coop
Confused about dryer sheets
Hi, I’m a lurker and first-time poster in Texas. My first grandchild is now 18 months old, I’m an avid golfer who hasn’t played since Halloween, and I’m feeling the call of that grandbaby and the first tee.
I am 59, DW is 64. We live in central Texas, and have two married sons in the Midwest. They are 1,100 miles from us and 250 miles from each other. Wife is retired. We would like to sell our home here, which we own free and clear, and move to where one of our sons lives (the one with the baby). We have spent most of our lives in the Sunbelt and don’t relish the thought of Ohio winters, so my retirement budget includes a provision to be a 3-month snowbird.
I have spent a great deal of time writing a DIY financial plan and would like the perspective of this board on whether I am financially ready. I will confess that I’m blessed to have a good paying j*b and my boss and employer like me and the work I do. But more and more, I just feel like to live out my purpose, I should exit the w*rkforce and structure my life around spending time with my family. But it’s hard to walk away from that paycheck.
Here are the financial facts, with an eye toward the “important questions” sticky to be sure I’ve covered the bases:
I have tracked my expenses carefully for the past 3 years. I have added and subtracted real-world projected expenses that will change in retirement. I have built a retirement expense budget for the first 10 years of retirement on a year by year basis, using “baseline” expenses not including health insurance and income taxes, and then built in carefully projected year by year expenses for these two big items.
Budget: $104,000 in 2017, $110,000 in 2018, then $113-$118K in 2019-2024, then it drops to $110K in 2025. From then on, I have used a straight 3% inflation factor. The reason for the up-and-down is due to pre-Medicare insurance premiums for me, along with income taxes from converting TIRAs to Roths.
My wife is retired from the Arizona state retirement system. I have access to a good, but expensive, health insurance plan through them. It is a PPO with a good national network. I have tracked premiums for that plan for the past 5 years so I have a good idea of what this plan will cost. My wife can also get a Medicare Supplement plan through them if we want. I have used the costs for this plan to build my expense budget.
Based on some extensive spreadsheet work I’ve done, it makes great sense for both of us to delay taking Social Security until age 70. My PIA at full retirement age (66 and 2 months) is $2,507/month in 2014 dollars. Her PIA at full retirement age (66 and 0 months) is $1,219/month.
Pensions: she currently receives a non-COLA $11K pension. I will receive a $6K non-COLA pension beginning at age 62 in 2017.
Portfolio: Currently is $1.15 million, with a plan to pull $100,000 out of home equity by downsizing our paid-off home. So for planning purposes I’m counting the portfolio as $1.25 million. We have no debt. Portfolio breaks down as follows:
Taxable accounts: $355K (counting the expected infusion of home equity) with only about $4K of unrealized cap gains. Traditional IRAs (TIRAs): $690K. Roth IRAs: $205K.
My plan is to live off taxable account $/Roth early in retirement, and manage taxes to the top of the 15% marginal tax bracket with conversions from TIRAs to Roths. I did a spreadsheet that estimates I should be done with this by the time I turn 70 and start drawing Social Security on my PIA. Therefore, our taxes in 2025 will drop from about $11,000 a year to near zero, which will drop my budget at that age.
I have run the numbers through FIREcalc, based on a 26 year retirement starting in 2016 (ages 86 and 91 for end of retirement). FIREcalc shows a 90% success rate, assuming I maintain a 50/50 asset allocation.
My issue is this: my plan means that we would be pulling 7-8% of our nest egg out to live on for 10 years. But then, once we are both on Social Security in 2025, then I would only need to pull 2-3% of the remaining nest egg in 2025—if that much, as my budget does not factor in reduced spending late in retirement.
So, do you think this is “doable?” If so, should I consider “walling off” about 3-5 years of living expenses early in retirement to safeguard against adverse sequence of returns?
My heart is ready to pull the plug and retire in the next year. My head tells me that maybe I should keep working, that my savings might not be enough to withstand a bear market early in retirement during a time when we are making large withdrawals. But what do you think?
I am 59, DW is 64. We live in central Texas, and have two married sons in the Midwest. They are 1,100 miles from us and 250 miles from each other. Wife is retired. We would like to sell our home here, which we own free and clear, and move to where one of our sons lives (the one with the baby). We have spent most of our lives in the Sunbelt and don’t relish the thought of Ohio winters, so my retirement budget includes a provision to be a 3-month snowbird.
I have spent a great deal of time writing a DIY financial plan and would like the perspective of this board on whether I am financially ready. I will confess that I’m blessed to have a good paying j*b and my boss and employer like me and the work I do. But more and more, I just feel like to live out my purpose, I should exit the w*rkforce and structure my life around spending time with my family. But it’s hard to walk away from that paycheck.
Here are the financial facts, with an eye toward the “important questions” sticky to be sure I’ve covered the bases:
I have tracked my expenses carefully for the past 3 years. I have added and subtracted real-world projected expenses that will change in retirement. I have built a retirement expense budget for the first 10 years of retirement on a year by year basis, using “baseline” expenses not including health insurance and income taxes, and then built in carefully projected year by year expenses for these two big items.
Budget: $104,000 in 2017, $110,000 in 2018, then $113-$118K in 2019-2024, then it drops to $110K in 2025. From then on, I have used a straight 3% inflation factor. The reason for the up-and-down is due to pre-Medicare insurance premiums for me, along with income taxes from converting TIRAs to Roths.
My wife is retired from the Arizona state retirement system. I have access to a good, but expensive, health insurance plan through them. It is a PPO with a good national network. I have tracked premiums for that plan for the past 5 years so I have a good idea of what this plan will cost. My wife can also get a Medicare Supplement plan through them if we want. I have used the costs for this plan to build my expense budget.
Based on some extensive spreadsheet work I’ve done, it makes great sense for both of us to delay taking Social Security until age 70. My PIA at full retirement age (66 and 2 months) is $2,507/month in 2014 dollars. Her PIA at full retirement age (66 and 0 months) is $1,219/month.
Pensions: she currently receives a non-COLA $11K pension. I will receive a $6K non-COLA pension beginning at age 62 in 2017.
Portfolio: Currently is $1.15 million, with a plan to pull $100,000 out of home equity by downsizing our paid-off home. So for planning purposes I’m counting the portfolio as $1.25 million. We have no debt. Portfolio breaks down as follows:
Taxable accounts: $355K (counting the expected infusion of home equity) with only about $4K of unrealized cap gains. Traditional IRAs (TIRAs): $690K. Roth IRAs: $205K.
My plan is to live off taxable account $/Roth early in retirement, and manage taxes to the top of the 15% marginal tax bracket with conversions from TIRAs to Roths. I did a spreadsheet that estimates I should be done with this by the time I turn 70 and start drawing Social Security on my PIA. Therefore, our taxes in 2025 will drop from about $11,000 a year to near zero, which will drop my budget at that age.
I have run the numbers through FIREcalc, based on a 26 year retirement starting in 2016 (ages 86 and 91 for end of retirement). FIREcalc shows a 90% success rate, assuming I maintain a 50/50 asset allocation.
My issue is this: my plan means that we would be pulling 7-8% of our nest egg out to live on for 10 years. But then, once we are both on Social Security in 2025, then I would only need to pull 2-3% of the remaining nest egg in 2025—if that much, as my budget does not factor in reduced spending late in retirement.
So, do you think this is “doable?” If so, should I consider “walling off” about 3-5 years of living expenses early in retirement to safeguard against adverse sequence of returns?
My heart is ready to pull the plug and retire in the next year. My head tells me that maybe I should keep working, that my savings might not be enough to withstand a bear market early in retirement during a time when we are making large withdrawals. But what do you think?