FIREd and apprehensive about it

[eudaimoniac]

I FIREd at beginning of this school year, after teaching and military service. Boy did I pick a great time or what? Watching my mutual funds in a free fall since Oct 07 have made me very apprehensive about this new found "early retirement". (It's downright depressing)
We are fine financially with my military retirement but my dreams for the future are slowly eroding away with each day of negative financial news. Does anybody see an end in sight to this financial nightmare?

 

[Notmuchlonger]

Yes my crystal ball says the sp 500 will be up 5% come Dec 31 2008. Next year the sp 500 will be up a frothy 15% .

 

[audreyh1]

It's hard getting used to a fluctuating market when you first retire, and are dependent on your investments for income.

I retired in 1999!

But we had set aside at least 2 years living expenses in cash, plus we were averaging in a lump sum into the market 2000-2002, so we were not quite as anxious as we might have been if we had been fully invested in the market in late 1999.

Since your needs are covered with your military pension, I would say this is just a learning experience for you. It might seem as if things will never recover, but it is just a matter of time. You might find that there is an asset allocation that better suits your risk tolerance, but you will always have to live with market fluctuations. That is just a fact of life unless you go all cash which is not a good idea for the long term.

In the meantime, you can refine your skills at enjoying life while using creativity to stretch that annual income. Those are skills that will aid you for the rest of your life.

Audrey

 

[WM]

We are a long way from FIREd, but I felt better about the markets after I talked to my mom recently. She was talking about an IRA she'd inherited from her father, originally worth around 50K with some kind of generic diversified holdings. She always only took out the required minimums, but after a few bad years it was down to about 12K and she figured it'd be down to zero before long. Lo and behold, now it's back up to around 50K again, and all she did was leave it alone and keep taking RMDs.

 

[packrat44]

eudaimoniac,

Tighten up and live off your military retirement (if it provides enough) until there are better financial times. This is not the time to peddle any of your investments at discounted prices.

 

[megacorp-firee]

We FIREd in July 07. It is nerve racking, but since you have funding in place, hunker down and you'll be fine. We've all seen this scenario a few times. Most of us were not paying attention closely enough because we were not yet retired. Now that you are (and with no income) it seems more tenuous.
We're in a similar position with 5 years of funding buckets to get us through the dips.
Good luck to you.