life.

Because having any amount of money, when we are looking at a high inflation economy, will not guarantee retirement. In fact, it may be the fastest way into the poor house. (damn the Fed)

Of course, you could just invest in bitcoin.

All images in this post are my own original creations.