Why am I so nervous about ER?

[Andre1969]

My Mom and stepdad both got wishy-washy about retiring. I know Mom had been threatening to do it for about two years, but they kept giving her nice raises so she stayed. However, she finally went out for good, January 31 of this year, just a few weeks past her 62nd birthday.

My stepdad is 58 (59 this July), and he's been getting fed up with his job for some time, and I've lost track of how many times he's decided to retire. He has enough years in to get a modest pension, but it'll only replace about 30% of his salary, where Mom is getting 80%. He had been taking it on a month-by-month basis, but finally got fed up enough, that today is his last day!

My Mom's not worried, now that she finally took the plunge and is looking at her retirement date from the other side of the goal post. But my stepdad is actually a bit scared.

My guess is that it's just human nature to be a bit nervous, and afraid of the unknown. We're pretty much ingrained from childhood that you go to school, go to work, and don't retire until you're OLD! And after years, decades even, of a structured day (school, then work), and that safety net of bringing in those paychecks, retirement can sometimes be a scary thing. I have the feeling that once you actually do it, and realize that you're going to make it, you'll be fine.

 

[Blackwoodt]

Have any of you felt similarly when you were at that point of your life?

I was going to leave last year, but have talked myself into staying until the end of August 2012. The reasoning, a couple hundred thousand more in my account, and company provided retiree health insurance at the age of 55. I've had people (including my accountant) tell me to keep working, that I'm too young to retire, and can't believe that I could, or would walk away from such a good paying job.

Like you several financial planners have told me that I'm good to go at anytime, however my warm and fuzzy moment will come when I know my health insurance will be covered in my retirement. Or at least that is what I am telling myself now……

 

[GRambler]

Bentley, I can relate. Pretty close on numbers too, little less age, but no way could or would I pull the trigger on ER right now. At your age? Dunno, I'll let ya know.
The uncertainty is the main thing, not of the economy but of my mindset to stop working, so DW and I discussed with our bosses about taking more time off for the next few years. We've found by taking 3-4 day weekends here and there we get so disconnected from work that the 8-5 grind doesn't suck as much as it used to.
We're also trying to come to terms with enjoying spending whatever we make while leaving the next egg alone to grow awhile longer. That's tough enough to get comfortable with, spending down the nest egg would be stressful right now if the numbers started coming down at our age.

And I actually like my job to a point, management turn overs have made it less fun but the fact they know I can walk but don't means they leave me alone. They do need me and I enjoy the income.

My goal has always been 55-58, but even then I'd probably do some contracting work in my field until I got completely bored with it.

 

[spirit]

Thanks for all the posts

I have been lurking for many months and became a member recently. I just wanted to thank you all for giving me a place to go to when I was having trouble getting ready to retire. I had been very unhappy with my job for a few years and it seemed that no matter how hard I worked it was never enough. We had some younger employees hired who were very good at promoting themselves while the older ones did all the grunt work that actually got things done. And quietly tooAnyway I had had enough and had actually walked out the door. That night a good friend councelled me to get my job back and take a holiday to clear my head. Thankfully the main boss recinded my letter of resignation and gave me an opportunity to step back, evaluate the situation and return to work. It was hard and for a year or so I was not sure I had made the right choice. (Reading your posts helped ) Now three years later I have redefined myself, have an incredible new position and am very glad I stayed. I am turning 60 and hope I can work for at least another 5 years, perhaps more.
One main reason I am glad to be working is that I believe we are in for an incredible economic ride. The world is changing and we will need to change in order to have a chance for a decent life. A good job only makes that situation more manageable. JMHO
The second reason is that my husband has been retired for 20 years. His pension which was adequate 20 years ago has eroded to very little for today. Who know what the next 20 years will bring? To plan 30 years into the future is not something I want to leave to others. Working longer shortens that timeframe. Take care everyone. Reading all these stories provided me with a framework that helped me make my decisions

 

[wclr]

Hey bentley, you'll be amazed at how different things look once you bite the bullet. There is a whole another world out there waiting for your talents, abilities, and passions. Try taking off a month (if you can) and pretend you are retired. There are many commitments that you cannot make now that you will be able to when you retire. And spend time with the family. Those grandkids are in desperate need of your time to teach them work ethic and values! An investment into just one of their lives will pay greater dividends than you can imagine. Leave a legacy, other than the job.

 

[chinaco]

Bentley,

You seem to have your financial situation under control.

You did not provide much information other than net worth. Do have a pension, SS, other sources of income due?


Also, you did not describe your income needs (expenses).


You should develop a financial plan. That may help you to better understand your situations.

Read Jim Otar's Book: Unveiling the Retirement Myth. It is often recommended on this forum.

 

[Arnie]

It's just easier to go to w**k, even though I'm tired of it.

I don't think there would be a wrong answer here if you were still enjoying it. But since you are not, I think I would go for it.

 

[ronin]

If it is any consolation, you are far from alone.

From a 2011 study by the National Institute on Retirement Security:

"When it comes to retirement, Americans continue to have high anxiety. An overwhelming majority of Americans are anxious about their retirement prospects. Some 84% are concerned that current economic conditions are impacting their ability to achieve a secure retirement, with more than half (54%) of Americans very concerned. This level of anxiety has not dissipated, with 83% of Americans in 2009 reporting retirement concerns."

 

[Spanky]

.. Some 84% are concerned that current economic conditions are impacting their ability to achieve a secure retirement ..

What other concerns will they have as economic conditions improve?

 

[Telecaster]

By 57, I had worked myself into a 4-day week, but I was still stressed, and hated it. You're still young enough that you can quit working, and just call it a "Sabbatical" if you wish. You can probably expect pressure from some of your friends and family, as some of them might be jealous of your retirement. Some people would say, "I don't care about that," but it did bug me. Calling it a Sabbatical allows you to back out "with dignity" in a year, if you discover you made a mistake. A year off might do you good, anyway!

 

[67walkon]

People, and especially men, are wired to want to feel like they are doing something meaningful. When we are young, most of us are working for a paycheck, maybe trying to support a family or whatever. As we get older, most of really want to feel like we are doing something that is more important than just earning a paycheck.

You have the assets to walk away from a job if it has been just a frustrating way to earn money. But as many have said, what are you going to do for the rest of your life to fulfill the need to contribute to the world somehow? There are many, many options. If you could find something you really have a passion to do, even without getting paid to do it, you might find yourself jumping at the chance to FIRE!

So what's your passion? And how do you engage it when you quit your job?

Those are the questions I'm trying to answer right now. We have enough that it is unlikely we could ever run out of money, unless we adopted what we both would think is a crazy lifestyle. For me, the tentative answer is to continue doing a lot of non-demoninational men's ministry, trying to help guys in their faith walks, and doing mediations in court cases. For 35 years, I've been a commercial trial lawyer and I'm a bit tired of it--it isn't usually very signficant to the world at large. But helping people save money and resolve disputes through mediation does appeal to me. And I will be able to set my own schedule, taking off whenever I want.

Again, you ought to ask, what's your passion and what can you do to pursue it after you quit your job?

 

[haha]

I for one will have no hesitation retiring when I believe I can afford it.

What we tend not to realize is "afford it" is a term of art. Would a well to do upper-middle- class middle-aged man in Germany in 1921 think he could afford to retire? Quite possibly. Would he have been correct? Quite definitely not.

Commanding Heights : The German Hyperinflation, 1923 | on PBS

Unfortunately, retirement is pure faith, and the degree of confidence that we hold has almost nothing to do with how things might work out. One of the most robust findings of modern social psychology is that people's "confidence" has almost nothing to do with events that follow. Over and over again we see that people underestimate the range of probabilities of any event. And shown this, we continue to underestimate.

Ha

 

[marko]

Bentley, I had no choice in my case (company was sold) but I jumped when I was 52 and never looked back. I was a 65 hour a week, 200 days-on-the-international-road exec and (as you say) *just got tired of it*.

There's more to life. Really.

It takes about 2-3 years to fully *come down* but after a while you start to realize that you're not *on vacation* but instead a new, better lifestyle has slowly evolved around you.

I'm now 59 and, as I posted elsewhere today, two people I know, aged 59 and 61, have died in the past three weeks. Life's too short buddy.

 

[Midpack]

It's not unusual at all. I hoped to retire a few years ago, planned to retire Mar 2010 and will definitely retire Jun 2011. I used to stress about the decision, but gradually I realized the uncertainty would never go away even if I had more $, if my nest egg goes to hell in a handbasket, I'll go back to work long before it gets down too seriously. But I'll take up work I enjoy a lot more than the first career. The first one was for money first, the second one will be for the pure job satisfaction with money a distant second.

 

[NW-Bound]

May I have a suggestion for you?

... if my nest egg goes to hell in a handbasket, I'll go [-]back to work[/-] RV'ing in the New Mexico mountains long before it gets down too seriously.

 

[W2R]

Hey bentley, you'll be amazed at how different things look once you bite the bullet. There is a whole another world out there waiting for your talents, abilities, and passions. Try taking off a month (if you can) and pretend you are retired. There are many commitments that you cannot make now that you will be able to when you retire. And spend time with the family. Those grandkids are in desperate need of your time to teach them work ethic and values! An investment into just one of their lives will pay greater dividends than you can imagine. Leave a legacy, other than the job.

(emphasis mine)

I think this is a great idea. Before I retired, I took a series of vacations from work - - two weeks of leave, a week back at work, and repeat, 3-4 times. I did it for reasons irrelevant to this thread, but it turned out that also these vacations helped to ease the transition to retirement. In Bentley's case, a vacation could give him a little idea of what retirement is like, to see if he likes it. A more gradual approach to retirement is sometimes easier than just jumping off the cliff.

 

[Spanky]

The first one was for money first, the second one will be for the pure job satisfaction with money a distant second.

What might the second career be?

 

[urn2bfree]

The worry that stops me in my tracks, causes me the most agitation is HEALTH INSURANCE- how will I provide for health insurance? Not just for me but also my family--and for me at least until Medicare--which looks like it will be moving farther away from me before I can get to it as they look into raising the age? The volatility of health insurance premiums is the hardest thing to plan around...I could see taking a job just to earn the several thousand needed to pay for health insurance...and of course as long as my wife keeps working we could get it through her employer. But I dont want to retire and leave her feeling that it will only work IF she keeps working....she has to stop when she is ready and not have to keep working just because I was counting on her insurance.

 

[Alan]

The worry that stops me in my tracks, causes me the most agitation is HEALTH INSURANCE- how will I provide for health insurance? Not just for me but also my family--and for me at least until Medicare--which looks like it will be moving farther away from me before I can get to it as they look into raising the age? The volatility of health insurance premiums is the hardest thing to plan around...I could see taking a job just to earn the several thousand needed to pay for health insurance...and of course as long as my wife keeps working we could get it through her employer. But I dont want to retire and leave her feeling that it will only work IF she keeps working....she has to stop when she is ready and not have to keep working just because I was counting on her insurance.

The worry about affordable Health Insurance is what kept me working several years after I was FI. I was fortunate to be able to RE at 55 with retiree health insurance. At 55 I had a lot more money saved and I would have ER'ed even without the retiree health insurance as many folks here have done.

 

[patela6]

When i do ER, I could go back to the UK for health care and setup "base" there. Perhaps use travel insurance to cover my "trips" back home to the US? I dont know...

Any creative options folks have used to get around pricey health insurance in ER?

 

[REWahoo]

Any creative options folks have used to get around pricey health insurance in ER?

Other than going without or moving to another country, I don't think so.

 

[Seeking Hobbes]

Hello everyone,

I guess I'm one of those lurkers... skimming this great site while contemplating ER.

My specifics...
Male, Single, Never Married - 48
NW: 1.6m (soon to be 4.4m)
Annual Expenses: 35k to 40k
Debts: 130k mortgage
Dependents: 1 wonderful Dog

This thread is especially appropriate to enter the FIRE community, since anxiety has kept me from pulling the trigger thus far. Like so many previous posts... a lot of soul searching has pushed me to understand why I might be hesitant...

- A strong work ethic
(instilled by my father who, in passing away recently, will offer me an ironic independence)
- A fear of losing social interaction
- A fear of the unknown

One thing is for sure... I won't miss my job of 20 years; the challenges, frustrations, manipulations, and deceptions. Still... it has given me purpose for 6 days a week; defining who I am for almost half my life. Furthermore, while miserable at times, there's something masochistically comforting about misery that you understand, are accustomed to and share with others.

Sooo... I've decided to USE that nervous energy to push me, unabashedly, into a new life chapter. I meet with a new Financial/Retirement Advisor tomorrow & will sketch out a plan to turn in my notice by August (20th Job anniversary). I figure... all I can do is trust my financial Parachute and jump - GERONIMO!!!

(For now, however, I have to get ready to prostitute my soul a little more and burn half my Saturday in the office... ughhhhhh...)

ps... thanks for this anonymous forum... there is simply no one else I can talk to about this without coming across as a poncey a$$.

 

[REWahoo]

ps... thanks for this anonymous forum... there is simply no one else I can talk to about this without coming across as a poncey a$$.

Welcome to the forum, where you can be a "poncey a$$" and no one will notice...

 

[Alan]

When i do ER, I could go back to the UK for health care and setup "base" there. Perhaps use travel insurance to cover my "trips" back home to the US? I dont know...

Any creative options folks have used to get around pricey health insurance in ER?

Other than going without or moving to another country, I don't think so.

I agree, that about sums up your options.

 

[Spanky]

Male, Single, Never Married - 48
NW: 1.6m (soon to be 4.4m)
Annual Expenses: 35k to 40k
Debts: 130k mortgage
Dependents: 1 wonderful Dog

Welcome to the forum. Do you really need a financial adviser? A NW of $4.4 mil will last forever for the said expenses!