Retiring Soon

[Dannodotcom]

Hello everyone, I just joined this forum and have been reading some of the posts. In about a month I will be retiring at the age of 49. After working for 27 years I finally decided it was time to quit working and have the time left in my life be my own.

Signed
Done working

[BA]

Good luck!! you're still 49 years old(young). What your planning after RE. I am in the same boat as you are. Still have no idea what am I going to do with all free time...

BA

[Dannodotcom]

Originally Posted by BA

Good luck!! you're still 49 years old(young). What your planning after RE. I am in the same boat as you are. Still have no idea what am I going to do with all free time...

BA

For about 3 years I have been very involved in my investments, and have transformed about $50,000 into $400,000 and I enjoy "playing" in the stock market. I am taking the commuted value of my pension and will be investing it in high (over 10%) yielding income trusts. I am Canadian and these income trusts are relatively unknown, however they have provided me with some financial security and the feeling that I can survive financially without having to go to a job every day. Also I suffer from a neurological condition that reduces my strength physically and causes major fatigue so the combination of that and my financial success resulted in my decision to retire early.

Dannodotcom

[rrspike]

holy sh*t, dannodotcom. if i read you right, you parlayed $50K into $400K in three years. Now that is a rate of return i envy. You want to share your formula ?

[AltaRed]

Proabably jumped on the energy bandwagon almost exclusively 3 years ago - the obvious clue being to invest the lump sum into high yielding income (read energy) trusts. The last 3 years in energy is not dissimilar to the dot.com boom and subsequent bust. Even the signature suggests it.

[Dannodotcom]

AltaRed is correct. Am mainly invested in Oil & Gas royalty trusts, along with heavy use of margin and line of credit at prime. I am using the banks money to make money. The RT's pay between 10-18% and the share prices have gone up substantially in the last 3 years allowing me more margin room to buy more RT's and make more money in distributions which all gets reinvested. Many of the trusts I own have also increased their distributions. I did suffer a bit in the dot com crash, however I don't think oil and gas are the same at all. All in my very humble opinion.

[REWahoo]

Originally Posted by Dannodotcom

I did suffer a bit in the dot com crash, however I don't think oil and gas are the same at all. All in my very humble opinion.

So you're saying..."this time it's different?"

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Isnt it right about the time people ay that its not going to be the same that it suddenly becomes the same?

[Nords]

Welcome to the board, Dan.

How will your investment portfolio change when you no longer have your employment cash flow to support your investment expenses? Will you be cashing out your margin & LOC, or if not how would you handle a margin call?

Originally Posted by Cute n' Fuzzy Bunny

Isnt it right about the time people ay that its not going to be the same that it suddenly becomes the same?

Maybe it's everyone assuming that the system is working... until it stops working.

[Dannodotcom]

Welcome to the board, Dan.

How will your investment portfolio change when you no longer have your employment cash flow to support your investment expenses? Will you be cashing out your margin & LOC, or if not how would you handle a margin call?

Thanks for the welcome Nords.
My investment expenses of about $1200/month are paid by my distribution income of $4500/month. This is now, before I add in my commuted value of my pension. As for a margin call, I monitor my investments daily and if it looks like I am getting close I will sell something. In my 10 or so years of investing I've only received 1 margin call, and that was about 8 years ago. I keep a certain downside protection of margin available, a comfort level if you like.

Cheers

[Spanky]

Dannodotcom,

Congrats. It's great to be able to retire after only 10 years of investing.

Spanky

[AltaRed]

Or the next 20 years starting again from scratch when the bottom falls out. Can't believe how leveraged this guy is and how he believes the Oil and Gas Royalty Trusts are different.

There is a reasonably probability of a >50% drop in unit prices AND elimination of distributions entirely in a sudden reversal of oil and gas prices. And don't say it can't happen. Gas prices today are already about half of the NYMEX peak last fall. Oil probably wouldn't see such a dramatic fall as OPEC would likely do something to catch the falling knife fairly quickly.