New member after partial retirement from corporate buyout

[LenB61]

Hello everyone! I'm 56 and I "retired" with a buy-out from a Fortune 500 company last month. After 25 yrs I earned a $32k pension and the company will subsidize $8k per life yearly for my wife and I's health insurance leaving us paying $7.2k total for the same policy I had while an active employee. We have a LTC insurance policy for each of us too ($3k annually).

Children are all on their own. Wife still works full time and earns ~$150k average yearly salary. We own two rental houses (both currently occupied by our children and grandchildren) valued at around ~$170k as well as $250k equity in our own $400k home. Our combined 401K/IRAs total around $1M.

I am now working part time ~30h/wk as a consultant with absolutely zero stress doing a job I enjoy. It's a very small company in which I get a lot of equity (which may or may not pay off) in addition to a $36k salary.

The plan is for us to contribute another ~$400k to our assets, pay off our mortgage and for both of us to completely retire debt-free in 4 years at age 60 and begin IRA withdrawals then. At age 62 we will be eligible for a combined SS benefit of $50k annually. We don't spend extravagantly and we generally have saved close to 50% on average. Cost of living is low in our state and we don't drive new cars or need expensive toys. We do enjoy travel and on average we'd like to spend around $10k annually on this. Thought I'd say hello and reach out to those here with more experience and ask If this seems like a reasonable plan. Am I missing anything? Thanks!

[Bamaman]

Congratulations to your making a plan and sticking to it. It's also great that you enjoy your present low stress job.

Your Ace In The Hole is the paid for real estate in your retirement.

After ER the last 8 years, I'm trying to slow down international travel, however we keep running up on deals we cannot refuse.

Just keep on your long term plan and plenty of life is waiting on you.

[brucethebroker]

Sounds like a great plan-lots of room to cut back expenses if necessary. Welcome.

[Whisper66]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LenB61 .... don't spend extravagantly and we generally have saved close to 50% on average. ...... . Am I missing anything? Thanks!

It sounds like you will have good income to cover anything I'd normally consider as not spending extravengantly so I'd agree with others you are in good shape.
However, have you actually defined what you think you'll spend in retirement and run the numbers through Firecalc? If so, was your success rate something acceptable to you?

[supernova72]

Nice write up. I had a similar situation 10 months ago on corporate buyout although it was not voluntary. It's taken longer than I thought to adjust to not working at all after 31 yrs in the corporate world.

Part time work would be ideal but I've found there are the $11 an hour jobs or much more than I want "stress" wise but not much in-between. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough.

[broadway]

Quote:

Originally Posted by supernova72 Part time work would be ideal but I've found there are the $11 an hour jobs or much more than I want "stress" wise but not much in-between. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough.

I had a telephone interview for one of those $11/hour jobs on Friday and it was for full-time. It "sounded" like it would be a lot of stress, so I passed.
At this point, I just want part-time ideally 3 or 4 days a week.

I have found that I am averaging 1 in-person job interview per year for a job that is in my field.

[LenB61]

Thanks for all the replies and advice. I was lucky to have a friend start a business and recruit me before I even officially quit my full time job. Also extremely fortunate that my wonderful wife has a great career and salary, lives below our means and is understanding of my desire to scale back. Where is this FireCalc located? I browsed around the site but didn't see any links.

[LenB61]

Whisper66, I found the program and ran numbers with just investments expected after 4 more years (1.2M). I left out pension and SS (for both of us) and still had 100% prediction to get $40k for next 35 years and leave $250k to $13M inheritance (quite a range!). If pension ($33k) and SS hold out then it appears we will only have more to give/spend. Am I using this program correctly?

[Whisper66]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LenB61 Whisper66, I found the program and ran numbers with just investments expected after 4 more years (1.2M). I left out pension and SS (for both of us) and still had 100% prediction to get $40k for next 35 years and leave $250k to $13M inheritance (quite a range!). If pension ($33k) and SS hold out then it appears we will only have more to give/spend. Am I using this program correctly?

Yes, you are running it correctly and those are the same results I get with your input. Makes perfect sense if you think about it. A burn rate of $40k on a $1.2m portfolio is only 3.3% per year, very reasonable. Put in your pension and some social security and you guys could spend quite a bit more if you wished. The large inheritance range occurs because of how different the stock market has performed over various time periods.

[evilanne]

Welcome to the forum Len

Another calculator in addition to FIRECalc: A different kind of retirement calculator is https://i-orp.com
If you spend less than you take in you will get easily 100% and your investments could increase substantially depending on your rate of return.