Modeling Help and Sanity Check ...

[TallTim]

A little confused by output of some of the modeling tools … would love insight from the more experienced members here in terms of what’s the best approach.

Until about 3 yrs ago, I had not anticipated being able to FIRE (at least <55 or so), but the past couple years of market performance, a bit of inheritance from DM (~$500k across several sources) and reductions in our spending has me seriously looking at getting out sooner. (I will freely add that I am approaching a bit of burnout in current role and that is a real factor).

In short, putting our scenarios (details below) into many of the free online tools is providing wildly divergent results and of course causing no small degree of stress to me and DW … hoping for some insights into the best ways to model and which tools are better predictors than others.

Background Stats (from my Hi, I am thread plus more detail):

47 YO, DW is 45, currently SAHM but also has a side business that generates about $10k/yr in income. BTW, if I FIRE and/or the kids are out of the house, this can easily double for several years if desired.
I have a VP/Officer level job with public corp
2 teens @ home

Current portfolio:

• Tax advantaged and tax free accts ~$900k all in equity indexes and set and forget it stuff (for now).
• UTMAs for each child, ~$250k each in same type of portfolio – designated to cover college for each
• Employer equity plan ~$500k vested and 3-4x that unvested (most would vest over time if I stick around) – this moves around a bit as the stock price moves. Additional investments from employer through annual vesting increments and additional vesting from performance (company and personal) grants. If/when I leave I will have 90 days to exercise/sell; I plan to time this so that I can sell in a year when I will have lower income and roll the proceeds into the taxable savings acct in order to be at least a little tax efficient
• Taxable brokerage ~ $2.1MM. This is 80% short term and the rest in blue chip equities. I trade this acct monthly or weekly in derivatives, primarily put and call options, and use the cash to backstop the trades, usually not holding any given position for more than about a month or so … during bad downturns I may hold longer or wait in cash.

* Past 4+ yrs, we have banked all incentive cash compensation and/or bonuses and I have had a 10b-5 plan in place for orderly sales from employer’s stock plan – and all of that cash has flowed into the taxable acct. Have benefited from the equity markets considerably in the past 2 yrs, the annual gains in this account from trading activity > my gross salary.

No debt.
We rent, no mortgage (downsized to current about 4 yrs ago and sold primary residence)
No pension (I wish!)

Our current annual expenses are admittedly high (10+ yrs of Quicken averages and trends), and will probably be about $175k until the kids go to school (2-3yrs), after that based on our estimates will go down to about $150k for a while. (<50% of pre-retirement gross excluding equity and incentives)
We area assuming we (at least one of us) will be long-lived. My MIL/FIL are still very active and travel extensively in their mid-70s; DW’s maternal GPs lived to 99 and 102 and paternal GPs lived to 92 and 96 … I am adopted so a total black box (my adoptive parents went early – DD @ 60, DM @ 77 – hoping that’s not me!)

Running this all through FIRECALC yields anywhere from 58% to 90+% success rate depending on spending model (Bernicke or flat), investment returns (fixed returns and conservative investments or equities) and SS (~ $40k/yr for primary plus spousal benefits @70) … i-Orp suggests that we will be more than fine … ******** suggest we can make it, but just barely …Vangaurd's free tool, Fidelity RIP and TDA Wealthbuilder on the other hand suggest we need a ~$6MM total NW (!?). ESPlanner is about the same as ******** – we can make it but will be right on the number if DW lives to 95-100.

Hence the confusion … and my Qs.

• Since we have been living on my take-home salary and banking the bonuses and stock comp, shouldn’t I use the gross salary (and not W-2 wages) for modeling?
• My current thinking is to FIRE Dec 31 of the first year I can , sell the co equity plan holdings in Jan-Mar of FIRE year, placing the proceeds in the brokerage … using the net investment proceeds of that acct to fund expenses until SS and ROTH/IRA/401k MRDs start @70.
• Of the online tools, which is really the best at addressing this kind of situation?
• We will be close to 4% WR for a LONG time, and that has me scared from all the stuff I have been reading about SWD lately.
• Are we nuts to pull the cord this soon?

[Katsmeow]

You have a high net worth really. And, most of the time, I would look at someone's net worth and, even at a relatively young age, say that you were good.

The fly in your particular ointment is the spending of $175k for a new years then reducing to $150k for some time.

That is high spending. We have fairly high spending ourselves right now as we have 2 kids in college, but while we are over $100k we are not as high as you are talking about.

What saves us is that once the kids are out of school we expect our ultimately spending to be more in the $65k-$70k range for the long haul.

We also have years of spending so think we can forecast that accurately.

Have you really looked at your records of past spending to see how your spending will change in the future?

We used to have spending like you are talking about when DH and I both worked full-time. But, when he decided to ER and I semi retired, we decided to make our spending match the assets that we had rather than working longer to have our assets match that spending. We've found that we were able to greatly decrease our spending by making relatively small changes that didn't really affect the quality of our life.

In the end, if you want to spend $150k a year for the long haul then you will need more money. On the other hand, if you plan to send $150k-$175k for several years then plan to spend $75k then things may be very different. I would encourage you to use planners that will allow you to model varying spending amounts.

[Spudd]

Do the spending figures you quote include income taxes and retirement savings?

If taxes are included in it, this may be lower after you retire because you will be adjusting your income to provide only as much as you need.

Retirement savings should not be included as expenses because once retired, obviously you will quit contributing to savings accounts.

[TallTim]

Thanks Kats and Spudd,

Kats, this is more or less run-rate spending base on the last 2-3 yrs, since we have assumed that we would continue to incur many of the costs we have been with 2 kids at home for that next 2-3 yrs. Easy line of sight to reduce it to 150 from 175ish based on them moving out and switching over to the UTMAs for most funding for them ... We currently spend too much on housing and that will be among the first cuts when they move out, for example, also less food, less gas, lower insurance, etc. We can probably do better than the quoted number, but being conservative we used run rate.

No, Spudd, nothing for savings per se in the numbers, but if we had a year with out-size returns we wouldn't reflexively spend it - particularly early in the plan. Taxes are included, but at an assumed rate that is much lower with little to no earned income and cap gains (vs the AMT mess in which we have been now for some time).

[MuirWannabe]

Boy, those expenses are high. I've always been intimidated to mention my planned retirement expenses at $120K around here cause almost everyone else seems to live quite happy lives at so very much lower. And you have me beat by quite a bit. You should certainly continue to examine those expenses to see what reductions might be reasonable if any.

As for calculators. There is nothing Firecalc can't handle modeling with your situation. You do need to be a contributor to model the varying expenses by year. I also like Flexible Retirement Planner. It is a free tool and can model everything. Tends to be more pessimistic for me than Firecalc but it all depends on your assumptions. Particularly your std deviations on returns and inflation.

Good luck.

[TallTim]

Thanks Muir. I will refine my model. Helpful inputs!

Admit to being a bit sheepish about the expenses (esp here) but we started with a 'make no changes' approach. The trade off is of course getting out early(ier) by reducing costs more aggressively as soon as the kiddos leave the nest.

[clifp]

I can't really say your expense are high. You've accumulated a substantial nest egg at young age. I am almost certain that your spending is significantly below your salary since you are saving bonus etc. No reason to feel sheepish.

That said you have $3.5 million, rent, don't have a pension and are only 47/45. The $250K would hopefully cover the kids undergrad, or grad if they don't go to a private school.

For most people in the forum that are in their mid 50, spend 75K a year or so, the $40K or even 60K @70(if they have working spouse) or so SS they collect in another 15 years is significant amount. Most people on the forum don't count on SS, but the reality it is a good back up plan if investments go south.

In your case isn't going to be a lot of money relatively to your income and you have to wait 23 years to get it.

I prefer FIRECalc to the other calculators, but honestly I have not used any other ones extensively for the last several years. They all have flaws. So in many ways the 4% rule is probably as good as you are going to find. I think it is moderately risky withdrawal rate for over 30 years. 4% of 3.5 million is $140K which is close but not close enough to what you want/expect to spend.

If you can vest another $1 million in company stock by working for a couple of more years I'd sure be inclined to do that. $4.5 million makes your retirement a piece of cake. In the mean time I'd do everything possible to try and hedge your company specific stock risk. I'd watched to many of my friends get burned badly in the 99/2000 when the NW was cutting by 2/3 in the tech stock bubble.

[ERD50]

There is just no way around it, your spending level will dictate what you need to fund an ER. As pointed out by others, a relatively high spending level also means that SS is a small % of that, so that is not so much help.

The 4% rule of thumb fails historically in 5% of the cases, and that is for 30 years. So if you are looking at a longer period, you need to be more conservative. And the 4% assumes 75% in equities, dropping lower may create a real problem over the long term.

I would not plug in any assumed returns into a historical calculator like FIRECalc - let it use its historical data. Those sequence of events are a better way to test things, IMO.

-ERD50

[Katsmeow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TallTim We can probably do better than the quoted number, but being conservative we used run rate.

I understand being conservative and can see doing that.

At the same time, I would invite you to do a more thoughtful analysis of future spending and how you really want your retired life to be.

At one time DH and I spent a lot more than we spend now. And, to be honest, I don't miss most of what we don't spend now. The point is that when we really thought about how we wanted our retired life to be we realized that certain expenditures we used to have didn't really appeal to us any more.

There are things we used to spend a lot of money on that we spend little or nothing on now because we have changed our life in many ways. Not everything has changed, by the way. But, we don't live as busy as a life as we did before. Hmm-- busy is not quite the right word. We don't live as rushed and stressed a life as we did before. We have more time. And we spend it differently. So, we don't spend nearly as much money as we did before.

Now, that may not be true for you. You may be in the group of people who wants to do round the world, expensive travel during retirement and your expenses go up. And, that is fine. I would just invite you to really think about how you want to spend once you retire, both before and after your kids are gone (DH retired and I semi-retired while we still had adolescents at home).

Being conservative on things like, oh, how much to reserve for medical expenses or auto repair is fine and prudent. On the other hand, had DH and I felt that we needed to make sure we had enough money so we could $20k a year on travel then he would have needlessly worked longer, because we didn't want to spend that way. We did spend a lot of money on vacations, btw, when kids were younger but things change over time. Or, I once spent a lot of money on clothes for work. Now, I don't. So, it makes sense to look at your actual projected expenses category by category to see how it might go up or down in the future.

[2B]

The question for you, TallTim, is "how much do you want it?"

You have enough now to probably make it if you retire now. You already know that any problems that develop can be resolved with reducing your spending. How much you might have to reduce will likely depend on how quickly you realize you have a problem.

Here's another approach to consider. Define what is you minimum acceptable lifestyle. The cost of this had better not be $150,000/yr so be realistic. Think about a smaller house or condo. What about an apartment? Now that you have this in mind how will you fund this? It can be with a pension, SS, SPIA (barf!) or a separate reserve fund.

Take the rest of your assets and commit to a withdrawal rate that is variable. If your assets rise you can spend more or not. However, falling assets demand you spend less. This is a variation of the variable model in FireCalc.

I am currently planning on a similar approach. My DW will not be particuarly pleased if we lived on less than $50,000/yr but we would certainly "get by" with $35,000. It so happens that my pension and SS amount to about $75,000/yr but everything won't kick in for a few years. I have a $400,000 reserve fund for this period. Since I'm able to enjoy the balance of my assets I've decided to use a 5% withdrawal rate from it. This results in more available spending than we are currently spending so I have high hopes to do more traveling. I'm willing to take the risk that in a few decades Bernicke will be proven right and even if I'm much poorer I don't really want to spend as much anyway.

[Ready]

Very interesting thread. A couple of things that come to mind as I read through this:

I bet a lot of people on the forum are wondering where the $175K per year goes to, and what kind of lifestyle that creates for the OP.

The sale of the primary residence may have locked in some nice profits if the home was sold at a high point, but the ongoing rent creates overhead that many of us don't have if we own our home outright and no longer have to make mortgage payments. If the rental is for a nice place, the monthly overhead could be significant. That may be why the annual budget is perceived to be "high".

Many of the forum members could achieve a much higher investable net worth by selling their primary residence, placing the cash in their investment accounts, and renting their home. While I've entertained the thought from time to time, I'm not sure what I would do with the cash if I did sell our home. I wouldn't want to put it into bond funds given the low yields, and I wouldn't want to put that much new cash into the equity markets and then have to worry about a major correction right after I did. So keeping the money invested in real estate has so far seemed to be the best way to keep our investments diversified.

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ready Very interesting thread. A couple of things that come to mind as I read through this: I bet a lot of people on the forum are wondering where the $175K per year goes to, and what kind of lifestyle that creates for the OP. ...

Why should they? It's his life, his money.

But it sounds like he may have to save more money to support that lifestyle. So just like most of us, the decision is to either put forth the effort/time to save up more, or adjust the lifestyle down. It's a personal decision.

-ERD50

[TallTim]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ready A couple of things that come to mind as I read through this: I bet a lot of people on the forum are wondering where the $175K per year goes to, and what kind of lifestyle that creates for the OP. The sale of the primary residence may have locked in some nice profits if the home was sold at a high point, but the ongoing rent creates overhead that many of us don't have if we own our home outright and no longer have to make mortgage payments. If the rental is for a nice place, the monthly overhead could be significant. That may be why the annual budget is perceived to be "high". Many of the forum members could achieve a much higher investable net worth by selling their primary residence, placing the cash in their investment accounts, and renting their home. While I've entertained the thought from time to time, I'm not sure what I would do with the cash if I did sell our home. I wouldn't want to put it into bond funds given the low yields, and I wouldn't want to put that much new cash into the equity markets and then have to worry about a major correction right after I did. So keeping the money invested in real estate has so far seemed to be the best way to keep our investments diversified.

Thanks, Ready, for the thoughtful reply.

Your observation is largely correct in terms of the housing cost -- we rent a place that is 'nice' in the sense it is large enough to accomodate our family of 4 and is at the beach in So Cal ... nearly 40% of the spend number represents that rental; which is the same as our all-in cost for a SFR 2x the size in the East Bay 'burb we moved from. If you take that housing cost out, we still have relatively high costs, but a lot closer to what others might experience if they own their primary residence outright and still have teenagers (who eat like adults+, drive cars and have normal teen stuff) at home.

A key FIRE component will be reducing that rent by probably 50% once the kids go to college. We don't need the space or the location nearly as much as we want to be freed up to do more fun things, incl travel.

In terms of the cash vs investment decision, I haven't just plunked the $ into the markets (for the reasons you noted), but use the cash essentially as a hedge or security for profitable fairly active trading of the brokerage accts. Likely will keep doing that until the kids are done w college or so and then look to something with a lot of equity exposure but less need to work on it every month/week for me.

All, I very much appreciate the comments and insights. I also donated to FIRECALC, which opened up some more features that I am using to refine the model more.

Good discussion!

[FIREd]

I am just a few years younger than you but both spending and NW are in the same ballpark (also a renter, but no kids). I am shooting for a 2.5-3% WR with a more aggressive portfolio. So spending $175K a year would indeed require ~$6M and, at that spending level, SS would provide little relief. But once DW stops working, our goal is to bring spending down by moving. We own properties in lower costs of living areas and could retire there. Or we could stop paying sky-high rents in the city and buy something in the burbs.

[Midpack]

You've already gotten some good feedback above so I won't belabor those points. There is no "right answer" anyway, but you have about half the nest egg I'd be comfortable with at your age and projected spending, not that my views should matter to others. People here have retired with probabilities ranging from less than 80-200% and slept fine at night, though who knows how it will shake out end-of-plan for each.

The calculators are helpful but they all use different assumptions and methods, some are disclosed, some not. The cocktail napkin number (which is good enough to tell you which calculators are probably BS) I'd be using at your age would be $150K / 0.03 = $5M at a minimum. 4% SWR was meant for a 65 yo planning for 30 years, I'd think you'd be shooting for way more than 30 years. YMMV

[SVHoper]

Hi,

Can't say anything about calculators, but I would be more comfortable assuming 3% and $5m investable assets to "guarantee" $150k... that is just how I do my math... but with your numbers, if my desire for ER was very strong, I would also make it happen :-) probably through a combo of cutting discretionary expenses and part-time consulting.

I didn't pick up a super strong desire for ER (hate job, stress)... but more a general desire for improving quality of life while maintaining the current standard of living for your family Perhaps this can be achieved through options: e.g. My company has a formalized process of up to 2 years leave without pay? Long vacation? Part-time rewarding work?

Would you mind sharing your 2012 return on your taxable portfolio? (I am curious if your active trading returns were higher than portfolio of index funds or do you trade to lower risk).

[TallTim]

Thanks SVH ... good Qs. Without belaboring the point, I am not as burned out/stressed as others here - or rather my overall work situation could very much be worse. I do not live to work and have long said that once I reach 'my number', I'm out no matter what. In the past 18-24 months my work frustration has been increasing and at the same time some outsized returns have had me sharpening the pencil on what would really be required. I've got a much clearer set of numbers on both sides as well as a clear plan and timeline.

My corp is pretty traditional ... in combination with my role/level, a sabbatical is more or less tendering your resignation. Vacations are nice, but as you may know, most modern vacations for sr people are just 'work from phone' exercises for a good chunk of it.

Part-time work in my filed is actually my semi-ER goal, and part of the numbers exercise is how much income can I replace with that (or would I need to replace with that to have zero risk)

To your Q about returns, I don't mind sharing general numbers. It's probably a topic for another thread, but I don't try to beat the market; In after-tax accounts, I try to get to near-index returns with less risk. Last year was ~ 23%, net of commissions and fees; '12 was 18% and `11 was 19% return. Not fantastic, but more than acceptable to me given that 80% of the time I am cashing out weekly/monthly and capturing gain as I go along.

[SVHoper]

Hi TallTim

Thanks for sharing your numbers, it sounded like a reducing risk strategy but I wasn't sure. I think I can live with equity volatility as hopefully 50+% rentals will be the smoothing part and will also cover the "must have" vs discretionary expenditure.

One way to "guarantee" success is perhaps to ensure that your principal is not diminished until past normal retirement age (if principal @ 4% ~ living expenses for "normal" 30 year assumption) :-)

I don't think this is as dumb as it first sounds (but I am sure if it is - it will be quickly pointed out)... your past 3 years of returns cover many multiples of living expenses - we probably don't expect the next 3 years to be similarly high... but I think you can easily understand the concept you can work/part-time consult to make up for any sequence of returns... and that can include building a couple of years buffer up front (salary & stock vesting)... or immediate part-time consulting... or wait and only consult if you are sufficiently unlucky to get a poor sequence of returns up front.

[Al in Ohio]

Your annual spending is really very high. There's probably lots of room to learn how to live just as nicely on at least half of what you spend now. If you can learn to play good defense with your finances, to match a good offense, you can play in the championship game of RE.

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Al in Ohio Your annual spending is really very high. There's probably lots of room to learn how to live just as nicely on at least half of what you spend now. ...

I'd love to hear how to have a $150K lifestyle on less than $75K. That would be great!

"Just as nicely"? Really? No doubt one could live on less, and many would be happy on $75K, but it would be different - hard to imagine it could be 'just as nice'.

-ERD50