Need A Lot of Help - Can and Should I Retire?

[ivinsfan]

Thank you. This summarizes the question nicely. Is 4.5 years of my life worth $600K + $35K*25 = $1.5M (assuming I live to 78).

The challenge in answering is that it's not 4.5 years where I can do what I like. I'll still have to pick up and drop off the kids, take them to football practice etc. And those of you with teenagers know, they aren't the adorable fuzzy things they were at 5. I would pay $1.6M to experience those years again! I love them, but ...

My comment is you don't have to make the entire 4.5 years, you can go as long as you want and if you wake up one day and hate it, it can be over.


Would life in general be easier if one spouse quit? I suppose it would be your spouse because of your pension issue. The at home spouse might take over more teenage running and or cooking house cleaning meaning the working spouse has more time for fun.


It's nice to have lots of choices.

 

[1242Vintage]

If possible, take a month or three off and see how it goes.

That’s what I did. Called it my practice retirement.

After the three month off I went back to my career job, worked another two years and then retired.

 

[pacergal]

You say Firecalc is good, I am assuming at least a 95% success rate.
Have you thoroughly answered these questions?:

https://www.early-retirement.org/for...ire-69999.html

What do you and your wife plan to do in retirement? That is a very important question to answer.

Pros to retire now (seems like you have the finances down):
having the time to spend with kids in their teen years can be priceless
focus on health if your jobs are causing stress related problems

Pros to retire later:
in 4.5 years, your pension payout will double, that is impressive and will give you even greater financial freedom/fat FIRE.
at that time, both your kids will be close to 17/20--pretty much out of the house and onto college or what ever. You and DW will be more free to travel when ever you wish.

You have options that many do not. Can you cut back on your jobs rather than leave completely?

Only you can answer if you are ready or not. Good luck in you decision making!
Enjoy life along the way.

 

[Dtail]

Suck it up and go another 4.5 years. You won't be unsure as you are now.

I think you'd be fine calling it quits right now. However, for the additional 4.5 years, the payoff is enormous. With double the pension and the additional $600k, you'll have so much more flexibility in retirement and ability to pass what remains to the kids

+1
It is a fairly large difference and you will still be under 54 y.o.
For the health insurance, if the pension is 7k monthly, there probably won't be much room to manage your MAGI for an exchange provided health insurance.

 

[l8_apex]

Since other posters have shown that from a financial perspective you can retire now, the question is should you. Only you can answer that question.

If it was me, I'd ER now. With your uncertainty, I'd look for some middle ground, like determining if it's possible to take a sabbatical or similar, or shift to part time.

I ER'd at age 47 with a $1.6M net worth. I could have stayed employed longer to grow that nest egg, but I didn't enjoy my job.

 

[Romer]

As others have said it is a personal decision

The question on is the pension require 4.5 additional years a good one to consider

Not sure about your $1000 health care a month for you and a family of 4. Its more than that for just my wife and me and then you need to consider deductible and out of pocket

Your kids are about to enter the expensive years and it depends on how much you want to do for them. For me, I got them their first car, paid for college, paid for weddings and helped them with their down payment for their first house. Not saying you should do that, but you should define what you want to do. There are other costs associated with sports, trips etc as a family depending on if you want to travel with them to Europe or elsewhere while they are still living at home.

I also had one kid who had issues that cost me $100K due to rehab and other things who now has turned out awesome as a grown adult
Then as others asked, what hobbies do you want? I bought a lot of expensive toys on my way to retirement in 3 months to make sure I could do everything I want to do.

Based on the ages of your kids all things being equal I would work a few more years if the pension would increase significantly. pensions are hard to come by and there are a lot of unknown costs ahead of you. But that is just me.

From your data you could retire and that is a call you have to make

 

[travelover]

You might want to articulate what you hope to do in retirement. If it is just shuttling kids around, I can see where it might make more sense to continue to work for awhile.

 

[levindb]

I think it is important to retire TO SOMETHING rather than FROM SOMETHING.

In your original post and a few follow-up messages, I have not seen much comment about your new, future life. Once you figure that out, you will be better able to answer your own question.

 

[Letj]

+1000



Truer words have never been spoken (at least in my experience with 3 boys).

I did not like parenting teenagers. It was way more stressful than when they were younger. I suspect many parents don’t like it either. One positive, though, they stay the hell out of your way allowing you to pick up some hobbies in anticipation of retirement.

 

[braumeister]

I did not like parenting teenagers. It was way more stressful than when they were younger. I suspect many parents don’t like it either. One positive, though, they stay the hell out of your way allowing you to pick up some hobbies in anticipation of retirement.

It's a bit of a mystery, since we were never difficult at that age, right?

Kids, I don't know what's wrong with these kids today
Kids, who can understand anything they say?
Kids, they are disobedient, disrespectful oafs
Noisy, crazy, sloppy, lazy, loafers
And while we're on the subject

Kids, you can talk and talk till your face is blue
Kids, but they still do just what they want to do
Why can't they be like we were, perfect in every way?
What's the matter with kids today?

 

[JT90505]

A few random thoughts.

If you work another 5 years your pension + additional savings will provide huge flexibility in what you can do in retirement, not to mention a cushion in case something goes astray. And you are still retiring at an early age.

It is interesting you mentioned life expectancy of age 78 which is average for usa males. This population includes homeless, smokers, unvaccinated, obese, etc. If you are not in a 'high risk' category most likely you will live longer. There are life expectancy calculators (which do not guarantee their estimates)

If you continue working and start to really dread it you could ask to take a few months unpaid leave and do what you are itching to do in retirement. And if they say no, you can say goodbye.

As others have said you need to decide what works for you.

 

[GoodbyeYellow]

As some have said, if it were me I'd do it now. But as others also said, it is a personal decision to you, as your finances seem to be fine, more than fine even.

Bear with me here as this may sound weird. But I learned something a while ago about reaching personal decisions such as yours, where the choice depends on your own desires but due to whatever various factors, you don't recognize your own desires that well.

Toss a coin, saying (for example) heads you retire, tails you go x years more. Now - while it's in the air, try to capture your 'hope' in your mind, ie what are you hoping it lands on? This may take a few tries before you tune in to what you're feeling, but the idea is that whatever you find yourself hoping for is the choice you end up making. Point to note is that the actual outcome of the flip is irrelevant here. Ignore it; it's not about the coin, it's about your mind.

But if that doesn't float your boat, I'd say all the foregoing responses are very good, though some conflict, obviously because the decision is personal. If still conflicted, maybe hedge your bets by trying to work part-time or take a break/sabbatical, to see how you cope with the new life, and go from there.

 

[flyingaway]

Financially, you are OK to retire now. But only you can answer your question. You don't have to work for all 4.5 years. You can make a decision any time when you really don't want to work any more.

In early this year, we were planning a retirement probably as early as the end of next year. But in August, I just felt that I did not want to go back to teach anymore. So it only took me 3 days to decide to retire (or quit).

 

[AverageGuy]

I think it is important to retire TO SOMETHING rather than FROM SOMETHING.

I keep on hearing that, but I don't buy it.

Just a few counter-reasons: Continuing to work may limit your chances of finding something you rather be doing and If you knew you had 5 years to live, would you wait to find something to retire to?


I'm happy to make the retirement decision based all on financials and then find something to do.

 

[Time2]

I haven't noticed if you listed your actual spending per year for the last couple years. Is your retirement spending considerably different than your before retirement spending? Better make sure you want to live on the income you propose.

 

[GoodbyeYellow]

I keep on hearing that, but I don't buy it.

Just a few counter-reasons: Continuing to work may limit your chances of finding something you rather be doing and If you knew you had 5 years to live, would you wait to find something to retire to?


I'm happy to make the retirement decision based all on financials and then find something to do.

Agree. Certainly not true in my case. Six months into retirement, I still don’t have a big “to”, although do have a handful of small maybes by now. But at the time of separation, all I needed to do was get rid of the misery and that has worked out perfectly. 100% not looking back.

 

[flyingaway]

Agree. Certainly not true in my case. Six months into retirement, I still don’t have a big “to”, although do have a handful of small maybes by now. But at the time of separation, all I needed to do was get rid of the misery and that has worked out perfectly. 100% not looking back.

Same here. I quitted my job suddenly and had no clear plan for the future. Definitely not plan to go back under any circumstances.

 

[finnski1]

I keep on hearing that, but I don't buy it.

Just a few counter-reasons: Continuing to work may limit your chances of finding something you rather be doing and If you knew you had 5 years to live, would you wait to find something to retire to?


I'm happy to make the retirement decision based all on financials and then find something to do.

I'm with you. I had no problem and still have no problem finding many things to do. IMHO if you can't find things to do , interests etc then you probably had the same problems while you were working. I have no problem filling up my days and weeks at a time.

 

[GoodLife59]

You’ve left a lot of gaps in the telling of your story. First impressions- work another 4.5 years. The doubling of your pension will give you a fantastic level of security.

 

[Andromeda]

I highly recommend Tanja Hester's book Work Optional for helping you think systematically and comprehensively about whether and when to retire:

https://ournextlife.com/work-optional/

There are some great questionnaires and to-lists to help you figure out on your own, and with your partner, what you really want - and then how to get there.

 

[eyenitnoy]

Yes, FireCalc says I'm fine.

Yes it includes all income taxes.

If FireCalc says you're fine, you're fine.

So, money is not the issue. (You're fine.) Thus, you are asking the wrong question.

If you quit your job, what will you DO? That is what you need to think about. If there is some new thing you want to try, then go for it. If you would just mope around the house then you probably should just keep working until you figure out what you want to do for your remaining time on this earth.

Once you have enough money (You're fine) start asking yourself different questions.

 

[MasterBlaster]

There's a lot more to retirement than travel.

yeah, You missed the early bird dinners and Bingo !

 

[Escapevelocity]

If FireCalc says you're fine, you're fine.

So, money is not the issue. (You're fine.) Thus, you are asking the wrong question.

If you quit your job, what will you DO? That is what you need to think about. If there is some new thing you want to try, then go for it. If you would just mope around the house then you probably should just keep working until you figure out what you want to do for your remaining time on this earth.

Once you have enough money (You're fine) start asking yourself different questions.

Maybe he enjoys moping around the house ?. My Dad made a whole seemingly happy existence in retirement reading books in bed and watching TV in his underwear

 

[ChrisK]

thinking of former colleagues..the ones who had problems with retirement had alot of their identify and self worth associated with working, their titles, etc.