A man who retired at 43 says he made 2 important money decisions before leaving work

Dahleen, an anesthesiologist in northern Minnesota, ultimately decided to continue working and saving money to retire in about four years. He calculated that by then he'd have at least 36 times his family's estimated annual spending socked away. In August, at age 43, Dahleen left his day job.

But in the year leading up to retirement, he had a financial to-do list to tackle.

"I would say a few of the top priorities were making a plan for health insurance, funding our kids' 529 plans and donor-advised fund, and ensuring we had significantly more than 25 times a generous retirement budget set aside for ourselves," Dahleen told Business Insider.

Making a plan for health insurance is crucial for any would-be early retiree, he says. Individual healthcare plans are expensive, and going without coverage isn't wise, especially for a family of four.

Dahleen considered healthcare-sharing ministries and short-term health plans, he has written, but ultimately chose a catastrophic plan through the Health Insurance Marketplace. His plan comes with a health savings account, a saving-investment hybrid account that Dahleen says he's been using for years, which costs just over $900 a month.

With two kids to put through college one day, Dahleen also prioritized funding their 529 plans, a tax-advantaged, state-sponsored investment account with high annual contribution limits.

"I had a goal of $100,000 in each of our two sons' 529 plans, and I made sure we had that prior to leaving my job," Dahleen said. As long as their investments keep up with the rate of inflation, he said, it should be enough to cover four years of public in-state tuition, at least. They also expect their kids to take advantage of scholarships.

"Student-loan debt is a monumental hurdle to overcome for recent college and medical-school graduates — I would not have been comfortable walking away from a high-income profession without first making strides to lessen the potential debt load on our boys," said Dahleen, who paid off $75,000 of student debt in 2012.

As he wrote in a blog post, "Having two boys increased my financial independence number, but I was also given two excellent reasons to reach it more quickly and to take decisive action once we were comfortably FI."

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