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Recently, from the Sat 25th to Tue 28th of Jan 2025, I went on a 4-day long weekend break. Monday was a public holiday and I decided to take Tuesday off to enjoy a relaxing, long weekend. And let me tell you I enjoyed every second of it. For the first time, the weekend felt super long and I gotta tell you that a 4-5 day weekend is truly living the dream.
Whether you’re in the corporate world or working as a trade, we all have something in common which is that most of us work 9-5, 5 days per week. And even getting a long weekend (like 3 days) is very exciting for most of us (I know I get excited when it’s a public holiday 
). But imagine it was the other way around and you get to permanently enjoy a 5-day weekend every week, for the rest of your life. Okay maybe don’t the rest of your life but you get the point.
Wouldn’t that sound amazing? I’m sure most people would die to heaven-on-earth for that kind of situation.
And I got a taste of what semi-retirement would be like during my 4-day long weekend.
Here’s what I did during that time:
- Sat – Spent time with my a good friend of mine
- Sun – Went to Church and watched a few movies in the arvo
- Mon – Stayed home and watched too many movies
- Tue – Went to a cafe with my mum and sister at 10:45am.
It was so nice that I could go to a cafe at 10:45am in the morning. I sure won’t be able to do that on a typical work day.
And I admit that I wasn’t the most productive. In fact, I was quite lazy as I watched way too many movies and broke my sleep routine. However, it doesn’t take away from the fact that I truly felt free and had so much time in my hands. For those 4 days, I was obligated to serve my employer’s wishes or to clock into the office at 7:30am and clock ou at 3:30pm.
If I was semi-retired, here’s what a typical day would look like:
- Wake up – 5am
- Gym – 5:15am
- Meditate on God’s word – 6:30am
- Ride my bike – 7am
- Eat breakfast – 8am
- Writing project – 8:15am
- Go for a 1-hour walk – 9:30am
- Go to the beach or park – 10:30am
- Eat lunch – 12pm
- Watch a movie – 12:30pm
- Ride my electric scooter – 2:30pm
- Go for another walk 3:30pm
- Relax – 4:30pm
What I’ve realised is that to enjoy life, we gotta enjoy the simple stuff. The simple stuff like watching Netflix, working on our passion project, going for walks, cycling, riding an electric scooter, and going to the park cost no money at all.
And you know what? This is so much better than attending dumbass corporate meetings that bore you to sleep!!
With that being said, here are the 3 core benefits of semi-retirement (and why I think I’d be perfect for most people)
1. Retire much faster
When you reach semi-FI, you can achieve FI so much faster. If your goal was to build a $1M share portfolio, then I’d take you roughly 12 years assuming you invest $4k/month at a return rate of 8-10%, starting with $20k.
But now, your goal gets cut in half. So you only need to hit $500k to achieve your FI goal. Now I’d only take you 7.2 years to reach $500k, cutting your FIRE journey by 5 years. That means if you start at 15 years old, you’ll be semi-retired by 22 years old.
And not only that, but you have to think about how much of a psychological benefit it is.
And you know what the great thing is? The vast majority of people are going to work part-time anyway, so your part-time income will be enough to live off of, and your portfolio will compound in the background, which eventually you’ll hit your FIRE number.
To be exact, if you reach $500k in 7.2 years and work part-time to pay off your living expenses while your portfolio compounds in the background, it’ll take you another 8.7 years to hit $1M. In total, it’ll take 15.9 years to reach your full FIRE number, which is 3.9 years more than the original 12 years it was going to take, but you reap the rewards early on which is the biggest benefit.
I honestly love this approach as it’s flexible and you get to reap the rewards of your hard-work early on, which is a huge psychological benefit like mentioned as it can further motivate you to achieve your FIRE goal. And most people who achieve full FIRE earn some sort of income anyways, whether it’s through consulting, freelancing, passion projects or simply working part-time.
Dave Gow, the author of Strong Money Australia, earns a decent chunk of income from selling his books, and his partner works 2-days per week, further supplementing their overall income and lifestyle.
2. Additional income to supplement your living expenses
Another huge benefit of Semi-FI is significantly boosting your overall income in retirement. Even if you reach your full FIRE number, that additional income from your part-time job or online business can enable you to live in perhaps a nicer home, eat out more often or go on more holidays.
For example, let’s say you have $1M in your share portfolio and it’s generating $40k in dividends after tax. But if you’re working 2 days per week on average Australian wage (so like $40 per hour), then you’ll be earning $33k per year. That means your total income would be $73k, or like $60k after tax. $60k per year is pretty freakin good, especially if you have a paid-off home. If you were to get that amount of income from dividends, you’d have to have a portfolio of at least $1.5M, which is $500k more.
Imagine what you could do with that extra $20k? Perhaps on a fancy Europe trip? go to more sporting events? Or splurge on more gifts here and there. The point is, there’s so much flexibility and added income with semi-FI that I think the benefits honestly outweigh full retirement.
Do you want to know something even greater? Your portfolio will compound in the background, increasing the value of your share portfolio and dividend income. So a $1M share portfolio will compound into $2.36M in 10 years assuming a 9% return rate. And that’ll generate $94k in dividend income. I mean that’s pretty darn insane right? Like the saying goes, that’s how the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
