Like most people, Ali Rosli is saving for retirement. But he isn’t waiting decades to reap the benefits.
The 33-year-old, an interim finance lead, has taken two “mini-retirements” over the past seven years — in 2019 for two months, and again in November 2025 for four. The first followed a demanding career as an assistant audit manager in Malaysia, including 80-hour weeks that Rosli says led to burnout.
“I thought, while having a rest and thinking about my career path, why not take a long trip for two months?” he says.
At the time, Rosli earned about £14,000 ($18,815) a year, saving and investing about 20% to 40% of his income. He used his savings to finance travelling overland from Beijing through Russia to Europe, which he called a “trip of a lifetime.”
Returning energized, Rosli ultimately landed a senior manager role at a finance firm in London, increasing his salary nearly six-fold to £85,000 ($114,234) a year.
After several unsuccessful attempts to pivot to a new role, Rosli decided to take another break — this time heading back to Malaysia with his wife for four months. While there, he secured remote finance project work through his network before ultimately returning to London, where he now works as an independent finance contractor while also doing career-and-wealth content creation on social media.
Rosli says taking intentional breaks didn’t hinder his career, but bolstered it. “From my personal experience, it will actually supercharge your career rather than pull you back,” he says. Looking ahead, Rosli likes the idea of “previewing” retirement and plans to take more mini-retirements every four or five years.
THE WIDER TREND
A 2025 HSBC Quality of Life report found that Gen Z and millennials are leading a shift among affluent investors — defined as those with at least $100,000 in assets — towards treating retirement not as a single moment at the end of working life, but as a series of planned career breaks.
Kelly Renner, a financial planner at Life Strategies Financial Partners, says “there is no harm in living life this way,” provided individuals have flexible jobs, strong budgeting habits and sufficient savings to finance it. Without that, she warns, such breaks could be “a financial disaster,” adding that unexplained spells out of work could also reflect poorly on a resume.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
A career break can be a strategic reset, not a setback. ForRosli, both mini-retirements helped “supercharge” his career — the first giving him the clarity to move from Malaysia to London, and the second helping him pivot into running his own business.
Financial preparation makes freedom possible. Renner says there is little downside to taking time off for those who have saved consistently, live within their means, contribute to their pension and have enough set aside to cover several months without work.
Mini-retirement works best when costs are deliberately reduced. For his second break, Rosli and his wife gave up their London rental, put their belongings into storage and returned to Malaysia, where lower living costs made the break more sustainable.
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