Quote:
Originally Posted by mickeyd
I had no real concept at age 25 of what retrirement was. As I lived on Florida, I was quite aware of the many "yankees" that moved to FL after retirement to live in a mobile home and die after a few years. That was my idea of what retirement was. This vision of retirement did not seem very appealing to me, but I was realistic enough to figure out that when I retired at some date after the turn of the century, I was not planning on retiring as I saw these folks doing.* I did not know what I would do, but I knew what I was not going to do.
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Same here.* Spouse and I were good at LBYM & socking it away but we had no idea what retirement could be.* I can't even remember how my grandparents retired (probably at the traditional age 65), and I suspect that one grandmother was still giving piano lessons in her 80s to pay for gas & entertainment.
Then in 1987 my dad pulled off an ESRBob semi-retirement at age 53.* After three or four years of consulting, which occasionally grew to 40-hour weeks and caused violent recoils, he went full-time ER and has been so for nearly 20 years.* I was 27 years old, freshly married, and on shore duty-- it didn't make much of an impression.
Next my FIL retired at 59 with the Great CBS Employee Buyout.* Didn't make much of an impression on us either, but by then I'd started looking at T.Rowe Price's retirement-calculation software.* I can't even remember thinking about ER, just thinking about a follow-on career and trying to avoid cat-food territory.*
But around 1997, when it became possible to retire early from the service, I realized that I'd have to get a real job.* Shortly afterward I stumbled across Joe Dominguez' "Your Money or Your Life", "The Millionaire Next Door", and Financial Engines.* We started learning about no-load investing, asset allocation, and diversification.*
In 2000 I was grousing to my dad about not seeing any careers I'd enjoy and he asked "Why do you want to work?* Won't the military give you a pension to go with your savings?"* Shortly afterward I found the studies & books on Greaney's site.* By 2001 we knew we were close and when I retired in 2002 I knew I wasn't interested in chasing another job.*
I didn't even find FIRECalc and this board until nearly two years later...