Poll: who is living solely off their investments?

[wabmester]

I keep getting the sense that there are very few here who have retired solely on their investment nest egg. Who are the hardcore ER's who live or die based on the whim of Mr. Market?

I've been sucking from the market's teats since 2002....

 

[Nords]

Re: Poll: who is living soley off their investments?

Who are the hardcore ER's who live or die based on the whim of Mr. Market?
I've been sucking from the market's teats since 2002....

You say that as if it's a good thing!

Maybe ERs are more likely to fulfill their destiny if their retirement rests on a plate supported by a five-legged stool instead of a spinning plate on top of a stick...

 

[Spanky]

Re: Poll: who is living soley off their investments?

not yet retired. Since we do have a pension, it will be living off our investments.

 

[wabmester]

Re: Poll: who is living soley off their investments?

Maybe ERs are more likely to fulfill their destiny if their retirement rests on a plate supported by a five-legged stool instead of a spinning plate on top of a stick...

Oh, I do suffer from pension envy. I'm just curious how many plate spinners we have here. Sometimes I see investment advice that seems pretty off the wall, but it may make sense for a particular species of ER.

 

[shiny]

Re: Poll: who is living soley off their investments?

I voted working spouse, but only til March. Then it will be solely from investments - how scary is that!?!

 

[sgeeeee]

Re: Poll: who is living soley off their investments?

We currently live entirely off of our investments and will continue for the next 10 years (minimum). Depending on when we choose to start collecting SS and some small pensions, we will eventually get up to about 1/3 of our annual spending requirements from these sources. The pensions are not COLA'd.

If you look at the pensions and SS from a present value perspective, they make up about 15% of our total retirement resources. Of course any present value calculation is approximate at best.

 

[MooreBonds]

Re: Poll: who is living soley off their investments?

Currently a slave....but hoping to move to the "JG" Category by findin' me a purdy wife with a full set o teeth to make things interesting (and to live solely off her income while my stash grows to the point where we can both retire to bliss, while making the kids' lives miserable raising kids.)

 

[Patrick]

Re: Poll: who is living soley off their investments?

You need to add another category: Living solely off pension income.

 

[Mr._johngalt]

From 1993 to 1998, I lived off my investments plus PT/contract work.
From 1998 to 2001, I lived solely off my investments. From 2001 to 2006,
I lived with spouse No. 2, and currently I am living solely off my investments again. Anyway, I voted "investments plus SS" even though I have yet to receive my first check, since that seemed the most accurate and the poll
is written in the present tense.

JG

 

[Mr._johngalt]

I keep getting the sense that there are very few here who have retired solely on their investment nest egg. Who are the hardcore ER's who live or die based on the whim of Mr. Market?

I've been sucking from the market's teats since 2002....

If you count the real estate "Market", then I guess I am with you.

JG

 

[Dawg52]

Beginning 4/1/07, I will be living solely off my investments. A little scary knowing that no income will be coming in from a j*b or pension. But I have run the numbers and I'm confident everything will be fine. I basically plan to have enough set aside(bucket 1) to live off of and get me to social security age. A balanced portfolio(60/40) for bucket 2 to give me growth and a little extra income.

Looking forward to joining the ER club.

 

[riskadverse]

Investments provide nearly all my income
Unfortunately my income doesn't provide for nearly all my expenses.

 

[astromeria]

I'm fully retired, but while DH works at his semi-retirement job, we have no need to scoop out any of our portfolio (except for taxes as 2/3 of it is taxable). The last time I did the figures (maybe a year ago), it looked like this:

Age 57+ to 62
Living 100% off investments

Age 62 to 65
65% investments, 35% Social Security

Age 65+
60+% investments, 35% Social Security, <5% pension

NOTES
-- Even for a couple who saved & invested to the tune of $1.3+M, Social Security can still play a large role in retirement funding.
-- Most likely no employer-subsidized health insurance (depends how long DH works and whether that benefit will continue to be available for employees who worked only 5-10 years for the state of SC...in any case, the subsidy is small).

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

Beginning 4/1/07, I will be living solely off my investments. A little scary knowing that no income will be coming in from a j*b or pension.

Wow, Dog. That's closer than I'd have guessed. Mind sharing your allocation strategy a bit?

 

[unclemick]

Ballpark - one cup of coffee memory

age 49 - 55 100% investments

age 55 - 62 60% pension, 40% investments(Drip stocks)

post Katrina:

age 62,63 - 60% investments 40% pension and early SS. The 60% is variable as I trying 5% of portfolio annually.

heh heh heh

 

[Martha]

This is cheating, but. . .

Even though I am still working part time, our day to day income is from our investments. Neither of us have a pension. Neither of us will have retiree health care or other such benefits.

Currently, my income pays the employee share of health insurance, funds an FSA, funds a 401k, and the remainder goes to taxes. We are divesting ourselves of income property so our tax bite is pretty high. I have had no paycheck now for almost two years.

I am now working very little. Next year the plan is to work enough to justify my employer carrying our health insurance and maybe fund a 401k. Our post-retirement health care costs will be around $20,000 a year, so I would like to have that funded for a while yet.

EDIT: Hey, you needed a category for "I am the working spouse."

 

[ShokWaveRider]

We live soley on our investments and some light hobby income which is hardly income but more beer money.

SWR

 

[uncledrz]

While still working PT, we are now going into the second year of living off of investment income only. Seems to be working out.
Not having substantial pension income we are concerned with a major drop in asset values. Means that we have more set up in secure funds than those who have a pension so we can ride out any wild fluctuations (assuming they are not permanent).

 

[kumquat]

Starting sometime next year it will be >90% investments forever. I will get 6 - 10K from Canada Pension Plan (much like your SS). Mr. Market will have to supply the rest. Hope he's up to it.

 

[Dawg52]

Wow, Dog. That's closer than I'd have guessed. Mind sharing your allocation strategy a bit?

Rich,
My allocation is not quite here yet as a good chunk of my money is in my company stock but the allocation should look something like the below.

IRA/401K 20% of Portfolio
Vanguard 2025 Target(80/20)

Taxable Account 80% of Portfolio
23% cd's/tips,MM (bucket 1)
6% commodity etf
6% Reit fund(3rd Ave)
5% individual stocks
60% Vanguard 2010 Target(55/45)

I had thought about using etf's to make up my allocation mix but have pretty much decided that target funds do the job and keeps it simple. I'm much more aggressive in my IRA but I won't touch it for 17 years anyway. Overall it's pretty close to a 50/50 mix.

 

[astromeria]

Dog, consider moving your REIT fund to your IRA and nudging your fixed income to more gov't bonds (depending on your state taxes).

TRUE CONFESSIONS
I have one of my REIT funds in a taxable acct. I bought it before we had rolled over any 401ks, so it was the only place to put it at the time. It did so well, I never sold it--thank you, VGSIX. (I have more REITs in our IRAs...ICF and FIREX in my rollover IRAs and IGR in the hubster's.)

 

[OAG]

Pension 38%
SS 27%
Investments 35%


Two persons, ALL of SS goes to FIT, SIT, RE Tax, MEDICARE Premiums, and Home Utilities (including HOA/Condo Fees). Debt free for the past 30 years. Rest goes to FOOD then the remainder is FUN MONEY (or darn, Savings/More Investments).

So I guess the answer is that we could live off the Pension OR the Investments. SS will not strech that far. Between the Pension OR the investment I guess is boils down to which bucket we are using.

 

[Telly]

I keep getting the sense that there are very few here who have retired solely on their investment nest egg. Who are the hardcore ER's who live or die based on the whim of Mr. Market?

5th year on the market tightrope. DW got a job to help pay last-childs college expenses, but a significant amout of kid expenses remain, which I pick up.

 

[Zathras]

All our income comes from investments.
I don't plan on SS being available when I get to 65 (or 70 or 75 as they increase the age requirement).
Currently much of it is in bonds, I plan to diversify as quickly as possible to individual dividend paying stocks for the income then etfs and a few funds. Probably 60/40 or 55/45.

 

[haha]

I live entirely off investments, and have for some years. I would take a fee gig I could find that seemed low risk and not too hard. Almost my entire investing career has been in good markets. 1987 was the only real test. I mostly missed the 90s tech thing because it didn't make sense to me. I think today I may be better able to just run with it, but I had never seen anything like that before, and I had seen lots of busts before. Nevertheless, I made good money investing in the 90s though not the huge returns that some accomplished.

My benchmark accomplishment is one pre-tax account that in over 30 years has shown only one down year and an overall compounded return of just under 13% including stocks, bonds, cash, etc. As is shown by the consistency, I managed this account for safety as well as return.

I feel that I would have been much more successful if it weren't for the monthly requirement of paying the mortgage, feeding the kids, etc. It is much easier to make money if you can take a truly long term outlook, which pretty much disappears if you live off investments at any age, unless your stake is far greater than you need.

I can’t quite shake the feeling that as investors we haven’t been tested recently. It seems that life usually doesn’t give you many broad and wide paths, so I am tryoing to stay well up on the balls of my feet.

Ha