cute fuzzy bunny
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Well hello folks, its been quite a while excepting a few quips and miscellaneous comments. Thought I'd give a ten year update on my retirement, and ask some questions as I'm about to wade into unknown territories! 
A little over ten years ago, I took my [-]lottery winnings[/-] tech stock option haul and california real estate windfall and accepted a generic separation program from my company of 1 years pay and benefits in exchange for leaving work for a year, with the intent to go back and get my old job back after the year was up.
A couple of years went by and I decided that if I downsized, I'd be able to continue on as a [-]jobless bum[/-] early retiree indefinitely.
Soon after that I was buying and rehabing houses and selling them, and I got married and had a son. About that time I made some comment here about not needing a prenup, because my new wife and I got along famously and hadn't had a serious fight in the whole 5 years we'd been seeing each other. That turned out to be a major mistake in opinion, as we're in the process of getting divorced as we speak.
The good news is she did sign a post-nup giving me pretty much what I had when we got married, and she'll be better off than when we met as well. Not as good had we stayed together, as our life was pretty much bullet proof, but it'll work out for both of us in the long run. Today we also had documents done signing the accounts and house over to me. Its been a tough 7 years, and suffice it to say I had it right during the first 43 years...don't get married.
What happened? Exactly what everyone says...you never know a person until you marry them. Then you think they'll stay the same and they don't and they think you'll be different, and you aren't.
Now for the good news. I suffered a serious back injury when the scaffolding I was on collapsed and a 20' long 2x12 covered in paint and stucco slid off the scaffolding and hit me in the back. That's a primary reason why I quit posting here...rehab was a serious task. Unfortunately, I didn't do well with it and my weight had slowly crept up from slightly pudgy to morbid obesity and I was pouring booze down my throat like I was getting paid to do it, but after a year of hard work I've lost 80 pounds, I'm as thin as I was in high school (and I was a rail then), quit drinking and while all of my health indicators were in the red until last year, they're all green now! And yes, I did it on the 'bacon diet'.
A year ago I decided to stop being a fat alcoholic in a bad marriage, and now I've nearly solved those problems.
I'm 51 now, will have a nice seven figure account and a house thats paid off and worth a LOT less than I paid for it. I'm in it for about 650k with remodeling and its worth perhaps $350k. For what its worth, buying it wasn't my idea...
Health care should be entertaining, as I've been covered by my wifes awesome medical and dental for the last 7 years...$5 copay for office visits, $5 for 100 day prescriptions and no charge for labs and tests. I have no idea whats been going on, but I did a 5 minute look and see that in California I apparently can join some early versions of the new care act...about $200-250 for a high deductible policy that pretty much covers nothing but high dollar major items and around $500 for a no prescription plan with a lower deductible and no prescription. Considering I was covered by Kaiser with meds for ~$300 ten years ago...yay...but some advice from others on best options are welcome. I'm healthy now but if I'd have known I'd live into my 50's thirty years ago, I'd have taken better care of myself.
Plus I'm going to need a bit of dental work soon from grinding my teeth in my sleep for 30+ years. I guess the good news is most of that cost wouldn't be covered by dental insurance anyhow.
Looks like the ex will be living about 15-20 minutes away, our split will be complicated as we have two very old cats and three of our four dogs are also geriatric. Since I'm not working still, looks like I'm daddy daycare until they pass away. Gabe will be able to continue going to his school, be with his friends and will almost certainly see both of us almost daily, if not several times a day.
For a Gabe update, he's almost 8 now (time flies, huh?), a blue belt in mixed martial arts, he's reading at a 6th grade level (in the second grade), and he's an ace video game player. His current faves are minecraft (he installs his own mods and has been bugging me to set up a server), call of duty and assassins creed. I broke just about every rule of parenting, and he turned out just excellent...so don't sweat what the 'experts' say! He's funny to talk to because his companions growing up were me and my dad, since neither of us are working. For the first ~3 years of his life, my wife continued to work nights and sleep during the day, so he didn't see much of her. But growing up with a 40-something and 70-something means talking to him is like talking to a little adult. Quite an adventurous eater too, as I started him on all sorts of regular solid foods and skipped the rice cereal and jars of pureed apples. His favorite snack to take to school is toasted nori and his favorite meal is vietnamese tripe soup...
Retirement wise, a lot of people ask if you can go too early and I always said "HELL NO!", but I found as I approached 50 I wished I'd done more, but I've been out of work for nearly 12 years now and I think I'd have a hell of a time getting myself employed right now. Not that I could do it with pets that need regular attention, cant be left home alone for 10 hours, and a kid that needs school drop off and pickup. Maybe after the dogs and cats pass on and Gabe is a little older, I'll try something out. Not sure if i'd try to go back to my old job or try something completely different.
About the only other really interesting thing is that I've been investing in the Lending Club with very good success. Its hard to deploy a lot of cash there quickly without taking on a lot of questionable notes, but I've been chugging away at it for six months and have about $70k in there. They gave me $1000 to start, I've got about 1900 notes, my NAR is 17.58% but with eventual defaults I expect that to drop to around 12%. I have 16 notes late >30 days and 3 in the 16-30 day. Total at risk right now is less than the grand they gave me, and as an oddity I've had 40 people pay the money back within a couple of months and half that many that are late. The LC guys find that very amusing for some reason. My interest take is about $3500 and my notes in lateness are ~$900. If that ratio holds, I'll continue to deploy cash. My very last 7 year penfed 6.25% cd's are maturing next year...
Investing wise, I ducked that 20% drop last year, selling in july and buying back in in august. I'm feeling a little concerned with the way things look right now, as any time we seem to get near S&P 1600 we crash back below 1000 soon after, the situation in europe still looks crappy, and we've all decided to not "pay our bills" here in the US, hoping that all the bad stuff will just go away. I don't think it'll heal on its own and I don't think avoiding the 800lb gorilla thats still hanging around is a good idea. So I may check out of the market again soon...just looking for another 100 points or so on the S&P. Sadly except for stocks and the LC deal, you can't make money right now.
So what are all you folks up to these days?
A little over ten years ago, I took my [-]lottery winnings[/-] tech stock option haul and california real estate windfall and accepted a generic separation program from my company of 1 years pay and benefits in exchange for leaving work for a year, with the intent to go back and get my old job back after the year was up.
A couple of years went by and I decided that if I downsized, I'd be able to continue on as a [-]jobless bum[/-] early retiree indefinitely.
Soon after that I was buying and rehabing houses and selling them, and I got married and had a son. About that time I made some comment here about not needing a prenup, because my new wife and I got along famously and hadn't had a serious fight in the whole 5 years we'd been seeing each other. That turned out to be a major mistake in opinion, as we're in the process of getting divorced as we speak.
The good news is she did sign a post-nup giving me pretty much what I had when we got married, and she'll be better off than when we met as well. Not as good had we stayed together, as our life was pretty much bullet proof, but it'll work out for both of us in the long run. Today we also had documents done signing the accounts and house over to me. Its been a tough 7 years, and suffice it to say I had it right during the first 43 years...don't get married.
What happened? Exactly what everyone says...you never know a person until you marry them. Then you think they'll stay the same and they don't and they think you'll be different, and you aren't.
Now for the good news. I suffered a serious back injury when the scaffolding I was on collapsed and a 20' long 2x12 covered in paint and stucco slid off the scaffolding and hit me in the back. That's a primary reason why I quit posting here...rehab was a serious task. Unfortunately, I didn't do well with it and my weight had slowly crept up from slightly pudgy to morbid obesity and I was pouring booze down my throat like I was getting paid to do it, but after a year of hard work I've lost 80 pounds, I'm as thin as I was in high school (and I was a rail then), quit drinking and while all of my health indicators were in the red until last year, they're all green now! And yes, I did it on the 'bacon diet'.
A year ago I decided to stop being a fat alcoholic in a bad marriage, and now I've nearly solved those problems.
I'm 51 now, will have a nice seven figure account and a house thats paid off and worth a LOT less than I paid for it. I'm in it for about 650k with remodeling and its worth perhaps $350k. For what its worth, buying it wasn't my idea...
Health care should be entertaining, as I've been covered by my wifes awesome medical and dental for the last 7 years...$5 copay for office visits, $5 for 100 day prescriptions and no charge for labs and tests. I have no idea whats been going on, but I did a 5 minute look and see that in California I apparently can join some early versions of the new care act...about $200-250 for a high deductible policy that pretty much covers nothing but high dollar major items and around $500 for a no prescription plan with a lower deductible and no prescription. Considering I was covered by Kaiser with meds for ~$300 ten years ago...yay...but some advice from others on best options are welcome. I'm healthy now but if I'd have known I'd live into my 50's thirty years ago, I'd have taken better care of myself.
Plus I'm going to need a bit of dental work soon from grinding my teeth in my sleep for 30+ years. I guess the good news is most of that cost wouldn't be covered by dental insurance anyhow.Looks like the ex will be living about 15-20 minutes away, our split will be complicated as we have two very old cats and three of our four dogs are also geriatric. Since I'm not working still, looks like I'm daddy daycare until they pass away. Gabe will be able to continue going to his school, be with his friends and will almost certainly see both of us almost daily, if not several times a day.
For a Gabe update, he's almost 8 now (time flies, huh?), a blue belt in mixed martial arts, he's reading at a 6th grade level (in the second grade), and he's an ace video game player. His current faves are minecraft (he installs his own mods and has been bugging me to set up a server), call of duty and assassins creed. I broke just about every rule of parenting, and he turned out just excellent...so don't sweat what the 'experts' say! He's funny to talk to because his companions growing up were me and my dad, since neither of us are working. For the first ~3 years of his life, my wife continued to work nights and sleep during the day, so he didn't see much of her. But growing up with a 40-something and 70-something means talking to him is like talking to a little adult. Quite an adventurous eater too, as I started him on all sorts of regular solid foods and skipped the rice cereal and jars of pureed apples. His favorite snack to take to school is toasted nori and his favorite meal is vietnamese tripe soup...
Retirement wise, a lot of people ask if you can go too early and I always said "HELL NO!", but I found as I approached 50 I wished I'd done more, but I've been out of work for nearly 12 years now and I think I'd have a hell of a time getting myself employed right now. Not that I could do it with pets that need regular attention, cant be left home alone for 10 hours, and a kid that needs school drop off and pickup. Maybe after the dogs and cats pass on and Gabe is a little older, I'll try something out. Not sure if i'd try to go back to my old job or try something completely different.
About the only other really interesting thing is that I've been investing in the Lending Club with very good success. Its hard to deploy a lot of cash there quickly without taking on a lot of questionable notes, but I've been chugging away at it for six months and have about $70k in there. They gave me $1000 to start, I've got about 1900 notes, my NAR is 17.58% but with eventual defaults I expect that to drop to around 12%. I have 16 notes late >30 days and 3 in the 16-30 day. Total at risk right now is less than the grand they gave me, and as an oddity I've had 40 people pay the money back within a couple of months and half that many that are late. The LC guys find that very amusing for some reason. My interest take is about $3500 and my notes in lateness are ~$900. If that ratio holds, I'll continue to deploy cash. My very last 7 year penfed 6.25% cd's are maturing next year...
Investing wise, I ducked that 20% drop last year, selling in july and buying back in in august. I'm feeling a little concerned with the way things look right now, as any time we seem to get near S&P 1600 we crash back below 1000 soon after, the situation in europe still looks crappy, and we've all decided to not "pay our bills" here in the US, hoping that all the bad stuff will just go away. I don't think it'll heal on its own and I don't think avoiding the 800lb gorilla thats still hanging around is a good idea. So I may check out of the market again soon...just looking for another 100 points or so on the S&P. Sadly except for stocks and the LC deal, you can't make money right now.
So what are all you folks up to these days?
