I did that (moved to a Scandinavian country), and it was an undeniably poor choice from a financial perspective - or rather a chain of poor choices that looked correct at the time. Paying almost 40% of my income that is rather low by global standards (although very high locally), while not planning to have children and never even once going to a doctor - none of this made any sense in the long run. I am the same age as yourself, and given the economic situation early retirement appears to be less and less feasible.