Greetings, ER crew! I'm glad I found this forum. I've already learned so much just browsing through the threads, and can't wait to learn from the collected smarts of this group.
So here's a bit of background to start with…
I'm forty-five, married (happily for almost 20 years), and it's just the two of us. No kids, just dogs. I've been self-employed for the last 10+ years, and my wife works full-time in a great retail gig that gives us fantastic health insurance. We love to travel, play golf, and work with a local dog rescue group as a foster home.
We live pretty simply, and our annual expenses run around $48K per year. That includes more or less our total spend, with fun stuff like travel included.
As far as assets go, my story may be a bit different than others. For many years before she passed, my grandmother put every extra dollar she had into stocks for her grandkids. She bought large-cap, dividend-focused stocks, mainly consumer staples and telecoms. As time went by, my father continued what she started, adding a bit here and there to the portfolio. Then when it was my turn, I did the same, contributing what I could when I could, focusing on the same kinds of stocks. Principal was added. Dividends were almost always reinvested.
Today the stock portfolio is just under $1.5m. All of it is in stocks like AT&T, Pepsi, McDonald's, Pfizer, and Exxon/Mobil. All in all the money is in around 30 total companies, mostly in the "dividend aristocrat" stocks. This year, the stock portfolio paid out almost $50K in dividends.
But here's the catch… There's an additional $100K in cash, and a small 401K from my wife's job, but the stock portfolio is where most everything we have for retirement lives. (We've got about $300K in equity in our house as well, so there's that.)
Up to now, I've really focused on growing the portfolio through dividend reinvestment and the slow march of the market. While others in my family raided their portfolios to buy stereo equipment, I just let it sit. But as we get start to get closer to retirement, the idea of balancing the portfolio is something I'm obviously considering.
As far as retirement goes, we'd like to retire in 5-7 years. Our plan is to downsize our house to a smaller condo, which we'll own free and clear (save for HOA fees). And we've budgeted ourselves $60K per year, which is a bump from where we are now, and increasing that slightly each year to account for inflation. I'd like to have most of that income coming from the dividends, and supplement that as needed with sales of assets.
We should also get around $36K per year via SS, but I've been running all my calculations without that in the mix. My thinking is hey…if we get it, great. We paid into it, we should get something out of it. But if not, or if we get a much smaller payout, I want to make sure we're not hurting.
When I run the numbers through a few different calculators, I get 97-100% success rate. I'd also like to be able to leave some "fun money" to my nieces and nephews, and that seems well within the realm of possibility.
Like a lot of folks here, the costs of healthcare/insurance are one of my main concerns. If we retire at 52, that means we'll have a number of years before Medicare is an option. So that's on my radar.
Well, that's my story. And believe me, there isn't a day that goes by that I don't say a little "thank-you" to my amazing grandmother. She read Graham's "The Intelligent Investor" back in 1950, and I'm glad she did.
Cheers!
So here's a bit of background to start with…
I'm forty-five, married (happily for almost 20 years), and it's just the two of us. No kids, just dogs. I've been self-employed for the last 10+ years, and my wife works full-time in a great retail gig that gives us fantastic health insurance. We love to travel, play golf, and work with a local dog rescue group as a foster home.
We live pretty simply, and our annual expenses run around $48K per year. That includes more or less our total spend, with fun stuff like travel included.
As far as assets go, my story may be a bit different than others. For many years before she passed, my grandmother put every extra dollar she had into stocks for her grandkids. She bought large-cap, dividend-focused stocks, mainly consumer staples and telecoms. As time went by, my father continued what she started, adding a bit here and there to the portfolio. Then when it was my turn, I did the same, contributing what I could when I could, focusing on the same kinds of stocks. Principal was added. Dividends were almost always reinvested.
Today the stock portfolio is just under $1.5m. All of it is in stocks like AT&T, Pepsi, McDonald's, Pfizer, and Exxon/Mobil. All in all the money is in around 30 total companies, mostly in the "dividend aristocrat" stocks. This year, the stock portfolio paid out almost $50K in dividends.
But here's the catch… There's an additional $100K in cash, and a small 401K from my wife's job, but the stock portfolio is where most everything we have for retirement lives. (We've got about $300K in equity in our house as well, so there's that.)
Up to now, I've really focused on growing the portfolio through dividend reinvestment and the slow march of the market. While others in my family raided their portfolios to buy stereo equipment, I just let it sit. But as we get start to get closer to retirement, the idea of balancing the portfolio is something I'm obviously considering.
As far as retirement goes, we'd like to retire in 5-7 years. Our plan is to downsize our house to a smaller condo, which we'll own free and clear (save for HOA fees). And we've budgeted ourselves $60K per year, which is a bump from where we are now, and increasing that slightly each year to account for inflation. I'd like to have most of that income coming from the dividends, and supplement that as needed with sales of assets.
We should also get around $36K per year via SS, but I've been running all my calculations without that in the mix. My thinking is hey…if we get it, great. We paid into it, we should get something out of it. But if not, or if we get a much smaller payout, I want to make sure we're not hurting.
When I run the numbers through a few different calculators, I get 97-100% success rate. I'd also like to be able to leave some "fun money" to my nieces and nephews, and that seems well within the realm of possibility.
Like a lot of folks here, the costs of healthcare/insurance are one of my main concerns. If we retire at 52, that means we'll have a number of years before Medicare is an option. So that's on my radar.
Well, that's my story. And believe me, there isn't a day that goes by that I don't say a little "thank-you" to my amazing grandmother. She read Graham's "The Intelligent Investor" back in 1950, and I'm glad she did.
Cheers!
