Highly Stressed

[Milton]

Honesty is the best policy. Understanding, and being compassionate are two different things; she may never understand but at least if you are honest she has a chance at being compassionate.

What a great post!

 

[kgtest]

What a great post!

Thank you Milton. The DH taught me that one years ago.

 

[rdy4er]

OP Here, reviving an old post. I changed jobs about 3 Year’s ago to a different type of flying. Much less pay to start so I have not stashed away as much as I was saving previously. My question is do you think I can call it quits now or am I cutting it too close?
I have about 1.2m in investments with a paid off house. Currently spending about 38k
a year not including health insurance. ACA with subsidies (as it stands) would be around 4500 a year. I’m 53 with a 13 yo and a stay at home wife. What do you think?

 

[haha]

OP Here, reviving an old post. I changed jobs about 3 Year’s ago to a different type of flying. Much less pay to start so I have not stashed away as much as I was saving previously. My question is do you think I can call it quits now or am I cutting it too close?
I have about 1.2m in investments with a paid off house. Currently spending about 38k
a year not including health insurance. ACA with subsidies (as it stands) would be around 4500 a year. I’m 53 with a 13 yo and a stay at home wife. What do you think?

Since your child is 13 and your wife is still staying at home, I take it that this is likely a permanent condition. $1.2mm with paid house is not a super situation, but I can imagine that the load on you might be growing pretty heavy.

Up to you, and I feel for you.

Ha

 

[exnavynuke]

OP Here, reviving an old post. I changed jobs about 3 Year’s ago to a different type of flying. Much less pay to start so I have not stashed away as much as I was saving previously. My question is do you think I can call it quits now or am I cutting it too close?
I have about 1.2m in investments with a paid off house. Currently spending about 38k
a year not including health insurance. ACA with subsidies (as it stands) would be around 4500 a year. I’m 53 with a 13 yo and a stay at home wife. What do you think?

With a 3.5% withdrawal rate you could pull ~$42k/year in (before any taxes). In your situation I'd also assume that subsidies would not be there in a year or two, thus increasing costs for health insurance and plan with those numbers instead (better safe than sorry). As such, I'd imagine you're still a few years away from a comfortable, higher percentage chance, FIRE.

 

[Running_Man]

OK I ran a scenario using the following assumptions, which are all to me very conservative based on what I know from this thread:

Base Spending 38K per year after tax
Health insurance cost $6,000 year one 20K per year thereafter
Annual return on portfolio: 1 percent over inflation
Source of funds: (Pretax - all funds would need to pay tax on top of base spending+ Ins)
State income tax rate 4% less 5,000 deduction allowed
Begin taking SS : Age 67 - amount = $31,200 in today’s dollars wife: $13,200 start same year.
Once get to age 65 medical drops to 13 K per year in current dollars
Year 2 total taxes are $7,300 in order to have after tax income needed ($65,500 total income needed in year 2)

So the end result I calculate is that at age 68 your portfolio will be $385,000 in today’s dollars but Social Security at that point will be providing $44,400 of income from which you would need 14K of income to draw from your portfolio going forward or 3.64% of the portfolio remaining.

So to the extent you have after-tax funds to reduce income taxes, to the amount the portfolio actually performs and cuts that may or may not happen to social security are the risks. Other risks are more serious medical injuries, however stress is a higher risk than most of those. My personal advice is that it is close but if you have the discipline to hold the costs where they are to go for it and if you find you are running behind the plan after a few years to worry about finding a job of some sort at that time.

 

[rdy4er]

OK I ran a scenario using the following assumptions, which are all to me very conservative based on what I know from this thread:

Base Spending 38K per year after tax
Health insurance cost $6,000 year one 20K per year thereafter
Annual return on portfolio: 1 percent over inflation
Source of funds: (Pretax - all funds would need to pay tax on top of base spending+ Ins)
State income tax rate 4% less 5,000 deduction allowed
Begin taking SS : Age 67 - amount = $31,200 in today’s dollars wife: $13,200 start same year.
Once get to age 65 medical drops to 13 K per year in current dollars
Year 2 total taxes are $7,300 in order to have after tax income needed ($65,500 in year 2)

So the end result I calculate is that at age 68 your portfolio will be $385,000 in today’s dollars but Social Security at that point will be providing $44,400 of income from which you would need 14K of income to draw from your portfolio going forward or 3.64% of the portfolio remaining.

So to the extent you have after-tax funds to reduce income taxes, to the amount the portfolio actually performs and cuts that may or may not happen to social security are the risks. Other risks are more serious medical injuries, however stress is a higher risk than most of those. My personal advice is that it is close but if you have the discipline to hold the costs where they are to go for it and if you find you are running behind the plan after a few years to worry about finding a job of some sort at that time.

Thanks running man,
I like your plan, I do live in a no state income tax state and about 15% of my portfolio is in a Roth IRA, which should help. In addition I will probably create some kind of income down the road, maybe [emoji54].

 

[Running_Man]

Taking 5K a year from the Roth IRA and no state income tax increases the portfolio value at age 68 to $441,000. Assuming the 5K would continue to be able to be pulled from the Roth IRA at age 68 the net draw from the portfolio at age 68 after SS drops to 10K while the portfolio increase to 441K means the withdrawal would be 2.3%

 

[Jerry1]

OP Here, reviving an old post. I changed jobs about 3 Year’s ago to a different type of flying. Much less pay to start so I have not stashed away as much as I was saving previously. My question is do you think I can call it quits now or am I cutting it too close?
I have about 1.2m in investments with a paid off house. Currently spending about 38k
a year not including health insurance. ACA with subsidies (as it stands) would be around 4500 a year. I’m 53 with a 13 yo and a stay at home wife. What do you think?

I see running_man has run some numbers for you. Have you really stress tested that $38K annual spending? I understand you own a house, but they need maintenance. Car(s)? Helping 13yo with college some day?

I'm sure you "could" retire on $1.2M, but you are pretty young and I wouldn't call $1.2M being all set. I think you're in good shape, but do you have any plan to secure other income for a few more years? Especially something that would help you with healthcare (again, mostly because you have a 13 yo)? Seems like you're on the edge and you're about to jump a couple years and a couple dollars too early.

 

[rdy4er]

I agree, It is still a little too tight, it seems I’m consistently just out of reach as the years are ticking by, damn healthcare.

 

[Pilot2013]

I'd recommend first reflecting about what exactly is causing the stress in your current job. Frankly, most jobs that pay well bring some degree of stress - supervisory challenges (both upline and downline), corporate politics, responsibility for others, process frustrations, etc. A mistake people frequently make is the mindset that the grass surely must be greener.

Oftentimes it's not.

+1000

 

[Pilot2013]

Here's an article about a home brewer freind of mine, former pilot, that threw in the take-off checklist to become his own boss. Naw, scratch that, his better half is quite a force behind this business. Courage!

Couple brews business success with 401(k) funds | WCNC.com Charlotte

These are friends of mine. While they have had quite a bit of good fortune (and luck), they REALLY took on a lot of debt initially to do this. Don't think that would be a good stress reducer...

 

[walkinwood]

You could also learn stress management techniques. They work quite well. Our health insurance provider has a class for stress management through mindfulness. Look for something similar.

We chose ER over stress. But DW and I stuck to our high stress jobs until we could ER at 48 for me, 45 for her. However, we were both in agreement with the plan.

 

[retiringby50]

I agree, It is still a little too tight, it seems I’m consistently just out of reach as the years are ticking by, damn healthcare.

I actually didn't realize that this was an old thread until I got to the end. All the time, I was ready to ask that you tell us what happened in the end! Looks like you got a lower paying flying job. Do you feel it was the right decision? And is your current job less stressful?

Can't help you with the numbers... helping you bump this up by asking questions

 

[davismills]

Are you affiliated with the Air Force Reserve?

I worked for them for years and we had many furloughed airline pilots come back "fulltime" to wait out a furlough. I think it was much less stressful for them. I know some who opted to stay in the AFR and forego any more duties with the airlines. Of course, you'd have to weigh the potentiality for deployments.

 

[rdy4er]

I actually didn't realize that this was an old thread until I got to the end. All the time, I was ready to ask that you tell us what happened in the end! Looks like you got a lower paying flying job. Do you feel it was the right decision? And is your current job less stressful?



Can't help you with the numbers... helping you bump this up by asking questions

In hindsight I should have probably stuck it out at the old job., I would have been done by now. This job is somewhat less stressful, but for a lot less money. I will ride this one out until FIRE time, hopefully sooner more than later.

 

[Milton]

In hindsight I should have probably stuck it out at the old job., I would have been done by now. This job is somewhat less stressful, but for a lot less money.

That is unfortunately typical of attempts to scale back, at least within law firms: lawyers who transfer to nominal part-time status ('mommy track') wind up being expected to do almost the same amount of work, but earn much less $.