Retirement Goal Age

[laurence]

I know many people have already stated their goals in the "Hi I am" board, but I wanted to get a cohesive picture (plus, I was inspired by Dan Tien to do my first poll). Also, in your reply, if you could touch on how you are going to get there (pension, massive savings rate, possum living) that would be great. I'm especially interested in anyone's story for getting there before I do (I'm shooting for mid-late 40's with 50 being the absolute worst case scenario). I need the compounding of those last few years to really make my portfolio grow.

 

[REWahoo]

Laurence,

I take it from the future tense approach to your question, you don't want responses from those of us who have already retired?

REW

 

[farmerEd]

My goal ever since I was 22 was 40..I did it at 38....3 years ago.

Now I work 3 times as hard, and lose money every month on my farm...am I still considered retired?

 

[laurence]

I guess my original thought was towards young dreamers, but I had no exclusionary intentions.
If anything, a lot of people had unusual things happen that affected their retirement age (like the dot com bubble and selling out at the right time) so I was leaning towards seeing plans for reaching the goal. Perhaps the way some people er'd is no longer open to us.


So FarmerEd, how did you do it? polished apples? Inherited?

 

[shiny]

I have already retired, and DH plans to next year. He'll be just shy of 40. 42 is the cut-off point, but baring any market disaster, we'll do it by 40. (Although that talk in another thread of needing 20-30% for health ins. has me worried)

Anyway, we escaped college/grad school with no debt and good jobs. We've never had the urge to keep up with the Joneses, in fact we've been teased a bit for not spending much money. And although, in hindsite we could have done better, we did time some option sales in 2000 that worked out well for us. (Panic attack do have an upside sometimes!) Plus, we don't have children. I think it is harder, finacially as well as emotionally when you do (you are probably ALWAYS worried that something will happen and you can't provide for the child)

 

[SteveR]

My plan was to retire at 50.  My wife and I were going to retire at the same time.  We did it when she was 56 and I was 50.  We took ER knowing I would have to go back to work...different city...different company and different job.  I could have quit at 50 except for a little problem that happened in 2000-2001 with company stock and index funds.  I could have stayed ER'd but not in the style of which we had become accustomed.  Plus, we wanted to move 1800 miles away and getting a new job payed for the entire move.  All I had to do was stay a year to get through the probation period and after that I could leave with no strings.  I am still here but for different reasons.  I could FIRE if I wanted to but new wife still has two years before being vested for ER so working pads the IRA for another 2 years and we have more money for debt reduction and new toys.

We lost over 30% in the down market and have just now gotten back to even.  

Now is my options will just get above water.  

 

[LiveWell]

DH and I are looking to be financially independent in the next 3 years or so. That would put us at 36 and 34. My plan is not to stop working but to instead stop working for "The Man". I want to start my own, part-time business because I have a lot of ideas floating around in my head. Currently I'm not interested in giving up the little bit of spare time I have to pursue them but once The Man stops dictating how I spend 13 hours of my day, 5 days/week, I'll be able to give them my attention. Why not stop working for The Man right now? Golden handcuffs. A pretty nice place to be and 3 years isn't that much longer. Besides.. I learn something new about myself everyday and 3 years from now I'll have more wisdom and probably be a better business woman for it.

 

[shiny]

Hey, while I was posting FarmerEd posted. He's a testament to ER with lots of kids!

 

[farmerEd]

So FarmerEd, how did you do it?  polished apples?  Inherited?

Me, I lived waaay beneath my means for years, stay completely out of debt (after a very short bought of credit card fever when we were young and foolish), started my own business(contract programming and consulting)...rode the tech boom (not my portfolio, but my business), hired a dozen or so programmers in china and india at around $10 an hour (when I couldn't hire local guys at $80+) and billed them out at over $100 40+ hours a week each....didn't do that for long...but at those margins, I didn't have to Folded up shop in Feb'02 and left for the Bahamas....(were I planned to live indefintely but then came those pesky children aproaching school age and needing to go to school and all )...so now I farm my 200 acre farm in rural part of new england and I look forward to going back to the bahamas in 16 or so years after everyone is in college or on their own.

 

[peggy]

I posted 40-44, which is my goal (I'm 37 now, and expect FI in 5 years)--DH's would be 45-50, as he's older than I am.

Living below our means (translation: savings/equity building rate at 30%+ of gross income), not having kids (not completely by choice; had to have the plumbing removed a few years back), and a wise home purchase are all contributing. We're also judicious with debt (mortgage and car loan, never any credit card debt).

I expect an inheritance from my Mom whenever she passes (she's 65 this year and in less-than-perfect health, so I'm treasuring every moment I have with her), but the FI date is not dependent on that inheritance. If anything, the inheritance would speed it up.

 

[Dawg52]

50 was the goal, but stock market decline pushed me back a couple of years.(got caught up in the tech bubble)  I will be just under 53 when I punch out. 

 

[justin]

I'm shooting for July 4, 2024 (independence day in the U.S.). I'll be 44. It could take me the whole 19 years to get there (actually, 18 years, 11 months, not that I'm counting). Age 44 is a conservative guess at best, and it might be more like 36 if things go right. Unknown factors include: number of additional babies the wife pops out, if/when wife leave "ER" (taking care of the baby), cost/availability of health insurance in 2024 and market returns.

I've only been in the workforce for 1-2 years, but have done well with a small residence purchase and sale while in college; starting and selling a small business, and saving lots of money. I've also obtained strategic debt (long term, low rate college loans, credit card loans and home loans) that is invested. I think I calculated my savings rate at around 46% which includes reduction of principal on my debts. We live below our means, but have a rather comfortable lifestyle currently on just my income.

Going forward, I plan on keeping expenditure increases around the level of inflation. I do a lot of tax planning to keep more of my money in my accounts and less in uncle sam's (and uncle Easley's here in NC). In addition to other investments, I have recently started a vanguard account and plan on dollar cost averaging with an index-based approach in taxable accounts and maxing out IRA's for wife and I. I plan on making the Vanguard index approach my primary investment vehicle till ER. I also max out the 401k at work right now. Inheritances are (hopefully) many decades away.

I plan on using 72t withdrawals from IRA's if needed before 59.5.

I have a long way to go, but I think the plan I have is rather robust and allows for a lot of negative events along the way. I am also rather happy that if I happen to be out of work for years and years, then I would have the financial independence to do so currently.

 

[retire@40]

...touch on how you are going to get there...

Age 40 is my goal (as if you couldn't tell by now).  I could have done it a few years before 40, but I decided it wasn't worth sacrificing every day of my youth.

So I decided to semi-retire in my 30s and get to the promise land a little slower, but with a lot less stress along the way.

I did it by starting my own business and working until I fell asleep at my desk.  I made money for me, not for a company, and more importantly I didn't have a boss telling me what to do and how to do it.  It was like picking up money off the floor until you were just too tired to bend over anymore.  I made more money than I ever could have imagined, although not enough to retire fully right now.  Now I work a lot less, but still manage to save a good amount while vacationing and spending more time with my family.  I've never wasted money on extravagance but I've always eaten good quality food, dressed well, and never denied my family anything within reason.

 

[MooreBonds]

Currently 28, I'm hoping to reach ER by 43 or so.

Don't really have an exact date, but justin's idea of July 4 sounds neat.

I've had three main ways I've gotten as far as I have so far:

1) Decent-sized inheirtance (about $80k) 5 years ago (subsequently invested it in average-performing investments)

2) Working my butt off for a relative's company, earning a decent salary and bonus (also investing it in so-so investments). A sidestep of this is having my employer pay for as much as he can (vehicle, gas, oil changes, health insurance). Not only does it save me taxes of 41.6% (state+federal+SS+Medicare), but it also saves him 7.65% for the employer match, and improves my morale.

3) Living at my parents house for the past 5 years after graduating college. Yes, I know, some people have a stigma associated with this, but I am fully self-sufficient and do it only for financial reasons, which is helping me even more to plow money into savings and watch it climb. Perhaps the larger rule of #3 is very simple living-I require hardly anything to keep me happy, although I do have an annual budget of about $7,500 for relationships (mainly due to airfares, as I am open to the possibilities of long-distance relationships), so I do end up spending a fair amount of money on some things. I'm also going to start a part-time MBA this fall, so there goes a majority of my base salary's disposable income, leaving my investment additions funded from any bonuses that I might snag.

Also, once I finish my MBA, I'm a little unsure of how my compensation might compare...I'll likely end up making less, once you factor in the loss of the various company-paid items, and the salary/bonus, but it'll be somewhat more enjoyable and hopefully less stressful (read: not working with unions, my brother, my brother-in-law, and a host of other problems).

 

[laurence]

Wow, I need to start a small business! The path we are taking (work for corp and plow into 401k) seems to be the turtle route, another life lesson that risk equals reward.

 

[farmerEd]

Wow, I need to start a small business!  The path we are taking (work for corp and plow into 401k) seems to be the turtle route, another life lesson that risk equals reward.

Absolutely...its harder once you have kids, mortgage, car payments etc, but you can still do it...maybe even start part-time and keep your day job. There are many, many benefits to owning a business, lots of things you can write off, and lots of perks not available to regular W2 folks. One example, which helped my ER along a bit, was having a Keough plan where I could contribute over 30K a year tax-free, whereas 401K and IRA's, at the time, had much, much lower limits. Now I thinkl the keough limit is up around 40 or 50K per year.

To be honest, I loved starting up businesses, I did it 3 times, before it became very profitable(none was every very big). After three+ years out of the game I sometimes get the itch to do it again.....

 

[maddythebeagle]

justin: wow, you have been in the workforce for 2 years and you are already planning your escape

I guess the most responses are in the 40-44 range, which I am also targeting or at least targeting part time work to keep my health insurance to start out and see how I like.

 

[FlowGirl]

We are targeting age 44 which is when husband can start collecting his military pension. The COLAed pension + health insurance are a big help and massive savings will make up the rest. If the numbers don't work out and/or we like our jobs too much to quit at that age then it may take a bit longer, but I can't come up with any likely scenerio in which we aren't retired by age 48.

 

[justin]

Wow, I need to start a small business! The path we are taking (work for corp and plow into 401k) seems to be the turtle route, another life lesson that risk equals reward.

Slow and steady wins the race. Be the turtle!

justin: wow, you have been in the workforce for 2 years and you are already planning your escape

I've been planning my escape since I started college. More like 7 years! I didn't really have a formalized goal of FIRE, rather a plan to LYBM and invest lots in the stock market. I learned some very expensive and valuable lessons in the 2000-2002 crash.

 

[SonnyJim]

December 14, 2014, but I may stay until January 1, 2015 if it will help my High 3.

20 Military retirement, saving 30% pretax plus will have home paid off in 5 years, no other debt.

Best thing I did to help planning to retire early, Great like-minded wife!!!!  She stays at home raising the kids (homeschooled) and is active in LBYM.

I will be 47.  9 1/2 years to go!!!

 

[Honkie]

I polled 40-44, that is about 4 years from now.

Our priority is to be totally financially independent by that time. Don't know whether full retirement will follow, but it will be nice to know we can walk away from whatever we are doing without giving it a second thought. A decent run up in the investments might mean we can make prior to 40, but we won't hold our breath.

 

[JB]

Goal of 40 was achieved at age 38. That was almost 4 years ago. Worked at several small tech companies that were successful and grew. Made a lot more in salary and options than I spent.

 

[wabmester]

When I was a software weenie in my late 20's, I remember thinking how much I loved writing code, but I was *certain* that I'd want to do something else by the time I was 40.    By the time I hit 35, I felt pretty much burnt out as a coder, so I shifted gears into starting my own business, and later into a gig in executive management.

At age 39, I thought "40 is around the corner; time for a change."  So I quit.   Well, my exploiter employer at the time gave me incentive to stick around for a while longer, so I ended up working until 40-1/2.   And then I really quit.

All I knew at the time was that I wanted a change.   I figured 40 was a good age since I still had most of my neurons, and I had enough of a nest egg to provide plenty of flexibility in chosing what came next.

After about six months of doing nothing too time consuming, it finally dawned on me that I had found what I wanted to do next: nothing too time consuming.  

 

[unclemick]

To repeat - my goal was age 63 - that was 'early' for me in 1992. Layed off jan 93 at 49 - after looking for job - sort of - it slowly dawned on me - a job wasn't worth the effort and the pain in the butt of moving.

Actually didn't become a 'high class ER' until I found REHP and then this forum around 2003.

Back in 98 - when I arrived at 55 - got a small pension check - it was 'offical' retirement.

 

[greenhm]

I'm out (with my wife) in 16 months. I'll be 44 and she 47.

I've made and saved all the money while she stayed at home (too long) to raise our daughter.


DREAM ONE.

Start a consulting business in software development.
Easy!... Go to school, get jobs, work hard.


DREAM TWO.

Our 2nd dream was to build a home in the country on acres of trees with animals and gardens. Accomplished at age 30. The vegan lifestyle removed the animals and the cooler canadian climate muted the garden however.

Then bordem. Building your dream was fun, but working at maintaining it became a grind. Nothing to look forward too. The came adventure travel. We started taking a month here and there and travelled to cool places with cool people doing cool things in dirty cloths and smelly shoes. I was hooked!

DREAM THREE.

Stop working and see the whole world as a bum.

Save, invest, loose, rebuild, plot, excel and read everything about getting out!

Daughter gradutated last month and is now self sufficient, and we are getting-out in 16 months and 3 weeks.

DREAM FOUR.

Who knows, but I cannot wait to find out!