Introduce yourself here!

[Dog]

Just Joined

I just joined the forum. I am in a down-shifting mode working towards ER. I accepted a generous ER and severance package from Verizon two years ago. Accepted a job with a utility two months later and plan on working three more years (while we build and furnish our retirement home) and then leave the corporate world to start a small business. My husband will continue working for another eight years to qualify for his ER. We are looking forward to a slower pace and time to enjoy our hobbies and time w/friends.

 

[Nords]

Re: Just Joined

I just joined the forum.  I am in a down-shifting mode working towards ER.  I accepted a generous ER and severance package from Verizon two years ago.

Welcome to the board, Dog, I bet Verizon would have lots of people asking for their special ER packages...

 

[Elderdude]

Hi,
I'm 64 and retired for almost four years now. Still adjusting to the fact that I don't have to do nuthin'.

 

[Nords]

Welcome to the board, Elderdude...

 

[peakanese]

Hello, my name is peakanese (A location, not a canine). Here is my story.
I am a 54 year old electric utility worker, married with two grown girls and soon to be a grand parent. Our combined salaries are $130K. We both are burned out and long for early/semi retirement. We plan to pull the plug in mid-2007. My wife plans to work part time in the Temp Worker field and I plan to teach guitar and build furniture in my shop. We also plan to do a modest amount of travel. Here is our net worth situation.

Emergency Fund 20K
Regular Investments 158K
IRA 227K
401K 277K
Cash Balance Plan 342K

Total 1024K

Total debt is 19K home equity loan that will be paid off from salaries by mid-2007. We are currently saving at least 15% of our salaries. We own our home, 7 acres of land and a 2000 sq ft shop/boat storage/my dog house building, total value of about 300K. We plan to live off of our part-time work, savings and post-tax investments until 59.5 when I can tap into everything else. Our expenses are under 3K per month. The pre-tax stuff should grow during this time to the point that we can then live off of the gains. The investments are with VG and a Wachovia account that will be switched to VG at an opportune time (read back-end loaded). We are well diversified, 60/40 split. Will increase the equity portion to about 70% when the cash balance money is available.
Health care is not a huge hurdle as my company will be subsidizing my costs to the tune of apprximately 13K per year. We will use this to purchase a suitable policy.

I have one question. When I receive the Cash Balance money upon retirement, can I cash out a portion and pay taxes as ordinary income and roll the remainder into an IRA without the 10% penalty?

I have done a lot of reading and will adhere either to the 4% SWR or the Rational Investing theory for the long haul.

The big question is, what do you guys think about my plan?

 

[haha]

Hi Peak- one question, I didn't see any mention of pension. As a utility worker, don't you have some pension?

With or without, you sem to be in pretty good shape. Congrats.

Ha

 

[Martha]

I have one question. When I receive the Cash Balance money upon retirement, can I cash out a portion and pay taxes as ordinary income and roll the remainder into an IRA without the 10% penalty?

You should be able to rollover the entire cash balance plan into an IRA with no penalty. See IRS publication http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p575.pdf. To avoid the 10% penalty for early withdrawls for cash you need now, you might consider taking 72t distributions from the rollover IRA. A discussion about these early distributions can be found at http://www.retireearlyhomepage.com/wdraw59.html

 

[tdtg]

Hello all,

I'm a 39 y/o from California. I used to frequent the REHP on Fool website. Our cash flow and investing have been thrown out of whack with 3 kids in the last 6 years.

Now that the dust has settled a little, I'm hoping to get back on track with investing. We've dropped from 2 incomes to less than 1 income, so we can stay home and care for the little ones. We're still using the LBYM principles and investing as much as we can manage.

Thanks to all of you for providing inspiration, encouraging words and support.

 

[Nords]

Welcome to the board, tdtg!

I used to frequent the REHP on Fool website.

It'd be interesting to hear your historical perspective on how that place changed...

 

[peakanese]

Thanks Martha for the good information. I might have to use the SEPP to ensure I have enough cash flow for the first few years.

HaHa, I opted for the Cash Balance Plan instead of the Final Average Pay Plan some years back. In essence, the Cash Balance is my pension. I just get it all at one time, when I quit working for this company.

 

[receedinghairline]

New to Forum

Hello, I am new to the forum and its tools.
My situation is that I will have a defined benefit of around $40k/yr at age 53 (three years) and ~$185k of savings. I also have a house and some other assets that are of questionable value.

So, I am going to bug out and do something else in two or three years.

Receeding Hairline

 

[yakers]

receedinghairline welcome,

With the assets you described it sounds like enough to live all but an exotic lifestyle. If you have reasonable medical coverage then you have all the elements. You can even choose to work a bit occasionally, at something you like, if you want to build up finances. But looks like you are on target for financial independence, which is what I think *it* is all about.

 

[bison74]

Hi. I heard about this forum from a friend. I have been visiting this forum as a guest & have learned alot from the various posts. Thanks for all the information.

Bison74

 

[Nords]

Welcome to the board, bison. Always good to see a lurker de-cloak...

 

[eddie]

retirement

hi all,
i'm retiring soon (two months), we have about 1million in an ira plus a small pension,(20,000). we need help getting a plan that will carry us for about 35 years. sorry we will get abour 18000 from soc sec. in 3years. it would be nice to have about 80,000 ayear. i think it is possible. we need a plan, i'm looking for advice, an asset allocation plan would be great.
what we need is a logicial plan with a 50/50 allocation , if this can be done please help us. what mutal funds do we need.
thanks,
eddie

EDIT: Deleted blank space

 

[Nords]

Welcome to the board, eddie. I see you're getting answers in your other posts, so I'll take a look over there.

 

[craigt3365]

Hello! I am new to this board and sure glad I found it.  Wish I knew about this last year.  It would have sure helped.

I was in the high-tech biz and was on the verge of a heart attack.  Major player in the sales game, with major stress.  My company went bankrupt 6/2002.  I decided to take 3 months off, that turned into 2 years.  RTW travel and enjoying life...cheaply.

I came back to the rat race after getting married again and hated it (not the marriage!).  I guess not wearing socks for close to 6 months took its toll.  Saying nothing about not wearing a suit and tie.  I hung in there for about a year, but when my old friend (and now new boss) started ragging me for performance, I just couldn't take it.  So...I spent 3 months dodging him and planning my escape.  Luckily, the real estate market really helped!  Put me over the edge financially.  I sold everything, or gave it away.  I am living very nicely on about 4k per month, with more coming along due to 401ks and SS (hopefully!).

I am back to traveling and loving it.  Visiting various "cheap" locations around the world looking for a place to call home for some time.  I don't have children, but do have a wife who does not work.  I am 48...so the decision was tough. 

I had a great condo in Manhattan that we loved!  Leaving all those luxuries behind was initially tough...but as I am sitting here in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in shorts, flip flops and a t-shirt...life could not be better.  I would never go back.

I will probably end up doing something to help put a few bucks into the bank account...but it will be on my terms, and doing something I really like.  Not selling high-tech crap to corporate rats...sorry for the wording there...

I would love to hear from anybody who lives overseas.  Thailand is high on my list, but will be touring South and Central America after the holidays.  Any recommendations on nice places to live would be great!

Craig

 

[gmt]

Oops, I forgot to introduce myself before I made my first post.

I am 29 and live in Northern California with my darling wife.  I am a consultant and she is a teacher (bless her heart).

We have been trying to balance paying off student loans with saving for retirement as well as see as much of the world as we possibly can.  We try to live simply and hopefully we will be able to retire early and enjoy a very long retirement.

We don't have any kids yet, but we probably will within the next few years. 

We just bought our first house last October. Yeah thats right we timed the top of the market perfectly.  Nonetheless, we really love the house we live in and have enjoyed all the joys of homeownership.

Thanks for providing a forum for people to get/give information about personal finance.

gmt

 

[laurence]

welcome, gmt, you work on the atomic clock or something?

What do you consult on?

 

[gmt]

Hi Laurence, thanks for the welcome.

I consult on alternative energy projects.

gmt

 

[laurence]

So it doesn't stand for Greenwich Mean Time.

ALternative energy projects? That sounds really interesting, I'm thinking you've seen an upswing in interest in the last couple of years. Anything that might trickle down to the consumer level? WHen am I getting my cold fusion home generator?

 

[REWahoo]

WHen am I getting my cold fusion home generator?

The very next time you p*ss off DW.

 

[janeofalltrades]

Hi There, I've been lurking for a while and decided to finally sign up so I can post.

DH and I are planning on retiring in 2-3 years. I just turned 50 and DH is 45. We have been spending our vacations traveling to parts of the US looking for places to retire. I have also been spending quite a bit of time in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, housesitting for friends, so PV might be an option but it seems like its just getting too crowded for us.

Looking forward to participating on the forum 

 

[laurence]

Welcome! Why don't you start a new thread in this section and give us some details about your savings and investment plan so we can thow darts at it share our thoughts!

It's always good to see someone de-lurk!

 

[janeofalltrades]

Hi Laurence, Thanks for the welcome!

Frugal and simple living have helped DH and I save money. 4 years ago we bought a condo when the market was low and sold it (FSBO) last year when the market peaked. We have been renting since then and when we crunch all the numbers we're actually saving money. The stress level has also been reduced since we sold, we're not having to deal with the HOA personnel. We moved to a city 20 minutes from where we were living, that is slower paced and a lot quieter, closer to DH's office, who is self employed.  I am also self employed but genenerally work out of the house and take jobs when they are either interesting, challenging to me or I want to make some extra money. We don't have any children. We save 3/4 of our monthly net income and are planning on doing this for the next 2-3 years.

Here is a list of our finances, go ahead and start throwing the darts 

Cash in Savings and CD's: 665,000. Half of this cash is from the proceeds of the condo.
Vanguard CA. MMF: 103,000.
Stocks, ETF's: 99,000.
401(ks)232,000.
IRA's:90,000.

I think we are being conservative with the cash but the stock market makes me nervous. I'm not sure where else to put the cash that is safe. I have recently started doing my homework on TIPS. We are currently looking at small 1-2 bedroom condos for when we retire. Probably won't spend more then 250,000. but who knows where the RE market will be when we are ready.