You don’t have to be a millionaire to retire before 50, accountant says. Here’s how she did it.

Sonia Smith (left) retired from Corporate America thanks to a savings account and a side hustle.

Sonia Smith has extensive knowledge of how to make her dollars last a lifetime.

The 47-year-old former accountant retired from her 9-to-5 job in June, but Smith didn’t have the $1.5 million in her bank account despite what some Gen Xers think is needed to retire before 50.

In 2019, she began working for a multi-level-marketing cosmetics company to earn income outside her corporate job. Smith said she had two main financial goals that she aimed to achieve before retiring.

First, she wanted a reliable monthly income from her work with the makeup company, which she asked to remain unnamed for legal reasons.

“I wanted to achieve a financial status where I was bringing $10,000 into my home with my business that wasn’t my 9-to-5,” Smith told B-17.

Although she’s still working toward that goal, she eventually reached the point where she was earning as much from her side hustle as she was from her 9-to-5 job after taxes.

Second, she planned for her 401(k) to reach at least half of five years’ worth of her corporate salary. Smith said she started paying attention to her 401(k) “very early” in her career, and it paid off.

Smith is a married mother of three adult children. She and her husband live in San Antonio in a home they’ve owned since 2014.

“I wanted to make sure that I had the capability to pay my bill if something happened to the other people in my home,” Smith said.

So, she made her 401(k) a priority early by making sure she put money into it every week. It might sound simple enough, but a third of US adults plan to retire on Social Security alone despite what financial experts say, according to an August report from personal finance firm NerdWallet.

Although she isn’t a millionaire, Smith credits her own experience working in finance and her side hustle with helping her leave the workforce early. She wasn’t quite ready to retire when she did, but she decided to take a step back to look after her aging parents.

Investing is one area Smith said she wishes she had explored sooner. She told B-17 that her 401(k) didn’t reach the goal she’d set, and that investing while she was still in her 20s might’ve made her retirement even smoother.

“My advice to anyone under the age of 30 who is wanting to retire before they’re 60 is to get a financial advisor,” Smith said.

The key, she said, is to actually “listen to what they say about how to invest your money because it’s not just about a 401(k).” She advised young people to start looking into investment opportunities the minute they’re hired at a job.

Smith’s retirement plan wasn’t perfect, but it was effective when paired with the support system she has in her family.

Ultimately, she said, it’s about doing the work to learn “how to make your money work for you.”