Life is Good

[becca]

Recently I feel like I have to pinch myself to make sure I'm not dreaming. We retired early, DH in 1998 at age 51 and me in 2001 at age 48. Here we are approximately 20 years later and I never thought life would be so good. We started out with $1.6M in 2001 and currently have approximately $4M (not counting our house). The market has been good and we inherited a little bit of money along the way. We live off our investments (mostly dividend paying stocks) and DH SS (not taking mine till I turn 70 in 3 years...another $36K per year) and we are both on medicare now.

Since 1998, we have put 2 kids through college, gotten them both married off, gainfully employed and accumulated 3 beautiful grandchildren (so far). We moved from a major metro area to a smaller university town...we didn't really downsize as far as square footage, but taxes and cost of living are cheaper and quality of life is great.

We have weathered some serious, scary market gyrations, but stayed the course. I feel like now we could survive in a major market meltdown with social security and cash savings. I do worry about the current political state of our country (when you are retired you have too much time to watch the scary news).

We live comfortably, still (cross our fingers) are healthy and really enjoy retirement. When I retired my goal was to be retired as many years as I worked for megacorp (29 years), I have to make it 11 more years to age 77.

I think I started reading this forum back in 1998 (or something similar to this) and it was always inspiring and encouraging. I hope my story can inspire younger people to strive for this lifestyle.

 

[Palmtree]

Wow, thank you for posting your story. We retired in our mid 50's and are looking forward to many happy years of retirement too.

 

[Floridatennisplayer]

Thank you Becca for a nice thoughtful post. Very inspiring.

 

[CoolRich59]

Great to hear. Thanks for your post.

You must not read the Wall Street Journal. It seems every week they have an article on why retiring early is a bad idea.

 

[HI Bill]

Awesome! What's your withdrawal rate?

 

[imoldernu]

Congratulations. Wish you even more years of happy safe retirement.
We retired @53, with a financial plan to age 77, and with luck to 85. Now, @ 83, have to rework the plan for jeanie and me, to 93... and it looks like we can probably make it.
A little slower start... like about 80% fewer $$$, but 30 years of fun!
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f27/sharing-23-years-of-frugal-retirement-62251.html

30 years of w*rk, 30+ yrs (so far) of retirement, and 60+ yrs married.

Best of luck.. nice track record.

 

[Retch The Grate]

I think I started reading this forum back in 1998 (or something similar to this) and it was always inspiring and encouraging. I hope my story can inspire younger people to strive for this lifestyle.

1998? Probably the Motley Fool board, I don't remember any other FIRE communities at at that point (Dory hadn't gone and made FireCalc yet AFAIK, though Intercst had his website sans forums by then IIRC).

 

[becca]

Retch The Grate - I love that you have achieved as many retirement years as working years. And congrats on # of years married!

 

[becca]

I know I read intercst back then!

 

[becca]

our withdrawal rate is however much money we need to pay our bills in a given month. I'm sure it's less than 4% though.

 

[REWahoo]

Great story, becca. Thanks for sharing.

I think I started reading this forum back in 1998 (or something similar to this) and it was always inspiring and encouraging.

Made me look.

This forum went "live" on June 23, 2002 with this first post by Dory36, the creator of FIRECalc: http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f29/retirement-afloat-13853.html

Your reference to 1998 is probably accurate since he created this forum as a place for those of us who had participated in early retirement discussions on the Motley Fool website were looking elsewhere when the Motley Fool site began to charge a subscription fee. As Retch The Grate says, you were probably a participant there before you became a member here (one of the first 50 to sign up!) in Sept of 2002.

 

[walkinwood]

Wonderful story. Thanks for sharing - and continued good luck to you.

 

[Dalmore]

Thanks, becca. Very encouraging story, and definitely what I am looking forward to as I approach my leap date.

 

[flyingaway]

Recently I feel like I have to pinch myself to make sure I'm not dreaming. We retired early, DH in 1998 at age 51 and me in 2001 at age 48. Here we are approximately 20 years later and I never thought life would be so good. We started out with $1.6M in 2001 and currently have approximately $4M (not counting our house). The market has been good and we inherited a little bit of money along the way. We live off our investments (mostly dividend paying stocks) and DH SS (not taking mine till I turn 70 in 3 years...another $36K per year) and we are both on medicare now.

Since 1998, we have put 2 kids through college, gotten them both married off, gainfully employed and accumulated 3 beautiful grandchildren (so far). We moved from a major metro area to a smaller university town...we didn't really downsize as far as square footage, but taxes and cost of living are cheaper and quality of life is great.

We have weathered some serious, scary market gyrations, but stayed the course. I feel like now we could survive in a major market meltdown with social security and cash savings. I do worry about the current political state of our country (when you are retired you have too much time to watch the scary news).

We live comfortably, still (cross our fingers) are healthy and really enjoy retirement. When I retired my goal was to be retired as many years as I worked for megacorp (29 years), I have to make it 11 more years to age 77.

I think I started reading this forum back in 1998 (or something similar to this) and it was always inspiring and encouraging. I hope my story can inspire younger people to strive for this lifestyle.

Have you or your husband ever worked or made any money after retirement?
I ask this because your portfolio increasing from $1.6M to $4.0M is amazing.

 

[becca]

DH did some part time consulting work for maybe 3 or 4 years after he first retired. We inherited about $700k along the way. Have always been about 75% invested in the stock market. Another biggie is we had free (or almost free) health insurance from our former employers until we reached medicare. Our house was paid off before we retired. With no mortgage or healthcare costs, our expenses have been very low. Early on we spent very little, we have loosened up as the years progressed.

 

[flyingaway]

DH did some part time consulting work for maybe 3 or 4 years after he first retired. We inherited about $700k along the way. Have always been about 75% invested in the stock market. Another biggie is we had free (or almost free) health insurance from our former employers until we reached medicare. Our house was paid off before we retired. With no mortgage or healthcare costs, our expenses have been very low. Early on we spent very little, we have loosened up as the years progressed.

That is very good to know. It might also help that the market was low in 2001.

 

[travelover]

............We live off our investments (mostly dividend paying stocks) and DH SS (not taking mine till I turn 70 in 3 years...another $36K per year) and we are both on medicare now.

...........

Can't you draw spousal now, then take full at 70?

 

[friar1610]

1998? Probably the Motley Fool board, I don't remember any other FIRE communities at at that point (Dory hadn't gone and made FireCalc yet AFAIK, though Intercst had his website sans forums by then IIRC).

I was an early fan of (and participant in) the Fool's Reire Early Home Page. IIRC, intercst had his web site of the same name for a while and made an attempt to have an interactive Q&A feature. But he soon migrated that part to TMF where it became very popular and active. It was a great discussion board for a few years until it became politicized and lost its original focus. (One can only imagine what it must be like in today's political climate. ) I abandoned it because of the politicization and now follow this site and Bogleheads. (I really have no business being on an early retirement site any more.)

 

[becca]

Do you remember the ***** days? I follow MMM and this board although I am no longer close to being an early retiree. I still look at John Greaney's Retire Early Homepage although he only posts a few times a year.

Also I do take the spousal SS, and am waiting till 70 to take my own. That's a great loophole but expires for people born after 1953.

 

[Dtail]

Great story, becca. Thanks for sharing.



Made me look.

This forum went "live" on June 23, 2002 with this first post by Dory36, the creator of FIRECalc: http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f29/retirement-afloat-13853.html

Your reference to 1998 is probably accurate since he created this forum as a place for those of us who had participated in early retirement discussions on the Motley Fool website were looking elsewhere when the Motley Fool site began to charge a subscription fee. As Retch The Grate says, you were probably a participant there before you became a member here (one of the first 50 to sign up!) in Sept of 2002.

Recognized a couple of current posters from the first post.

What does it mean when it states "n/a" for number of postings? Some version of gone traveling?

 

[WhenIsItTime]

Congratulations! Great to hear your success and gratitude!

 

[omni550]

Made me look.

This forum went "live" on June 23, 2002 with this first post by Dory36, the creator of FIRECalc: http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f29/retirement-afloat-13853.html

Your reference to 1998 is probably accurate since he created this forum as a place for those of us who had participated in early retirement discussions on the Motley Fool website were looking elsewhere when the Motley Fool site began to charge a subscription fee. As Retch The Grate says, you were probably a participant there before you became a member here (one of the first 50 to sign up!) in Sept of 2002.

Hey, thanks for digging this out. It's nice to read the posts/thread that got this great forum started. Many thanks, Dory, for launching it!

I officially joined this forum in March 2004. I had been active on the Motley Fool one prior until it got way too political and MF started charging (something like $35/yr IIRC.)

omni

 

[brydanger]

YES!!!!
Good for you and thanks for sharing!!

 

[Scuba]

Becca, great story, thanks for sharing. Glad to hear you’ve enjoyed retirement and have done so well financially.

We RE’d almost 3 years ago at ages 56 and 57. So far, we have more than we started with despite living off our portfolio since then. We spend a bit more than we did when we were working. Healthcare and travel have increased but we planned for that.

 

[street]

Thanks for your great retirement story. Your portfolio has done well, and I beleive in most cases retirement funds do grow. For me after 3 years of retirement our portfolio has grown 24% so not sure where it will be after 25 more years. We didn't have any windfall from inheritance, but I can see growth with a nice bump from inheritance.

I wish you many more happy years of retirement.