I first blogged about early retirement about a month ago. Perhaps because it is a topic that is seldom explored, the insights on the topic has been tremendous. It is worthwhile to summarise in one post all the insights on the topic. Is Your Financial Freedom Conditional?  If you are thinking of early retirement, it is probably because you have or about to achieve financial freedom from your job. You probably have a regular stream of passive income from your dividends and/or rental income to cover all your expenses. However, as explored in Can You Count on REITs for Retirement? and How Much Does One's Financial Independence Depend on One's Health?, is this financial freedom conditional upon things remaining the same as they are today? What happens if the economy goes into a recession, possibly bring asset prices, dividends, interest rates and currencies down along with it? There might even ......