More than Ready

[ccmnova]

I'm 53 years old and more than ready to get out of the rat race but don't know if I can. Kids are thru college and house is paid for - just me and my wife and our dog ! - have abt 650K in 401K. Pressure at work is getting worse and worse. Would be so nice to be able to hang it up and the way its going lately, may soon have to !

What should I be doing for myself that could help my situation ?

[DFA]

Welcome, first thing check out your budget, see what items will go away once you retire and what will be added such as health care, hobbies, and travel. Use FireCalc (link at the bottom of the page) to see if it works out, if not see if you can change your expenses to make it work. You need look at income too, but the budget is first.

[MichaelB]

Hi ccmnova, welcome, One thing you need to do is assess what you need to retire compared with how much you have. FIRECalc (here) can help you look at that.

[ccmnova]

I tried the firecalc and am not sure of the results - is there a % of success (or failure) that you should be targeting ?

[Midpack]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ccmnova I tried the firecalc and am not sure of the results - is there a % of success (or failure) that you should be targeting ?

That depends on you. Some people aren't happy with even 100% (going with withdrawal rates of 2-3%, or just not touching principal), others seem to have pulled the plug at closer to 65% (using withdrawal rates of 4-6%, maybe even more if their older). If you have a lot of contingencies built in, other income, going back to work, significant spending flexibility (reduce), more aggressive AA, family history of shorter lifespan or any of dozens of other "plan B" moves - you may not need to wait until you've hit 100%.

And even if you wait for 100%, that does not mean you're outcome is guaranteed success due to geopolitical issues. FWIW, in Dr William Bernsteins well read Retirement Calculator from Hell articles, he (correctly IMO) states "A wildly optimistic historian might give us another few centuries of economic, political, and military continuity. Back-of-the-envelope, that’s about an 80% survival rate over the next 40 years. Thus, any estimate of long-term financial success greater than about 80% is meaningless."

New folks post here all the time asking for a bullet proof plan - only to find there is no such thing. You can improve your odds of success quite a bit, but there's no perfect plan unless you want to go poof at your desk...and even then.

[teekaymn]

Welcome ccmnova -- I'm a relative newbie to the forum as well. I can assure you that there is a great amount of information to be gained here, and the long-time forum-dwellers are very patient with us newcomers. I found Firecalc to be a little intimidating at first, too, but stick with it and be sure to play with the other tabs to enter additional information or scenarios. I think those variables are the edge that this calculator has over others. Good luck!

[Live And Learn]

Hi ccmnova --- I'm another newbie with lots of questions. I am seriously considering retiring next year at age 50. Firecalc gives me about an 83% success rate. BUT .... I have about 300k set aside (ie: not included in my portfolio value) for one time expenses and I DO include potential Social Security of 12k / year (about 80% of what SSA.gov projects my payments at if I quit work today and collect at 62).

Like everything in life, you need to decide what compromises you'd be happy with. Would you be happy cutting expenses to the core basics if you needed to ? Would you have regrets (I know I would, which is why I say "I'm seriously considering" and not "I've decided to" retire next year).

I'm thinking I might try a less taxing job or working for a non profit where I could feel GOOD at the end of the day as a first step. At worst I delay retirement by a year, at best I discover that I'm ready to work many more years, build up my nest egg and "retire well" rather than "retire" in a few more years.

Its a tough decision. Use as many calculators as you can find (bogleheads.org has great list Retirement calculators and spending - Bogleheads) and find a place where you'd be able to sleep at night.

I'm not "there" yet but the more I read here, the more I learn , including learning about myself and how'd I'd potentially feel without that steady income coming in.

All the best !

[GT1 Doug]

While I am not qualified to help with any investment suggestions, one thing I (we) did was understand our expenses. For the past 9 years my DW has tracked every penny coming in and going out, every penny. As a result, we have a very good idea of what our basic expenses are and to some extent the effect of economy on these expenses. With this information, the results of FIREcalc showed we had a good margin between our expected withdrawals and our basic expenses (I used the 100% success rate as I am very conservative in this area). If times are bad, we can cut back to minimum expenses and have minimal impact to our principle.

[obgyn65]

Welcome to the site. You may wish to try this free online tool : Merrill Edge| See Where You Stand

[Katsmeow]

With Firecalc, personally I look for about 95% success rate. I look at what 100% would require and what 90% would do but my main thought is 95%.

I would say in your case look at your spending to see what you think it will be in retirement. In some cases it is similar to pre-retirement spending, sometimes it is more and sometimes it is less. My DH retired almost 2 years ago and I moved to part-time work. Our regular spending has over that time dropped to a lot from what it was when we were both working full-time.

What about healthcare? For younger retirees that is very important to get a handle on how you will get insurance.

[ccmnova]

I'm worried about health care for sure - have no idea what a plan for my wife and I would cost. I tried the firecalc and really don't know how to interpret the results.

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ccmnova I tried the firecalc and really don't know how to interpret the results.

Might be worth your while to spend some time understanding how it works - that should help you understand what it's telling you: FIRECalc: Why another retirement calculator?