I admit it, I do not see the purpose in FIREcalc

[Offgrid Organic Farmer]

There I said it.

I have a pension from the US Navy, we live on half of my pension.

I own our farm and our vehicles with no debt.

During my career, we invested in apartment complexes, one at each duty station. When I retired [2001] we liquidated and used the cash to buy our farm. In 2016 we bought a new apartment complex that we are remodeling. We already have four tenants [whose rent covers the property taxes, insurance and utilities], and when the remodel is complete we will have a total of fourteen tenants. Again no mortgage, no debt.

I have never bought any stocks. no mutual funds.

People talk about FIREcalc so much, and when I look at it, I do not see where to enter any of my information. I know that I 'can' retire, I have been retired for 17 years already.

Am I really as lost as I feel?

Please be kind to me

 

[RobbieB]

It's just another of many calculators out there. Somewhat more flexible than others and uses more simulations.

Obviously you are set income wise anyway.

 

[razztazz]

That doesn't mean there's "no purpose" to it. It just means it's a tool not well suited to your situation. Real estate is so locale unique I don't know if there even could be a calculator that could be constructed that could do for you what Firecalc does for the stock owning demographic.

 

[rodi]

Just your first statement that you only spend 1/2 your pension is enough to make firecalc less useful for you.

But many of us do not have income sources outside of our savings/investments... and we want to make sure we have enough saved to last our lifetimes.

Like you, I have rental income. I put that down in firecalc as a COLAd pension. In your case, if you have savings (cash/cd's) you'd put that down on the first page... then on the pensions/other income page you'd enter your pensions and rental income. And on the investments page you'd put the asset allocation of 100% fixed.

It wouldn't give you any info you don't already know... You have more income than spending... so you don't need to worry.

Congratulations on preparing well for retirement, and thank you for your service in the military.

 

[splitwdw]

The very first sentence on the FIRE Calc home page, "Thinking of chucking it all and retiring early, long before you start getting a pension or Social Security, and before you have ready access to your 401k and IRA?" Says it all.

 

[Aerides]

In 2018, and for several years back now, the percent of folks planning a retirement that includes a pension is far below those of us planning without one. Private sector pensions, for the most part, are long gone.

So, especially for the ER planners, with no SS until at least 62, it's all about how you can make your assets work instead. Firecalc can therefore be very helpful for a large population.

 

[Dtail]

In 2018, and for several years back now, the percent of folks planning a retirement that includes a pension is far below those of us planning without one. Private sector pensions, for the most part, are long gone.

So, especially for the ER planners, with no SS until at least 62, it's all about how you can make your assets work instead. Firecalc can therefore be very helpful for a large population.

+1
I think Firecalc and some of the other calculators are very helpful as a piece of the "can I retire" decision.

 

[marko]

I was looking for a retirement calculator. One of my finds was FireCalc.

Completely by accident, I stumbled upon this forum by using FireCalc. A happy accident for which I am forever grateful.

I don't use FC all that much but I'm here on this forum every day for the past 10 years; but if it wasn't for FC, I may never have found this forum. That's 'purpose' enough for me.

 

[copyright1997reloaded]

Bill Gates: "Man, this Firecalc thing is useless. I live on a very small fraction of my dividends."

 

[nash031]

If you can live on half of a guaranteed income from your Navy pension, then yeah, it doesn’t serve a purpose - FOR YOU.

I can’t live on my Navy pension, so some of my income will come from investments, which means FIRECalc is useful - FOR ME... and for the broad majority of people here.

No need to call it useless then ask people to be kind. You knew the answer, FOR YOU, but I guess didn’t recognize that that only applied to your very narrow circumstance. Most people don’t live entirely on a pension, or especially a fraction of it. Kudos to you for being able to do so!

 

[samclem]

In 2016 we bought a new apartment complex that we are remodeling. We already have four tenants [whose rent covers the property taxes, insurance and utilities], and when the remodel is complete we will have a total of fourteen tenants.

. . . .
I know that I 'can' retire, I have been retired for 17 years already.

There are >some< who would define "retirement" in such a way as to exclude buying and remodeling an apartment complex so as to allow one to be a property manager responsible for maintaining 14 living units, collecting rents, finding tenants, etc.

But, aside from that--if your pension and your real estate [-]job[/-] hobby provide enough income to meet your needs and that's the way you want to keep doing things, then the insight offered by FIRECalc may not be of much use to you. But, at some point, if you decide you want to liquidate your RE and put the money into something more passive (stocks, bonds, fixed-rate investments, etc), then you may find FIRECalc to be useful as you plan a strategy.

 

[Offgrid Organic Farmer]

There are >some< who would define "retirement" in such a way as to exclude buying and remodeling an apartment complex so as to allow one to be a property manager responsible for maintaining 14 living units, collecting rents, finding tenants, etc.

But, aside from that--if your pension and your real estate [-]job[/-] hobby provide enough income to meet your needs and that's the way you want to keep doing things, then the insight offered by FIRECalc may not be of much use to you. But, at some point, if you decide you want to liquidate your RE and put the money into something more passive (stocks, bonds, fixed-rate investments, etc), then you may find FIRECalc to be useful as you plan a strategy.

Yes that is possible.

I do not foresee it in the near future, but it is possible.

For now we plan to use all of the rental income for charity.

One of our current tenants is a church that we lease to, they pay no rent. And we have an LLC that will begin building greenhouses that we will give away to all the schools in this county.

 

[Elbata]

Bill Gates: "Man, this Firecalc thing is useless. I live on a very small fraction of my dividends."

Yep, that's kinda what I was thinking. OP is in a position where he doesn't even need to look at Firecalc.

Still, fun to look at.

 

[marko]

Yep, that's kinda what I was thinking. OP is in a position where he doesn't even need to look at Firecalc.

Still, fun to look at.

There's lots of tools in the world that I don't need and will never use but I'm still able to understand that others need them.

 

[Newventurer]

Congratulations on planning very well. Care to share how it happened? It’s not intuitive or everyone would have done it. Who was your mentor - great parents, the military, friends? Perhaps you should teach a class to help the youngsters gain a leg up.

 

[exnavynuke]

There I said it.

I have a pension from the US Navy, we live on half of my pension.

I own our farm and our vehicles with no debt.

During my career, we invested in apartment complexes, one at each duty station. When I retired [2001] we liquidated and used the cash to buy our farm. In 2016 we bought a new apartment complex that we are remodeling. We already have four tenants [whose rent covers the property taxes, insurance and utilities], and when the remodel is complete we will have a total of fourteen tenants. Again no mortgage, no debt.

I have never bought any stocks. no mutual funds.

People talk about FIREcalc so much, and when I look at it, I do not see where to enter any of my information. I know that I 'can' retire, I have been retired for 17 years already.

Am I really as lost as I feel?

Please be kind to me

"I have no student loans, therefore I can't see the purpose in student loan calculators."

"I don't need a mortgage, therefore I can't see the purpose in mortgage calculators.''

"I'm not building anything, therefore I can't see the purpose in having a hammer."

etc etc

That a tool is not useful to YOU,in your situation, shouldn't preclude you from recognizing it's purpose and usefulness to others.



p.s. Buying and selling rental properties, setting up and running a LLC, etc doesn't sound like being retired to me...

 

[Red Badger]

FIRECalc was essential to my retirement decision. When I first started contemplating and exploring early retirement, I was going to the WS type sites where:
"you need 25X of your annual income in your portfolio in order to retire."
"you need 80-100% of your current gross income in retirement."
"investing is hard - you'll need a professional money manager."

FIRECalc, this forum, and a handful of other blogs/forums saved my from that bullsh!t. My gratitude and thanks are as profound as they are sincere.
DW and I are enjoying our best years ever. We know it wont be long before the ravages of time change that. But for now, Let Freedom Ring!

 

[COcheesehead]

I post on other financial forums and the number of posts from folks with all sorts of financial puzzle pieces that they are trying to fit together are numerous. Calculators like Firecalc and Fidelity’s RPM at least help consolidate and then create the basis of a plan. So for many it’s a good starting place. Trouble is, many are still not aware of them.

 

[MichaelB]

This discussion isn't about technical aspects of FIRECalc, so for a more general discussion it's better off in the "FIRE and Money" forum.

 

[Midpack]

The OP is SIRE, not FIRE. So FIREcalc doesn’t apply...

http://www.early-retirement.org/for...slang-frequently-used-on-the-forum-34884.html

 

[FmrLurker]

"p.s. Buying and selling rental properties, setting up and running a LLC, etc doesn't sound like being retired to me..."

+1

Also, w*rking the farm...

 

[harley]

I have a post hole digger. I'm not digging any more postholes if I can help it. I'd like to sell it or give it away, but I guess since I don't need it it's useless and nobody else will want it.

 

[COcheesehead]

I have a post hole digger. I'm not digging any more postholes if I can help it. I'd like to sell it or give it away, but I guess since I don't need it it's useless and nobody else will want it.

The OP is what is known as a humble brag. Once you understand that, the rest makes sense.

 

[Offgrid Organic Farmer]

Congratulations on planning very well. Care to share how it happened? It’s not intuitive or everyone would have done it. Who was your mentor - great parents, the military, friends? Perhaps you should teach a class to help the youngsters gain a leg up.

My career field [subs] has an extremely high divorce-rate. I have served on subs where the entire crew [minus myself] were divorcees. So I was very careful about who I dated. When I thought that a girl might be wife material, I would tell her about my vision of my future [a small farm in the woods, gardening, raising livestock, selling farm produce, etc]. In most cases that would be the last date that any girl would go on with me. This was the 1970s, when the back-to-land movement was not popular. Then one girl I dated [an accountant very much into Home Economics] responded with "I could see dedicating my life to that goal". We were married in 1981 and we are still together. I served 20-years on Active Duty, out of the thousands of crewmen I served with I saw 3 that had successful marriages.

In 1985 we bought our first Multi-Family-Residence [MFR] a Tri-plex. We lived in one and we had two rentals. The rental income carried the mortgage, insurance and taxes, so my income was not needed for our housing expenses. At our next duty station we bought a five-plex MFR, then another tri-plex, then a four-plex. Any extra cash each month went into extra principal-only payments to buy down the mortgages. Since I spent 7-months a year living underwater, my wife managed the rentals for me, as her career.

Having mortgages kept us from paying income taxes, and I have always viewed the principal-only payments as building our Net Worth.

The only time that my salary money went into any mortgage was via those principal-only payments. Otherwise our MFRs paid for themselves.

Every year, we had discussions about what skill-sets we would need for when we reached our farm. We selected new hobbies each year that we needed proficiency in, with that end goal in mind.

Both of us took courses on budget counseling, she volunteered on-base in a counseling center, and I was assigned that duty as one of the many hats I wore on the boats I served on. We also both became certified tax-preparers, and we taught tax-planning strategies for 10+ years.

We lived on strict written monthly budgets, which complied with our projected tax filings a year in advance.

When I was 42, the US Navy booted me out onto pension, and we cashed out our holdings and used the cash to buy and set-up our farm.

It is a very low COL area, we have been here as 'farmers' for 13 years.

We both hate the stock market, but we have built-up some extra cash, so we decided that we were ready to go back into rentals again. We recently bought a big commercial building on a downtown block and we are remodeling it. We currently have four tenants [a church, a printing company, a day-care, and a residential couple]. We will soon have ten more apartments for university students.

 

[GravitySucks]

If you're a nail a screwdriver doesn't look like a useful tool.