One Year Later

[Still Learning]

New to the forum and we just completed our first year of retirement. Our original plan was to retire at 63/64 and have no loans. We ended up retiring earlier at 61/61 due to a restructuring at my company with $2 million split 50/50 in Vanguard/Savings, health coverage under my wife's school program (she is free for life, I pay and Medicare is refunded with excellent coverage), plan to self-fund long term and at home care, initial retirement toys are paid off and initial budgeted bills are $41K annually which maintains our pre-retirement lifestyle plus $40K withdrawal for entertainment/travel.


We employed our Accountant and a Financial Planner to review/comment on our retirement plan before acting. The last question at our third meeting was "could we both retire earlier than planned", answer was yes.............pass the tissues for my wife.....it was a good day. We could act because we had followed a program for the last 25 years to pay off loans, build investments/savings and have an understanding of what we wanted in retirement. My wife has a pension and we both took SS at 62 which pays all bills with $5K left over. The early SS allows us to preserve all investments (greater growth) and savings with the larger full maturity SS payout more than covered by investment growth alone. We are conservative investors but spreadsheet at age 80 shows we will have an extra $1.5 million in investments/savings while providing for house improvements, vehicle replacements including a small RV and expanded investment withdrawals. Neither of us is a financial expert, but I have extensive career experience with budgets and we will hire financial experts for third party input when required and at regular intervals. Prefer to use managed funds.



Just met with our Accountant and budget/taxes were on target after our first year of retirement. Have made some adjustments with our Vanguard accounts and with Covid still hindering travel/dining elected to reduce our investment withdrawals to 1%. We already pay no state taxes so this will reduce our federal taxes next year and allow increased growth at Vanguard for now. Plan to start a Fidelity account this year funded from savings.


Have enjoyed postings on the forum and look forward to becoming a better informed investor.

[Timeisprecious]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Still Learning New to the forum and we just completed our first year of retirement. Our original plan was to retire at 63/64 and have no loans. We ended up retiring earlier at 61/61 due to a restructuring at my company with $2 million split 50/50 in Vanguard/Savings, health coverage under my wife's school program (she is free for life, I pay and Medicare is refunded with excellent coverage), plan to self-fund long term and at home care, initial retirement toys are paid off and initial budgeted bills are $41K annually which maintains our pre-retirement lifestyle plus $40K withdrawal for entertainment/travel. We employed our Accountant and a Financial Planner to review/comment on our retirement plan before acting. The last question at our third meeting was "could we both retire earlier than planned", answer was yes.............pass the tissues for my wife.....it was a good day. We could act because we had followed a program for the last 25 years to pay off loans, build investments/savings and have an understanding of what we wanted in retirement. My wife has a pension and we both took SS at 62 which pays all bills with $5K left over. The early SS allows us to preserve all investments (greater growth) and savings with the larger full maturity SS payout more than covered by investment growth alone. We are conservative investors but spreadsheet at age 80 shows we will have an extra $1.5 million in investments/savings while providing for house improvements, vehicle replacements including a small RV and expanded investment withdrawals. Neither of us is a financial expert, but I have extensive career experience with budgets and we will hire financial experts for third party input when required and at regular intervals. Prefer to use managed funds. Just met with our Accountant and budget/taxes were on target after our first year of retirement. Have made some adjustments with our Vanguard accounts and with Covid still hindering travel/dining elected to reduce our investment withdrawals to 1%. We already pay no state taxes so this will reduce our federal taxes next year and allow increased growth at Vanguard for now. Plan to start a Fidelity account this year funded from savings. Have enjoyed postings on the forum and look forward to becoming a better informed investor.

Hi Learning! Welcome to the forum. And yes - you can learn a lot here. I've been learning a lot; I just started my second year of retirement and am still tweaking things financially.

[Lewis Clark]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Still Learning ... We could act because we had followed a program for the last 25 years to pay off loans, build investments/savings and have an understanding of what we wanted in retirement. ...

Very well done. Congrats!

[Dtail]

Welcome to our wonderful forum. Congrats on your retirement. Sounds like things are going well.
I am very into budgets and planning too.

[pacergal]

Welcome. This forum is a great place to learn and share.
Look forward to hearing more from you.

[RetireeRobert]

Congratulations on your start of retirement!

I always like reading about other "planners" who methodically plod their way toward their goals. Well done.

You talk about learning at this forum, but you two can probably give others a few lessons yourselves.

[retire48in2018]

Welcome. Pitch in with your views & comments.

[street]

Great job!
Planning is one of the ingrediency for success.

[Graysand]

Congratulations on having won the game!

That's going to be one heckuva legacy you leave to somebody!

[Still Learning]

Thank you for everyone's responses. I look forward to participating in threads where I can contribute meaningfully.