OnIslandTime
Dryer sheet aficionado
- Joined
- Dec 11, 2016
- Messages
- 26
Hi All,
I've been lurking here for a while (I lurked a while and created an account in December and lurked a while longer).
I've read so much here that I am able to predict responses to some of the "can I retire yet?" inquiries. You've all taught me well; at least I hope you have!
We are engineers at ye olde Megacorp. DH is 58 and I'm 57. We haven't always made decisions that maximized our ROI, but we've always worked hard, lived below our means, used credit wisely, and been incredibly lucky. Lucky that we had parents who never had any extra money, but encouraged us to get all we could from our education. Lucky that we both went to a local college on academic scholarships (that's where we met). Lucky that we kept our grades high enough to have all 4 years paid for. Lucky that we worked hard and got good raises. Lucky that megacorp paid for advanced degrees. Lucky that we have always salted away $ in the megacorp savings plan with matching $. Lucky that early on we took a free investment class offered and started salting away more $. Lucky that we never got laid off during many big rounds of layoffs. And lucky that we own a house in a place we've dreamed of retiring to (snagging that is a whole 'nother story).
We are looking at pensions that will cover more than 1/2 of our expenses and our stack is more than 30X the remaining (worst case) expenses.
Our kids are both thru college (with no debt) and have their real jobs. They are both local for now, but who knows where they'll each wind up. We've already budgeted for their weddings (son and daughter are each getting the same chunk of change).
We own the house we're living in (paid off this year). We plan to sell it and move to the dream house and get away from winter! The dream house is 1/2 paid for. It is within walking distance of the beach on a lake on an island. Taxes are high and insurance is high (and expected to go higher), but we've got it all in the numbers.
We can COBRA our medical insurance for 18 months and after that we'll be shopping for insurance. Our pensions are large enough that even should the healthcare picture then be similar to the healthcare picture now, we will not qualify for any ACA subsidies, so we have ponied in a pretty huge number for that. If it is an option at the time we'd probably prefer to get "old fashioned" insurance to cover the big stuff.
We're engineers so we've analyzed this a gazillion ways. We've run firecalc loaded with all the worst case assumptions (losing 1/3 of the pile the day before we retire, megacorp pension estimate being off by 25%, SS at FRA with a 25% haircut, expenses being unbelievably high forever) and we still get 100% success. We've got spreadsheets on top of spreadsheets and they all look good too.
So it looks like we're ready, but we're not "ready". There is some work to do to get ready.
The house we're headed to is in great shape (we've owned it for almost two years and it was in good shape when we got it and we've put a lot into making it ready for full time living). The house we're in is full of 25+ years of stuff and we don't want to/need to take much with us. Some stuff is easy to let go of, other stuff has sentimental value and is tougher; it won't fit in the new house (3000 sq ft vs 1900 sq ft). This makes it a difficult task that we are dragging our feet on.
The current house also needs updating, but we need to decide how much to do or not. We are not big DYI people and some big things need to be done, so it'll be all about deciding how much pay someone to do, pay a real estate agent, deal with inspections, etc vs. selling to flippers and walking away. The net I've been using is pretty pessimistic.
We also need to work on AA; that'll take some work because the AA we have now (too much on one place) has done phenomenally well and DH wants to stick with it.
We're looking at Class of 2018; that's both exciting and scary.
It is great to have a place to learn and discuss early retirement!
OnIslandTime
I've been lurking here for a while (I lurked a while and created an account in December and lurked a while longer).
I've read so much here that I am able to predict responses to some of the "can I retire yet?" inquiries. You've all taught me well; at least I hope you have!
We are engineers at ye olde Megacorp. DH is 58 and I'm 57. We haven't always made decisions that maximized our ROI, but we've always worked hard, lived below our means, used credit wisely, and been incredibly lucky. Lucky that we had parents who never had any extra money, but encouraged us to get all we could from our education. Lucky that we both went to a local college on academic scholarships (that's where we met). Lucky that we kept our grades high enough to have all 4 years paid for. Lucky that we worked hard and got good raises. Lucky that megacorp paid for advanced degrees. Lucky that we have always salted away $ in the megacorp savings plan with matching $. Lucky that early on we took a free investment class offered and started salting away more $. Lucky that we never got laid off during many big rounds of layoffs. And lucky that we own a house in a place we've dreamed of retiring to (snagging that is a whole 'nother story).
We are looking at pensions that will cover more than 1/2 of our expenses and our stack is more than 30X the remaining (worst case) expenses.
Our kids are both thru college (with no debt) and have their real jobs. They are both local for now, but who knows where they'll each wind up. We've already budgeted for their weddings (son and daughter are each getting the same chunk of change).
We own the house we're living in (paid off this year). We plan to sell it and move to the dream house and get away from winter! The dream house is 1/2 paid for. It is within walking distance of the beach on a lake on an island. Taxes are high and insurance is high (and expected to go higher), but we've got it all in the numbers.
We can COBRA our medical insurance for 18 months and after that we'll be shopping for insurance. Our pensions are large enough that even should the healthcare picture then be similar to the healthcare picture now, we will not qualify for any ACA subsidies, so we have ponied in a pretty huge number for that. If it is an option at the time we'd probably prefer to get "old fashioned" insurance to cover the big stuff.
We're engineers so we've analyzed this a gazillion ways. We've run firecalc loaded with all the worst case assumptions (losing 1/3 of the pile the day before we retire, megacorp pension estimate being off by 25%, SS at FRA with a 25% haircut, expenses being unbelievably high forever) and we still get 100% success. We've got spreadsheets on top of spreadsheets and they all look good too.
So it looks like we're ready, but we're not "ready". There is some work to do to get ready.
The house we're headed to is in great shape (we've owned it for almost two years and it was in good shape when we got it and we've put a lot into making it ready for full time living). The house we're in is full of 25+ years of stuff and we don't want to/need to take much with us. Some stuff is easy to let go of, other stuff has sentimental value and is tougher; it won't fit in the new house (3000 sq ft vs 1900 sq ft). This makes it a difficult task that we are dragging our feet on.
The current house also needs updating, but we need to decide how much to do or not. We are not big DYI people and some big things need to be done, so it'll be all about deciding how much pay someone to do, pay a real estate agent, deal with inspections, etc vs. selling to flippers and walking away. The net I've been using is pretty pessimistic.
We also need to work on AA; that'll take some work because the AA we have now (too much on one place) has done phenomenally well and DH wants to stick with it.
We're looking at Class of 2018; that's both exciting and scary.
It is great to have a place to learn and discuss early retirement!
OnIslandTime
