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Trooper · 11-19-2013, 04:23 PM

Hi everyone,

Been hanging around here for a short while and felt it was time to introduce myself and get some advice. The subject of this post refers to my hooking up with a financial advisor about six years ago, who is responsible for about half of my investments below. Please go easy on me; I was at a point in my life where I didn’t have much time to do investment research.

I am 56 and employed by a megacorp and looking to retire in hopefully 2 years, but I will work longer if I have to. My DW is retired already and will begin collection pension of $22K (no COLA) beginning next July, unless we decide to defer until my retirement.
I max out my 401(k) each year, including catch-up. We will likely begin collecting Social Security at age 70.

Monetary assets are about $2.3M as follows:

Non-Qualified
Janus JNTFX Mutual Fund $120
Janus JNHYX Mutual Fund $ 80
Vanguard VDIGX Mutual Fund $ 50
Rainy day cash & car savings $220
Employer stock $ 90
Variable Annuity (full surrender) $320
Health Care REIT $ 45

Qualified
My employer’s 401(k) $550
Janus JNTFX IRA $100
Variable Annuity (full surrender) $140
Variable Annuity (6% surrender) $230
IRAs through advisor $430

We have no debt, and have a home and weekend get-away with a total market value of about $600K. Retirement spending is estimated at $120K, which includes health care, L-T health insurance, and taxes. Seems high right now, but I believe that can be reduced over time.

I definitely will be licking my wounds and getting out of both of the annuities that have no surrender charges. I would also like to get out of the advisor-recommended IRAs also, because I believe the underlying mutual funds are in the high-fee category. I also want to get out of the VA one with remaining surrender fees, mainly because it’s qualified money in a tax-deferred wrapper. Ugh.

Right now my main questions for the great minds here are:
1. Am I correct in getting rid of the full value VAs and the IRAs purchased through the advisor? If so, I believe I can create my own IRA with the qualified one, but not so sure about the NQ VA.
2. What should I do about the VA with a 6% surrender fee? Some folks here believe the surrender fee will be paid back by the reduction in the mortality and other VA fees.
3. What would your ideal investment portfolio for me look like? I like to keep things simple…perhaps a maximum of 4 low cost or index funds.
4. Finally, given the above portfolio when would I comfortably (90+% confidence) be able to retire?

Thanks so much. I don’t know if this post/question is too long for a single post…if so I am willing to break it up.

pinejake · 11-19-2013, 04:57 PM

Hello Trooper

Can't give alot of advice on the investments, but our investable assets, debt, age and expected spending are almost identical to yours. Pension is higher at $70K w/ Cola though.

When I run our numbers through firecalc I get 100% success rate, I'll bet you will be close to your 90% , try Firecalc if you haven't already done so (scroll to the bottom)