New to Forum, counting just a few more days.

[kelautz]

Hi, everyone! So glad to have found this forum. I'm appreciating all the encouragement gained therefrom.

My target retirement date is 6/21/2012. I'll be giving notice on 3/21/2012. Even though I've enjoyed my job, enough is enough. I'll be 62 later this year.

DH is 63 and says he's going to see how I like retirement before he takes the plunge. (Hah! Think he'll be left in the dust if he's not careful.) He may pull the plug in December.

I'm here because it has recently dawned on me that we'd better be much more proactive about our net worth. During the "accumulation" phase we've been pretty blissfully, um, hands off. But nobody is gonna take care of us except us.

We're RVers, rig is all set to go. Thinking about relocating from the Bay Area to the Capitol of the great state of CA, where the houses are marginally cheaper and you're already half way out of Dodge if you want to travel the highways and byways of our most interesting country.

Anyway, looking forward to many interesting conversations.

Best regards.

 

[Alan]

Welcome to the site.

 

[Major Tom]

More RV'ers - excellent!

Welcome, and there are quite a few people here who will be as interested to hear what kind of rig you have and what your travel plans are, as what your investment strategy is (I'm one of them.)

 

[FreeAtLast]

Welcome

 

[kelautz]

Well, then, many mutual interests.

We have a 27ft. Class C Lazy Daze. We can tow a Chevy Tracker if needed. There are many categories of places to see, music to listen to, food to eat, museums to explore,trails to hike. But I digress.

I got to wondering how we transition from a salary income to spending the money we have for retirement. What's the plan? What are the assumptions? Who do we trust? How do we invest our funds and then accurately judge the total rate of return? That question always gets me. I have no idea what our total rate of return is for our total portfolio.

I'm just starting to digest the thread about drawdown methods.

Budgeting for retirement living expenses is frustratingly imprecise. Haven't found the thread for that yet. We think we could live on what we have and wait to take SS until we're 70. Is that a good idea? Won't that mean we must diminish our portfolio by a lot in the first few years of retirement? Especially since we might have a couple three years of medical insurance to pay for before Medicare kicks in.

I need some spreadsheets. I've started some, but I quickly get bogged down in details.

Okay, that's my initial list of questions.

 

[obgyn65]

Welcome.

 

[pb4uski]

......I need some spreadsheets. I've started some, but I quickly get bogged down in details. ....

If you're not into building spreadsheets (or even if you are), I suggest Quicken's lifetime planner since it does a lot of the work for you and you can input your investments, pensions, when SS starts for each of you, etc. You can also look at how different alternatives (starting SS earlier, part-time work, etc) change your nestegg.

Firecalc is also very popular around here, but it takes a bit of getting used to.

 

[Midpack]

Welcome to the fold, it's a good group...

 

[seraphim]

Ah - a fellow RVer!

Welcome.

I'm in the learning stages as well. Finally went to the investment counselor at our bank. He assures us we're fine, and is educating us. This place also as a lot of information and the stories told place things in perspective. I feel much better about ER having been here a short time.

 

[teekaymn]

Welcome to forum, kelautz. I'm a newbie to the forum as well, and I know I've only scratched the surface on information gathering. The pipe dream that keeps playing in my head involves selling the house in 5 years and splitting our time between somewhere south of the border in the winter and RV'ing in the summertime. Although we're avid campers, we're new to the RV idea as well, so we've got lots of things to learn and try out over the next few years.....