Hi and thank you to all who take the time to read and assist others on this forum.
I recently turned 50. For much of my life I had planned to retire by 45. My parent was a self-employed workaholic (and avid saver), who passed at the age of 45 after a years-long battle with cancer. As a workaholic myself, I feel like I’m running on borrowed time. Thankfully, I’ve been putting money into retirement accounts annually since filling out my first I-9 at age 15.
So about me: I’ve been an educator for 15 years (second career). My partner is also an educator and is 9 years younger than me. No kids. We enjoy spending most of our free time outdoors and live in a small community way up in the Rocky Mountains, which allows us immediate access to outdoor recreation. We enjoy travel, and occasionally take an extravagant trip, but most of our travel is to spend time with family and we are otherwise quite thrifty.
We purchased the “ugly” home one the block when we moved to Colorado and have always shared one (modest) vehicle. Over the past 15 years we fully renovated our home, added two accessory dwellings, and have nearly paid off our original mortgage. No car loan and no student loans. We have invested heavily in our home and home values in our area have gone up dramatically, but we also have other retirement savings as follows:
• Home = $925k (remaining mortgage = $137k)
• TIAA = $412k
• IRAs = $96k
• Money market, cash, bonds… savings = $110k
• Other investment accounts = $34k
• Pension = My partner will be pension eligible in 9 years (50% salary)
In my current educator role, I earn approximately $65k/yr and my partner earns $45k/yr. I also started an online consulting business several years ago and, excluding 2020, earned an average income of ~$55k for the past 5 years working part-time. We have one long-term rental and one rental that we use for short-term guests and for family/friends visiting. Deducting housekeeping and general upkeep, net rental income on our accessory dwellings is roughly $25k/yr.
Day to day, we are frugal. The total for mortgage, taxes, utilities, insurance (car+home), etc. is well under $3k/month. Even with groceries, travel, vet bills, donating to local charities, showering nieces and nephews with gifts, medical co-payments and other unexpected costs, we have spent under $4k/month on our total living expenses for at least the past decade ($43k/yr for 10 years). Initially this was out of necessity as my job paid $45k/yr and my partner was renovating our home full-time, but it has put us in a position to begin thinking about retirement.
My partner is supportive of my plan and they plan to continue working for at least another 9 years. Their job is secure and offers excellent health benefits along with a pension. I plan to continue consulting part-time and managing our rentals, which is why I put the word ‘retire’ in quotes. I’m eager to spend more time enjoying the outdoors and doing more charity work here in our community. However, I’m wondering if I’m financially ready to quit my main job after this year. I lost over 80% of my consulting income in 2020, which was a good reminder of how unreliable consulting work can be, but I have worked hard to develop a large and diverse pool of clients to limit those risks in the future. Plus, between my partner’s salary, rental income, and consulting work, our net income is roughly double our current expenses without my main job.
So am I financially ready to “retire”? Can I let those saving grow, maybe even contribute, while losing the 9-5 next year? What am I missing? What’s the upside of working for another year or two? Thanks to all that care to offer help.
I recently turned 50. For much of my life I had planned to retire by 45. My parent was a self-employed workaholic (and avid saver), who passed at the age of 45 after a years-long battle with cancer. As a workaholic myself, I feel like I’m running on borrowed time. Thankfully, I’ve been putting money into retirement accounts annually since filling out my first I-9 at age 15.
So about me: I’ve been an educator for 15 years (second career). My partner is also an educator and is 9 years younger than me. No kids. We enjoy spending most of our free time outdoors and live in a small community way up in the Rocky Mountains, which allows us immediate access to outdoor recreation. We enjoy travel, and occasionally take an extravagant trip, but most of our travel is to spend time with family and we are otherwise quite thrifty.
We purchased the “ugly” home one the block when we moved to Colorado and have always shared one (modest) vehicle. Over the past 15 years we fully renovated our home, added two accessory dwellings, and have nearly paid off our original mortgage. No car loan and no student loans. We have invested heavily in our home and home values in our area have gone up dramatically, but we also have other retirement savings as follows:
• Home = $925k (remaining mortgage = $137k)
• TIAA = $412k
• IRAs = $96k
• Money market, cash, bonds… savings = $110k
• Other investment accounts = $34k
• Pension = My partner will be pension eligible in 9 years (50% salary)
In my current educator role, I earn approximately $65k/yr and my partner earns $45k/yr. I also started an online consulting business several years ago and, excluding 2020, earned an average income of ~$55k for the past 5 years working part-time. We have one long-term rental and one rental that we use for short-term guests and for family/friends visiting. Deducting housekeeping and general upkeep, net rental income on our accessory dwellings is roughly $25k/yr.
Day to day, we are frugal. The total for mortgage, taxes, utilities, insurance (car+home), etc. is well under $3k/month. Even with groceries, travel, vet bills, donating to local charities, showering nieces and nephews with gifts, medical co-payments and other unexpected costs, we have spent under $4k/month on our total living expenses for at least the past decade ($43k/yr for 10 years). Initially this was out of necessity as my job paid $45k/yr and my partner was renovating our home full-time, but it has put us in a position to begin thinking about retirement.
My partner is supportive of my plan and they plan to continue working for at least another 9 years. Their job is secure and offers excellent health benefits along with a pension. I plan to continue consulting part-time and managing our rentals, which is why I put the word ‘retire’ in quotes. I’m eager to spend more time enjoying the outdoors and doing more charity work here in our community. However, I’m wondering if I’m financially ready to quit my main job after this year. I lost over 80% of my consulting income in 2020, which was a good reminder of how unreliable consulting work can be, but I have worked hard to develop a large and diverse pool of clients to limit those risks in the future. Plus, between my partner’s salary, rental income, and consulting work, our net income is roughly double our current expenses without my main job.
So am I financially ready to “retire”? Can I let those saving grow, maybe even contribute, while losing the 9-5 next year? What am I missing? What’s the upside of working for another year or two? Thanks to all that care to offer help.