RockDoctor
Dryer sheet wannabe
As the title states, my wife and I were early retirees, retiring at ages 42 and 43 respectively, back in mid-1999. Prior to retiring, we spent 10 years as adjunct university instructors, teaching college courses on US military bases in Japan and Korea. The income wasn't great (no better than adjuncts stateside), but it was tax free. For the last six of those years, I also worked half-time as a (non-civil service) statistician for the Marine Corps. We lived on my wife's earnings and saved/invested mine. Our apartment in Japan was about the size of a 2-car garage; the only married colleague who lived in a smaller place built himself a very nice $700,000 house overlooking an avocado grove in southern California when he retired a year after we did.
We went across the Pacific with virtually our entire non-retirement net worth of about $30,000 sitting in a stateside CD. When we retired, that nest egg was approximately $2.5 million. One does not accumulate that kind of wealth on 10 years of an adjunct instructor's salary plus six years of half an NF-4's salary. One must invest; which we started doing in the mid-1990's, thanks to the excellent investment guidance of that colleague with the tiny apartment and some very, very fortuitous market timing.
We've been living off of that non-retirement portfolio since retiring, and plan do do so until we each reach age 70-1/2 at which time we'll take social security and our required IRA distributions. In spite of 2001, in spite of 2008, and in spite of living off of it for the past 18 years, the value of our non-retirement portfolio is now double what it was at retirement. We also own a reasonably modest (2600 sq ft finished) house in southern Minnesota, three cars (one new, one old, and one that needs to be gotten rid of) and a house full of the usual stuff. And no debt.
One lesson learned after 2008 (I guess we're somewhat slow learners) is to structure the investment portfolio a little more conservatively in retirement. It was about 8% cash when we retired, and pretty close to that today. However, instead of being 20% mutual funds 72% stocks, the remainder is now about 15% bonds, 25% robo-advised index ETFs, 25% mutual funds, and the remainder individual stocks.
I'll close this introduction with an observation that I'm sure is obvious to most potential and actual early retirees: health insurance on the open market is expensive!
We went across the Pacific with virtually our entire non-retirement net worth of about $30,000 sitting in a stateside CD. When we retired, that nest egg was approximately $2.5 million. One does not accumulate that kind of wealth on 10 years of an adjunct instructor's salary plus six years of half an NF-4's salary. One must invest; which we started doing in the mid-1990's, thanks to the excellent investment guidance of that colleague with the tiny apartment and some very, very fortuitous market timing.
We've been living off of that non-retirement portfolio since retiring, and plan do do so until we each reach age 70-1/2 at which time we'll take social security and our required IRA distributions. In spite of 2001, in spite of 2008, and in spite of living off of it for the past 18 years, the value of our non-retirement portfolio is now double what it was at retirement. We also own a reasonably modest (2600 sq ft finished) house in southern Minnesota, three cars (one new, one old, and one that needs to be gotten rid of) and a house full of the usual stuff. And no debt.
One lesson learned after 2008 (I guess we're somewhat slow learners) is to structure the investment portfolio a little more conservatively in retirement. It was about 8% cash when we retired, and pretty close to that today. However, instead of being 20% mutual funds 72% stocks, the remainder is now about 15% bonds, 25% robo-advised index ETFs, 25% mutual funds, and the remainder individual stocks.
I'll close this introduction with an observation that I'm sure is obvious to most potential and actual early retirees: health insurance on the open market is expensive!
They were very happy. 
