How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free

Edmonton-based author Ernie Zelinski is probably best known for this self-published international bestseller.

Zelinski semi-retired at 30 after being fired from an engineering job. One of his first books was called The Joy of Not Working, and he later published The Joy of Being Retired: 365 Reasons Why Retirement Rocks—and Work Sucks!. But the one that really struck a nerve for FIRE proponents was How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free, subtitled “Retirement wisdom that you won’t get from your financial advisor”.

Zelinski sugar-coats the content with pull-out quotes and a few cartoons. As the back-cover blurb… show more.

We live in expensive times, our lives could last longer than expected after our earning years have ended:  hands up anyone who has had the 3 am heebie-jeebies about a future in which one is very old and impoverished. We’ll never be able to retire . . . the huge charm of this book, for me, is the emphasis is less on storing away pennies than on embracing the future, and while I’ll grant he says that perhaps a little too often, sometimes you do have to catch people’s attention. There are no miraculous solutions, but there’s good advice and… show more.