GA Curious

[GATime]

Found this site several days ago and have been reading through threads in volume. Just turned 60 (DW 60 as well) and have decided that I've have had enough. My actual decision is that I hope my company fires me so that I can get some type of package. Barring that, I'll stick it out to end of year mostly because it's hard to walk away from the salary. All the calc tools say I can walk away now. Specifics are about 940K in IRA, another 200K in brokerage and savings. House is paid for and no other debt. Current investments are about 60% stock, 30% bond, and 10% cash, and I'm moving more towards more bonds and/or high dividend stock funds.

Last year we set a retirement budget of 70k and blew that by 25k. This year we set a budget of 60k and so far are slightly under. If covid has taught us one thing, is that we can be very happy with spending less.

Also, retirement to me does not mean no work, but that I can work at what I want without needing the income. So I plan to teach some college and do some part time consulting for at least a couple more years.

Any thoughts or questions are welcome.

[Scrapr]

Welcome aboard.

The one thing holding back many retirees is health care. If you are used to your employer paying it that can be painful. Our group rate just got a proposed 12.5% increase. You paid off your mortgage so you avoided the eternal debate of "should I invest or pay off the mortgage" . You probably saved about 1.5 million electrons & LED blips with that alone. Then most folks want to make sure a loved one is taken care of in an early demise situation for one of you.

May want to take a look at @gumby (dam it....SNL reference) FAQ

https://www.early-retirement.org/for...ire-69999.html

Then work through Firecalc about 20 times. Sorry did i say 20? I meant 200.

You can work through how (or if) SS works into your cash flow program.

Thanks for jumping in

[Sunset]

Welcome.

If you decide you are close to retirement, perhaps you want to consider pulling the plug in Feb instead of at the end of the year.
Reasons are: Some employers only do matching if you are still in the 401k after the year has passed at the actual deposit of the matching money time, which hit in Feb for me.
Also, it gives you a nice chunk of earnings that are very low tax as it will possibly be the only earnings you have for the year.
You could also spend your entire year's worth of FSA in the first 2 months, and not have to repay it back.

[Dtail]

Welcome to our wonderful site.
As mentioned, you should try out the retirement calculator associated with this site called Firecalc. It can provide many what if scenarios and potentially more assurance with the numbers.
Feel free to ask any questions.

[GATime]

Thanks all for the quick reply's. I've done the Firecalc with many many scenarios. Worst case had me at 90% and all others at 100.

Yes insurance will be the biggest expense. For our working budget, we have 1400 per month allocated and from our research that seems appropriate. My Cobra would be about 1700. Neither the DW or I have any health issues.

On departure timing, my company pays 401k profit sharing in January so I may stay for that if it's there. However, this is down year with covid so not sure yet if there will be any profit sharing or bonuses due to net loss this year. Will know that in December.

[38Chevy454]

Welcome to the forum. I agree that you should verify the potential profit sharing bonus and schedule your departure after that.
It seems your budget can be covered with your current savings until you get SS kicking in. I assume both you and your wife will get SS? Depending on when you take it, and how much part-time income you might get, your savings is good to get you over the first few years. If you plan it right, you might be able to get ACA medical for less cost, by controlling income to stay under limits where you can get some subsidized lower cost healthcare. Be aware that most of those have pretty high deductibles, but you said you are in good health. So it may be a good option to consider as opposed to the general medical insurance market or COBRA.

[HI Bill]

Welcome! Have you evaluated SS, pension, and other income, and decided on a SS strategy? With $1.1M invested, at 4% (too high for some, too low for others), your income from investments would be $44K/year, but if you plan to take SS at 67 or 70, you could start out with a higher withdrawal rate, and lower it when you start SS. In early retirement, I'd focus on converting as much as possible of your IRA and brokerage accounts to a new basis (LTCGs for MFJ are exempt from Federal Tax if you AGI is less than ~$80k), and to manage ACA eligibility. You might even be able to avoid paying anything in Federal taxes until you start taking SS.

So, I'd come up with a spending plan, budget, and tax plan. Best wishes!

[GATime]

All good info. Yes, we have a budget. I'm a 30+ year Quicken user, so everything is tracked to the penny. As mentioned, retirement to me is still part time work to cover living expense and pull little to no funds from investments for at least 2-3 years. We have no pensions so will have SS. I will plan to pull at about 65-66. I have a tracking spreadsheet that tracks my breakeven point based on when I start SS. At 65-66, my breakeven will be when I'm 84 and I'm ok with having lost some money beyond that. My DW's SS is about 1/3 of mine, so we may pull hers earlier. I'd have to look at ACA next year when income drops.