Green Retirement Blog

Today is Earth Day 2008, so on this day I thought it would be appropriate, to describe the history of Green Retirement Planning. Green Retirement Planning, a new and better approach to retirement planning, began it’s life in the jungles of Costa Rica. I discovered the secret to early retirement, and the secret to retirement success, while I was trying to save monkeys in Central America. You may think that’s funny. What is not funny though, is what is happening to your retirement, and the environment. Both are being destroyed, and for the same reason, over consumption. I wasn’t in Costa Rica to save monkeys, or to find a new retirement planning method, I was the owner of a small hotel.

After a ten year career in corporate marketing for a bank, I decided to follow a dream, and open a small hotel in a tropical paradise. What began as a dream, ended in a nightmare, but not before I learned the retirement secret.

Costa Rica was a near paradise when we arrived in 2003. The descriptions of National Geographic, and the Discovery Chanel, were pretty close to the real thing. Costa Rica was an island, an oasis, in a sea of destruction. All of the countries surrounding it, had been destroyed by wars, or ecological disasters. Yet Costa Rica remained, a country seemingly untouched. It had no army, large areas of preserved rain forest, a stable middle-class. Four short years later, much would be lost, and we would leave.

Our small hotel bordered Costa Rica’s first National Park, Manuel Antonio National Park,where guests enjoyed the daily visits of three species of monkeys, sloths, armadillos, toucans, and many other wonderful animals. Almost from the moment we arrived, we were engaged in battle, to preserve what remained of Costa Rica’s first national park. And to prevent the extinction of the Mono Titi Monkey. The photo above, is the piece of rainforest I tried to protect, the photo below is of a Mono Titi Monkey.

The monkeys were becoming extinct, as their habitat was being destroyed, to make way for the retirement homes of my fellow Americans. I tried to warn as many people as I could, I created a blog, I wrote articles, I supported environmental groups. I decided that, since I couldn’t stop people from retiring, what was needed was sustainable retirement. A retirement that has a minimal impact on the environment. A retirement in which, both humans, and the planet could co-exist.

So, I sat in my hammock in the jungle, and thought. I put my university degrees in business, marketing, economics, and my ten years in banking and finance to work. I had to find a way that encouraged people to choose a sustainable retirement. And that is when and how I discovered the secret to early retirement. By living a conservation lifestyle, as opposed to the current consumption lifestyle, people could retire earlier and with a lot less savings. Better yet, I had also discovered the mathematical formula, and method that makes it possible. And I discovered the flawed “Consumption Assumption” that keeps people working.

There was something else I realized, sitting in the hammock in the jungle- the U.S. economy was going to collapse. I had to return to the United States. The secret to early retirement, was not only needed to save the environment, it was going to be needed to save people their retirements. It was too late to save my small hotel. Small hotel owner vs. Big Money never stood a chance. And my hotel owning days eventually ended. But not before I learned the secrets to retirement.

You may not care about the monkeys, but I’m positive you care about your retirement, and both your retirement and the monkeys are disappearing. Green Retirement Planning offers a solution to saving both, people’s retirements, and the environment.