Who FIREd the Earliest with the Lowest FIRE Score and Why You Did?

[mickj]

Does any one remember if @unclemick has posted his initial firecalc success rate?

 

[FREE866]

Replacing my final salary in retirement would be purely impossible. But I never spent more than 20% of compensation (gross) during my career time (it did come to ~15% recently), may be excluding just a few first years. Retired at 56 with Firecalc to give 100% score (including SS) or 93% (without SS).

That whole “ you need to replace your income in retirement “ narrative is misguided advice. It’s about the cash flow needed not “ income”. Important distinction. You can get that from selling equities which is actually more tax efficient as well.

 

[Dtail]

Does any one remember if @unclemick has posted his initial firecalc success rate?

I believe he has been retired 30 years now, so could be a good test case. I don't think he has posted in a bunch of months, so hopefully nothing bad.

 

[FLSUnFIRE]

This community is on the more conservative end of the spectrum. It is also the community with the most people that actually retired (as opposed to aspirational) compared to others. If I'm really looking for the earliest/highest risk I'd look at Early Retirement Extreme too. It's not a place I hang out but it bends more towards the extreme frugality end of the spectrum. It appealed to me more when I was younger: as we get older we get softer!

I FIREd at 47 which is younger than most but feels late to me as my FI target was 40 and my first role model, John Greaney did it at 38. -I was about 24 when I discovered the Early Retirement Homepage. I was somewhat conservative, targeting 3.33% WDR and was about 2% when I pulled the trigger (2.6% currently).

 

[audreyh1]

I believe he has been retired 30 years now, so could be a good test case. I don't think he has posted in a bunch of months, so hopefully nothing bad.

That’s pretty typical.

 

[harllee]

DH and I retired late 40s (we are age 73 now). We had a motorhome and roamed the country for a few years. I always thought we would have to get another job but other than some part time gig work we never did. I had no idea about this Forum then (was it even around 25 years ago)? There was not a Mr Money Mustache forum back then but that would have been more my speed then. Due to conservative investments, low spending and delaying SS to age 70 our finances have done well and this past year we were able to move into a very nice CCRC so I think we are set for life.

 

[pacergal]

We are heading into our 8th year retired, and our spending has gone up (Grandkids!) and we are starting travel back up, but I don't see that ongoing for too many years.
My folks had definitely slowed down in their spending in their late 70's-early 80's.

 

[Teacher Terry]

I’m turning 70 soon and am spending less. I rarely buy clothes and have everything I need for my condo, etc. I have went to Europe twice in the past few years and will go in 25 which will be my last overseas trip because my travel partner really wants to see France.

Honestly, I am finding the historic palaces and churches, etc much less of a thrill even though the countries are different. The long plane ride is miserable as there’s no direct flights. Last year the tour company had me up for 27 hours with 3 flights and a 4 hour layover at 2 airports.

 

[Dtail]

I’m turning 70 soon and am spending less. I rarely buy clothes and have everything I need for my condo, etc. I have went to Europe twice in the past few years and will go in 25 which will be my last overseas trip because my travel partner really wants to see France.

Honestly, I am finding the historic palaces and churches, etc much less of a thrill even though the countries are different. The long plane ride is miserable as there’s no direct flights. Last year the tour company had me up for 27 hours with 3 flights and a 4 hour layover at 2 airports.

Feel somewhat similar with the long flights. 14 hours (non stop though) from Turkey. I will not splurge for first class on these flights, so am fine with less frequency.

 

[AudiDudi]

Wife and I quit our jobs in Seattle in 1999 at age 46 and moved to nowhere Montana. Don't think Firecalc was around then. No debt and we were getting by OK on savings and a few investments. Cobra'd health ins. for 18 months and when it went from $400/mo to ~$3k/mo dropped that. Wife did a part time gig at the local tavern for a bit and I got talked into starting a smll computer business, supporting locals and 4 small rural schools for 12 yrs. Wife decided to draw pension at 58 and SS at 62. I drew spousal on her at FRA at let mine go to age 70. Worked out quite well for us. In 2013 she said we should go to AZ for the winter and see what the "old folks" are doing. Been doing that ever since.

 

[FIREd]

I just turned 50 and I quit working at age 36 (my FIRECalc Success rate was over 95% at the time, if I recall), though my spouse continued to work until I was 42 (our FIRECalc success rate had risen to 100% then). Then I got divorced at age 44. It was a financial blow and my FIRECalc success rate dropped. Since ER was a top priority for me, I decided to make significant changes to my lifestyle to bring it back to 95%. I’m now back to 100%. Interestingly I don’t obsess about success rate nearly as much as I used to.

I should note that I don’t take SS or any probable inheritance into account when using FIRECalc so there are some backups built into the plan.