Congratulations Markola! Time to celebrate!AM2023, My wife uses the Rule of 55 and I will, too, starting in a couple of weeks. I just gave my notice this morning![emoji898]?
Congratulations Markola! Time to celebrate!AM2023, My wife uses the Rule of 55 and I will, too, starting in a couple of weeks. I just gave my notice this morning![emoji898]?
AM2023, My wife uses the Rule of 55 and I will, too, starting in a couple of weeks. I just gave my notice this morning![emoji898]?
Congratulations Markola! Time to celebrate!
Congrats! Are you worried about healthcare? Insurance?
I gave a 1 month notice this morning for my very part time (8 hours/week) NP position. When its time to go, its time to go.
Feeling very happy about the decision.
Yes, I’m worried about healthcare and insurance, since I am a citizen of the Unites States, where it’s nothing but a worry.
I guess I just feel I could use some advice from others who are about 5 years away from retirement or those who remember what it was like when they were looking at retirement in around 5 years.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks.
Today I passed one of the biggest milestones, I paid off the house. Been very diligent making double house payments for the last 7 years! Wasn’t easy, but feels great today! Now every other week, direct deposit into the after tax retirement. Already max out the 401k and contribute 12% of my salary into Deferred Comp plan. I feel very relieved to do before my 58th birthday in 5 months.
Today I passed one of the biggest milestones, I paid off the house. Been very diligent making double house payments for the last 7 years! Wasn’t easy, but feels great today! Now every other week, direct deposit into the after tax retirement. Already max out the 401k and contribute 12% of my salary into Deferred Comp plan. I feel very relieved to do before my 58th birthday in 5 months.
Today I passed one of the biggest milestones, I paid off the house. Been very diligent making double house payments for the last 7 years! Wasn’t easy, but feels great today! Now every other week, direct deposit into the after tax retirement. Already max out the 401k and contribute 12% of my salary into Deferred Comp plan. I feel very relieved to do before my 58th birthday in 5 months.
AM2023, My wife uses the Rule of 55 and I will, too, starting in a couple of weeks. I just gave my notice this morning![emoji898]?
First congratulations! The big new change coming up during retirement that I never thought about until a few years out was that you have to switch from savings mode to spending mode. That is a big mental change and a whole new concept. You've learned to save for years, now you have to learn how to spend it.
I suggest you start thinking about tracking your expenses, knowing how much you need to live on a year is a requirement to determine when you can retire. Health insurance, which will probably be your biggest expense, plays a big factor in retiring.
Pre and early retirement gives you a bit of time to also do some tax planning. A great time to do ROTH conversions to void the tax torpedo is post retirement but pre SS.
Finally you also need to start thinking about what you will do to fill the days in retirement. Again another big change from having a 40 hour structured week to suddenly having no structure.
We finally did it. After going back and forth on it in my 2 years of retirement, we have paid our mortgage off. It was primarily the "earning more on your money that the interest rate on your mortgage" situation. Our mortgage rate was just 2.875%. But with cash starting to pile up again due to both overestimating our retirement expenses and the pandemic, and savings/CD rates so low (and likely staying that way for a long time), we "saw the light" and have paid off the remaining $50K balance. It still leaves us at less than 80% of our planned spending so far in retirement.
The timing was interesting:
- We bought the house in 1990, and the original mortgage was a 30 year fixed rate. So we are "on schedule" with the original mortgage timing, even after refinancing 4 times.
- Our last refinance was in 2013, to a 15 year mortgage. So it is almost exactly halfway through that mortgage that we are paying it off.
We are still waiting for all the paperwork, but it is great to login to our mortgage account and see a balance of $0.00.
Logged into my Fidelity account and it showed over 1M for the first time. I have officially saved 1M on my own investments. (I have some more money I got from a trust fund that had already pushed me over 1M plus my emergency fund.) So proud of myself for my accomplishments. Only have 85K left on the house.
Logged into my Fidelity account and it showed over 1M for the first time. I have officially saved 1M on my own investments. (I have some more money I got from a trust fund that had already pushed me over 1M plus my emergency fund.) So proud of myself for my accomplishments. Only have 85K left on the house.
did a tally today, $1.005 mil. I'm officially a millionaire Took 13 years, wished I'd been more aggressive early on and ditch the target funds, then I'd have made it sooner. Oh, well, hindsight is 20/20. Have a few more years to go so now I'm shooting for 1.5 mil.
Congrats! The first $1M is the hardest. The second should take less than 7 years, and as you approach the third, your earnings on investments might just eclipse your annual w#rk earnings. The snowball starts to gather speed and mass! If COVID doesn't totally derail the world economy, you should have eclipsed your $1.5M goal prior to your planned 2028 FIRE date!did a tally today, $1.005 mil. I'm officially a millionaire Took 13 years