One other source of income could be if you currently live in a HCOL area and have built up good equity with your paid off house. If you are willing to move to a MCOL or LCOL area, you can sell the house and after buying in the new area, you can bank the differential into more portfolio investment potential.
I could keep on keeping on, keep saving, investing, and looking for ways to reduce expenses. Be better prepared for FIRE when youngest son graduates high school. *This is probably how I will proceed, other things equal.*
I agree that that sounds like cutting it a bit close, considering 1) ACA may go away and 2) lots of people are of the mind that a recession is right around the corner, suggesting it's not too unlikely that you'd end up in one of those 20% of failing scenarios.
But that said can I just comment, at kids' age of 10 and 13 you have house paid off, cars paid off, 0 debt, and college all saved for? Bravo!
I wouldn't do it.44 years old, married, two children aged 10 and 13.
House has been paid off for a few years.
No debt. Cars paid off.
401k, Roth, and Rollover IRA ~ $700K
After tax investments/liquidity (not including home equity) ~ $300K
College savings in 529 ~$100K, enough for a state education for both kids.
Expenses ~ $48K, including taxes, insurance, and some cushion. I have priced in an Obamacare silver plan and $4,000 in reserve for medical expenses. We already are pretty frugal, so I don't know that I could squeeze more out of the budget.
Wife earns ~$8K a year. I could easily pick up some extra work if I had to, but don't really want to.
So, if I get the heave ho, could I FIRE?
If you don't continue working, it would likely go down a lot. The numbers you get a SSA.gov assume you'll continue to receive your current income until your FRA (whatever age that is at that time).According to SS.gov, full retirement at 67 would be $3000, but I would expect that to go down if I have a lot of $0 years in between.
Completely understandable. Time to find something you would enjoy doing for the next 20 years or so.Re the not wanting to work, that was perhaps glib, but I am getting sick of what I have been doing for the past 20 years.
Completely understandable. Time to find something you would enjoy doing for the next 20 years or so.
Either that or have your wife find something she would enjoy doing for 20 years or so.
If you don't continue working, it would likely go down a lot. The numbers you get a SSA.gov assume you'll continue to receive your current income until your FRA (whatever age that is at that time).
joeaa - Just to be clear, I did provide, in my above post, the proper way to get OP's correct SS estimate that would only include his current accrued benefit - ie no future earnings.
The way to get a good SS estimate is to use the "Retirement Estimator" available at the Social Security web site.
I usually do it while not logged into my personal SSA account.
The Retirement Estimator does not require an SSA account.
https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/estimator.html
This is the URL I just successfully used to take me to the page to enter my personal info and then run the Estimator.
Thank you, I was able to get it to work after logging out and going incognito. There must have been a cookie screwing me up.
Anyway, with
$0 contributions from now until 62 - $1600/mo
$0 from now until 65 - $1969
$0 from now until 67 - $2272
The benefit at age 67 is about $800 less per month than if I keep on working at the same income level.
- Really focus on increasing the after tax "bridge" to 59.5, so I wouldn't have to 72t the pre-tax funds.
Thank you all, and this is pretty much what my gut was telling me. I need to save more and get through the teen years (increased insurance, interests, etc.).
Re the not wanting to work, that was perhaps glib, but I am getting sick of what I have been doing for the past 20 years. It pays well, but I could get by with a lot less. Probably the answer is a career change.
Long time lurker outing himself due to changing circumstances.
I'm 44 years old and have been working towards FIRE before I even knew it was called FIRE. I work hard, but, frankly... I really don't want to work.
Anyway, the company I work for is being acquired. I have no idea whether I am "safe" or not (are we ever? ), but I'm using the opportunity to "take stock" of my current situation.
44 years old, married, two children aged 10 and 13.
House has been paid off for a few years.
No debt. Cars paid off.
401k, Roth, and Rollover IRA ~ $700K
After tax investments/liquidity (not including home equity) ~ $300K
College savings in 529 ~$100K, enough for a state education for both kids.
Expenses ~ $48K, including taxes, insurance, and some cushion. I have priced in an Obamacare silver plan and $4,000 in reserve for medical expenses. We already are pretty frugal, so I don't know that I could squeeze more out of the budget.
Wife earns ~$8K a year. I could easily pick up some extra work if I had to, but don't really want to.
So, if I get the heave ho, could I FIRE? I've been planning on at least $1.8 million before considering, but it would be comforting to know that I could say screw it if I had to. I know that I would have to 72T, which makes me nervous. And I'm afraid that even if I could do it, I am asking for a very frugal rest of my life whether or not my tastes change.
Thank you, I was able to get it to work after logging out and going incognito. There must have been a cookie screwing me up.
Anyway, with
$0 contributions from now until 62 - $1600/mo
$0 from now until 65 - $1969
$0 from now until 67 - $2272
The benefit at age 67 is about $800 less per month than if I keep on working at the same income level.
The sad thing about the SS #s, if you plug in 2-3 more years of work, you'll see the number only go up a tiny amount as your likely past the second bend point so for every dollar your putting in, your getting only a tiny fraction of an increase back.
Or fast women.
Lot of good advice here. You’re in good shape but too early to fully retire. Think this through and you’ll figure out the best path to take. Once I had enough money to not really stress about losing my job, the job became more tolerable. You’d be surprised what employers will put up with. I rode the edge of doing what I was willing to do while maintaining my professionalism. It was a better balance for my last 5 years or so before I went part time.
I knew a guy who did this for 8 years before he was laid off. In fact, he didn't even fulfill his job function by any measure. He survived 4 rounds of layoff during 2006 downturn and I was surprised every time that my company kept him on payroll.This could be the best current advice I’ve received on this site! That is downshifting your stress at full time job then moving to part time before RE. I am guilty of only thinking of binary or cliff decisions. Either working at 110% stress or fully retire. There is a middle ground and many people still do a good job at work without making it their entire life’s focus. I sometimes forget that is an option.