Did Anyone Retire with "Only" .75M$ Saved?

[scrabbler1]

What always confuses me are we talking about before or after tax spending.

For example, I make about 120k a year, but after fully funding 401 k and taxes my take home pay is about 5k/month. Of that 5 k, my house payment alone is 2.5 k. So theoretically if the house was paid off I should be able to keep my life style as is and make it on 30k.

I am assuming my income would have to be at least 40k before taxes assuming all funds are taxable.

So when people discuss what they need or spend are we talking before or after taxes?

I include some income taxes but not all of them. What I include are the income taxes based on my reliable monthly and quarterly dividends from my stock and bond funds. What I exclude are the income taxes from the less frequent and more erratic (and sometimes non-existent) cap gain distributions. Any additional income taxes due from those distributions come from the distributions themselves, so I will always be able to pay them and will not affect my general budget.

 

[RxMan]

I include some income taxes but not all of them. What I include are the income taxes based on my reliable monthly and quarterly dividends from my stock and bond funds. What I exclude are the income taxes from the less frequent and more erratic (and sometimes non-existent) cap gain distributions. Any additional income taxes due from those distributions come from the distributions themselves, so I will always be able to pay them and will not affect my general budget.

That seems like a reasonable approach. Do you use tools like Turbo Tax to estimate the taxes you include or do you rely more on your historical data from previous years?

 

[badatmath]

Hey, I do not know if you are really bad at math as you humbly proclaim, but I know you are not bad at English.

LOL

 

[scrabbler1]

That seems like a reasonable approach. Do you use tools like Turbo Tax to estimate the taxes you include or do you rely more on your historical data from previous years?

I use my homemade spreadsheet to estimate calculate my income taxes. I have other spreadsheets which estimate the income my mutual funds will generate. Without including any big cap gain distributions, I can run my income tax spreadsheet to give me a good idea of what my basic tax bill will be.

I would never use TurboTax. A few years ago, just for kicks, I tried TT out to act as a check on my own spreadsheet. It gave me total garbage, total nonsense, total sci-fi data. I threw it out, confused as to how it actually works successfully for anyone, according to my admittedly warped perspective.

 

[Perryinva]

NW-Bound, this is exactly why I don't do much calculating that includes SS. I like to consider it "gravy" and try to ensure we have enough excluding that.

If you know you can make it without SS, then surely you can make it with!

To the OP’s original question, no, our portfolio was in excess of $1M, when retired at 61, (I wanted more security at a higher income, even with pensions and SS to be about $110k/yr, which meant the portfolio had to be larger in order to delay filing. So if it was reduced to even $750k by the time SS was filed at 70, I would be fine with that. Current plan is for portfolio to be about $1M when filing at 70) though $750k is certainly WAY more than most people retire on. Of course, without knowing your age there is no way to determine if that is a lot or a little.

Yeah, but over $5k month is a WAY too much gravy for most people I hope!!! It is a major part of my planning, too.

 

[BuysToys]

Union?

Yes.

 

[RxMan]

I use my homemade spreadsheet to estimate calculate my income taxes. I have other spreadsheets which estimate the income my mutual funds will generate. Without including any big cap gain distributions, I can run my income tax spreadsheet to give me a good idea of what my basic tax bill will be.

I would never use TurboTax. A few years ago, just for kicks, I tried TT out to act as a check on my own spreadsheet. It gave me total garbage, total nonsense, total sci-fi data. I threw it out, confused as to how it actually works successfully for anyone, according to my admittedly warped perspective.

Thanks for the information scrabbler1!

 

[joeea]

Yes.

This country needs more unions.

 

[Tiger8693]

This country needs more unions.

 

[joeea]

 

[Hyper]

OTOH. We're early 50's and live in a mid + COLA with the exception that it is partial retirees which means the cost of having anything done is NOT cheap. We have always done everything ourselves. 0 debt. New home (cpl yrs old). Two vehicles approaching 20 yrs old. Very conservative types. Around 1.5m. All that considered, if we had to pay to have anything done, it would be a completely different game. I just replaced the complete ac system on our second vehicle. Did the other vehicle last yr. Cost me $300+. To have it done here would be well over $2000. To have a contractor work on our home here...I'd have to go back to work! So no way $.75m would be doable for us.

 

[MarieIG]

Most of the world does it with less than 750k. People with pensions; people with healthcare; people who retire later; people with working spouses like OP; people who receive government support/ are protected by a government safety net; people who rely upon family/ relatives.

And, of course, it is all about expenses vs. income.

One of my grandmothers depended upon a small SS check. She lived in a rent controlled apartment in Brooklyn near a park, ate like a bird, and socialized with her friends every day. She managed a few trips, and would come out and stay with us for a week at a time. She was very happy with her lifestyle (until she could no longer live alone and was kidnapped by my mother to come live with us at no cost to her). There was massive protesting about that for about a year until she settled down.

We do not anticipate doing so; but if we had to, we would be able to do so (in light of DH's pension and subsidized health care) by watching expenses.

And for OP - the first post on this thread was fine and inspired a lot of interesting discussion; with regard to your second post on this thread, it seemed to have been triggered by the criticism. I did not understand the rationale of not responding to the helpful posters because you did not ask for advise. You asked for responses, and many people took their time to give you thoughtful responses. A brief acknowledgement to let those people know that you read their responses, (i.e., thanks everyone, I've been enjoying the responses, keep it coming) would have been appropriate.

 

[workmyfingerstothebone]

When I started working for a contractor that had a pension benefit, I made a choice from the two :

1.)Stay with the contractor till retirement, thus taking the pension and divert savings to other resources (paying off home, debt, etc).

Pay packages of around 3 to 5 percent annually. Purposely not saving as much in 401K or IRA.

2.)Change companies every few years chasing the highest salary so we could save.
This method allows for bigger jumps in salary every couple years.
Definitely would have tried to maxed out 401k and IRA.

Either choice would have allowed us to get to where we were going.

I made the choice to stick it out for the pension and health care supplement.
Others in my group took the other route.

They will do well.
They will save the 750K (probably more) while I'll save much less.

So, one doesn't need to save a 750K cash but should have the resources that can generate income similar to that in retirement.

This allows for the early retirement (by early I mean 50's).

Any earlier and I refer to Suzy Orman

 

[MarieIG]

It's funny to me that these threads are where the "I've got a pension and SS that cover my expenses people chime in". IMHO it kind of misses the point. Humble brag perhaps?

I actually think the additional information is beneficial. It helps explain how people craft the retirement income streams.

 

[Teacher Terry]

It’s silly to ignore pensions or SS because that is often the basis for many people’s retirement.

 

[MarieIG]

What always confuses me are we talking about before or after tax spending.

For example, I make about 120k a year, but after fully funding 401 k and taxes my take home pay is about 5k/month. Of that 5 k, my house payment alone is 2.5 k. So theoretically if the house was paid off I should be able to keep my life style as is and make it on 30k.

I am assuming my income would have to be at least 40k before taxes assuming all funds are taxable.

So when people discuss what they need or spend are we talking before or after taxes?

I always consider taxes. My budget revolves around paying taxes (although taxes should decrease drastically after retirement.)

 

[IrishMoss]

It’s silly to ignore pensions or SS because that is often the basis for many people’s retirement.

It sure is for mine! I'm counting on my SS.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

We are also counting on SS too, but have not taken it yet and probably will not till later (70 in my case?), but who knows. All ACA dependent, if ACA rules change then so will ours.

 

[ER Eddie]

I'm late on my input (just saw the thread), but the answer is yes absolutely it's possible. It depends heavily on how much you spend, i.e., what sort of lifestyle you want to maintain. This forum and Bogle's tend to be occupied mostly by people who've had 6 figure salaries and done very well for themselves, financially -- although that's not true of everyone, of course, in fact I've been surprised and pleased to see how many people have chimed in with "I did it!" But this forum is not representative of the general population, so your answers are likely to be skewed toward "oh no, we couldn't possibly live on that."

It's all about lifestyle and spending levels. If you check out other forums, e.g., Mr. Money Moustache, you'll find plenty of people retiring on 500K. There's another forum, I think it's called Early Retirement Extreme (?), which has people who're retiring on much less than that. There's a broad range of options, from extravagant to very minimalistic. It all depends on what sort of lifestyle you want and what your spending levels will be (well, other factors, too, such as those that have been mentioned). Good luck!

 

[Dtail]

We are also counting on SS too, but have not taken it yet and probably will not till later (70 in my case?), but who knows. All ACA dependent, if ACA rules change then so will ours.

Same here for the most part. If ACA doesn't change, SS deferred at least until 65, then 1 year at a time decision making from there

 

[SoReadyToRetire]

It's all about lifestyle and spending levels. If you check out other forums, e.g., Mr. Money Moustache, you'll find plenty of people retiring on 500K. There's another forum, I think it's called Early Retirement Extreme (?), which has people who're retiring on much less than that. There's a broad range of options, from extravagant to very minimalistic. It all depends on what sort of lifestyle you want and what your spending levels will be (well, other factors, too, such as those that have been mentioned). Good luck!

I'd be happy to live the same lifestyle we live now--once a year vacation averaging ~$3K; ~10% of our income to tithe/charity; taking Mom & widowed sisters out to dinner whenever we feel like it and footing the bill--oh, and my personal trainer! The gym is crucial to keeping me moving, and my trainer is a huge part of that. At least for the next 5 years, let's say. Then I wouldn't mind slowing down more.

How do you calculate income tax as part of your cost of living after retirement when you're used to living for 45 or so years on after-tax, take-home pay? Especially in those confusing couple of years where I'm retired and DH is still working, and I haven't yet decided whether to take SS at 62 or 65 or later ...

There is SO much "figgering" that goes into all this! It's exhausting. Thus why I'm still making the daily trek to the office ...

 

[indiajust]

LCOL, no insurance, retired 08 with 65k taxable acct, 120k IRA, -145k mortgage, +280k house. Sold house in 2015: 419k taxable acct, Roth 265k.

Now peacefully renting, investing, and waiting to tap Roth, at least 2 more years to wait.

 

[gwraigty]

How do you calculate income tax as part of your cost of living after retirement when you're used to living for 45 or so years on after-tax, take-home pay? Especially in those confusing couple of years where I'm retired and DH is still working, and I haven't yet decided whether to take SS at 62 or 65 or later ...

There is SO much "figgering" that goes into all this! It's exhausting. Thus why I'm still making the daily trek to the office ...

I have a spreadsheet that tracks a lot of things: annual after-tax spending, account balance projections, annual income projections (including investment income). I also have a spreadsheet that mimics our income tax returns. I double check it against actual results when doing our taxes. From that, it's not difficult to set up a spreadsheet that mimics taxes in years going forward, including SS income (and potential taxation of the up to 85% of it), RMDs (brought in from a different spreadsheet that guesstimates RMDs), investment income, etc.

Start with your current circumstances, then project into your retirement years. Update as needed.

 

[Vacation4us]

LCOL, no insurance, retired 08 with 65k taxable acct, 120k IRA, -145k mortgage, +280k house. Sold house in 2015: 419k taxable acct, Roth 265k.

Now peacefully renting, investing, and waiting to tap Roth, at least 2 more years to wait.

No insurance? What if you get sick?

What is your annual spend?

How did you retire with access to only 65k and mortgage debt of 145k. What did you live on in those 1 st 7 years?

 

[ncbill]

No insurance? What if you get sick?

What is your annual spend?

How did you retire with access to only 65k and mortgage debt of 145k. What did you live on in those 1 st 7 years?

Pension?

I have one relative who retired 25 years ago while in their early 50s with under $65k total savings/investments/retirement.

But with a paid-off home, essentially free retiree health care, and a small, but COLA pension.