Greetings from john 85 percent retired...

[heyduke]

Greetings all ... my DW and I are so close to retirement we can taste it but we just need to be sure that we are solvent enough to do so... we are both 54 and own our house with no debt at all... (except for our one rent house to be paid for in 2014). We are struggling with the "magic number" we need to get too... i feel as if we can make 40K after taxes we should be plent comfortable but every spreadsheet I put together yields different results... but it appears as if 600K would be sufficient if we choose to sell the rent house at 59 and start collecting SS at 62 and 2 months....

thoughts?

john

[REWahoo]

John, welcome to the forum. Have you run your numbers through FIRECalc to see what it tells you?

[heyduke]

Firecalc only accepts 3 variables so it doesn't fit my situation with a rental income and potential sale of the house later ... using the three variable resulted in "FIRECalc found that 68 cycles failed, for a success rate of 37.6%." ... not very promising however, as I said I have more than 3 variables in my retirement equation.

[unallowable]

heyduke, Welcome, I have the same issue with the calculators. Anticipate rental income from three properties to be a significant part of retirement income. Have tried to "trick" the calculator by estimating the future value of rental income and possible property sales but I an never confident of the result.

[heyduke]

unallowable - agreed, I came up with a spreadsheet in excel that includes all my variables and my assumptions and it seems to suggest based upon an "exhaustion" analysis that I could retire pretty soon...

looking for flaws in my logic is a part time job for me now...

[lonnie]

Try the Flexible Retirement Planner Online Monte Carlo Retirement Planner calculator. It lets one put in income that starts and ends for periods of time. I think you can put all of you inputs in there. It is a "Monte Carlo" simulator.

[heyduke]

Thanks Lonnie - I was actually looking for an online Monte Carlo sim and couldn't find one... i will give it a whirl.

[jdw_fire]

Quote:

Originally Posted by heyduke Firecalc only accepts 3 variables so it doesn't fit my situation with a rental income and potential sale of the house later ... using the three variable resulted in "FIRECalc found that 68 cycles failed, for a success rate of 37.6%." ... not very promising however, as I said I have more than 3 variables in my retirement equation.

FIRECalc will accept far more than 3 variables. click on the tabs at the top to input additional income sources and additions to your portfolio some time in the future from the sale of real estate (or any other sourse). granted FIRECalc isnt a monte carlo simlation, it just uses historical data but i think that is an advantage cus you dont need to model the interrelatioships of inflation, interest rates and stock prices. instead by using historical data those relationships are captured in the data itself.

[heyduke]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jdw_fire FIRECalc will accept far more than 3 variables. click on the tabs at the top to input additional income sources and additions to your portfolio some time in the future from the sale of real estate (or any other sourse). granted FIRECalc isnt a monte carlo simlation, it just uses historical data but i think that is an advantage cus you dont need to model the interrelatioships of inflation, interest rates and stock prices. instead by using historical data those relationships are captured in the data itself.

jdw thanks a lot - i missed the tabs at the top and will give it a whirl as well... thanks again everyone.

[jdw_fire]

Quote:

Originally Posted by heyduke jdw thanks a lot - i missed the tabs at the top and will give it a whirl as well... thanks again everyone.

you're quite welcome

[heyduke]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jdw_fire you're quite welcome

and as you pointed out the tabs were indeed the key to this being a very useful tool...thanks again..