Race to 2024 - please join :)

[Ronnieboy]

Lot of 401K plans also allows non-deductible after-tax contributions. All of the after-tax contributions can be transferred to Roth IRA when you leave the company or 59.5 whichever is sooner. You can contribute up to $54,000 (minus pre-tax and employer match) per year. So I call this jumbo backdoor IRA contribution!

PS: IRA clarified the rules in 2015 or 2016 so this route is very recent and most people are not aware of it.

Yes. I would love to do this, but so far, my current 401k administrator with my employer does not allow non deductible after tax contributions

 

[Ronnieboy]

Roth IRA contributions can be withdrawn after 5 year tax and penalty free. So there is a case for Roth IRA even for young retirees. Lot of people do Roth IRA "ladders" after they retire i.e. transfer money from 401K to Roth IRA keeping the transfer amount in 10%/15% bracket. Then withdraw those contributions after 5 years and every year after that!

This is my plan, but I believe you can actually take out contributions at any time without penalties under 59.5. It is earnings that have to have the 5 year waiting period.

Now is it considered a 'contribution' if you convert $XXXXX amount from a 401k to Roth IRA (since you have to pay taxes on it)? I realize that the answer is in the word 'convert'

 

[pjigar]

This is my plan, but I believe you can actually take out contributions at any time without penalties under 59.5. It is earnings that have to have the 5 year waiting period.

Yes, I stand corrected: The 5-year rule for Roth IRA distributions stipulates that 5 years must have passed since the tax year of your first Roth IRA contribution before you can withdraw the earnings in the account tax-free.

 

[Camellia]

I thought I was aiming for 2024, when I reach age 48 and investable assets of 2.8M. Then I got another condescending email from a jerk manager at work, and am now wondering if I can go out next year...

 

[exnavynuke]

Yes, I stand corrected: The 5-year rule for Roth IRA distributions stipulates that 5 years must have passed since the tax year of your first Roth IRA contribution before you can withdraw the earnings in the account tax-free.

Conversions also have their own separate timelines I believe.

 

[pjigar]

Conversions also have their own separate timelines I believe.

Correct. Direct Roth IRA contribution starts timeline upon "first" contribution. But each conversion into Roth IRA has it's own separate time line. Funny how they write the laws!

 

[regenaeb]

New here and this looks like the perfect thread of me to follow. We are planning for some time between 2024 and 2027.

DH is active duty military with 28 years of service currently. He is promoting to O-4 on July 1st, so this 99% guarantees us for 6 more years. DH is a strict rule follower, never partakes in alcohol and is an intense health nut. So I doubt he is going to commit a crime, get a DUI or gain 50 pounds in the next 6 years to get him booted. So I am pretty confident in that 6 years of service if we want it. Of course if the government decides to shake things up, you never know, that is why I say 99%.

Right now DH's retirement check will cover all monthly expenses with fluff added to them so we are in a really good spot currently for retirement. So he doing another 7-9 years is all added. We continue to stay in because of the increase to the retirement check and mostly because DH doesn't want to work after military retirement (he is currently 45). The extra years of service will give us money to use for travel and hobbies. We currently own a home with a mortgage in FL that we are renting out while we are gone.

I am self-employed working from home Mom, which gives me flexibility with my 9 year old twins in school and an advantage at time of transfer, my job transfer with me. Currently my pay goes for vacations, activities for the kids and all the rest goes into retirement investments.

Hoping to pick up some tips from this thread on how others are planning to pull the trigger in 2024 for when we are ready.

 

[Blue Collar Guy]

I thought I was aiming for 2024, when I reach age 48 and investable assets of 2.8M. Then I got another condescending email from a jerk manager at work, and am now wondering if I can go out next year...

You reminded me of the old song "take this job and shove it". I hope you can go next year, enjoy yourself.

 

[brokrken]

OK, I'm officially going to join this Class of 2024. DW and I have discussed this quite a bit since I found this forum a few weeks back. We are targeting 2024 because that lines up with when our only child will graduate from High School. She is 10 now and we have $80k in a 529 and plan to have $160-200k in there by the time she graduates to pay for college, or enough of it to where the difference won't hurt. At that time I'll be 48 and DW will be 53. Actually, if we are ahead of schedule, we will look at DW stopping work at 50. We'll see how that works. Since we are doing updates. I'll start with today and include NW excluding real estate. So, only retirement accounts, taxable investment accounts and savings. The hope is to have $3mln by 2024, but with less we should be fine according to FireCalc. By 2024, our home will nearly be paid off and we plan to move to a much lower COL area, so should be able to use the equity in our current home to buythe new one outright and add the rest to our nest egg. As of close yesterday we we're at:


06/20/2017 - $1,205k


Glad I found this thread. Will update again end of each month.

 

[Jeffman52]

My wife and I have set a target FIRE date of June 30, 2022!! Yeah I know this is a class of 2024 thread... LOL

We have ran the Firecalc (100% even with increasing beyond our expected need for cash). We still have a lot of planning to do between now and then but its almost freeing to see that light at the end of the tunnel and to know where that light is!

One of the factors that made us go ahead is when we were discussing how many of our friends and family either never got to retire (died early), or HAD to retire due to health and never got to enjoy a true retirement. We may decide to work part time in retirement or do some consulting (both of us are in logistics), but regardless, we are getting off the hamster wheel.

 

[brokrken]

Jeffman52, Congrats on how far you've come and great that FireCalc gives you 100%! Sounds like you're good to go. If you're getting 100% in 2022, play around with it and see if you can go earlier.

 

[Exit 2024]

Closed Q2 at 39.6% of target chugging along, hoping to cross 40% by end of July
How are you all doing? Any updates?

 

[FI by 2024]

As my name suggests, I think I fit in here. Whether or not I retire at that point (41 yo) will be based on how I feel at the time.

My plan is based on receiving a government pension, which I will qualify for once I hit 20 years of service in 2024. Based on current spending it will cover 100% of expenses. My savings are gravy on top of that.

So as for percentages, you could say I'm at 0% for my pension, will stay at 0% for the next 8 years, and will hit 100% 8 years and 2 days from today. On top of that my additional savings will (hopefully) be between $700,000 and $1,000,000 depending on how conservatively I project. So with my current savings, I'm at 31-44%. That is just retirement savings, not net worth.

Wow, I guess I'm doing better than I thought! I only check the totals once a year and I didn't realize how much they'd grown since I last checked!

This is rough since it's not my normal net worth checking time, but it looks like I'm at 41%-58% for my additional savings, and 15 months closer to my pension since first posting.

Time flies. And holy wow the market is also flying!

 

[Exit 2024]

This is rough since it's not my normal net worth checking time, but it looks like I'm at 41%-58% for my additional savings, and 15 months closer to my pension since first posting.

Time flies. And holy wow the market is also flying!

Great progress in just a little bit over a year !!! Looks like 10% up on conservative side

 

[NgineER]

At 40.5% at the end of Q2.

 

[pjigar]

45% q2 2017

 

[exnavynuke]

Closed Q2 at 39.6% of target chugging along, hoping to cross 40% by end of July
How are you all doing? Any updates?

My biggest update is changes to my spending plan and the impact of that. I am spending more now but also saving more (thanks to the previously mentioned VA rating) and expect to continue to do so, but that is in part due to recognizing that I can afford to do so without much impact on my plan. FIRECalc has me at 100% in 2024 currently and 96.1% in 2023 assuming I quit working completely.

If I work p/t (bringing in about 1/3rd what I make now) for the first three years, 2022 has a 99% success rate per FIRECalc at the moment.

Revising my numbers for the new spending pattern, I'm at 38.4% of the complete retirement goal and just over 45% of the 3-year P/T work goal.

 

[dvalley]

Q2 17 update:
At 37% of my main target
At 44% of my GTFO target

 

[Jeffman52]

Jeffman52, Congrats on how far you've come and great that FireCalc gives you 100%! Sounds like you're good to go. If you're getting 100% in 2022, play around with it and see if you can go earlier.

Actually we have decided to move it a few months earlier and leave on 02/02/2022 or if you prefer 2/2/22

Nothing financial about that decision, we just thought that would be a cool date to go out on.

 

[exnavynuke]

Interesting news at work recently...

1. A "competitor" company that we've worked with in the past (they have 80% similar capabilities/offerings that my department does, both of us with a spattering of stuff the other doesn't do) is one that we've bid a project with together.

2. We've now hired 4 of the 5 top personnel from company in #1, including the owners of said company.

3. The majority owner of said company is now the boss of the head of my department.

4. If we get the contract our two companies bid together (we should hear something sometime next month I imagine) then combined we may not have enough personnel and would need to hire some more.

5. If we don't get that contract, there's pretty much no way that all of the employees from their company (which apparently they plan to dissolve because our parent company wouldn't let us just buy them out) and all of the employees from my department (where the overlap exists) would still be needed.

6. I'm feeling pretty happy that I update my resume every year, just in case (though I think there are quite a few more likely to be on the chopping block ahead of me if it comes to that).


So, I'm hoping that all of that information doesn't end up putting a damper on my plans moving forward....

 

[YVRRocketSurgery]

Actually we have decided to move it a few months earlier and leave on 02/02/2022 or if you prefer 2/2/22

Nothing financial about that decision, we just thought that would be a cool date to go out on.

Yay, another 2022'er.
I was hesitating between April 2022 and July 2022. I thought I'd go mid-year to collect a pro-rated bonus and enjoy summer. But I just found out that while my company gives prorated bonuses to retirees leaving the company, they don't consider anyone under the age of 55 a retiree. Since no bonus incentive now, I've decided now on April, my 25 year mark... unless they boot me earlier.

 

[Jeffman52]

Yay, another 2022'er.
I was hesitating between April 2022 and July 2022. I thought I'd go mid-year to collect a pro-rated bonus and enjoy summer. But I just found out that while my company gives prorated bonuses to retirees leaving the company, they don't consider anyone under the age of 55 a retiree. Since no bonus incentive now, I've decided now on April, my 25 year mark... unless they boot me earlier.

Well dang.... see what you did? I forgot to consider the early part of the year bonus.

So that will change my date to probably May, after the April bonus pay out. No sense leaving money on the table on the way out the door.

 

[Markola]

We're probably still approx Class of 2024 but DW and I realized that stars will align, if present trends continue, for us both to take a gap year to travel in 2021. We have a little notebook for counting down the months and enjoy tearing out a page each month and talking about where we want to go.

When I accepted this current j*b, I negotiated an offer of an incentive award to motivate me to stay through the end of major project in December 2020. When it finally came down to settling it after me constantly reminding my manager, she wanted me to jump through a whole bunch of extra hoops to get the incentive. I thought, "Forget that noise" and have since dropped the topic. I'd rather keep my options open and make one less decision in my life toward freedom and away from more money. Also, thanks to this board, I realized I could leave penalty free with my 403b, if I want to, as early as January 2020 at age 54, because that is the year in which I turn 55 in December. I'm probably the only person in my 700 person company who knows that little rule and how to hack it. I had to have our 403b company verify it and they said "I'll be darned, you're right."

 

[CajunGirl]

I'm hopeful we can be done be 2024, although it may stretch to 2025 or 2026. My husband went back to school in 2015, so we're currently living on one salary. He'll graduate in spring 2018, and his starting salary will make a big difference in whether we hit our goals earlier or later.

We're 38, planning to save $1.5 million and have a paid-off house when we pull the plug. We're currently about 28.6% there. (We've also saved 40% what we want to pay for college for our 3 kids; the oldest graduates high school in 2024.)

We're now at about 33% of our target (and the house is 40% paid off and we're 50% to our college savings goal).

I switched gears to a long-term contract job to relieve the soul-killing monotony of my last Megacorp job, even though it was a pay cut. I'm giving it a year and then will hunt for a permanent job (with better benefits). Husband has two semesters to go before he graduates, so his job hunt will come first; we're starting our planning for that now.

 

[beeboy]

Hello everyone. I would like to officially join the class of 2024 (although I am shooting for 2023), but 2024 would be OK too. I'm 43 and have about 1.25 million saved right now, plus a 450,000 condo w/ 117,000 left on the mortgage. I've just posted my financial situation in much more detail in the Hi I am thread (the title of my thread there is "43 and living life in NY and FL - Am I close or far far away") Because I honestly don't know.

Anyway, I'm excited about FIRE and look forward to interacting with you nice people on our shared journey.

-bee