Hi!
I just walked from a high paying job after 18 years b/c of poor treatment.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered FIRE at the start of my new job search!
Put some time in with the FIRECalc calculator and it seems I can surprise my fiancé with good news that we can retire now (I'm 48 and she is 41) if she will move to lower cost country (Panama/Ecuador/Columbia/etc).
On a side note, we have no kids and she is the type to want to go for this kind of thing. Also I've done my homework and am confident we can live in a foreign country (most likely Panama and so glad I took Spanish for so many years now...Thanks Sra Erickson!), so please take the "you want to move away" questions out please as I just want to make sure I'm not goofing up something on the math of it more than the move to foreign beaches.
It's important to consider the cost of living being so much lower for a number of reasons. We will buy a place so just carrying costs only vs mortgage/rent and there is no property tax in Panama for what I'm buying which will help keep costs even lower. We are looking at places where cost of living is going to be $1,500/month being frugal to $2,000/month if we want to splurge and eat out a lot and whatnot.
Inflation should be much less vs United States experience which does affect things a bit too...kind of like high fees on your mutual funds!
Attached is a quick spreadsheet and hopefully to explain it a bit easier...
1. Top show ages when waves of money hit (First 401k for me in 12 years, then 401k for spouse in 18 yrs, then SS for me at 22 years at age 70 and 28 years for spouse at 70. SS calculated by entering "0" for income forever from now on the SS gov website.
- 401k amounts are as of today and I listed monthly income underneath but it is using no growth over coming years so should be too low.
2. I should have (after home and property sales) $1,021,400 and that includes that $212k in 401k currently (rest would be cash).
3. Plan is to give $625k cash (or more or less maybe if I can/have to) over to long term investments in stock/bond/etc and keep $212k current 401k growing on the side at same time.
I listed out move costs and car costs of $25k which leaves @$159,400 for house and safety net money.
House is @$125k where we are looking so leaves $34k as emergency fund as needed above our @4% yearly planned/ballparked withdrawal rate.
I think everything comes out pretty good from what I can see as I just need to make it to SS and that covers the bills in these foreign countries. I should have a lot of money left on average if I'm a bit of a gambler too, so hopefully SS is just gravy ideally.
Any feedback from any gurus? I don't think I've ever wanted anything more and I don't want to "sell" myself on success if I'm being illogical.
Questions:
1. $1,500/month doable? $2,000/month? I've set the math to generate $1,760/month after 12% tax rate on the sheet as a baseline. Maybe I can take more out after a few years of lower withdrawals is also the goal.
2. Recession post-FIRE any time soon would crush plans I guess?
3. Just realized as I typed this that I should just lump the 401k into the rest of the retirement money on the FIRECalc site so it's not $625k + 401k but is just $837k lump some for investment money to get me to SS in 22 years? Does that give me more room or less room on monthly basis? lol...so confusing, but exciting!
HELP ME ESCAPE!