43 and yearning to be FIRE'd

[traineeinvestor]

Hi All

I found this forum through one of the blogs I visit from time to time.

By way of introduction I'm an expat living in Hong Kong planning/hoping to hit my retirement number by the end of 2011 and retire one or two years after that (end of 2013 at the very latest).

Given that I have two young children (currently ages 6 and 4) and my wife is a few years younger than me, I have to assume that our savings may need to last up to 50 years. Also, I do not have a pension and the local equivalent of SS is relatively low so I do not have much other than our savings to fall back on. (On the positive side, the taxes are low, the public health service is pretty good and I live in a city where a car is completely unnecessary.)

This makes me a bit nervous about quitting early but hopefully the extra year or two of work will be enough to provide an adequate safety buffer.

FIREcalc is a great tool and the numbers stack up (as did my own more primitive calculations) but I'm still wondering if I'm being a bit rash. If anyone can point to any papers or threads on very long retirement periods (50 years), I would be grateful.

Cheers
traineeinvestor

 

[W2R]

FIREcalc is a great tool and the numbers stack up (as did my own more primitive calculations) but I'm still wondering if I'm being a bit rash. If anyone can point to any papers or threads on very long retirement periods (50 years), I would be grateful.

On the dark (blue or green) bar across the top of each page, you will find our "Search" function, for searching the forum. We have had many, many threads on this topic due to the nature of this forum, so do a search and read to your heart's content. Here's an interesting thread from 2005 discussing a 50 year SWR, though of course there are newer, similar threads:

http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f28/swr-for-early-retiree-age-45-a-17687.html

Welcome to the ER Forum.

 

[IndependentlyPoor]

Here's an interesting thread from 2005 discussing a 50 year SWR, though of course there are newer, similar threads.
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f28/swr-for-early-retiree-age-45-a-17687.html

Wow. That was an eye opener. In light of the recent round of slashed dividends, this one is particularly painful, partially because I would have agreed whole heartedly:

I dont see a diversified portfolio of dividend paying stocks as having an issue with dividend cuts. You can always invest in stocks with long history of dividend increases, but sure some will have issues from time to time, but I would say it is far less risky than depending on capital gains year-to-year (who knows how the market will value a stock price). Dividends were even paid during the Depression.

Somebody remind me to be careful about predicting the future.

 

[REWahoo]

Somebody remind me to be careful about predicting the future.

Predicting the future is easy. It's that accuracy thing that's tough.

 

[W2R]

At least with my portfolio, dividends held up better last year than my overall portfolio value. Which is not to say that either did all that spectacularly well...

 

[traineeinvestor]

Thanks for the link. I did the seach and found some other helpful threads.

Plan A: It looks like the best approach is to attempt to largely live off rents, dividends and interest without drawing down principal much (or at all) - given that I do not have the cushion of SW to supplement my income I should be more conservative than most.

Plan B: send my wife back to work - this works for me .

Plan C: Reverse mortgage (not readily available in Hong Kong at the moment, but I can always hope for the future).

Plan D: stop exercising and increase consumption of junk food and alcohol.

Cheers
traineeinvestor

 

[bbbamI]

Hey...it's nice you've got a good sense of humor! A 50 year plan...that will be a bit tough. I've got a 40 year plan but I only need a 2 1/2% WR because I have a pension and ss should take care of the rest, but I figure I'll kick off before I'm 91. I like junk food too.

You are still young. Along the way if you don't feel comfortable or something goes haywire, I imagine you could get a part-time job to ease the strain on your portfolio.

Welcome...and enjoy the forum.