How many are simply lucky?

[kumquat]

When I was young, I never gave retirement a thought. All my family worked until they died. I had an uncle who didn't retire from his legal practice until his upper 90's, died soon thereafter.

Now, I think I am FI and am considering RE.

Did I plan this, not at all. Just dumb luck. I got out of university in early 70's with no direction. Entered the computer field because it seemed fun and the pay was good. Market was tight and I made a lot of money, DW also learned how to spend it. Company had a good DC pension plan, not that I cared. Later got promoted to a position with stock options. Stock did nothing for 10 years while I got more options every year. Just before the options expired worthless, stock went to 250% of option value. Cashed out and have a lot in DC pension, but also 200% of that in after tax $ from options (yes I took the gains).

What have you guys been doing. I'm just plain lucky!

While I'm younger than most retirees, at 58 I'm not sure it fits the definition of ER.

 

[kumquat]

Sorry, thought this went in 'FIRE and Money'. Moderator, feel free to move it.

Thanks

 

[REWahoo]

When I was young, I never gave retirement a thought....

Now, I think I am FI and am considering RE...Did I plan this, not at all. Just dumb luck.

While I'm younger than most retirees, at 58 I'm not sure it fits the definition of ER.

"People always call it luck when you've acted more sensibly than they have." ---Anne Tyler

Kumquat, maybe it's more like eR than ER, but it worked fine for me.

REW, eR'd at 58.

 

[roadkill]

What have you guys been doing.  I'm just plain lucky!

I am sure there are some who "got lucky"

In my case it was DW and I embracing the classic LBYM. In 24 months we both will be in the position to move on with the second half of our life.

 

[astromeria]

I had good luck, bad luck, smarts, and stupids--all in good measure. On the whole, it panned out nice.

 

[kumquat]

I wanted to quote roadkill, but I don't see the way to do it. Anyway he wrote:

In my case it was DW and I embracing the classic LBYM. In 24 months we both will be in the position to move on with the second half of our life.


I'm glad you had the disiplne to do it. I probably could have done it alone (nothing like the teaching of depression age parents), but DW.......... If you are my age, I hope you enjoy the next 58 years.

 

[Nords]

I wanted to quote

Each individual's post will have at least two buttons in its upper right-hand corner across from the poster's name & subject line.  (You may have to wait for the screen refresh to draw them in, especially for a dial-up connection.)  Click on the "quote" button.  When the "Post reply" editing window comes up, make sure that any text you add is either all before the opening quote tag (looks like "[q-ote]" or after the closing quote tag (looks like "[/q-ote]").

If you copy the entire formatting & text of the quote before you start typing then you can make more copies of the original quote, break them up, and edit them like this:

In my case it was DW and I embracing the classic LBYM. In 24 months we both will be in the position to move on with the second half of our life.  I'm glad you had the disiplne to do it.

and, in closing,

I probably could have done it alone (nothing like the teaching of depression age parents),  but DW..........   If you are my age, I hope you enjoy the next 58 years.

Whether or not it's actually 58 years, it's all relative!

As for the "lucky" option, I feel compelled to point out once more that the harder we worked, the lucker we got.

 

[kumquat]

As for the "lucky" option, I feel compelled to point out once more that the harder we worked, the lucker we got.

Nords,

Lucky does come in to it. I have 3 brothers and a sister.. Sister entered the 'civil' service. She is a year older than me, don't think she ever worked very hard but I do think she was good at what she did, has an indexed pension. 2 brothers are farmers, made a sh**load of money in the 70's (can you imagine a 60% anual retun on investment, and didn't piss it away). Lately, this has dropped by at least 90% (unlike a lot of their peers they still show a smallprofit). Other brother and me got the 'stock option bonanza'.

All of us worked hard and (I hope) proved worthy. Two of us are going to be frugal in R, one will do OK, and the other 2 can do anything. Is luck involved?

 

[youbet]

  Is luck involved?

Luck, fate, chance, probability, etc., is always involved in our lives to some degree or another.  But, to Nord's point, it does seem that smart, hard working folks, on average, seem to be just as little luckier!   

 

[modlair]

I invested from age 21 onward and never paid credit card fees or borrowed for anything other than house mortgage. I'm 51, single and healthy and given a decent market over the next . . . X months, I'll hit $1 million net worth and say goodbye to the job forever. With some modest Soc Sec I think I can live comfortably on 45K/yr including overseas trips, healthcare for just me and occasional toys.

I think this question of lucky or not and how it happened needs an adjustment . . . in that those who got there by planning and living frugally . . . did so why and starting when? For me it happened I'd say about 30% from natural inclinations and 70% from encountering a string of several jobs I did not like at all.

And that was in my 30's. I knew in my 30's I didn't like work and wanted my time for me. In fact, I'll even say early 30's. I can remember starting to compute my living expenses with that in mind in my early 30's.

So I'm kind of wondering about the "poll internals" as to option 1. When did you realize you were living frugally and investing for this particular purpose?

 

[kumquat]

Thanks to Nords I know how to quote. I don't think I have to in order to reply to rodmail (not that you aren't worth it).

Don't mean to belittle you, youv'e done very well compared to your/our peer group.

I might as well have won a lottery (and therefore the poll) and wondered who else did.. Didn't want to post financial info, but in the last year or so NW has gone from about $900K to nearly $3KK. It is pure unalderated luck (athought some of my co-workers who also got it assume it was by thier briliance and value to the company).

My hat is off to the planners, I just didn't do it and wondered if as an incredibly lucky guy, I was somewhat unique.

 

[wabmester]

My ER was pure luck.

Lucky to be born to smart parents. Lucky to live in the US. Lucky to get a computer as my high school grad present. Lucky to get into a good school. Lucky to start working at the beginning of the biggest bull market in history. Lucky to sell my business at a good multiple. And lucky to find this site (and FIREcalc) to help rationalize my decision to exit the rat race.

 

[kumquat]

My ER was pure luck.

Lucky to be born to smart parents. Lucky to live in the US. Lucky to get a computer as my high school grad present. Lucky to get into a good school. Lucky to start working at the beginning of the biggest bull market in history. Lucky to sell my business at a good multiple. And lucky to find this site (and FIREcalc) to help rationalize my decision to exit the rat race.

OK, OK, I thought I was lucky. I quit , you win. Enjoy

 

[wabmester]

d00d, I was serious.

For example, take a look at the market from 1980-2000 that allowed most of us to retire.

Do you think anybody planned for that to happen?

 

[kumquat]

Sorry, I did think you were serious. Interesting, a co-worker and I have talked about luck a lot. The only thing we agree on is that we were lucky to be born at the right time so that we could go to university after the sexual revolution and before Herpes.

Too many people won't look at the chart, and I don't want to either. Maybe it will turn out that I'm damned unlucky.

 

[wabmester]

Maybe it will turn out that I'm damned unlucky.

That's what really matters. For those of us who were lucky enough to make it this far, will our luck hold out for another 30-40 years? That's a fricken long time for luck to last, even if you do a bunch of "smart" planning.

I think this is where Cut-Throat is supposed to come in with a few Carpe Diems.

 

[gtmeouttahere]

I'm a firm believer that you create your own luck by hard work, educating yourself on your goal, having a good network, dedication, timing, and perseverance.

 

[Dawg52]

d00d, I was serious.

For example, take a look at the market from 1980-2000 that allowed most of us to retire.

Do you think anybody planned for that to happen?

Interesting chart. Yes we have been lucky to have been in such a bull market over the last 25 years. Makes you wonder if the next cycle will be like 1955-1980. 

 

[mathjak107]

okay i admit it....luck and an inheritance...............
never confuse genius with the above i say.....

 

[frayne]

I'm a firm believer that you create your own luck by hard work, educating yourself on your goal, having a good network, dedication, timing,  and perseverance.

Bingo

 

[unclemick]

Absolutely!

Born in America. Work hard, DCA over twenty years. God Bless the 90's Mr Market.

De Gaul was right.

heh heh heh heh heh heh - Oh yeah and Carpe Diem!

P.S. I'm using 7% total return ala 1955 - 1980 efficient frontier curve at 50/50 stock /bonds when I forward project via ORP.

 

[audreyh1]

We LBYMed for all our adult life, fairly frugal, saved a great deal, no children (cuts way down on expenses), never bought a more expensive house, drove cars for 10 years, no debt, etc., etc.

Maybe with all that hard work and planning we could have retired at 55 or a wee bit earlier.

But we retired WAY earlier than that. So I have to attribute it mostly to good luck. It's very difficult to retire in your 40s or earlier without some considerable good financial luck.

Audrey

 

[unclemick]

To repeat

Circa 1992 - my plan was early retirement at age 63. Derailed via layoff at age 49 in Jan 1993 - took a mind shift but I made the religious conversion from unemployed to ER.

heh heh heh heh heh - being a really cheap bastard in those early years allowed Mr Market to work wonders - time in the market plus a good decade.

 

[MasterBlaster]

That chart is somewhat misleading being plotted on a linear scale. It makes most of the gains look like they just happened in the las few years. A semi-log scale plot is a much much better way to examine timeline trends.

Also it goes without saying that the chart goes from 1950-2006, not the 1980 to 2000 that was quoted.

Also note that with the exception of a few "bumps" that the gains are nearly linear over time.

Per being "lucky" maybe to some degree. However I beleive that I have made my own "luck" in that I have been a saver and an investor for decades. Does that make me lucky or just smart. I'd like to think that I just did the right thing. People who didn't do what I did just aren't too smart.

 

[kz]

I have to agree with Nords that the harder a person works the luckier they become. That's what happened in our case.

Hubby and I both worked hard to get the jobs that we really wanted. We lived frugally, well as frugal as one can with kids, saved outside our pension plans, and accepted whatever life thru at us. As luck would have it we were able to retire early thanks to really good pensions and some nice savings/investments we made along the way.

Luck struck us again a few months ago. While browsing the internet I noticed a job that I knew hubby would like which consisted of an avg of 12 hrs a week at a decent hourly rate. He interviewed at 9am one morning and had the job by noon. And man is he happy!!