What do you do for a living?

[38Chevy454]

I am an engineer, work on things that make big mushroom clouds. Starting out was not able to max out the 401k/403b, but did make the contributions and got company matching at minimum. As career progressed I have not only maxed the pre-tax, but also have increased after-tax savings. My guess is near 40% total savings rate currently.

Moving out of high COL CA and to lower COL NM has had a significant effect. I have much lower housing cost (mortgage) than previous. Additionally pay less taxes, so both enable a high after-tax savings rate compared to before. I am in about OMY until retirement, but plan to transition to part-time in spring 2015.

 

[FIREd]

My wife and I are/were both scientists working for smaller biotech companies (DW is still at it, I quit working a while ago). We managed to save on average 50% of our take home pay over the years.

 

[Brianeboatman]

85k

 

[stepford]

Rule of Thirds: 1/3 to Taxes, 1/3 to Savings, 1/3 to Me.

PhD at 27. Doing Laser Engineering at Megacorp for another 27.5 yrs. Will retire reasonably comfortably in 8-12 months (at about the real "income" - only now composed of pension + 2% annual widthdrawl from savings rather than the roughly equal 1/3 current gross salary).

 

[jcretire77]

Hilarious. I have the same job.

 

[aja8888]

Mechanical Engineer in a heavy manufacturing industry plant until mid-30's. Worked at several locations. Became Plant Manager, then moved on to the oil and gas industry.

Worked at a top five integrated energy company in corporate for 5 years and got sick of the politics.

Went into oil & gas consulting and got to visit many places that most people here will never go to. Did about 25 years of this nonsense, but it was fun.

Last earnings year (full time = $200K+)

Now just piddling around and doing an occasional consulting gig.

 

[dallas27]

Computer Consultant to large/mid size firms, US and Canada. (SAP and VMware markets)

 

[gauss]

B-Boatman (Officier/Your Honor)

The graph at this link shows, at a high level, how many years you need to work before achieving financial independence. The Shockingly Simple Math Behind Early Retirement

It applies directly when you don't have passive income streams in retirement, but it can give you a worse case type of scenario for various savings levels.

As you can see it is less about how much you earn in dollars but rather about the ratio of what you spend to what you earn.

-gauss

 

[Lakewood90712]

Many of you are ,ready retired. If that's the case, what DID YOU DO for a living? How much money DID YOU MAKE AND WHAT % DID YOU SAVE? I put this in the "Dreamers" section thinking that it would be young pre-retirees like me. You retirees love rubbing it in that you're already retired...and I don't blame you! I can't wait to join the ranks in 2024.


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You should be able to change the title of your thread to What DID you do...., by going to the "Advanced" screen in edit, if the edit time window has not yet expired. If it has , contact any moderator via pm, and they may allow it.

These days, I am catching up on 10 years differed maintenance on my body and the house. Also watching squirrels, both rodent type, and politicians.

 

[FUEGO]

Traffic engineer at a consulting firm. Then director of engineering for a new toll road agency. I built a toll road and planned on building many more. $50-70k my entire career.

 

[calmloki]

Very little in the way of gainful employment - auto mechanic a couple places, mushroom farmer.. The mushroom gig was my highest paying job, with a salary a bit over $15,000/year. Started buying really worn out places in the mid 80's and fixing them up and renting them out. Nothing got saved - it all went to the 10-14% loans paydown. We pushed paying things off and borrowing against them to buy other places and paying those loans. As a result, with a tiny top salary and negligible savings rate we now have diddly for social security income but a nice chunk of unearned income from rentals as well as interest income from loans and property sales and PenFed certificates that is getting near 3/4 of the rental income. Probably saving about what we live on each year, but am arguably working for my unearned income even if we spend 1/2 the year as snow birds.

 

[photoguy]

Data scientist. Was in a golden period for maybe 5-6 years out of grad school in applied research positions (in industry). But then promotions and other changes at work left it not fun. Got out of there as soon as I could.

Not sure what our saving rate was as we didn't track it. But we saved everything over our yearly expenses of 70-80k + taxes (was in silicon valley with a high cost of living). Always maxed out 401k etc. Managed to retire on the same car my parents bought me for finishing undergrad.

 

[Dash man]

I was a business analyst and my DW an HR exec, plus we have rental properties. We both made low six figures but were able to add stock options into the mix in some years. We saved about 60% of our after tax income the last ten years or so.

 

[M Paquette]

What do I do for a living?

Currently: "Student of Life, the Universe, and Everything"

On the business cards: "Family Office Manager", which is what I do. Part time. Some days. If I feel like it...

On IRS paperwork: "Retired", because they get cranky if I put down something that sounds like a job, and upset if I put down "Spy (retired)" for some reason.

 

[Bestwifeever]

.... I work full time as a Justice of the Peace/Muni Court Judge. I was a police officer for 10 years prior to that. I currently have 12 years under my belt total (10 years cop, 2 years judge). My term lasts 4 more years. I plan on running again for another 6 year term. This year I purchased four years of Nevada State Pension....:

A judge in Nevada? Perhaps you can answer some questions before we go to Las Vegas next month for four days with two other couples:

Is it really true that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, or do you peacekeepers share the best stories? Could you write a book?

Do people in Nevada really call Las Vegas just "Vegas"?

 

[Brianeboatman]

In Nevada, Las Vegas is called "VEGAS"

I hope you enjoy your trip to Nevada. I live in northern Nevada and wouldn't ever want to live "down south". Yes, people who live in Las Vegas call it "Vegas". If you get off of the strip, you can find good food deals still. On the strip, you'll pay top dollar. Check out Freemont Street. It's the older part of Vegas and still has some cool places and deals. The commercials are all LIES. What you do in Vegas will haunt you for life. STD's, criminal records and scars will all follow you home. Good luck.

 

[unclemick]

1966 - 1993. 8k - 61k. Saved various amounts from day one. One and a half yr over 100k as a temp in 1995/6.

A 30 yr overnight success thanks to the effect of investing early and often - time in the market, power of compounding, etc. 401k and indexing were not available for me til late 1976 or so.

heh heh heh - no gifts, inheritances, great stock picks - just the tortoise.

American SST, Skylab, Viking Mars Mission, Space Shuttle - a grunt in a sea of grunts.

 

[pb4uski]

We all dream of retiring early here on this site. I'm curious, what do you do for a living? What kind of money do you make? And finally, what percentage of your wages are being invested to retire "early"?

I retired 3 years ago. I'm an accountant by background and worked in public accounting, internal audit, real estate development for a Fortune 500 company, chief accounting officer for a mid-sized life insurer and then in M&A consulting for one of the Big 4 accounting firms. I'd rather not be too specific on earnings but I was into six figures the last 1/3 of my 34 year career.

I never really had a savings target other than to max out my 401k- we lived frugally (but not miserly) and saved whatever was left over.

Since I see we have a couple actuaries here, I worked closely with life and P&C actuaries in my last two jobs and was occasionally accused of being a closet actuary or actuarial wanna-be..... to which I responded that was unlikely since I had enough personality to be an accountant. Just kidding....

 

[Nodak]

I was a software engineer for the Dept of Defense for 25 years.

 

[ls99]

Currently a partial leech on society. The SS part I leech on is the part I had no option but to pay into. The rest is investments and whopping $28.95 per month pension for life from a defined benefit plan of Columbia University in NY.

 

[Walt34]

The commercials are all LIES. What you do in Vegas will haunt you for life. STD's, criminal records and scars will all follow you home. Good luck.

Awww, that sure busted my bubble.

I was a police officer, started in 1973 at $11k, ended in 2002 at just over $70k/year. Savings rate varied but at the end with DW it was just under 50% (48% I think, but can't remember for sure). After patrol (everybody starts in patrol) I did fraud investigation and that morphed into computer crime/forensics.

I could retire because of the excellent pension, the likes of which aren't being offered any more and haven't been since the early 1980's. Oh, and divorced my first wife in 1983-84 when I refused to take out a loan to go on a trip, among other things.

 

[braumeister]

21 years in the USAF, during which I did 16 completely different jobs. Absolutely the most unusual career I ever heard of, confirmed by all my friends in the military.

A few were technically considered "additional duties" but not in the normal way. I frequently had two full-time jobs at once. The plus side was that I was never, ever bored, and always had stuff to learn. The minus side was that I worked so many hours I had hardly any "real life" during that period. 12-hour days were normal, with at least a one-hour commute at each end.

I once had a heart-to-heart chat with a sympathetic general, who acknowledged that I was being taken advantage of. Most of my jobs were in new, strange career fields that I had no training for, replacing someone who had just been fired for incompetence. The general said "Face it, you're a great troubleshooter, and they're rare birds."

As a result, I retired nearly as soon as I could, being utterly burnt out. Oddly, despite the tough going, I still have good feelings toward the USAF, and thoroughly enjoy my occasional visits to bases. I would guess that any former military members here will understand that.

Afterward, I spent 12 years in the civilian world, doing mostly technical writing for custom software. I thoroughly enjoyed that (again, constantly learning new things), but when I realized I was FI, it was time to RE.

 

[Mulligan]

I hope you enjoy your trip to Nevada. I live in northern Nevada and wouldn't ever want to live "down south". Yes, people who live in Las Vegas call it "Vegas". If you get off of the strip, you can find good food deals still. On the strip, you'll pay top dollar. Check out Freemont Street. It's the older part of Vegas and still has some cool places and deals. The commercials are all LIES. What you do in Vegas will haunt you for life. STD's, criminal records and scars will all follow you home. Good luck.

I go to sports bet 5-6 times a year and northern Nevada Reno/Tahoe is my preference as people are friendlier and people traffic is less. But flying to get there is such a PIA, so I usually go to Vegas. I have gotten too old I guess, because I quit going to Freemont a few years ago. Too many weirdos for me. But then again, I don't go to party and chase tail.


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[brewer12345]

Since I see we have a couple actuaries here, I worked closely with life and P&C actuaries in my last two jobs and was occasionally accused of being a closet actuary or actuarial wanna-be..... to which I responded that was unlikely since I had enough personality to be an accountant. Just kidding....

Funny! In my last "career" job I was mistaken for an actuary by the Chief Investment Officer of a life insurer.

 

[pjm-7]

I worked in "finance". I had various positions over the years in auditing and analysis type functions. I always targeted to save/invest a third of my income. LBYM.