Hi and Thanks

[bhoferp]

I've been lurking for some time now. My husband and I are not in a similar comfortable financial position as most of you who planned to retire early, but I think we will be OK anyway. The last few years have been stressful as my husband has gone from full-time employment as an SAP programmer to part-time working from home due to a disability and as of today no longer working. I have come here often to get ideas and to just calm myself down. Thank you to all who have helped without even knowing it.

I have done some tracking of our expenses. We live in a low cost area (just a few miles south of Uncle Mick ). I work part-time as a travel agent for a few $$, I'll start receiving early social security in September and my husband will receive some small pension payments monthly. We have some cash set aside as well as some small IRAs and most of our assets are in his 401k. Unfortunately, we still have a mortgage for about 8 years. He won't be eligible for social security for another 2 years. We will be investigating some things related to his disability, including a private disability policy, but I think we can still make it if none of those things come about. His healthcare is taken care of and I will have COBRA for 18 months. That will leave me 16 months shy of Medicare, but worse case scenario, our state has a high risk pool.

At one time, I had a Series 6 and a Series 7 license, but was an assistant, never in sales or financial planning. Until the recent recession, I thought I had a fair handle on the accumulation process. Now it is just scary, but one of the things I picked up here is to keep enough in cash to last a while. I find I really don't know very much about the distribution process, but will be careful about taxation issues on both social security and IRAs.

So, hi to all and if you have any tips or suggestions, I'm all ears.

 

[FinanceDude]

Has your Series 6 or 7 expired? Maybe you could work for an FA and get some benies??

 

[bhoferp]

Yep, long gone. I'm sure I could get another job or a full-time job, but at this point I don't want to. Rather just live simply and enjoy life with dh.

 

[Coach]

Hi bhoferp, and welcome!

I like your attitude --"Rather just live simply and enjoy life with dh."

Have you given any thought to downsizing, or are you already in your retirement house? If you have more house than you need now, that might be one way to kill off the mortgage.

I'll be looking forward to your posts.

Coach

 

[bhoferp]

Downsizing is an option, and we may some time in the future. I'm not sure my dh would be into it. Due to his disability, he is at home virtually all the time so some extra space is really nice to have. Our house is pretty modest as it is and smaller houses seem to cost as much as we paid for our current house. In my "figurin", I had always included the mortgage--was just hoping he'd be able to work until he could start drawing social security. Once the mortgage is finished, we'll be rich. (Yea, right!) Just hope we'll both be around at 68 and 70 and well enough to enjoy it and each other.

Thanks for the suggestion. It's always good to hear someone else's ideas.

 

[Milton]

If at all possible, try to adjust your spending to the point where you can manage on your part-time earnings, your early SS and your husband's pension. Then when your husband becomes eligible for SS, that new income will be entirely surplus to your requirements and can be applied to top up your mortgage payments.

My husband and I are not in a similar comfortable financial position as most of you who planned to retire early, but I think we will be OK anyway.

While you face some significant challenges, try to remember that life is not a competition and as long as you have enough for your individual needs, that's all that matters.