Does early retirement require a specific personality?

Published on June 3rd, 2009

Posted by Jacob in Early Retirement, Personal

If you ask some of the most successful bloggers and also cut out the fraction of those who are not in debt, you will find that a substantial fraction of them (more than 30% when I asked) have the INTJ personality type. Although this sample is to an extent self-selected, it is still an order of magnitude higher than the frequency of INTJs in the general population, which is closer to 1-2%, one the rarest types of the 16 types.

I am an INTj, that is, I am strongly introverted; I am “intuitive”, that is, I think in abstract rather than concrete terms, thinking about the links and connections between the things rather than the things themselves; and I am logical/not emotional, but I only have a weak need to have things settled (the small j). In Big5 terms, I am very conscientious (more than 95% of the population) but score very low on the neurotic scale (less than 5% of the population).

In more vernacular terms, here’s what I think helped me to achieve and “survive” my current stay-at-home semi-retired lifestyle.

I have no problem being alone for long periods of time. In fact, I always wondered why prison isolation cells are thought to be such a harsh punishment; I would think having to endure the cafeteria at breakfast for extended periods of time would be the worst. Or perhaps a surprise birthday party; do they do those in prison?
I am very pragmatic, very flexible, and not easily frustrated. If a problem is unsolvable, I simply change the problem and solve another one. I have noticed the reverse in a lot of people; “a lot” comes from the observation that I’m already out in the “left field”, therefore most people are to my “right”, relatively speaking. For instance, if they have a square peg for a round hole, they will get endless frustrated and hammer at it all day instead of just tossing the square peg and start looking for a round one: I can’t live without my car. I need, no neeeeeeeed, airconditioning, otherwise I can’t wear this suit which was developed for a much colder climate and doesn’t really fit here, but that doesn’t matter because I’m stuck in my ways. Changing my mind is such a sacrifice. Think of the children! Oh, the humanity!
I am very flexible about life in general (more flexible than the impression I give on this blog, I think 😉 ). I have never had a specific goal other than “doing interesting things followed by dying within a century or so”. Thus most of my choices revolve around creating more choices (choices = freedom) rather than painting myself into a corner. I have lived in three countries (so far). I have lived in a dorm room with 18 other people on the floor. I have lived in a big ~1500+ sqft house. I now live in a 289 sqft RV. Interestingly enough, I know from experience that extra space does not result in additional happiness, just additional cost. I think I adapt pretty well to things; and did I mention a high frustration tolerance (except when it comes to small talk) 😉
I have no problems entertaining myself for extended periods of time. Think back on your summer holidays—probably the last time most people had “nothing” to do for more than a few weeks—did you long to go back to school or camp or could you go on entertaining yourself and making projects forever? Do you do things on the weekends or do you just watch TV or shop? Even after quitting my job, I still fill like I don’t have enough time to do all the things I want to do.

While these personality traits are not required for early retirement, they are sufficient. It would be interesting to see another take on this. I know that although many early retires are similar, it does not hold for all. What do you think?

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Steven Austin said,

I’m also an INTJ, share your view on prison cells, and modest living arrangements generally, and prefer to go it alone for extended periods of time. When I socialize, I prefer it to be with a few, select individuals.

Kevin M said,

I second Steven’s thoughts. I hate crowds and hate having to shout when I talk to people.

I love this quote:
“Thus most of my choices revolve around creating more choices (choices = freedom) rather than painting myself into a corner.”

It is very timely for us right now since we’re looking for a new house and trying to find that balance of size vs. cost.

jon said,

Interestingly I see myself as an INTJ type as well. I don’t enjoy real “crazy” atmospheres unless I have had significant amounts of alcohol which seem to make me into an extrovert…

Otherwise I enjoy spending time alone and can occupy my time easily. I also feel there is never enough time in a day to accomplish everything I want to.

Hopefully someday I will also be able to enjoy being FI at a young age. Although instead of saving to reach the goal, I am working on passive income streams to help me reach my goal.

Thanks for a great post, Jacob!

Mo said,

There was a survey done on this a few years back, and the results can be reviewed at the following link, very interesting stuff:
http://www.retireearlyhomepage.com/mbti.html

Please know I have no association with that link (other than reading it!).

I did a MBTI about 12 years ago, and can only remember that I was very slightly on the E side– bad news for retiring early. Maybe that’s why I haven’t retired yet… Still, I’m on target to retire at 42. I don’t know if that makes me extreme early, or just early… not that it really matters.

Mo said,

Oh yeah, about the isolation in prison, in the 1800s, the Pennsylvania Quakers decided to build prisons in such a manner that the prisoners would be entirely isolated. They could not communicate with one another, or even see another person, and they did not leave their solitary cells. They were generally not supposed to read, but were supposed to spend their time reflecting on their crimes and feeling sorry for having committed them. They were thus supposed to reform themselves through introspection and reflection. Their only exposure to another person was through very brief interactions with the guards, who were often drunk due to the extreme monotony of the place.

Unfortunately many of the prisoners seemed to go insane from the long term solitude. Charles Dickens even wrote about this at one point. Also, it’s an expensive way to house prisoners. Eventually this type of imprisonment was abandoned, generally in favor of the idea of prisoners working as part of their reform.

matt g said,

Do you have any pictures of the interior of your RV, and would you be comfortable sharing them? I like to see tiny living spaces because they tend to be so much more thoughtfully designed than large ones. Every square inch is used (and most often, used for two or more purposes at once).

I’m a little bit in a weird spot because I like the small home ethos (and freedom it provides), but seem to have chosen my hobbies poorly for that to work out. I enjoy keeping fish, watching them, breeding them, building web applications to monitor their water & feed them over the internet, you know, “normal fish stuff…” 😉 I also like playing music and recording it (which takes a lot of space to get the acoustics right for recording something like a drum kit). I’ve got other hobbies, but don’t really want to give up those two. So I fail. But I still like to see what can be done with small spaces, and dream of the “life on a boat” lifestyle someday.

Your last point is a *really* good acid test for anyone nearing retirement/early retirement. Lots of people seem to hate work/school, but never knew what to do with themselves without it. You described a really easy & probably foolproof way to tell if you’re the right kind of person for giving it up (yet). Very useful.

Also, I am trying to decide if I’m a P or J myself (I was about 50/50 when I took the test a few years ago), and thought it was strange that you’re a j, yet you are so concerned with “keeping your options open” – a very P concept. Or am I reading that wrong?

cat said,

I am an ISTJ. Interested to know where the S fits into early retirement. Your thoughts please Jacob?

Jacob said,

@matt g – This one has the same layout as ours down to the color scheme (same model year) except for the bathroom; ours is bigger and so you can’t see directly into the bedroom from the front, there’s a small hallway curving off to the side with a door that closes http://www.rvt.com/rvdetail743650.htm …

I command the dinette. DW controls the couch to the left. I have all my stuff except a couple of boxes of books and my clothes in the cabinet over the couch. DW has the cabinets over the dinette. The couch folds into a bed as does the dinette. There is storage under the dinette. I think we could keep a 30L aquarium on the kitchen table next to the couch but that would be it. The main issue here is weight of all that water.

For the music, you could rent a studio (I know a band that does that)… or just move into somebody else’s garage? I wanted a watchmakers bench and was thinking of ripping out the rotating chair and putting it there. But then I found this http://www.ofrei.com/page1043.html (top one) which solves the problem.

Apparently the best way to decide on the J/P for an INT is that J’s seem to be strongly concerned about their health, while P’s aren’t.

I’m not postponing decisions to keep options open, rather I’m deciding on options that will create more options/flexibility. It’s an opportunist’s strategy. I also hate surprises. Another difference between the INTP and the INTJ is that the INTP is content to understand the system, whereas the INTJ wants to build it.

Jacob said,

@cat – They seem to be quite good at achieving it since ISTJ is high in conscientiousness and following a plan/budget. What you have in the ISTJ is close to the millionaire next door type. Frugal and hard working. MY two cents.

shuchong said,

I was doing good until I got to the “I have no problems entertaining myself for extended periods of time”. That’s the main reason why I don’t think early retirement would work for me. I like being busy, but I’m really bad at finding things to do on my own, and when I don’t have the structure of a workweek, I tend to spend all my time sleeping and lazing around instead of doing anything productive.

I’m pretty sure early retirement would lead to early death for me… I can see myself becoming a hermit and slowly wasting away in front of my laptop. Perhaps, one day, I’ll find something that I really want to do but that I can’t make money on, and then I’ll start seriously thinking about retiring early. For now, I think having a job is actually good for me, precisely because it keeps my more neurotic tendencies away:)

ElizabethG said,

I think it does take a personality type, and I am an ENFP, somewhat unsuited for early retirement mindset, and a lot of the practices that I keep (like bill autopay) are precisely in recognition that my personality is non-J.

I do think the N-characteristic means a lot of contemplation and a bit less keeping up with the Jones’s reacting.

I love reading and other relatively solitary activities, but find that I crave interacting and talking. Working from home is almost a nemesis to me, since I miss the social interaction from a big office scene.

Chris L. said,

I’m INTJ to the letter. Finally my wife can understand me 🙂 It’s all right there in Wiki.

Johnny H said,

Yet another INTJ here.

Some INTJ key ingredients to early retirement:
*Plan many of the details in advance before moving into action.

*Mentally live in the Future, attending to future possibilities.

Those two accurately describe most of my idle thinking. And they’re usually about being retired as soon as possible.

Tracy said,

I think a healthy measure of self-confidence is necessary.

Few of us are able to retire in a mansion with 3 boats, 5 sports cars and a luxury jet at the age of 30, even 40.

But we can still retire if we live very carefully, frugally, not caring too much about what money can buy other than the freedom to have our time as our own. That “not care” attitude is unusual as we are all aware that we are weighed in society by what we do, how much we earn, where we live and how much stuff we own. When we don’t subscribe to that status quo, we don’t fit in, and fitting in is important to most people.

Jacob said,

@Tracy – Indeed, it seems like the only socially acceptable way to retire is with a million dollars. It’s kinda the golden standard because that’s about what’s required to withdraw $40k/year which is the median level of consumerism. But yes, in this society everyone can have everything they need, and a few of the things they want, whereas only a few can have everything they want. ERE simply wants time and freedom more than things. That’s how I think of it. I was born with debt in that I could not just go into the country and live of the land. I had to buy or rent some land and I had to buy food. This was the debt I was born with and early retirement is nothing else than paying this debt off.

Debbie M said,

Creepy: I started as INTJ, though I’ve been testing as INTx lately (that’s between INTj and INTp).

I have no problem imagining going crazy in solitary confinement, though. In the real world, I can be alone plenty, but it’s because I’m not really alone–I’ve got books and movies created by others, I’ve got neighbors with yards I can look at, I have projects I can work on, etc.

I do need other people, but I prefer them one-on-one rather than in large, unruly crowds like that breakfast in the cafeteria.

My main flaws in relation to retiring early are that I low tolerance for risk (that greatly reduces my options) and I have low tolerance for frustration (that means I give up too quickly).

My advantages: I’m good at planning. I’m good at comprehending and controlling my finances and actually enjoy doing any related calculations (though I don’t enjoy doing these calculations so much on OTHER people’s finances!). I’m not rash (I don’t quit without having another job lined up). I think long-term and big-picture. And I’m so utterly completely uncool that it doesn’t even occur to me to keep up with the Joneses for status reasons. (Only for happiness reasons.)

I try to use my rationality to trump my risk intolerance (for example, since I have a pension, all my IRA money is in stocks). And I try to use my big-picture thinking and flexibility to trump my frustration intolerance (this detail isn’t working but there may be other options for achieving the true goal).

Debbie M said,

Oh, PS. The living room in that picture is even smaller than my living room. It would never have occurred to me to put the chair 1-2 feet in front of the couch. Even the path between the table and the counter is quite narrow. This seems perfectly reasonable in a trailer, but I’ve never lived in one and have always wanted a wider path for some reason.

Is that weird to have someone over and they are sitting that close in front of you? I guess the same happens at restaurants. Interesting.

sarah said,

Wow, that test is interesting, thanks for passing it along, Jacob. I’m an INFJ. The description really does fit me, too. I hope the “feeling” part of my personality doesn’t set back my retirement goals too much…although it’s probably the reason why I feel guilty on the rare occasions when I don’t shell out the money for organic food…

Speaking of food, Jacob, I remember reading that you’d like to incorporate more raw food in your diet. How’s that going? Also, what are your thoughts on vegan diets? It seems like you mostly eat vegan already, with all the beans, rice, and vegetable/fruit juice smoothies you consume.

Jacob said,

@Debbie M – The chair rotates so if you start leg fencing, you can turn it. The space between the kitchen table and the counter is about 3 feet. It is very hard to put 4 people in at the kitchen table. We did 3 once. It’s much easier just to drag things outside and have a BBQ.

@sarah – The raw food plan is going poorly. I wrote about the failure a few weeks ago. Cheese is really the only kind of dairy I eat. I would have few problems switching to vegan.

Jan said,

@Jacob

After doing a test I considered myself INTP.

But according to what you write, I may be one of the many INTJ’s here: I obsess about my health (hoping Aubrey de Grey and Kurzweil’s vision will come true) and “keeping my options open” is my middle name.

mjukr said,

I’m IstJ, testing sometimes as IsfJ.

Jan said,

I read the Wikipedia entry on INTP and now see that I misunderstood you.
Keeping my options open is INTP and taking care of my health because I don’t want to die (ever) can be INTP too, as not dying is a great way to keep my options open. 😉

Marcy said,

I just found your blog a couple days ago, and I love, love, love it. I have an on-again, off-again relationship with frugality and I need inspiration.

I think you’re 100% correct about the personality issue. There are some older women where I work (60’s, 70’s) who say they would be bored otherwise. My 71 year old co-worker sees her job as her social network, although she’s not aware of it. When she was younger, she would work for free just to have something to do.

I think it’s sad. I have so many things in my mind that I want to do that I wish I had more time and energy. I tested once as INTP and another time as ISTP. The I and P are clear cut.

Extraverts really could not retire, I don’t think. They would go insane.

I don’t like doing other people’s bidding, so I would love to retire as soon as possible. I’m going to read through the archives and get inspired to save a greater percentage of my income. My personality is such that I will need to ramp up the savings and cut the expenses gradually over the next several months.

Spork Eye said,

Yeah, I know this thread is forever old… but I just discovered you. Sue me.

I am amazed at how many ways we are similar: INTJ, cheap ass bastards (you probably more than me), linux nerds, affliction for scotch (several nice cheap ones around, too!), fans of early retirement… The list is probably longer, but… I’ve sorta just poked around here and there.

The correlations are there… now… is there causation?

bigato said,

Before the technology, when things were harder for humanity, societies had more solidarity and social life. Our society is ruled by money. There is not much empathy. People think only on themselves. Money make us think we don’t rely on anyone to live.

I think the introverts are the ones who are more sensitive. Even fragile. Things, persons and happenings have a stronger impact on them. So, they suffer more when they sense lack of solidarity, lack of empathy from others around him.

Having a career in the capitalistic world means being smashed by other peoples’ greed every day. I think that is the main motivation and the strongest reason why an introvert want to scape all of this. Not only by reaching FI, but also sometimes by adopting a traveling lifestyle, so he doesn’t stay enough to get pissed off by “the small talk”, neither to have any deeper relationship with people.

I think a better name for the “introvert” would be the “sensitive”. Because as I see, we are not introverts in the sense that we don’t wanna relate to the outside (people and things). We just don’t think it’s worth to spend much time talking interesting thinkgs with insensitive people. So we listen to them to learn more.

Personality and Fit « Thoughts of an Anonymous Lawyer said,

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