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Old 07-17-2007, 10:56 AM   #21
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Age 27. Portfolio just broke $300,000. Plus I've got another $30-40k in a pension-like plan that will be fully vested in a couple years. Saving $60,000+ per year. The savings rate is likely to increase significantly in the next few years and at a rate about twice that of inflation (in nominal terms) thereafter.

I should hit my target in 8-9 years assuming 8-9% market returns.

I also plan to save a little extra for those big one-time expenses I'll have since kids won't be out of the house at FIRE-time.
You are saving quite a bit but did you have a little help along the way from parents?
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Old 07-17-2007, 11:57 AM   #22
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You are saving quite a bit but did you have a little help along the way from parents?
Sure did! They paid a couple grand the first year of my college. And they put some money into an investment account to be used for college back when I was 10 or 12. It's worth $7000 now. They also paid $1800 for me and DW's honeymoon in lieu of paying anything towards our wedding. They give me $25 on my birthday and $50 for Christmas each year.

Just about everything I have I earned the old fashioned way (well, plus fairly average investment results).
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Old 07-17-2007, 12:07 PM   #23
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Age 27. Portfolio just broke $300,000. Plus I've got another $30-40k in a pension-like plan that will be fully vested in a couple years. Saving $60,000+ per year. The savings rate is likely to increase significantly in the next few years and at a rate about twice that of inflation (in nominal terms) thereafter.

I should hit my target in 8-9 years assuming 8-9% market returns.

I also plan to save a little extra for those big one-time expenses I'll have since kids won't be out of the house at FIRE-time.
Congratulations! That is outstanding. I had about a 10th of that at age 27.
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Old 07-17-2007, 12:23 PM   #24
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I think it's great at 27, hell when I was 27 I didn't even know you were supposed to save for retirement.
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Old 07-17-2007, 04:40 PM   #25
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1.5 Mill for me. But retirement doesn't necessarily mean not working. It could mean working a low stress job, with my choice of hours.
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Old 07-17-2007, 05:35 PM   #26
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I've changed my original goal of 45 to 55. DW had to stay home, so our income got cut nearly in half. We toyed with going more spartan, but we determined we are getting a lot of enjoyment out of the money we are currently spending ( nice slr camera for kids pics, little vacations, etc.). So I am 32, have about 130k in investments/savings, and we are socking about $10-12k a year away. With my contributions increasing 1% over inflation (definitely doable) per year, I see us with a little over 2 mil at 55, which will be a little over a mil in today's dollars. The house will be paid off (20 year mortgage), and my work has a pension you can take at 55 which will pay about 50% of my salary. If I retire at 54 I have to wait to 62 or 65 ( I forget) to get the pension. They also have a neat feature where you can take a whopping amount of cash per month from 55 to 62 or 67 and then reduce by your SS benefit amount. I'm looking strongly at this as A) I'll have to cover health care myself until medicare kicks in and B) I'm more likely to want to see the Pyramids of Giza at age 57 than 67.

I'm cool with 55, it's still young, it makes it so there is no worries with money now, no sense of deprevation. Plus, my work eventually gives you six weeks off and every other Friday, plus 7 holidays. That's 167 days off a year including weekends, so it's not exactly indentured servitude. But tough days like today make pushing my day of freedom out a decade seem a bit depressing.
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Old 07-17-2007, 05:44 PM   #27
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I'm aiming for somewhere between $2M and $2.5M at age 45 (2016). I could probably go with a good bit less, but I like to be conservative. And if I read my benefits book correctly, 2016 is the earliest I could retire and be eligible to continue participating in my employer's group health insurance.
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Old 07-17-2007, 06:38 PM   #28
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We could get by very nicely on 2 Mil, in today's dollars, but we're aiming for 3 Mil. Should be doable by our late 30s assuming our golden handcuffs don't turn to lead.

Aside question - why do you think OAS and CPP are in trouble? I'm a Canadian but I don't live in Canada at the moment so I'm a bit out of touch with Canadian politics... are Canadians concerned about OAS and CPP?


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Most of us under 35 will have no company pension plans, reduced SS (OAS, CPP in my case from Canada) so we will have to do it on our own.
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Old 07-17-2007, 06:59 PM   #29
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My magic number would be 1.5M in 2007 dollars (it would provide enough income at 4% to retire comfortably). I am 33, and we should get there in about 10 years. I will probably quit my current career when we reach that milestone but my wife wants to keep working in her current line of work until she is about 55. If that's the case our nest egg could reach 4-5M in 2007 dollars by the time she pulls the plug. My wife would like to have a nest egg of at least 4M when she retires. This could yield a yearly income which would be 2.7 times was really need (at 4% SWR), and given how tight she is with money, I don't know what she expects to do with all that cash...
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Old 07-18-2007, 11:26 AM   #30
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About $3M . If I had that today I would probably wait to get to $4M, but in a few years I will be more eager to leave, and am planning to jump with about $3M. At that point I will be closer to 45 than 35.
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Old 07-18-2007, 11:33 AM   #31
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I'm aiming for around $1.4 million in today's dollars. I've got a fair chance of reaching that goal by 35.
Coming from you, Justin, I'm not surprised. Impressed, nevertheless.
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Old 07-18-2007, 11:38 AM   #32
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Age 27. Portfolio just broke $300,000. Plus I've got another $30-40k in a pension-like plan that will be fully vested in a couple years. Saving $60,000+ per year. The savings rate is likely to increase significantly in the next few years and at a rate about twice that of inflation (in nominal terms) thereafter...

Damn. That kicks ass. I'm hoping we can hit 60k/yr savings, but that's only after we paid off the house. I don't seeing it increasing significantly.

Well done.
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Old 07-18-2007, 01:26 PM   #33
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I highly recomend those looking into early retirement get them a business calculator like the HP12c or 17b and learn how to use the Time Value of Money keys. 1.5M will give you your $50K but if you are 35 looking to retire at say 55, you will have the spending power of $27,683.79! at 3% inflation. If you can live on that today, you've got the right number. My guess is most of us would not be happy long term with that number, considering health care, and unexpected expenses.

By the way, you will need to generate $90,305.56 a year or $2,257,639 at a 4% SWR.
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Old 07-18-2007, 01:59 PM   #34
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I highly recomend those looking into early retirement get them a business calculator like the HP12c or 17b and learn how to use the Time Value of Money keys. 1.5M will give you your $50K but if you are 35 looking to retire at say 55, you will have the spending power of $27,683.79! at 3% inflation. If you can live on that today, you've got the right number. My guess is most of us would not be happy long term with that number, considering health care, and unexpected expenses.

By the way, you will need to generate $90,305.56 a year or $2,257,639 at a 4% SWR.
Just use Excel.
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Old 07-18-2007, 02:05 PM   #35
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I use Excel, but mostly for larger spreadsheets. Books that come, or at least use to come with the HP calculators were great learning tools for those that don't work with TVM regularly. But you are right, you can get the same answers from Excel, and if you want to go further and create total budget or projection predictions similar to FireCalc, then it is the only way to go. For quick one liners I prefer the HP.

The main point, however, is don't forget what inflation is going to do to you when you make future projections. 3% per year is a killer over time!
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Old 07-18-2007, 02:30 PM   #36
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Wife (36) and I (34) teach in public schools. 3 kids (6, 5, and 10 months).

Only debt is around $190,000 left on the mortgage (30 year fixed at 5.375% that we'll have paid off by the time I turn 47 if we keep adding extra to the principal at the current clip).

Approximate rainy day fund in bank (CD's and Money Market) totalling $35,000.

Both of our vehicles are getting older (99 Grand Cherokee and 00 Mercury Villager) so we need to have some liquid assets just in case.

Approximate retirement investments (mutual funds in 403-b and Roths) totalling $250,000

Approximate non retirement investments (mutual funds and DTE stock) totalling $185,000

Approximate educational investments for kids (Coverdell IRA's and 529's) totalling $40,000

Currently, the wife and I are putting away 23 Grand a year total. She hasn't worked for around a year now (been off with the new baby), and will not go back to work for another year.

A breakdown of yearly contributions...
12 Grand in my 403-B accounts
4 Grand apiece in Roth accounts
3 Grand total towards children's college accounts.

For me... the plan to retire is at 48 years old. That's when I'll be eligible (as long as things remain how they are now) for a pension (45% of my salary at the time) with close to full benefits, and won't have any more house payments to worry about. Wife will not be eligible for a full pension until her mid 50's due to time off with kids. She laughs at me when I say I plan on retiring that early. My reply is always wait and see... wait and see.

As far as an actual goal... We'd like to hit the 2 million $ level before I retire. I'm fairly confident that with 13.5 years to go, We should be able to pull it off if we keep saving at this rate (and eventually getting extra contributions from my wife when she does go back to work).

It's the cost of college that scares me the most. My parents paid for my college (and I'm eternally grateful for it), so I'd like to do the same for my kids and let them start out in the working world as debt free as possible.
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Old 07-18-2007, 03:33 PM   #37
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The main point, however, is don't forget what inflation is going to do to you when you make future projections. 3% per year is a killer over time!
Doesn't FIREcalc factor inflation into its calculations? That is, if I say I want 50K annual withdrawal, and that I'll FIRE in 10 years, doesn't it adjust the 50K for inflation up through (and beyond) the target FIRE year?
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Old 07-18-2007, 05:53 PM   #38
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I believe it does, however, that is different from saying I will have $1.5 Mil and that will give me $50,000 in income in say 20 years. It will 4% of 1.5 Mil is 50,000 and you should be able to take 50,000 adjusted for inflation for the next 30 years. However, that 50,000 will only purchase 27,000 at present value.

I have never seen the actual spreadsheet that backups FireCalc, so I don't know if it makes the future calculation of

a. I need 50K today to live on, how much will I have to have saved in order to get the same buying power in 20 years?

b. It seems to me FireCalc is using what you have saved now, what you will save until you expect to retire, how much you need when you retire. I believe it is adjusted for inflation when you start to withdraw, but I don't know if it gives you a total you will have when you retire. As I said in an earlier report, however, it would have to be close to 2.25 million, not 1.5 million.
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Old 07-18-2007, 08:01 PM   #39
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The numbers that I have in mind are (all in 2007 dollars):

$1,875,000: Ideal. This would allow me to live the kind of lifestyle that I consider ideal including travel.

$1,250,000: Probable. This would allow me to live a decent if more modest life with some luxuries.

$875,000: Aggressive: This would allow me to maintain my current (middle middle class) lifestyle, but wouldn't allow the kind of adventure I'm hoping for.
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Old 07-18-2007, 08:35 PM   #40
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I'm shooting for 2.5mil, as I want to have a family. We'll see how inflation goes though. If it's fairly mild, or if Social Security survives, I may be able to get off "easy" and only need 1.5mil.
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