NO, IT'S NOT

your imagination: You're working too hard. Bucking the trend in most developed nations, the American workweek has been growing longer. We put in an average of 1,815 hours a year longer hours than even the Japanese, who have a word, karoshi, for people who die from overwork. The extra labor often translates into bigger salaries and more-secure retirements, but it also pours fuel on a fire as old as work itself: the dream of cashing out early.

While there's no way to quantify how many of us are eyeing the exits, evidence suggests that more people are taking the idea seriously. Books about early retirement are steady sellers, and virtual communities of would-be escape artists thrive on the web. Fortunately, it doesn't take an enormous nest egg to fund a life-changing move. We interviewed financial experts and early retirees to find out how to get out while you're young.

SUPER SAVERS

Next May, Jay Arnold of Nashville, Tenn., will retire from his position as project manager at an auto maker at 43. His wife Corinne has already left her job. They've got two young children, but they're not fazed: they've been saving aggressively for two decades. "Debt-free before our first child? Did it," says the confident Jay. Their secret: Supplementing their management-level salaries with part-time, self-employed work. They saved 30% of their take-home pay; after they paid off their house in 1998, they bumped that rate to 50%. The fruit of their labor: a savings hoard that's approaching $2 million.

For more tips on how to save for and make the most of an early retirement, plus tips on taking a buyout, turn to the October issue of SmartMoney Magazine.

The Arnolds have already lined up their post-retirement health insurance a smart move, since bureaucratic headaches can multiply if a family goes a couple months without coverage. The plan has a $5,000 deductible the high out-of-pocket limit keeps their premiums affordable, at $371 a month.

INVESTMENT KINGS

In 1991 Akaisha and Billy Kaderli were just 38, but they had amassed $500,000 in savings. They ditched their jobs, and since then they've extended their finances by sticking to a budget and by staying in the stock market to make sure their portfolio keeps appreciating. To lower the cost of investing, the Kaderlis moved most of their holdings out of actively managed funds and into a Standard & Poor's 500 index fund. The 1990s bull market made them look brilliant: Assuming their performance matched the market, their portfolio would now be worth $1.8 million.

Granted, that portfolio is aggressive; most advisers recommend owning additional funds whose holdings don't move in tandem with stocks. Dean Fikar, a Fort Worth, Texas, radiologist who retired in 2001 at age 46, is more typical: While small-cap stocks are his main holding, he also owns REITs, a Pimco bond fund and a gold fund. Fikar says his net worth has doubled since he stopped working.

COASTAL ARBITRAGE

On any given Saturday, you might find Terri and Randy Kelly crouched on the shore of Alaska's Cook Inlet, aiming their Nikons at the gargantuan grizzlies that roam the beach. The Kellys can afford to devote three or four months a year to their expeditions, thanks to the low cost of living in their home base Ogden, Utah, where a round of golf costs less than $25 and dinner for two at the nicest joint in town costs under $60.

Savvy cash-out retirees take advantage of big discrepancies in cost of living between various regions of the country. Those differences often reflect the price of living near an ocean, where demand for everything from property to gasoline inflates prices; one author calls it "coastal arbitrage." If you're accustomed to living on $150,000 a year in Boston, you'd need to spend only $96,000 to live comfortably in Ogden, according to the research firm Sperling's Best Places.

HOME SWEET HOME SALE

Robert Clyatt, author of Work Less, Live More, thinks your home could set you free. After studying data on home values and savings rates, the venture capitalist estimated that if they sold their homes, about 20 million families would have nest eggs of at least $600,000, which he calls the minimum for a "comfortable semiretirement."

Dan and Colleen Kutchin took such a leap when they sold their home in the Milwaukee suburbs, whose value had risen 50 percent while they owned it. They moved to the Norman Rockwell-esque village of Winneconne, Wis., settling in on a 40-foot houseboat, the Spirit of Adventure, which they bought free and clear. That made it easier to put aside more of the $200,000 they earned annually, Dan as a telecom engineer and Colleen in finance. By 2005, Dan and Colleen had saved enough to say goodbye to their jobs at 50 and 45, respectively.