My wife and I have been living and working in Japan for the past 9 plus years. I’m an Army civilian and intend to retire at age 61 at the end of the fiscal year (30 September). We will be returning to the U.S. after I retire and have discovered that we are clueless regarding the cost of living in the “real world” (we’ve enjoyed “free” housing and utilities, commissary privileges, cheap Japanese cars, etc. for so long we’ve lost track of what it costs to live back in the “real world”).
We’ve saved diligently while overseas and now have a nest egg in the neighborhood of $1.8M and I’ll draw a small cola’d pension of about $20k/year. We have no debts. I’ll have subsidized health coverage when I retire and will collect Social Security once I become eligible for benefits. When we return to the U.S., we’ll have no house or car . . . just the household goods the Government is shipping back for us. Our current game plan is to buy a late-model used car and simply rent an apartment for awhile.
Getting more to the point, I’m a “poster child” for risk-averse investing, so I don’t expect our nest egg to generate much income in this low-yield economic environment. However, neither my wife nor I have extravagant tastes so my best GUESS is that we’ll have enough to “pull the plug” in September. A major concern is that we are planning to move to a small college town located on the California coast (too help look after my father, who is in his 90’s). The cost of living there appears to be quite high, but we really have no other choice – my father is not about to move elsewhere. I suppose what I’m hoping for is to hear some reassuring words that our game plan is “do-able,” i.e., that two people with relatively modest needs can make it (financially speaking) in a relatively high cost of living area with an estimated yearly income of $40-45k (I said I was risk averse and I really meant it!). Comments are most appreciated.
We’ve saved diligently while overseas and now have a nest egg in the neighborhood of $1.8M and I’ll draw a small cola’d pension of about $20k/year. We have no debts. I’ll have subsidized health coverage when I retire and will collect Social Security once I become eligible for benefits. When we return to the U.S., we’ll have no house or car . . . just the household goods the Government is shipping back for us. Our current game plan is to buy a late-model used car and simply rent an apartment for awhile.
Getting more to the point, I’m a “poster child” for risk-averse investing, so I don’t expect our nest egg to generate much income in this low-yield economic environment. However, neither my wife nor I have extravagant tastes so my best GUESS is that we’ll have enough to “pull the plug” in September. A major concern is that we are planning to move to a small college town located on the California coast (too help look after my father, who is in his 90’s). The cost of living there appears to be quite high, but we really have no other choice – my father is not about to move elsewhere. I suppose what I’m hoping for is to hear some reassuring words that our game plan is “do-able,” i.e., that two people with relatively modest needs can make it (financially speaking) in a relatively high cost of living area with an estimated yearly income of $40-45k (I said I was risk averse and I really meant it!). Comments are most appreciated.
