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Unless your retiree medical insurance is $18K per year for the two of you...which mine is.

I recently retired from a Fortune 60 company. My retiree medical payment for my wife and me is now over $17,000 annually, bumping up $1500 this year. This is by far my largest single expense. In fact, it is almost greater than our housing, food, utilities, and other insurances combined. With a...

downsizing We're definitely downsizing now. Our 2100 SQ Ft townhome in central Houston is for sale. We'd like to rent a small (1200 sf) house in central area but are having difficulty finding them for a reasonable rental price. We had a 1200 sf vacation home in the hill country a few years...

free things to do in retirement We live in a big city so here are a few of our favorite freebies: going to free art gallery opening nights (free wine, cheese, other goodies and either good art/pottery/photography or we get a good laugh at how bad it is) Free ferry ride Museum of Fine...

You are a millionaire (almost!). Your pension is worth about $600,000 (25* 24,000). Add that to what you've saved, you get $900,000+. and when your wife joins you in RE, her pension adds another $450,000. That's a total of 1.3MM plus. People on the board have every conceivable combination...

afraid to quit work We, too are 55 and about to take the plunge. Part of our retirement planning was to get interested in hobbies and activities, none of which we've had time for in our fast paced careers. When I first semi-retired, I took a year or so off work totally. I impulsively signed...

inflation - cpi Thanks for the idea, cute fuzzy bunny. do all of you actually look up some rate (CPI, inflation, etc.) each year and adjust your withdrawal, or is this fantasy a newbie thinks will work, but no body actually does?

inflation - cpi Thank you F'IRED@51! That's exactly what I was looking for. The other two sites have tons of good information, but are heck to look through and actually find anything. I'd already been to both sites and finally just gave up. I love this forum!

Is there any particular place you all go to to find the last year's cpi rate or do you mostly use inflation rate when computing your next year's withdrawal amount? i've looked around online but am not finding just what I think I want, something that will tell me what last year's CPI rate was...

software jobs can be found on elance.com. people who need software and other type jobs done post their requirements. You then search and find one you can do. You put in a proposal and money requirements. Then the job poster selects someone to do the job. I've never used it myself, but have...

One of the great things about this forum is that there's no shortage of opinions! My husband and I also are in different camps WRT how much we spend. He being in the more is more camp and me being in the less is more camp. I semi-retired five years ago after 25 years in megacorp and...

Beautiful garden. Congratulations on getting a life and keeping it.

Sounds like you're in pretty good shape regarding debt and mortgage. I say go for it. My husband is in much the same boat, except we are about 200k short of our goal. It is all he can do to make it to work. We decided to hang it up earlier than planned and just adjust our spending downward. He...

We're thinking of moving our portfolio to DFA. you might want to check out ASSETBUILDER as your manager for DFA. Their advertized fees are from .5 of one percent (50 basis points) for accounts of 5k to 50 k down to .25 of one percent for 4M and up. A 1M account would cost .30 of one percent...

"Did anyone go from "free with money" to "very careful with money"? We will be cutting back from ~130K to ~70K. This will reqire me to move from significantly "spending whatever, whenever" (although my tastes run much more quality than quantity) to being very aware of expenses. I'll miss the...

I love stream of semi-conciousness dialogue...

six years ago, I was working as a CIO and made mega bucks. Quit after 9/11 thinking I'd just find another job. didn't happen, so I started my own business which makes a pittance compared to what I made before. DH and I have always split expenses. I have cut back approximately 65% on spending in...

Hello OregonER: I'm no firecalc expert, but your numbers look good to me. Here would be my questions: do you get Social Security, how much, when will you take it and did you plug those numbers into Firecalc? Is your pension COLAed? Will it increase each year with inflation? this can make a big...

Part of the reasoning for combining resources is a disproportionate amount of pensions and investments. Our pensions and investments are not equal, although our SS is close to equal. Neither of us could retire completely on our own. up til now, for the most part, we've each paid our half of...

Re: Got to sit on stage at last nights "Praire Home Companion" show................. I love PHC. What a great win!

We are making retirement decisions together. I actually think it has brought us closer. It is fun and exciting to have a joint goal which guides our decisions (that of retiring early and being financially secure). In the past because we both have had high powered, high paid jobs, we kept our...

I quit megacorp five years ago, but not with the idea of retiring. That was still to be a few more years away. However, since this was a month after 9/11, no IT jobs were to be found. i looked for more than a year. Finally, I started my own business, but totally on my own terms. I work when I...

we live in texas and will be doing the opposite, spending our summers some place cooler. Texas winters, (Houston's for example) are really outstanding. One thing a friend of ours mentioned to us, was looking at corporate housing, executive suites, etc. They often are available for sublet in big...

So what I read is that you are jealous of your family's admiration of your sister, not of her lifestyle. After all, you could have her lifestyle if you wanted it. You've just made different choices. You have a longer view and a greater plan. And, of course, I think you are much smarter, much...

DH and I have lived below our means for years, but not very efficient about it. We lived together for 10 years before getting married. When we bought a house together and when we rented together, our rule was that we would only buy/rent what one of us could afford. And that was the least paid...