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It's not all smooth sailing. Health-insurance costs for the family have risen, and the hospital bills from the second birth were unexpectedly high. Rob also didn't forecast how much his sons would like Lego sets ("They're insane for them, and Legos are expensive.") But the Bennetts are happy with their lives.
"This to me is like a mission," Bennett said, "to have some meaningful work and time with my family."
Tom and Gina Scarda
Twenty and out.That was Gina Scarda's mantra in her last years as a New York City police officer. After 20 years on the job, Gina qualified for a pension that replaced half her pay. She retired in July at 46.
Her husband, Tom, 43, also had a "pension job" with the New York subway system. He worked his way up from a subway conductor to director of customer communications for the Long Island Railroad.
But he couldn't quite stick it out. After 14 years, he quit "the politics and bureaucracy" because he wanted to be his own boss.
"I wanted to be able to be creative," Tom said. "In civil service, you come up with a great idea and you're told, 'Shut up. You're making more work for us.'"
Tom had no business background, so he decided to look into buying a franchise "where the systems were already set up." He contacted FranChoice, a company that serves as a matchmaker between prospective business owners and franchise opportunities. With FranChoice's help, he opted for a Maui Wowi smoothie franchise, which sold frozen drinks from portable carts that could be set up at conventions and fairs.
"People thought I was crazy. They said, 'You're quitting a pension job to do what?'" Tom recalled. "My dad was a New York City police officer (who opposed the plan). . . . He said frozen drinks didn't go in New York City."
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Tom bought the $70,000 franchise using a home-equity loan, then cold-called various convention centers, trying to talk his way into space on the floor of trade shows. His first big success was getting into Manhattan's Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. He won spots at other big venues as well, including Jones Beach Theater and Nassau Coliseum.
After a few years, Tom sold his franchise for a low six-figure sum, enough to pay off all his debts and "semiretire," as he puts it. He now works about 25 hours a week consulting for FranChoice, while Gina and her niece Holly run another franchise: a Super Suppers business that allows people to make up to a month's worth of dinners at a time.
The couple's son, Anthony, 13, isn't yet involved in the business, but their daughter, Andrea, 17, works 10 to 14 hours a week there.
"We want our children to see and feel what's it's like to own and operate a business so they know that there are possibilities beyond working a job," Tom said. The couple wants their kids to do "something that they love. . . . We try to teach by example that if you're just working to make a living, you're dying."
Tom and Sandy Hennessey
Early retirement has been busy for the Hennesseys.Tom and Sandy Hennessey spent a few years working as seasonal park rangers in California and Colorado; in the off-seasons, they sailed. Sandy also studied and taught yoga, while Tom started and sold a brewery.
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"I've always liked starting businesses," said Tom, 50, a serial restaurant entrepreneur. "It's running them when they get too big and too corporate that gets boring."
Tom had opened his first restaurant at 27. By 31, he was operating two restaurants in Albuquerque, N.M., where the couple lived, and commuting daily to a third in Santa Fe. Keeping tabs on three businesses was rewarding but exhausting, and the Hennesseys were having misgivings about whether restaurant work was what they wanted to do for the rest of their lives.
"I loved my job, but Sandy and I knew that there were other things we wanted to try," Tom said. "Mainly I just didn't want to have bankers and lawyers telling me what to do. I wanted to live without the need for a paycheck."
Sandy, now 61, was teaching science at a private prep school but was a self-described "ski bum" who liked time off (one of the reasons she chose teaching). So she was open to the idea of early retirement.
The couple read a book, now out of print, called "Cashing In on the American Dream: How to Retire at 35," written by Paul Terhost. Terhost and his wife, Vicki, retired in 1984 by selling their assets, putting their money in certificates of deposit and living in cheap parts of the world on the interest. (The Terhosts, who maintain a Web site chronicling their adventures, shifted to stock-market investments in the early 1990s as interest rates started a long-term decline.)
Continued: Becoming 'supersavers'
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