Am I good to retire on 650k with family?

[OldShooter]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ivinsfan Oldshooter that's the classic sign of a troll, posting off the wall ideas asking for opinions and telling everyone how wrong they are.

Yeah. You may well be right. Seems like a very boring way to spend one's life, though.

[firenow]

Yes an year back I posted saying I can plan to work for 10 years and leave kids 1M each and retire. But in the same post I also asked is it worth working that extra long and leaving kids inheritance when I basically hated working.

My hatred to working life hasn't changed a bit. It only has gotten worse in recent times that I am seriously thinking about quitting and making it work with what I saved up so far.

[firenow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dawg52 From childhood I never wanted to work or even go to school. When people ask me why I retired early I say.... because I found my niche in life, doing nothing. Perhaps the OP is similar to me. But to answer the OP's question.... I would suck it up and work another 5 years at least. The numbers look tight. I'm sure it can be done but no room for budget busters.

You got me my friend!! I don't care if people call me lazy. Infact I tell them I am lazy. It is not even about being lazy or not. I just don't like the fact that I am not able to live life on what I want. I am not free. My childhood got wasted in school and then initial part of adult life in college. Then I started working. Kept working. I got married and had kids and being a single earner I couldn't get out of it. I hated all of this life so far. I remember as a child I used to talk to my friends saying how much I hated school. Same for my working life. I always despised the fact that I had to go and sit there and spend all my life there.



I want to give it up and yet be careful and frugal and see what happens. Yes I may not be able to leave my kids a million dollars each. Yes there can be some risks which can be padded with some part time work like say uber driving. I can buy a car or rent one from uber. Not having a car is no big deal for uber driving.

[firenow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by UnrealizedPotential 200K in Vanguard Technology fund? No. Just no. You really need to rethink that. In a downturn I strongly suspect that will be hit hard. If I am right , how will your nest egg look then? You need to consider the possible downside of an investment, not just the possible upside. If you really like it, I wouldn't put more than 50k in it. But that's just my opinion. It's your money, but I certainly wouldn't put 200K in ANY technology fund offered by any investment company.

Thanks for the advice. I was hesitant about this too but when I looked historically during 2008 downtime, I saw VGT dint go much down than VOO / SPY. Also if you take from that downtime to now VGT performed MUCH better than VOO / SPY.



We are in IT age, I don't think other areas can grow as fast as IT sector. Yes some companies can go down but what makes you think overall index can go down in the long term?

[swakyaby]

I don’t think the OP is a troll at all. It does sound that he is in a crisis to consider going from a $280K career to an early frugal retirement with 2 young children and a wife. Only someone who has ever experienced a soul-sucking but highly compensated job could ever understand where such emotion comes from. You definitely sound in need of a break, a sabbatical, but I sense your j*b doesn’t allow much time flexibility.

[firenow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bestwifeever Why don’t you just trade places with your wife for a few years? She might not be able to pull down the big bucks but her income would supplement your investment income.

My wife loves to work but she doesn't have a good college education like me. Also because of the kids, she wasn't able to work so far. She might be able to do some part time gig but I don't want her to work so hard while I'm sitting at home. We both probably can drop the kids and work from 8 am to 2 pm together at a grocery store. Then go and pick them up and have fun as family. That's definitely on my plans.

[firenow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by swakyaby I don’t think the OP is a troll at all. It does sound that he is in a crisis to consider going from a $280K career to an early frugal retirement with 2 young children and a wife. Only someone who has ever experienced a soul-sucking but highly compensated job could ever understand where such emotion comes from. You definitely sound in need of a break, a sabbatical, but I sense your j*b doesn’t allow much time flexibility.

Thanks for understanding. You spoke my mind so well

[firenow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ivinsfan This is for a family of two. if you can accumulate around 500-600K by age 50, that will help you survive for 17 years till age 67. From 67 you can start taking your full SS benefit; You get your amount (say 2600) and your non-working spouse gets 50% of that (1300) totaling 3900 per month. Since the medicare will take of your healthcare costs, 3900 will be good enough to survive for the rest of your life. So the absolute minimum you need to save by 50 to retire safely is 600K. For each later year you retire, you can reduce the 600K by 50K / year. Does this sound reasonable? Not saying we can retire with 600K at 50 as it depends on economy and its good to have some buffer, but if we want a number this sounds like the absolute min. needed - Sam This is from another thread that you started in 17...Are you messing with us here. You've started 3 threads with this exact topic, but the facts keep changing. Number of family changes AA changes, just wondering what's going on.

Did I say my family was two in that thread? Read carefully before you start commenting. It was for a hypothetical situation of a 50 year old couple. They can easily retire on 600k is what I meant there.

[firenow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aaronc879 It's risky at best. It is possible that you could retire successfully but probably less than 50%. There are so many factors to consider. ACA may not exist in 5 years let alone 20 years. If you and wife are in your 50's or early 60's and there is no ACA you could be paying $12K/yr just in premiums and if one or both of you are sick or injured you could double that number. My parents hit their $12,000 OOP most years in addition to paying around $8K in premiums. If your desire is to spend time with your kids while they are young then I think you are good thru their college years. However you need to be willing to go back to work in your 50's or 60's if the market or your expenses don't go as planned. No matter what you currently get paid or what your degree is, after 15+ years with no job you will be looking at a job that pays under $15/hr in todays dollars. Are you willing to take the chance that you and/or your wife have to work that kind of job later in life? Only you can make that choice.

Good points on ACA and the possible high cost of healthcare. My plan is to live very frugally in the initial years so that my capital can go up and become like 750k when social security kicks in. That should enable me to handle the high healthcare costs with social security of 2200$ per month and medicare.

[njhowie]

Quote:

Originally Posted by firenow I want to give it up and yet be careful and frugal and see what happens. Yes I may not be able to leave my kids a million dollars each. Yes there can be some risks which can be padded with some part time work like say uber driving. I can buy a car or rent one from uber. Not having a car is no big deal for uber driving.

What does your wife think?

[samclem]

Quote:

Originally Posted by swakyaby Only someone who has ever experienced a soul-sucking but highly compensated job could ever understand where such emotion comes from.

"Only"? I don't know about that. A great many people find little personal satisfaction from their work. There's a lot of crappy, low-status, unfulfilling, dangerous, stinky, "soul-sucking" work. Most of it pays very little, and much of it is done by people who (IMO) are unsung heroes for just sucking it up and doing what needs to be done, every day, to meet their obligations to those who depend on them.

It makes great sense to try to escape such situations if it can be done while meeting those obligations. That might be done with a career change, or maybe ER -- when that can be done in a responsible manner.

[firenow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by free2020 +1 Given the plan on living off your nest egg for the rest of your life, and given that many of the tech names today won’t be the same names 10, 20, 30 or more years, I wouldn’t. More than the fund itself I would be freaking out owning any of the FANG stocks. There’s nothing carved in stone about the longevity of those, despite how dominant they are in the collective consciousness of us all. Just think of GDPR; It just landed on the shores of California this week. Personally I would have exactly ZERO in speculative stocks. I will go ahead and make the assumption that your nest egg got this big by investments in technology. If that’s true, I would think that your biggest risk to retiring early and staying retired is likely your own past success. Not so much the market or the economy or something else. It’s what’s between my ears! Please feel free to ignore this if I am off base.

Yes, FAANG stocks are risky. It is what has gotten my money up quickly but I agree they are risky. I am thinking about moving them all to VGT.



Last 10 years VGT has outperformed SPY / VOO by a BIG margin. This year SPY has 2% while VGT has 10%.

[Oz investor]

firenow ,

how about a hobby that brings in income ??

it sounds to me like you don't want to be trapped in a boring place ( work or school )

you pick the cash producing hobby ( or your wife if she pursues this path ) .. it has got to be something you enjoy doing

[SheitlQueen]

I am not going to mention whether or not your plan can work. I am going to mention your self centered attitude. It is all about you, you, you and what you want (to retire) or don't want to do (work).
No mention about how this is going to affect your family. Do you want to tear you family away from their current lifestyle, your kids away from their friends and school to go live in a LCOL area? Cram everyone into a cheap apartment, not have money to give your kids at least some luxuries? Worry about every dollar that comes in and every dollar that goes out, and constantly telling your family "no" to everything because you can't afford it, not matter how inexpensive or necessary it may be?
I did not like working either, I hated my job, but I was woman enough to "man up" and face my responsibilities. Work another 10 years or more until you have more of a cushion and then retire.
Have you even discusses any of this with your family?
I don't want to sound harsh, but it's time to think of other people besides yourself. I'm used to seeing parents sacrifice for their kids, but not the other way around.

[RunningBum]

Quote:

Originally Posted by firenow Yes an year back I posted saying I can plan to work for 10 years and leave kids 1M each and retire. But in the same post I also asked is it worth working that extra long and leaving kids inheritance when I basically hated working. My hatred to working life hasn't changed a bit. It only has gotten worse in recent times that I am seriously thinking about quitting and making it work with what I saved up so far.

No, what you said is that you could work 10 more years and retire, but that wouldn't leave anything for the kids. Or you could work an additional 10 years so you could leave the kids each $1M. Haven't trouble keeping your stories straight?

[RunningBum]

Quote:

Originally Posted by swakyaby I don’t think the OP is a troll at all. It does sound that he is in a crisis to consider going from a $280K career to an early frugal retirement with 2 young children and a wife. Only someone who has ever experienced a soul-sucking but highly compensated job could ever understand where such emotion comes from. You definitely sound in need of a break, a sabbatical, but I sense your j*b doesn’t allow much time flexibility.

OP also said school was miserable, and pretty much everything in life was miserable. I don't think the job itself is the issue. What happens if ER is miserable as well? I've heard nothing about what he'd actually do with that time away from work that will make life so much better.

OP, how about telling us? "Work is miserable, I want to retire now so I can do ____ and be happy." Fill in the blank for us.

[firenow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by OldShooter @firenow, I don't think you came here for opinions. I think you came here looking for cheerleaders to validate your strategy. You are not getting that for good reason: Your idea is beyond crazy, but people are trying to be a little polite so they aren't saying that so directly. Proof of my theory is that whenever someone points out problems with your plan, your reaction is to argue with them and insist that it is sound. Fine. You think it is sound. Go ahead and gamble with your kids' and your wife's lives. It's a free country. But you will not find a consensus of cheerleaders here. I am not going to pick apart all of your ideas, but they all seem to be based on best-case assumptions and very naive understanding of almost everything (like investments). I will tell you my experience: Life is not best-case, even usually. And the worst-case you can imagine is not the worst case. The worst case is a black swan that you can't even conceive of right now. Black swans are like that. But, hey the plan might work. The Pope may start ordaining women. But neither is very likely and that is what people here are trying to tell you.

Let us go with all worst case assumptions

I budgeted for 2.2k per month. Let us assume 2.5k. Or even worse 3k.

Now let us assume the market tanks like in 2008 and comes back up averaging 4% across all the time.

Seeing the downturn of the market, I will immediately add some part time work or IT contracting work. That will keep my capital same. Or infact it will even make it better.

We can always react to those downtimes and unexpected situations. Also I am not too old that I have to worry about not being able to go back to work or part time gigs.

As long as I keep my expenses in check and slowly increase my capital, there is no problem. Given my frugal nature, I just cant see my capital go down. I will do something to bring it back.

Yes an additional year or a few years will give me more safety net. But there is honestly no end to this my friend. I can keep giving myself excuses and continue accumulating.

Excuses:
"3 more years to 1.1M so that I feel safe"
"3 more years then to 1.5M so that I can pay kids college"
"3 more years then to 2M so that I can leave kids money"
"3 more years then to 2.5M so that kids will have a million each atleast"
"3 more years then to 3M so that I can start living lavishly now and leave kids so much that they can reitre early"

[firenow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RunningBum OP also said school was miserable, and pretty much everything in life was miserable. I don't think the job itself is the issue. What happens if ER is miserable as well? I've heard nothing about what he'd actually do with that time away from work that will make life so much better. OP, how about telling us? "Work is miserable, I want to retire now so I can do ____ and be happy." Fill in the blank for us.

ER won't be miserable because the things I hated about school and work are these:


- Lack of freedom
- Dealing with people (aggressive, bossy etc.)


In ER, I will have my freedom. Now I know some people will say you have to retire TO something not AWAY from something. While it is true, I don't think that's necessary for ER. Anyway I will fill your blank with what I love to do.


I want to retire now so I can "happily browse all day, watch youtube videos, watch movies, lie down in bed, swim in the pool" and be happy

[firenow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SheitlQueen I am not going to mention whether or not your plan can work. I am going to mention your self centered attitude. It is all about you, you, you and what you want (to retire) or don't want to do (work). No mention about how this is going to affect your family. Do you want to tear you family away from their current lifestyle, your kids away from their friends and school to go live in a LCOL area? Cram everyone into a cheap apartment, not have money to give your kids at least some luxuries? Worry about every dollar that comes in and every dollar that goes out, and constantly telling your family "no" to everything because you can't afford it, not matter how inexpensive or necessary it may be? I did not like working either, I hated my job, but I was woman enough to "man up" and face my responsibilities. Work another 10 years or more until you have more of a cushion and then retire. Have you even discusses any of this with your family? I don't want to sound harsh, but it's time to think of other people besides yourself.

Sister, Thanks for being open. You don't know how much I love my family. I would rather die than leave them in trouble. But you are assuming life will be very hard on the budget I mentioned. Probably because you are used to lot of luxuries. We have lived a little above this budget when we were in east coast earlier. We didn't even realize or think that we are sacrificing. There was some extra eating out budget but other than that it was very similar.

[Oz investor]

Quote:

Originally Posted by firenow ER won't be miserable because the things I hated about school and work are these: - Lack of freedom - Dealing with people (aggressive, bossy etc.) In ER, I will have my freedom. Now I know some people will say you have to retire TO something not AWAY from something. While it is true, I don't think that's necessary for ER. Anyway I will fill your blank with what I love to do. I want to retire now so I can "happily browse all day, watch youtube videos, watch movies, lie down in bed, swim in the pool" and be happy

sound like you need a long holiday ( doing what you dream of ) what anout a year away from work and see if it doesn't get boring ,

i can watch TV and movies all day but NOT everyday of the year ( if you know what i mean )
in fact i rarely turn on the TV at all now and i have been retired less than 2 years .

movies maybe 3 a week ( max. ) now