The Class of 2014

[Hawk50s]

The perfect thread for me as well. April 2014 is the plan, hope it works out.

[OrcasIslandBound]

I'm aiming to FIRE in late January 2014. Need about $1.6M, have a bit under $1.4M, $230K to go. Hopefully not too many bumps in stock market or bond market. 40% stocks, the rest bonds.

[Amethyst]

Curious, what will you do if/when you hit $1.4M? Rebalance out of stocks, into bonds and cash?

Amethyst

Quote:

Originally Posted by sbwitte I'm aiming to FIRE in late January 2014. Need about $1.6M, have a bit under $1.4M, $230K to go. Hopefully not too many bumps in stock market or bond market. 40% stocks, the rest bonds.

[OrcasIslandBound]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amethyst Curious, what will you do if/when you hit $1.4M? Rebalance out of stocks, into bonds and cash? Amethyst

We'll likely continue with 40% stocks and the rest bonds well into retirement. Switching to all bonds would not likely be good enough for us to take on inflation, etc. I have been occasionally moving money from stocks into bonds about 2-3 times in the past year because of the rapid growth in the stocks.

It's a really good question, though, and the thought occurs to me that, if possible, we should try to "overshoot" the target before FIRE. I'm hoping that will occur kind of naturally as jan 2014 is more than 2.5 years from now. The portfolio has a predicted rate of return of 7.5%. At that rate, we should hit about $1.65M by the fire date. Not a huge buffer to handle downturns, but I really want to get out of the megacorp, so can't do much better then that.

[SecondCor521]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SecondCor521 888 net work days, 1/11/2015, or 55,273,921,971,253 platelets.

Woot! I'm officially in the class of 2014 for the moment!

791 net work days, 11/7/2014, or 49,241,889,117,043 platelets.

2Cor521

[Grainiac]

After months of calculating and speculating DW and I have concluded that I can target 2014. I will be turning 50 that summer, and I am planning on quitting my j*b as a birthday present to myself. However, depending on how the year is going for the mecacorp I may delay until the December bonus day before quitting. FIRECalc is telling us that at our predicted RE spending level also DW could retire at 50 (one year after me), but at the moment she has no such plans and may well w*rk another 5 years after I quit. She is 100% fine with me quitting earlier, but I feel it will be necessary for us to be FI so that she can RE anytime if her mind changes.

I am not using the term retire for myself yet, because my post-megacorp plans will probably evolve a lot over the next 3 years. The core of the plan is obviously to get out of the megacorp, but I am researching various options to still w*rk in some capacity but in different environment. My technical expertise and global experience should give me a good edge to gain some kind of role with certain global non-profits doing something that would be very meaningful to me, but moving from my current overpaid exec position to something like that would mean 75 - 95% reduction in pay, which is why we need to be FI before I make the move. Or, if the world changes so much over the next 3 years that those opportunities are not there any more, I will have a full freedom to get into entirely unpaid charity work or just plain REtire.

Now, having this kind of vision about my future has already made a difference in my daily life. With a dream that is both practical and affordable it is simply easier to ignore the atrocities of megacorp meat grinder our challenging corporate culture. I used to think almost every day that "I just can't wait to get out of this", but now it has changed to "Hey, actually this is not all that bad since it will be all behind me in just three short years".

[Retire2013]

What is everyone planning to do about health insurance when ER or ESR in 2014?

[FreeAtLast]

It is quite possible that 2014 will be my year to retire as I will turn 62 and my son will be 1/2 way through college. I have been semi-retired for the past 5 years so I don't have a concrete date.

[scrinch]

Sign me up for 2014 as well! I just took my old job back, moved overseas, and signed a 3-year lease on a house. In 2014 the lease will be up, I'll be 55, my youngest will be through one year of college (and the other two finished), and I'm sure that I will be sick-up-to-here of Megacorp again. I believe I just heard Carnac the Magnificent give the answer "The year 2014." Let's hope the question was, "When will scrinch retire for good this time?"

[casky]

The year was 2008. I had decided then I would retire sometime in 2011. So I was then where you all are today, planiing my retirement for 3 years down the road.

Now I have just 2 days to work and the magic day will be here June 29, 2011 my first day of retirement.

My point is the time goes by so fast. I thought 3 years was a long way off but wow, here it is already.

So good luck to the class of 2014. Have fun planning and discussing with your spouse.

[Lagniappe]

Quote:

Originally Posted by casky The year was 2008. I had decided then I would retire sometime in 2011. So I was then where you all are today, planiing my retirement for 3 years down the road. Now I have just 2 days to work and the magic day will be here June 29, 2011 my first day of retirement. My point is the time goes by so fast. I thought 3 years was a long way off but wow, here it is already. So good luck to the class of 2014. Have fun planning and discussing with your spouse.

Casky,

I really want to thank you for this message. I have been feeling that 2014 is so far away, and wondering if I can make it. The closer I get, the lower my BS tolerance, which means I am daily playing with my spreadsheet to see when I can reasonably stop. Your perspective, especially right now, is really helpful.

Lagniappe

[debster747]

Hi -- I'm a long time lurker and love this board! I plan to be in the class of 2014, hopefully in January. For me, this depends on the health care exchanges being in place!

[OrcasIslandBound]

ditto to debster747. We're aiming for Jan 2014 and it all depends on what happens to health care. We also had a big break last week regarding our plans to FIRE. We needed to sell a piece of raw land that was an extremely difficult parcel to deal with because of our lovely So. Cal government adding restrictions one after another, nearly making this lot unbuildable. We had it in escrow for $300K in 2007, but found "Nitrates" in the well at 10% over the EPA limit. The polluted well water would have been filterable for $3K whole house filter, but our lovely health department said absolutely no filtering allowed. We checked, no where else in the country was there such a stupid health department. We had to threaten to sue the dairy that was creating the pollution, ($15K legal bill) bought an easement from them, $8K, then we bought a water meter $24K! Total of $45K and then just finally sold the parcel for $150K. As bad as this deal was, it was enough to pay off our house mortgage completely which we did on Wednesday! DEBT FREE!

[Amethyst]

Congratulations!! I always feel as if dealing with real estate is a bit like dealing with a nest of poisonous snakes, but you came out alive after the battle, and are free now!

Amethyst

Quote:

Originally Posted by sbwitte dAs bad as this deal was, it was enough to pay off our house mortgage completely which we did on Wednesday! DEBT FREE!

[OrcasIslandBound]

Thanks Amethyst! Your are right, the real estate snakes are poisonous. We've decided that we won't attempt to build a house again until we have at least $10,000,000 saved up!

[Coaster]

Hi all, looking at retiring 4 Jan 2014 at age 53. DW will continue to work part time (Nurse) as she is not to sure about this whole early retirement thing. I will have a COLA pension of around $60K. House is all paid off and we will have no debts entering retirement, DW also has a $300K Retirement taxi savings account 80%stocks 20%bonds. Live in Canada so healthcare not an issue.
Kids will be finished university/college and hopefully on their way.

[02camp]

We hope to be a part of 2014 as well. A few things will have to happen first though. Number 1 is we need to sell our house and downsize or pay the mortgage off. The second part is we will need to purchase 2 years of the DW's state pension. Third, our son will be starting graduate school in the fall of 2014. We have helped him in his undergraduate endevours, however as harsh as this may sound, we have told him he will be on his own for his graduate work. Finally, the market needs to cooperate with our plan. This may prove to be the hard part of the whole deal.

[BizzyC]

I may be in the 2014 class as well. I've kind of arbitrarily set Feb 2014 as the date, based on when a set of stock options vests. It's a little bit silly, the value of the options really isn't that great, but it is kind of a mental stake in the ground for me of "this far, and absolutely no farther".

It may be earlier than that, but under no circumstances is it going to be later!

[foxfirev5]

Looks like February 18, 2014 for me. DW Er'd last month and I moved from the class of '13 to '14. Health Insurance is the biggest reason. While I qualify for retiree insurance at Mega corp I have doubts about its continuation. Like many on this forum I am curious to see how the 2014 health insurance system looks.

[Huston55]

My retirement deadline is 2016, which is what my profile says. But, I'd retire (or semi-retire) earlier if possible. Fidelity Retirement Income Planner says I can retire in 2014 so, I suppose I'm a member of The ER Class of 2014.

Nice to meet you all - Classmates!