[J-dawg]

I think his definition of "retired" is pretty simple:

his family could cover all of their living expenses from investment income alone.

When you think about it, this is pretty much what we mean by "normal" retirement as well. If a 70 year old retiree does some maintenance on his rental property we don't accuse him of lying about being retired.

Your point about medical bills doesn't really hold water. I'm sure plenty of unlucky people who retired at a more conventional age end up having to come out of retirement because of an unforeseen tragedy.

Unless you want to change the definition of "retired" to: "having sufficient investment income to cover any possible expense that you or your family could possibly incur from now until your death, without ever doing a single hour of paid work"

I don't agree with MMM all the time but accusing him of not being retired does seem like a pointless exercise in semantics.

[vasilipupkin]

if you are doing 3 different jobs ( 4 counting the etsy shop ), you are working at 3 jobs. That's not retirement. Sure, he claims his investment income covers his expenses, I get that. But, no matter how you look at it, he is working. He is not retired. If a 70 year old is spending time doing maintenance on rental properties, that 70 year old is working part time