These self-made millionaires dish on the 5 habits that helped them to retire early — are you undermining your efforts?

Moneywise and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue through links in the content below.

Retiring a millionaire is an aspiration for many Americans.

It’s also a common target for a retirement goal. A recent Northwestern Mutual study found that Americans think it will take $1.26 million to have a comfortable retirement in 2025. (1)

You may, however, need to save a lot more than that if you want to retire early. While it’s one thing to have a nest egg that lasts 20 to 30 years, stretching your retirement savings for 40 or 50 years is a very different story.

If your goal is to retire early, saving and investing at a young age is key, and the right financial habits can make saving money a lot easier.

Business Insider recently interviewed several people who managed to achieve financial independence at a relatively young age.

Here are five particular habits they say allowed them to retire early. (2)

In July, the national median mortgage payment was $2,127, which is down $45 from June, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. (3)

Meanwhile, Zillow puts today’s average monthly rent payment for all bedroom and property types at $2,001 as of mid-October. (4)

There’s a decent chance that housing will end up being your largest monthly expense — and the less you spend on it, the more you might have to save and invest.

If you’re looking to buy a home, aim for one that’s less expensive than the maximum that you can afford. Or, buy your dream home, but rent out a spare bedroom so your tenants can help pay off your mortgage.

Anything you can do to keep housing costs down will go a long way in your effort to invest and retire early, so be sure to shop around for the best mortgage price before you commit to buying a property.

Read more: Warren Buffett says you can’t buy time — but real estate investors have found this 1 loophole. See how they’re buying back hundreds of hours a year (for absolutely free)

Homes have a tendency to appreciate in value, so you could potentially make the argument for buying one that’s a bit more expensive since you may be able to sell it at a profit.

Cars, on the other hand, mostly depreciate in value. And if you’re able to keep your vehicle costs low, you’ll have that much more money to invest for retirement. According to Kelley Blue Book, the average price for a new car was $49,077 as of August 2025. Meanwhile, the average price for a used car was $25,393. (5)

If you’re willing to drive a used car with fewer frills, you could end up saving a bundle over time.

Of course, keeping your car costs low includes keeping your yearly insurance price tag within your budget, too. Shopping around for a deal with OfficialCarInsurance.com could help you to save hundreds each year.

As insurance prices rise — and CNBC reports (6) that the average cost of full coverage policies has increased 50% since 2020 — you will want to maximize your savings on your insurance, while still getting comprehensive coverage from trusted insurers like Progressive, GEICO and Allstate.

OfficialCarInsurance.com helps you instantly sort through the best policies from car insurance providers in your area. To get started, fill in your information and get a list of the top insurers in your area in minutes.

Keep in mind that you can typically change your insurance policy before it’s up for renewal, just look out for any early cancellation fees.

The average restaurant markup on menu items is typically 200% to 300% of the total food costs, depending on different factors, according to SpotOn. (7)

That makes sense, since restaurants have other overhead costs to cover and need to turn a profit. But if you’re willing to cook most of your meals at home, you could save a lot of money compared to the cost of dining out or ordering in.

And that’s money you can put into an investment portfolio for your retirement.

However, saving money is only half the battle. You need to be able to set and stick to a budget. To do that, you need to be able to track your expenses easily, and understand how you spend your money month-to-month. One way to make your daily tracking habit simple is to use Monarch Money.

This financial management platform offers an all-in-one tool to help you track investments, spending and budgeting, and even offers personalized advice so you can feel confident about your money. You can also feel confident about sharing your financial data with Monarch Money — the app is protected by Plaid for secure data integration and employs multi-factor authentication at login, so you can keep your accounts safe.

Download the app now for a seven-day free trial. After that, you can get 50% off your first year with the code WISE50.

Once you have a big picture of your finances, it’s time to start saving and investing where you can.

You may feel like it’s almost impossible to find extra funds in your monthly budget to invest, but you can get started with pennies — literally — when you sign up for Acorns.

Acorns is an automated investing and saving platform that automatically rounds up the price of each of your purchases to the nearest dollar and deposits the difference into a smart investment portfolio. That daily coffee for $4.45? It’s now a 55-cent investment in your future, and before the caffeine hits, too.

What’s more, Acorns also allows you to set up automatic monthly contributions if you want to supercharge your portfolio. And the best part? If you sign up with a minimum of $5 per month you can get a $20 sign–up bonus.

An August 2024 survey conducted by BadCredit.org found that 52% of millennials and Gen Zers have delayed plans to have children. For 86%, that decision boiled down to financial reasons. (8)

If you hold off on having kids, you can establish yourself financially and build savings for the future at a younger age, which could be your ticket to an early retirement. Of course, the flipside to holding off on having kids is having to bear the cost of raising them later in life. Plus, biological constraints mean you may only have a certain window of time to have children.

With this in mind, you’ll need to carefully weigh the pros of having kids sooner rather than later to see if delaying makes sense for you. But at the very least, it could pay to wait until you’re financially stable — meaning, you have a solid emergency fund, you’ve established decent retirement savings and you have a steady job.

The average federal student loan balance is currently at an astounding $39,075, according to the Education Data Initiative. Meanwhile, the average balance among all borrowers, including those with private student loans, could be as high or higher than $42,673. (9)

The less money you spend repaying a student loan — as well as the interest that comes with it — the more money you should have to save and invest for retirement. With this in mind, you may want to favor schools with lower price tags.

Other ways to save on an education include living at home and commuting to classes rather than dorming, pursuing work-study opportunities through your university and taking on extra credits to graduate in fewer semesters. Make sure to look out for any scholarship or bursary opportunities as well.

If you’re really stuck and need more money for school, you might have to make up the difference with a private loan in addition to what the government has on offer.

A big part of being able to pull off an early retirement is making the right decisions.

For example, trusting the wrong people with investment decisions was one mistake that one early retiree couple shared with Business Insider. This couple reportedly chose an investment adviser who got paid on commission, and that advisor sold them a mutual fund with high fees that ate into their returns. (2)

Another common pitfall is high asset under management (AUM) fees. These are typically a percentage of the value of your assets, meaning that you pay more as your wealth grows.

This is where modern, white-glove financial advisors like Range can help drive down your costs. Range is a CFP-backed and AI-driven platform that can help high-net-worth investors minimize their tax exposure, grow their portfolio and optimize their investment strategies.

Unlike many other financial services, Range offers flat-fee pricing and 0% AUM fees. By comparison, traditional advisors typically charge 0.5% to 2% AUM fees.

Range also provides innovative tax and financial planning expertise — from tax segmentation analysis for real estate through their partners to the backdoor Roth IRA contribution method. The financial experts at Range understand high-net-worth individuals and the diversity of assets under their portfolio.

To find out more, book a complimentary demo with the Range team to see if they’re right for you and your portfolio.

If you’re not quite in this net worth ballpark yet, you could instead speak with a financial professional at Advisor.com, which connects you with vetted financial advisors. All of Advisor.com’s experts are fiduciaries. That means they’re obligated to act in your best interests.

How it works is simple — just answer a few quick questions about yourself and your finances. From here, the platform will match you with experienced financial professionals to help you develop a plan to achieve your homeownership or retirement goals.

You can view the advisors’ profiles, read past client reviews and schedule an initial consultation for free with no obligation to hire. From there, you can discuss your advisor’s fees and billing schedule to determine what’s right for you and your budget.

It also pays to simplify your investments if you’re going to manage your portfolio on your own. Rather than paying expensive mutual fund fees, consider a low-cost S&P 500 index fund that gives you exposure to the broad stock market.

Finally, don’t put too much of your long-term savings into tax-advantaged retirement plans like IRAs and 401(k)s. While it’s nice to get a tax break on your money, these accounts can be very restrictive, imposing a 10% early withdrawal penalty for taking money out before reaching the age of 59 1/2. (10)

And if you’re planning on retiring early, your goal is likely to retire well before you reach that age.

Join 200,000+ readers and get Moneywise’s best stories and exclusive interviews first — clear insights curated and delivered weekly. Subscribe now.

We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines.

Northwestern Mutual (1); Business Insider (2); Mortgage Bankers Association (3); Zillow (4); Kelley Blue Book (5); CNBC (6); SpotOn (7); BadCredit.org (8); Education Data Initiative (9); Morningstar (10)

This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.