Retirement
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aGDevil2k
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I am a planner, and being married to someone in the public schools with a pension looming is a massive plus. If everything keeps going stable for us, my hope is to hang it up the day before I turn 58. I hope to be on the state health plan before that and ride that until Medicare...but if I have to ACA it, I will. We can live off savings and the pension until getting SS at 68/70.
I learned as I got into my mid 30s, the key to success in that regard is living below your means. Not FIRE frugal, but if you are in a "forever house" you can afford in your late 30s, then all of the extra growth in your income can go to savings, etc.
I learned as I got into my mid 30s, the key to success in that regard is living below your means. Not FIRE frugal, but if you are in a "forever house" you can afford in your late 30s, then all of the extra growth in your income can go to savings, etc.
aGDevil2k
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Cremation for the win. You just jump into a bonfire.
UNCRx85
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I started working for the state at 28. I hope like hell I can retire at 58, when I get my 30 years in. I'm throwing a lot into multiple retirement accts plus the state pension I hope will still be solvent in 20 more years. I don't mind coming to work, but I wouldn't say I enjoy it. It mainly just funds what I like to do outside of work, so as soon as I'm able to fund that without having to work, I will.
Yes Sir! That's been my ticket. I got it from my grandmother and father. Both lived well into their 90s and both were pretty happy and content throughout their later years.
UNCRx85
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The pension is definitely nice - it'll hopefully replace my current take-home pay before having to take any disbursements from my other accts or social security. My wife's a state employee who'll get a pension, too, with basically the same savings strategy as me.
And we built what we intend to be our forever house in 2020 just before Covid and then refinanced at 2.625% a year later. We lucked out bigtime with the timing and I think about that a whole lot...
RockyMtnHoo
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I just turned 50, and planning on working full-time about 5 more years. Maybe another few years part-time after that.
Figure we’ll sell our current house in about 5, and should have enough equity to pay cash for a smaller place. Between my Air Force retirement and VA, I pull down about $6K per month, and my wife starts pulling her teacher pension in 5 as well. If no house payment (we don’t carry credit card balances or car loans) should be able to live fairly comfortable. Then 401K and SS kicks in a few years later.
Figure we’ll sell our current house in about 5, and should have enough equity to pay cash for a smaller place. Between my Air Force retirement and VA, I pull down about $6K per month, and my wife starts pulling her teacher pension in 5 as well. If no house payment (we don’t carry credit card balances or car loans) should be able to live fairly comfortable. Then 401K and SS kicks in a few years later.
JCTarheel82
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I'm 42 and ask my wife on a near-daily basis if I can retire.
CFordUNC
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Love this thread topic idea! I am a big personal finance enthusiast/hobbyist and nerd out on this stuff. I’m approaching my mid 30s and my wife is a couple of years behind me. I am almost certain I will want to work well into my 60s. I’m in a career field and on a trajectory that I love and can’t really imagine feeling like I would want to step away from it any earlier than the traditional retirement age. Plus, the pinnacle leadership positions in my field are typically reached in the mid-to-late 50’s.
My wife, on the other hand, is a year away from finishing medical fellowship and starting her career in a surgical trauma subspecialty of medicine, one in which there is a higher proclivity to burnout. She will have to be 1.0 FTE for at least the first 4 years of her career as part of the forgivable medical school loan which we have. After that, my goal is for her to be full-time optional as quickly as possible, and then work-optional as quickly as possible. I would not characterize us as FIRE adherents, but we are currently saving, and will continue to save, with early financial independence- but not necessarily early retirement- being a key motivator. To that end, we take advantage of maximizing every tax-advantaged retirement account that we can; right now that means doing a backdoor Roth IRA for the both of us, maxing a 401k and 457b for me, and then sticking extra money from her moonlighting shifts into a taxable brokerage (her fellowship program does not provide access to a 401(k) or 401(k) for residence and fellows). Once she is an attending next year, we’ll add maxing a 403b and a 457b for her, as well.
One of my favorite folks in the personal finance space geared towards physicians and their families is called the White Coat Investor (his actual name is Jim Dahle, and he’s an emergency medicine physician himself). His big mantra is for new attending physicians to “live like a resident” for a period of 3-5 years post-training; in other words, once you graduate residency or fellowship and your income triples, quadruples, or even quintuples, continue living on a similar- or only slightly elevated- lifestyle for the first 3 to 5 years of your career in order to build a really good foundational nest egg. Fortunately in our situation, I’ve had a high income for most of the time in which my wife has been in medical school, residency, and now fellowship (total of 10 years of post-undergraduate education), so we have been fortunate enough to get a great jumpstart on saving for retirement and other things, but I’ve been trying to talk to a lot of our medical school friends, with whom we are still close who are in similar situations coming out of residencies and fellowships this year and next, but who have multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical school student loan debt and who were just treading water financially to survive over the last several years while making resident/fellow salaries.
My wife, on the other hand, is a year away from finishing medical fellowship and starting her career in a surgical trauma subspecialty of medicine, one in which there is a higher proclivity to burnout. She will have to be 1.0 FTE for at least the first 4 years of her career as part of the forgivable medical school loan which we have. After that, my goal is for her to be full-time optional as quickly as possible, and then work-optional as quickly as possible. I would not characterize us as FIRE adherents, but we are currently saving, and will continue to save, with early financial independence- but not necessarily early retirement- being a key motivator. To that end, we take advantage of maximizing every tax-advantaged retirement account that we can; right now that means doing a backdoor Roth IRA for the both of us, maxing a 401k and 457b for me, and then sticking extra money from her moonlighting shifts into a taxable brokerage (her fellowship program does not provide access to a 401(k) or 401(k) for residence and fellows). Once she is an attending next year, we’ll add maxing a 403b and a 457b for her, as well.
One of my favorite folks in the personal finance space geared towards physicians and their families is called the White Coat Investor (his actual name is Jim Dahle, and he’s an emergency medicine physician himself). His big mantra is for new attending physicians to “live like a resident” for a period of 3-5 years post-training; in other words, once you graduate residency or fellowship and your income triples, quadruples, or even quintuples, continue living on a similar- or only slightly elevated- lifestyle for the first 3 to 5 years of your career in order to build a really good foundational nest egg. Fortunately in our situation, I’ve had a high income for most of the time in which my wife has been in medical school, residency, and now fellowship (total of 10 years of post-undergraduate education), so we have been fortunate enough to get a great jumpstart on saving for retirement and other things, but I’ve been trying to talk to a lot of our medical school friends, with whom we are still close who are in similar situations coming out of residencies and fellowships this year and next, but who have multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical school student loan debt and who were just treading water financially to survive over the last several years while making resident/fellow salaries.
heelinhell
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I retired at 55yo
I did so for two reasons. My best friend friend was dying of non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, and I took care of him during the day while his wife worked. Also, my wife and I were preparing to be the day care center for our soon to be born grandson, and I was going to be my wife's assistant as needed.
I have often said that if I had known what retirement would be like, I would have retired even earlier.
CarolinaFever
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I'm turning 50 soon. Retirement can't come soon enough. My wife works for the state so she'll be able to retire sooner than me. I know someone who worked for the prison at Butner since he was 22 or so and he retired earlier this year at 48. Also know a guy that retired from the Raleigh police department at 50.
uncgriff
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I'm 60. (Man that is hard to believe sometimes)
I am fortunate enough to retire any time I would want to and according to projections not take a hit at all on my current monthly expenses (that's in a 'significantly below average market' which is only 5% likely, in an 'average market' it's somewhat crazy what those projections are for me)
But I enjoy my work, have lots of built in flexibility for travel, have a sense of commitment to my patients and my team and really don't think I'm really ready to do it.
My plan is 3 more years when I can get cobra to take me to age 65 and hopefully still have good health to take full advantage of time and freedom.
Of course that could all change based on other factors. It is a real relief knowing that short of some semi apocalyptic event which will affect everyone I am in solid shape financially.
What I didn't understand until recently is the impact of a)no longer needing to save for retirement b) very low to non-existent taxes the first few years as I pay expenses using cash and not my retirement accounts, c) the ongoing growth of those accounts baring market collapse, d) social security and the spousal benefit of 50% of mine and e) expenses I have currently that relate to working that will be gone and their collective impact on expenses in retirement.
You don't need a financial advisor taking 1% to teach you things, there are many excellent books and YouTube videos to avail yourself of. The key in taking that approach though is you also need to educate your spouse.
I am fortunate enough to retire any time I would want to and according to projections not take a hit at all on my current monthly expenses (that's in a 'significantly below average market' which is only 5% likely, in an 'average market' it's somewhat crazy what those projections are for me)
But I enjoy my work, have lots of built in flexibility for travel, have a sense of commitment to my patients and my team and really don't think I'm really ready to do it.
My plan is 3 more years when I can get cobra to take me to age 65 and hopefully still have good health to take full advantage of time and freedom.
Of course that could all change based on other factors. It is a real relief knowing that short of some semi apocalyptic event which will affect everyone I am in solid shape financially.
What I didn't understand until recently is the impact of a)no longer needing to save for retirement b) very low to non-existent taxes the first few years as I pay expenses using cash and not my retirement accounts, c) the ongoing growth of those accounts baring market collapse, d) social security and the spousal benefit of 50% of mine and e) expenses I have currently that relate to working that will be gone and their collective impact on expenses in retirement.
You don't need a financial advisor taking 1% to teach you things, there are many excellent books and YouTube videos to avail yourself of. The key in taking that approach though is you also need to educate your spouse.
8992Tiger
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I'm 56. I really love my job and our business is in a strong growth curve right now, so I'm not in a hurry to leave. My 401k is in good shape (I think), and I'll have a modest pension. My wife teaches in private school, so no big paychecks and no pension for her. All said, I hope I can retire at 60-62 if I so choose; it just depends on my chosen lifestyle. I also hope to get some sort of low stress job in my field during retirement - teaching or consulting with my company.
CeruleanBlueHeel
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My employer merged with another of similar size and eliminated my position -- kind of a niche gig with my own software systems that had been providing a decent income sustenance the last six+ years -- and left me five months short of Medicare eligibility. Anyway, that was fourteen months ago. I called it retirement and signed up with Medicare five months later. Oh, and I got a PC diagnosis ten days prior to my termination. Go with it ....
"PC diagnosis"?
ChapelHillSooner
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Assuming an average return of 10% and using the 4% rule, I will be able to retire in about 10 years. I am 52 now. Figure I need $2.5 million to retire. Of course if returns do not meet the 10% per year long term average then I would have to work a lot longer. As an example, I think from around 2001 it took almost 10 years to just get back to the market highs. Yearly contributions aside such an occurrence would put my plans back 10 years.
The caveat is that I am still married but separated and my ex is not good with money. Doubt her retirement is anywhere near as good of shape as mine despite the fact that throughout most of our marriage she has out-earned me. So if we ever actually pull the lever she will be taking a lot of what I have I suppose. In that case, I might be digging my own grave as well although I might just throw myself into that grave early.
A while ago I loaded up yearly S&P returns into a table and wrote a program which basically iterated with the retirement start year being one of the historical years. So, for example, one iteration would be as if the markets returned exactly what they did from 1930 on. In each iteration I determined after how many years it would take me to run out of money if I took out $100k per year compounded 3% or so per year to cover inflation. Probably not doing a great job of explaining it. I also tried a lot of different balances at retirement beginning with like $1.5 million. I concluded that the 4% rule is very very conservative and basically covers the worst case scenario where you retire pretty much right before the Great Depression. There were other start years where you could far more than 4% out and the nest egg would balloon to many millions.
Note that I don't think those S&P returns included reinvested dividends so actual returns would have been slightly better.
But all in all that convinced me that I don't think I will ever go fully conservative with my investments, at least not early in retirement.
The caveat is that I am still married but separated and my ex is not good with money. Doubt her retirement is anywhere near as good of shape as mine despite the fact that throughout most of our marriage she has out-earned me. So if we ever actually pull the lever she will be taking a lot of what I have I suppose. In that case, I might be digging my own grave as well although I might just throw myself into that grave early.
A while ago I loaded up yearly S&P returns into a table and wrote a program which basically iterated with the retirement start year being one of the historical years. So, for example, one iteration would be as if the markets returned exactly what they did from 1930 on. In each iteration I determined after how many years it would take me to run out of money if I took out $100k per year compounded 3% or so per year to cover inflation. Probably not doing a great job of explaining it. I also tried a lot of different balances at retirement beginning with like $1.5 million. I concluded that the 4% rule is very very conservative and basically covers the worst case scenario where you retire pretty much right before the Great Depression. There were other start years where you could far more than 4% out and the nest egg would balloon to many millions.
Note that I don't think those S&P returns included reinvested dividends so actual returns would have been slightly better.
But all in all that convinced me that I don't think I will ever go fully conservative with my investments, at least not early in retirement.
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My wife and I are both in our mid 30s and work in tech. We aren’t wealthy by any means, but we make good money and do a decent job of investing and contributing to retirement accounts.
We are planning to start having kids in the next few years, so I can’t even think about what retirement will look like until the family-raising phase of our life is well underway and we can recalibrate our financial situation accordingly.
As far as my career goes, I can’t say I love it or am very passionate about it, but it pays well enough and gives me great balance for other hobbies and activities. I do worry about the long term health of the tech industry though. I’ve been in it since I graduated from UNC and have been fortunate enough to avoid layoffs and weather the ebbs and flows to this point, but 2023 and 2024 so far have been tough. Lot of companies shrinking and going under and not a lot of growth.
We are planning to start having kids in the next few years, so I can’t even think about what retirement will look like until the family-raising phase of our life is well underway and we can recalibrate our financial situation accordingly.
As far as my career goes, I can’t say I love it or am very passionate about it, but it pays well enough and gives me great balance for other hobbies and activities. I do worry about the long term health of the tech industry though. I’ve been in it since I graduated from UNC and have been fortunate enough to avoid layoffs and weather the ebbs and flows to this point, but 2023 and 2024 so far have been tough. Lot of companies shrinking and going under and not a lot of growth.
ChapelHillSooner
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That is what I will do when my wife takes half my 401k.
First one was 100% a narcissist. She had the only key to the mailbox. When I thought I was debt free, I found out that she was cashing all of those checks they send you so that she could pay for the horse I didn't know existed. By the time I figured it all out I owed about $15k.
Second one is a better person and good mom to my son. But she owed about $40k in credit card debt when we met. My instinct was to run away but I didn't. Instead I paid that off with cash from the sell of my first house. (The sell was long before she was in the picture.) I also paid cash for our $35k wedding.
I told her I'll be pissed if she leaves me. Sure enough she left for a guy she met in AA.