Retirement

I'm a professor at a community College, and I don't ever want to retire.

My best friend says they'll wheel me out if the classroom and I'll still be talking over my shoulder like "the aboriginal dreamtime is a paradox to the mod e rn western mind but..."
 
I'll be 57 in about 2 months and my current plan is to retire at 60 (+ a couple months). If my company offered me a package to retire tomorrow, I would likely say yes before they finished asking. I've been in insurance claims for 30+ years, which isn't exactly known as a high paying field, but I've been fortunate throughout my career on pay with a pretty good salary and bonus. However, it is probably just as significant that I have never been married and I don't have any children so some of life's large expenses never landed in my finances. I've also been investing since I was in college.

About 18 months ago, I had some meetings with a fee only fiduciary financial planner to look over my finances/investments. He asked me when I wanted to retire and at the time I said probably 65. His reply was "dude, you have to give me something to work with because you could retire fairly easily right now, let alone 10 years from now. Plus, you've already structured your finances very well and done everything that we normally have to counsel most people on." I let him plan for age 62. Probably the only area that I was a bit lacking was a limited amount of Roth assets. While the advice he gave me was more nibbling at the edges, it was worth the fee. I rolled an IRA into my 401k and started a backdoor Roth and mega backdoor Roth. I've been unable to do a regular Roth for several years as I'm beyond the income threshold, but I did have a small Roth position. So a couple years of bolstering my Roth assets will give me some flexibility if needed.

About a year ago, I learned that I have apparently had "at least" 2 strokes since 2017 and back around 2007 or so I had some cardiac issues due to stress (stress/Takotsubo cardiomyopathy). I've noticed some difficulty remembering names even of people (and places) that I regularly interact with which is not a great sign. My dad passed away at 86 (cancer) and my mother (who had a stroke in her 20's and also has had stress cardiomyopathy) is doing ok at age 83 so I'm somewhat hopeful that once I am away from the work stress, I could have a lengthy retirement.

I have learned so much about retirement finances via YouTube and there are a number of really great presenters along with some who are either not so great or who are just using it to market for business. I learned a lot from Safeguard Wealth Management and James Conole of Root Financial. Some of the stuff has no real impact to me but it is now clear to me that while I've done really well with the accumulation phase of retirement, the distribution phase and taxes might be a bit of an issue. At this point, my situation is more of planning how to reconfigure my retirement assets to minimize taxes long term. Strangely, I might have too much saved.

There are two things that I do that I recommend to anyone. First, I track my net worth on a monthly basis. It has made me far more comfortable seeing what my investments do month to month so that I will be more comfortable without having a paycheck until I start getting Social Security and my pension (both probably at age 67). If you are younger than 50, you might want to dial that back to around 1-4x per year instead of monthly. Second, I started using (free) NewRetirement.com to getting more comfortable that I'm not going to run out of money. That also forced me to start paying attention to how much of my income I needed to live a reasonable lifestyle.
 
ChapelHillSooner said:
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.
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Is that something you created yourself - would be fun to play around with and run different scenarios.
 
Has anyone retired while kids were still in the house?

Our child will turn 18 when I'm 64. If he wasn't around I'd be in a second career that had fewer hours, more flexibility, income-be-damned, doing something more enjoyable and worthwhile.

Healthcare coverage for him will probably be a big driver of my wife or I continuing "real" employment for quite awhile.

Also I wonder about the impact on him of seeing his dad as an unemployed slacker (someone who plays or hobbies at a leisurely pace). I've heard the WFH era is giving kids unrealistic perspectives on the workworld since many traditional 'jobs' aren't so flexible.
 
NCK9 said:
Is that something you created yourself - would be fun to play around with and run different scenarios.
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dcphx said:
I'll be 57 in about 2 months and my current plan is to retire at 60 (+ a couple months). If my company offered me a package to retire tomorrow, I would likely say yes before they finished asking. I've been in insurance claims for 30+ years, which isn't exactly known as a high paying field, but I've been fortunate throughout my career on pay with a pretty good salary and bonus. However, it is probably just as significant that I have never been married and I don't have any children so some of life's large expenses never landed in my finances. I've also been investing since I was in college.

About 18 months ago, I had some meetings with a fee only fiduciary financial planner to look over my finances/investments. He asked me when I wanted to retire and at the time I said probably 65. His reply was "dude, you have to give me something to work with because you could retire fairly easily right now, let alone 10 years from now. Plus, you've already structured your finances very well and done everything that we normally have to counsel most people on." I let him plan for age 62. Probably the only area that I was a bit lacking was a limited amount of Roth assets. While the advice he gave me was more nibbling at the edges, it was worth the fee. I rolled an IRA into my 401k and started a backdoor Roth and mega backdoor Roth. I've been unable to do a regular Roth for several years as I'm beyond the income threshold, but I did have a small Roth position. So a couple years of bolstering my Roth assets will give me some flexibility if needed.

About a year ago, I learned that I have apparently had "at least" 2 strokes since 2017 and back around 2007 or so I had some cardiac issues due to stress (stress/Takotsubo cardiomyopathy). I've noticed some difficulty remembering names even of people (and places) that I regularly interact with which is not a great sign. My dad passed away at 86 (cancer) and my mother (who had a stroke in her 20's and also has had stress cardiomyopathy) is doing ok at age 83 so I'm somewhat hopeful that once I am away from the work stress, I could have a lengthy retirement.

I have learned so much about retirement finances via YouTube and there are a number of really great presenters along with some who are either not so great or who are just using it to market for business. I learned a lot from Safeguard Wealth Management and James Conole of Root Financial. Some of the stuff has no real impact to me but it is now clear to me that while I've done really well with the accumulation phase of retirement, the distribution phase and taxes might be a bit of an issue. At this point, my situation is more of planning how to reconfigure my retirement assets to minimize taxes long term. Strangely, I might have too much saved.

There are two things that I do that I recommend to anyone. First, I track my net worth on a monthly basis. It has made me far more comfortable seeing what my investments do month to month so that I will be more comfortable without having a paycheck until I start getting Social Security and my pension (both probably at age 67). If you are younger than 50, you might want to dial that back to around 1-4x per year instead of monthly. Second, I started using (free) NewRetirement.com to getting more comfortable that I'm not going to run out of money. That also forced me to start paying attention to how much of my income I needed to live a reasonable lifestyle.
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I don't have anything going into a Roth, and don't quite understand backdoor Roth. I have everything outside of 401k investment in low-cost funds...I use Betterment.

It may be worth a review by a fee only financial advisor. Anyone have recommendations for the Winston-Salem area?
 
dcphx said:
I'll be 57 in about 2 months and my current plan is to retire at 60 (+ a couple months). If my company offered me a package to retire tomorrow, I would likely say yes before they finished asking. I've been in insurance claims for 30+ years, which isn't exactly known as a high paying field, but I've been fortunate throughout my career on pay with a pretty good salary and bonus. However, it is probably just as significant that I have never been married and I don't have any children so some of life's large expenses never landed in my finances. I've also been investing since I was in college.

About 18 months ago, I had some meetings with a fee only fiduciary financial planner to look over my finances/investments. He asked me when I wanted to retire and at the time I said probably 65. His reply was "dude, you have to give me something to work with because you could retire fairly easily right now, let alone 10 years from now. Plus, you've already structured your finances very well and done everything that we normally have to counsel most people on." I let him plan for age 62. Probably the only area that I was a bit lacking was a limited amount of Roth assets. While the advice he gave me was more nibbling at the edges, it was worth the fee. I rolled an IRA into my 401k and started a backdoor Roth and mega backdoor Roth. I've been unable to do a regular Roth for several years as I'm beyond the income threshold, but I did have a small Roth position. So a couple years of bolstering my Roth assets will give me some flexibility if needed.

About a year ago, I learned that I have apparently had "at least" 2 strokes since 2017 and back around 2007 or so I had some cardiac issues due to stress (stress/Takotsubo cardiomyopathy). I've noticed some difficulty remembering names even of people (and places) that I regularly interact with which is not a great sign. My dad passed away at 86 (cancer) and my mother (who had a stroke in her 20's and also has had stress cardiomyopathy) is doing ok at age 83 so I'm somewhat hopeful that once I am away from the work stress, I could have a lengthy retirement.

I have learned so much about retirement finances via YouTube and there are a number of really great presenters along with some who are either not so great or who are just using it to market for business. I learned a lot from Safeguard Wealth Management and James Conole of Root Financial. Some of the stuff has no real impact to me but it is now clear to me that while I've done really well with the accumulation phase of retirement, the distribution phase and taxes might be a bit of an issue. At this point, my situation is more of planning how to reconfigure my retirement assets to minimize taxes long term. Strangely, I might have too much saved.

There are two things that I do that I recommend to anyone. First, I track my net worth on a monthly basis. It has made me far more comfortable seeing what my investments do month to month so that I will be more comfortable without having a paycheck until I start getting Social Security and my pension (both probably at age 67). If you are younger than 50, you might want to dial that back to around 1-4x per year instead of monthly. Second, I started using (free) NewRetirement.com to getting more comfortable that I'm not going to run out of money. That also forced me to start paying attention to how much of my income I needed to live a reasonable lifestyle.
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The whole roth thing is an interesting thing. I have a 'super backdoor roth' but am really torn about whether to do the roth conversions the first few years of retirement when my tax bracket will be low. The premise is that it will reduce your mandatory withdrawals and thus your taxes. But I really don't worry about taxes so much when I'm projected to have more money that I could ever spend unless I really lose my mind with fossil collecting or crazy sports cars/real estate which I don't anticipate. I'm really struggling more with how much to leave the kids versus charitable options.

Travel will be a huge deal for as long as my wife and I are physically able but at the end of the day I will likely never touch the roth money. It all just seems like a lot of mental masturbation to try and be 'perfect' when I am already better off than 99.something% of all humans on the planet currently and likely 99.99999% of all humans who have ever lived. I'm aware that probably sounds like a brag but I'm just being honest on this thread and giving my perspective.
 
I am 65 next month and starting on a Medicare advantage plan. My wife is retired and is 67. She has ss and a teacher pension. We both have significant 401k, rental property income etc.

What is interesting to me is the decision on drawing social security. My normal retirement age is 66 10 months. Each month I wait for the next 5 years increases my check and the wifes as long as I live.

The small company I run is shutting down in the next six months or so as we have been in the shutdown phase for over a year now. My timing on the ss is simply the best return on investment choice. Do I spend some savings and wait on ss or avoid the taxes on the 401k funds and start drawing now. There is a lot of moving parts to this including the taxation of ss benefits if you have higher other income stream.

If I start drawing early by wife’s ss will go up now as spouses are guaranteed at least 50% of their other spouse amount. So, if I wait, I will get more and so will she. Another thing is that she will get my ss if I die before her which is likely. She is a Zumba instructor, and I need professional training help. She travels, I farm.

It is a time value of money calculation for what my kids might inherit. So, the calculation must consider both my expected life and hers, and taxes. I have lost track of how many spreadsheets I have with the various scenarios played out. There is probably specialized software for this.
 
uncgriff said:
The whole roth thing is an interesting thing. I have a 'super backdoor roth' but am really torn about whether to do the roth conversions the first few years of retirement when my tax bracket will be low. The premise is that it will reduce your mandatory withdrawals and thus your taxes. But I really don't worry about taxes so much when I'm projected to have more money that I could ever spend unless I really lose my mind with fossil collecting or crazy sports cars/real estate which I don't anticipate. I'm really struggling more with how much to leave the kids versus charitable options.

Travel will be a huge deal for as long as my wife and I are physically able but at the end of the day I will likely never touch the roth money. It all just seems like a lot of mental masturbation to try and be 'perfect' when I am already better off than 99.something% of all humans on the planet currently and likely 99.99999% of all humans who have ever lived. I'm aware that probably sounds like a brag but I'm just being honest on this thread and giving my perspective.
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I have both a roll-over IRA and a Roth IRA and now have to take RMDs from the roll-over IRA.

I am where you are with regard to never having to touch my Roth. That said, my challenge is devising a plan to convert all of my roll-over to my Roth without taking too big a hit on taxes before I kick the bucket.

The advantage of the Roth vs the roll-over is that my wife and children would not have to pay taxes on RMDs although the kids would have to withdraw the Roth account by the 10 year deadline.

Re: charitable options, I am making QCDs from my roll-over which counts toward meeting my RMDs. So combining QCDs and Roth conversions allows me to contribute to charities and hopefully provide my wife and kids financial security once I return to non-existence.

Now if I outlive my family, my priorities will change... I'm thinking I may become a sugar daddy to various UNC co-eds who will take care of my every need. :cool:
 
ChapelHillSooner said:
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.
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Dude... have you been marrying my ex-wives???

We def need to swap war stories over drinks one of these days...
 
I turn 50 next year. My plan is to retire at 60, though it's quite possible I could be pushed out a bit earlier than planned... or could be bribed with a retention bonus to stay another couple years. With what I do, I see both scenarios fairly often.

My pay has really ramped up over the last 5 years since we got a new CEO who loves the way I anticipate what he will want before he can ask for it. Once something works for him, he does not like change. But he's smart and almost all my pay increase has been in stock grants that I have to stick around another 3 years to get.

My CEO is young and ambitious, so chances are he will move on before I retire. So I could easily go from protected on high to "overpaid and not wanted" in the blink of an eye.

I will retire to a family house out west. It's been in the family for about 100 years. It's an amazing property. The upkeep is fairly expensive, but it's 100% paid and I'll sell off my NYC property when I move there.

I probably should retire sooner and start enjoying what I've already earned... but it's hard to call it quits when you've worked your butt off for 25 years to finally get to a place where you make "good money".

My retirement will likely be mostly hiking in the mountains, fishing, and keeping up the family house and grounds. I can't imagine I'll spend close to what my planner is allocating for me in his latest "plan". But the cautious part of me just wants to keep putting away a liiiiiiitle bit more. I figure I'll just start doing a ton of travel until I retire... then it will be out of my system and I can relax and enjoy the view from retirement.
 
took disability @ 60 in 2009 and wife retired in 2014 and we have been blessed many times over the last 14 years for me and 10 for her I had planned to work till 67 but health reasons changed that. We plan and God laughs.
 
heelinhell said:
The advantage of the Roth vs the roll-over is that my wife and children would not have to pay taxes on RMDs although the kids would have to withdraw the Roth account by the 10 year deadline.
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This is a huge part of the advantage of having Roth vs. pre-tax. Much more favorable vehicle for heirs to inherit.

Regarding passing to children, the SECURE Act made it much more of a burden to them by requiring retirement accounts be distributed over 10 years vs. their own life expectancy. While the Roth still has to be paid out over 10 years, it's not a big deal since it's all tax free.
 
I would like to be financially able to retire at 55. I doubt I'll actually want to retire then as long as I still enjoy what I'm doing, but by that age I want to be working because I want to (and working how much I want), not working because I have to.
 
I have a spreadsheet with our budget - the usual expenses (rough monthly estimates for food, etc). And then we have spaces for extra purchases that come up including vacation, etc. I have it going out 12 years, so it really helps see what we can do, afford etc. I have 2 other tabs - 1 monitoring 529 growth and contributions for my son and the other for our retirement planning: rough swags of 8% growth in my 401K, his retirement pension, and then our retirement savings in High Yield accounts. It really, really helps keep us grounded and excited

One thing that hit me that I didnt think about when I was younger: when you are retired, you are no longer saving. You spend on your expenses. You just control what you spend, but you dont need the excess for saving, because you've done it! Seems simple, but it's a weird mindset shift
 
dcphx said:
I'll be 57 in about 2 months and my current plan is to retire at 60 (+ a couple months). If my company offered me a package to retire tomorrow, I would likely say yes before they finished asking. I've been in insurance claims for 30+ years, which isn't exactly known as a high paying field, but I've been fortunate throughout my career on pay with a pretty good salary and bonus. However, it is probably just as significant that I have never been married and I don't have any children so some of life's large expenses never landed in my finances. I've also been investing since I was in college.

About 18 months ago, I had some meetings with a fee only fiduciary financial planner to look over my finances/investments. He asked me when I wanted to retire and at the time I said probably 65. His reply was "dude, you have to give me something to work with because you could retire fairly easily right now, let alone 10 years from now. Plus, you've already structured your finances very well and done everything that we normally have to counsel most people on." I let him plan for age 62. Probably the only area that I was a bit lacking was a limited amount of Roth assets. While the advice he gave me was more nibbling at the edges, it was worth the fee. I rolled an IRA into my 401k and started a backdoor Roth and mega backdoor Roth. I've been unable to do a regular Roth for several years as I'm beyond the income threshold, but I did have a small Roth position. So a couple years of bolstering my Roth assets will give me some flexibility if needed.

About a year ago, I learned that I have apparently had "at least" 2 strokes since 2017 and back around 2007 or so I had some cardiac issues due to stress (stress/Takotsubo cardiomyopathy). I've noticed some difficulty remembering names even of people (and places) that I regularly interact with which is not a great sign. My dad passed away at 86 (cancer) and my mother (who had a stroke in her 20's and also has had stress cardiomyopathy) is doing ok at age 83 so I'm somewhat hopeful that once I am away from the work stress, I could have a lengthy retirement.

I have learned so much about retirement finances via YouTube and there are a number of really great presenters along with some who are either not so great or who are just using it to market for business. I learned a lot from Safeguard Wealth Management and James Conole of Root Financial. Some of the stuff has no real impact to me but it is now clear to me that while I've done really well with the accumulation phase of retirement, the distribution phase and taxes might be a bit of an issue. At this point, my situation is more of planning how to reconfigure my retirement assets to minimize taxes long term. Strangely, I might have too much saved.

There are two things that I do that I recommend to anyone. First, I track my net worth on a monthly basis. It has made me far more comfortable seeing what my investments do month to month so that I will be more comfortable without having a paycheck until I start getting Social Security and my pension (both probably at age 67). If you are younger than 50, you might want to dial that back to around 1-4x per year instead of monthly. Second, I started using (free) NewRetirement.com to getting more comfortable that I'm not going to run out of money. That also forced me to start paying attention to how much of my income I needed to live a reasonable lifestyle.
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Thanks for the suggestions & info.
 
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