I think it's safe to say that I've been thinking about retirement since I got out of college. I really dislike working, in fact, I'm pretty sure I completely loathe it. I've never been able to understand the people who live to work rather than work to live. There's certainly nothing wrong with that, especially if your work is your passion, but for most of us that's probably not the case. So after reading a subthread where Dan had mentioned that he retired at age 46, I figured I'd get the thoughts and advice of others here at LSB. And while I think 50 is the target age for me, I certainly wouldn't mind cutting a few years off of that number as well.

     I've been working in finances for 8 years or so now and feel like I have a better than average grasp on the money side of life. However all of that experience is on the banking and mortgage side of finances. I've got a lot of things lined up from a 401K, to an investment property, to a fairly short-term mortgage right now. That's not where my concern is though. I have a pretty limited knowledge on the investment side of things. Basically general knowledge of CD's, IRA's, common stocks, and the like. That, along with any other financial advice, is what I was looking for when I decided to post this. Where and when to invest? How much to invest? How much do you diversify your investments? Has anyone ever seen that fucking leprechaun or his pot of gold?

     The fact that I don't know if social security will be there when I get ready to retire is concerning, but I know that has been talked about since my father's generation was my age (or even earlier). He was just forced into an early retirement and social security is still here, but I don't want to rely on that. The way I see it, if social security is still around in 30 years, I'll just see that as an added bonus. And while my parents aren't poor, I certainly have never wanted or expected anything to come down from them.

     So while I think I'm doing okay financially, I still feel like I can greatly improve my position to reach that finish line as early as possible. No matter how well off any of us are, I'm sure we all feel like we could do something better to improve our long-term finances (well perhaps except for LAMF). I would love to teach history for 60K a year, then I wouldn't have to worry about this shit. Since I know that's not going to happen anytime soon though, I figured I'd pick the brains of others here to see what some of you are doing to set yourself up. All you damn lawyers have to be doing something with your money, right?