How would like to retire early?
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What motivated Michael Houghton to pursue early retirement at age 42?
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The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk with Aviva Insurance.
Well, how would you like to retire early? And I mean super early. My next guest is retiring at the age of 42 and he's here to tell us how he has done it. Columnist for The Irish Independent, Michael Houghton, you're very welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me on.
Now, you've handed in the notice to the job as a software developer for next March. You're gone. And when you say you're going to retire, Michael, right? I'm not going to be sceptical here, but I am a bit sceptical. Are you talking full retirement here? You and your wife no longer working. That part of your life is finished?
Yeah, that's certainly the plan. That's certainly the plan. Now, whether it'll hold, we'll see.
How did Michael’s financial situation look before he started saving for retirement?
But certainly no more nine to five, no more actively pursuing work for the sake of income. There's no real plans to do anything. I have a small column. I write for the Irish Independent, very small column, not enough money to certainly live off. But yeah, other than that, that's about it.
The desire to retire at this point in your life, I mean, for a lot of people, they find work gives them a sense of purpose. They find it fulfilling. It's a source of enjoyment. It's a social aspect in their life. Had you lost that love?
I don't think I ever had it, to be honest. So that was a massive part for me. I was a software developer. It was very much get the job done, contracting for years. There wasn't always love for the job. Whereas outside of work, I was a parent. I had kids. I'm involved in hockey and sports clubs and volunteering activities, all these other great things. Three kids, to be clear. Three kids, yeah, outside. And you look at full-time parenting alone, it's hard enough to juggle everything. So for me, the job has slowly, as we've built up our portfolio and our freedom fund, if you want to call it that, the desire to work has got less and less as we go, you know.
What investment choices (stocks, index funds, property) did he make to build his portfolio?
So has this always been a plan of yours? I mean, when you joined the workforce, I presume back in your 20s, did you think, look, this isn't for me and my plan and my focus is to get out of here and be financially secure as quickly as I can?
No. And it was only something we started about nine years ago now. So eight or nine years ago, we lived a very ordinary middle-class Irish life. We were earning about 70,000 euros a year. We spent it all. There was one realization at Christmas one time, I came back to work after Christmas and said, I'm starting again. I'm still back to zero. There's nothing to show. And so I met a friend, we'd taken a trip down to New Zealand where I'm from originally and we'd met a friend and he was living a semi-retired life and he kind of inspired me to go, look, this is what we need to do to be able to do this.
So that's only nine years ago. And you're saying that you came back after Christmas on a joint income of about 70,000, nothing in the tank. Again, a lot of people I think listening this morning will be familiar with that. And within that short period of time, you have been able to get to a point where you and your wife now can leave work full time.
Yeah, look, it sounds crazy when you ask it that way. But look, remember, compounding does a massive amount of the heavy lifting. We invested in stocks very early on. We bought a couple of properties quite early on, about seven or eight years ago. So we've been fortunate from that point of view to be able to see that growth that's come through the investments. We've put about half the money in and the growth has been about the other half. The portfolio is just shy of a million euro now.
How did Michael and his wife manage extreme budgeting and sacrifice to save 75% of their income?
So that's effectively what we're retiring off.
OK, when we were discussing you amongst the team this morning, somebody said, no, no, there's got to be a catch here, Ciara.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What motivated Michael Houghton to pursue early retirement at age 42?
0:00–1:17
2
How did Michael’s financial situation look before he started saving for retirement?
1:17–2:23
3
What investment choices (stocks, index funds, property) did he make to build his portfolio?
2:23–3:53
4
How did Michael and his wife manage extreme budgeting and sacrifice to save 75% of their income?
3:53–4:59
5
What role did property investments play in reaching a near‑million‑euro portfolio?
4:59–6:12
6
How does Michael generate income now—rental, dividends, pensions, or other sources?
6:12–7:26
7
What strategies does he use to protect his wealth against market fluctuations and a long retirement horizon?
7:26–8:33
8
What advice does Michael give to listeners who want to replicate his early‑retirement path?
8:33–10:18