Hi all,
I discovered this website and the FireCalc a couple of months ago. I am 49, soon to be 50 and have spent the last 25 years working / kissing a%* as a geoscientist for oil industry Megacorps. My personal situation is that I have a beautiful wife with a wonderful son less than 1year old (admittedly a bit foolish on my part to have a young son at my age). I have already set up a 529 for him and my relatively young wife is currently passing her medical boards, with a target of starting residency in 2-3 years. At that point she should be bringing ~40K of residency a year for 4 years with an obvious salary bump at the end of her residency when she becomes a physician. Call me unambitious but, I look forward to becoming a "house dad" while my wife stats her career.
During my last 25 years of indentured servitude for Megacorps I have managed to accumulate, despite a divorce 10 years ago, ~2.175 big ones (~700k in a rollover IRA/ 401 k) and the remainder in taxable accounts (not including home equity and 529). My portfolio is essentially all in no-load Mutual Funds/ Index Funds mainly with Fidelity, since I fully realize that I am not a savy investor. For the last 10 years I have maintained a consistent 55% equity/ 20% bond/ 25% cash split, even through the bull and subsequent viscous bear markets of the late 90's and 2001-2002.
In addition to SS, I also have a pension of ~60K a year coming in from Megacorps at the age of 66.
We are debt free with my somewhat modest home paid off, but we look forward to upsizing for a larger yard in the next couple of years. I anticipate, with the equity on our current home, that purchasing the new home new home wll take about 50 - 100k out of the nest egg. Our current expenses run about 60k / year, but should I FIRE in the next few months I expect to add about 5 - 7K/ year expeneses for med insurance for the 2-3 years before my wife starts residency.
I am now thinking about FIRE within the next month or two and have run numerous scenarios using both Firecalc and the ultra-conservative FIDO and am reasonably convinced that we can pull it off , as long we keep expenses under control. My dilemma is the "just one more year" syndrome because I am currently making about 250k/ year. But on the other hand, I am not getting any younger and I would like to maximize my time to enjoy my new family. I have several friends at other companies that are trying to lure me into their shop, even as a highly paid part-time consultant ($1600/ day+). I'm tempted, but I'm reluctant because I know that the rose-colored glasses will come off after a few months once I begin to notice the same silly Megacorps "Dilbert" stereotypes posturing and preening to get ahead.
Any thoughts or advice on my stuation before I free myself from 25 years of living in a Dilbert cartoon would be most appreciated... And I apologize for this run-on message and my unabated cynicism about the Megacorps workplace environment.
Cheers,
HSS
I discovered this website and the FireCalc a couple of months ago. I am 49, soon to be 50 and have spent the last 25 years working / kissing a%* as a geoscientist for oil industry Megacorps. My personal situation is that I have a beautiful wife with a wonderful son less than 1year old (admittedly a bit foolish on my part to have a young son at my age). I have already set up a 529 for him and my relatively young wife is currently passing her medical boards, with a target of starting residency in 2-3 years. At that point she should be bringing ~40K of residency a year for 4 years with an obvious salary bump at the end of her residency when she becomes a physician. Call me unambitious but, I look forward to becoming a "house dad" while my wife stats her career.
During my last 25 years of indentured servitude for Megacorps I have managed to accumulate, despite a divorce 10 years ago, ~2.175 big ones (~700k in a rollover IRA/ 401 k) and the remainder in taxable accounts (not including home equity and 529). My portfolio is essentially all in no-load Mutual Funds/ Index Funds mainly with Fidelity, since I fully realize that I am not a savy investor. For the last 10 years I have maintained a consistent 55% equity/ 20% bond/ 25% cash split, even through the bull and subsequent viscous bear markets of the late 90's and 2001-2002.
In addition to SS, I also have a pension of ~60K a year coming in from Megacorps at the age of 66.
We are debt free with my somewhat modest home paid off, but we look forward to upsizing for a larger yard in the next couple of years. I anticipate, with the equity on our current home, that purchasing the new home new home wll take about 50 - 100k out of the nest egg. Our current expenses run about 60k / year, but should I FIRE in the next few months I expect to add about 5 - 7K/ year expeneses for med insurance for the 2-3 years before my wife starts residency.
I am now thinking about FIRE within the next month or two and have run numerous scenarios using both Firecalc and the ultra-conservative FIDO and am reasonably convinced that we can pull it off , as long we keep expenses under control. My dilemma is the "just one more year" syndrome because I am currently making about 250k/ year. But on the other hand, I am not getting any younger and I would like to maximize my time to enjoy my new family. I have several friends at other companies that are trying to lure me into their shop, even as a highly paid part-time consultant ($1600/ day+). I'm tempted, but I'm reluctant because I know that the rose-colored glasses will come off after a few months once I begin to notice the same silly Megacorps "Dilbert" stereotypes posturing and preening to get ahead.
Any thoughts or advice on my stuation before I free myself from 25 years of living in a Dilbert cartoon would be most appreciated... And I apologize for this run-on message and my unabated cynicism about the Megacorps workplace environment.
Cheers,
HSS