Jane Bryant Quinn is negative about ER

[aida2003]

I kind of liked her before, though I didn't follow her writings. Now this interview with her is more negative than positive about ER.
Jane Bryant Quinn, America’s Leading Financial Journalist, Joins Jim Lange

 

[brewer12345]

And? I could give her some anatomically correct suggestions as to what to do with her opinion, but I generally could not give a flying reproductive act about what some pundit thinks.

 

[karluk]

I kind of liked her before, though I didn't follow her writings. Now this interview with her is more negative than positive about ER.
Jane Bryant Quinn, America’s Leading Financial Journalist, Joins Jim Lange

I don't want to get into a debate about the merits of Ms. Quinn's retirement advice, and I admit haven't taken the time to thoroughly read the interview in the link, but what I did see was not materially different than the kind of advice routinely dispensed on this forum, namely, "Don't retire just because you want to. Run your numbers through Firecalc and make sure you really do have enough money to support your expected expenses and last your lifetime with a high probability of success." For example, she is quoted as saying

Jane: Retiring early is a dream for many people, but they just don’t have the money to do it, and to retire early, I mean, you want to retire at 55 and you might live to 95, I mean, how are you going to live? How is your money going to last? You shouldn’t even think of retiring early unless you’ve got really a lot of money and you’ve run it through some kind of a good financial plan that tells you what is my income going to be?

Replace "good financial plan" with "Firecalc" in the preceding quote, and it's something that any number of people might post in this forum.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

I think I must know more frugal people than Jane and the other news pundits, because we have friends and family that are able to live quite well on Medicare and SS benefits alone, especially the ones with two higher end checks.

To retire 10 years early they only need to have 10 years of expenses saved up, which just isn't that much for the frugal households.

 

[walkinwood]

Read the paragraph where she makes remarks about ER and you'll find echoes of discussions we have here all the time.

From a financial point, she's right on - paraphrasing - don't retire early unless you have enough money to fund living to 90, and have a good financial plan to do it. She makes all the points that we make here.

I don't agree with her non-financial concerns about working & being productive.

 

[youbet]

I kind of liked her before, though I didn't follow her writings. Now this interview with her is more negative than positive about ER.
Jane Bryant Quinn, America’s Leading Financial Journalist, Joins Jim Lange

Her first and apparently main point is that the commonly used "4% + inflation adjustment" guideline for retirement withdrawals may be a bit too high due to today's low interest rates. For folks retiring early (she defines this as 55 or younger), she suggests they consider 3.5%. That's a number I've seen several posters here mention that they're using or planning to use. It doesn't seem that overly conservative to me.

She also suggests that people consider their sources of income (SS + pension + WR) vs. their carefully considered spending needs and feel condfident before pulling the plug. I'm comfortable with that. I used every analysis tool I could find before deciding I was done working. Even now, 7.5 years into ER, I'm still busy running on line tools and homebrew spreadsheets to help me understand where we're at.

I suppose for a single person with no additional responsibilities, ER'ing based on an aggressive WR and with few plans in place could be sort of an interesting life adventure. You know, one of those exciting "take your $500k and move to Paris" stories..... And the risks are likely small since you only have yourself to consider. That wasn't my position. So a more conservative approach was OK for me even though working for a living wasn't my favorite thing......

aida2003 - how aggressive are your own plans that you think the cautions in the article are over the top conservative and anti-ER?

 

[Midpack]

I kind of liked her before, though I didn't follow her writings. Now this interview with her is more negative than positive about ER.
Jane Bryant Quinn, America’s Leading Financial Journalist, Joins Jim Lange

I scanned her answers for the first half of the transcripts, but I didn't see where she was negative per se. She suggested some caution for early retirees, but I'd hardly categorize that as negative, more 'eyes wide open' which should be expected.

Where exactly was she negative vs prudent in your view (maybe a quote in the OP would have been nice...)?

 

[Bestwifeever]

I think most people cannot afford to retire much before 62, based on the nest eggs being reported for boomers. I thought Bryant Quinn's comments were realistic ( but probably aren't going to be read by anyone who might be helped by them). Her emotional side of retiring comments were about what I would expect from someone with a career like hers where part of her "job" is flying around the country to give her opinions on things for $15,000 to $20,000 a pop (http://www.cassidyandfishman.com/speakers/jane-bryant-quinn/).

 

[misanman]

Most of us would agree that a well thought out early retirement plan is important.

I can think of three of my acquaintances who have run short after ER and have now re-entered the work force in their late 60's or early 70's (one as a school bus driver). Apparently they didn't plan well enough to be able to stay comfortably retired.

 

[galeno]

I think her advice is excellent. There are lots of people who are retired who don't have enough money.

They are typically yield chasing "income investors" who need to have their portfolios generate a certain yield, typically greater than 4%.

 

[FIREd]

I think she is giving pretty good advice, i.e. have a solid financial plan, be psychologically ready for ER, be mindful of inflation, etc... Many of the same topics we discuss here all the time. Her suggestion to use a lower withdrawal rate and keep your spending flexible seems to be more or less in line with the board's general consensus these days.

 

[foxfirev5]

The financial portion seemed reasonable, the lifestyle merits of working not so much.

 

[robnplunder]

I just read the full article and didn't see much negative spin on ER. If any, she gave good sensible answers.

The only thing she may have said that about 50% of folks here won't agree is when to take SS. I recently did a poll on it and this board split evenly between taking SS at 62 & 70. I voted for 70 so I am in line with what Jane said.

 

[ziggy29]

She's not going all-out Suze Orman in chastising people who have the means to retire young. I think she's just being very cautious and conservative with respect to how people should decide when they really do have enough. She does seem to think a lot of people who think they can do it aren't secure enough to pull the trigger yet -- but she's not hostile to the concept for those who can obviously afford it.... unlike Suze who seems to think everyone should work until 70+ whether they need to or not.

 

[rescueme]

She's 74 and still not retired?

Sorry, I can't follow her suggestions ... Those that can, do, those that can't (you know).

(I know, she just does it because she dosen't want to stay at home...)

 

[mickeyd]

In order to ER you have to save a lot over a long time. Few folks (other that those who post here) can meet that standard or have ever figured that out in time so when they hit old age they can't recover because it's too damn late to save enough.

 

[haha]

Why is what she thinks important? Reality will be whatever it will be, and JBQ or anyone else's opinion won't have much to do with it.

For the record, as some others have mentioned, what she said is just good sense. I don't see why some posters are troubled by obvious good sense. The viability of some members' ERs in no way depends on selling the concept to others, or on JBQ's or Suze's opinions. So perhaps let it be?

We will individually prosper or eat beans and rice depending on our plans and executions, and what is in the stars.

Ha

 

[BLS53]

I think I must know more frugal people than Jane and the other news pundits, because we have friends and family that are able to live quite well on Medicare and SS benefits alone, especially the ones with two higher end checks.

To retire 10 years early they only need to have 10 years of expenses saved up, which just isn't that much for the frugal households.

Bryant lost me when she said: "incredibly low figures of $3,000-$4000 a month".

Most of these gurus base their advice around an upper middle class NYC lifestyle. That's their fish bowl, and they have no relationships with anyone living outside of it.

 

[Chuckanut]

Thank goodness you posted this. I will go out and start working again immediately. I have a friend in Nigeria who is making a fortune sending out e-mails. And he promised me two goats also.

 

[Mulligan]

Bryant lost me when she said: "incredibly low figures of $3,000-$4000 a month". Most of these gurus base their advice around an upper middle class NYC lifestyle. That's their fish bowl, and they have no relationships with anyone living outside of it.

Wow, that humbled me...I have about $4700 a month to spend and usually don't go above $3200 including a mortgage. I thought I was rich! Guess not, but then again, I live in fly over country...

 

[pb4uski]

I think she is giving pretty good advice, i.e. have a solid financial plan, be psychologically ready for ER, be mindful of inflation, etc... Many of the same topics we discuss here all the time. Her suggestion to use a lower withdrawal rate and keep your spending flexible seems to be more or less in line with the board's general consensus these days.

+1 I've never been a big fan of her, but I didn't find anything she said in that ER section objectionable.

 

[robnplunder]

Wow, that humbled me...I have about $4700 a month to spend and usually don't go above $3200 including a mortgage. I thought I was rich! Guess not, but then again, I live in fly over country...

Chuckle. That's ($3200 - $4700) called a mortgage in Bay Area, CA. Nobody flies over their home. The air space is protected - too much noise.

This is why I have to move to a fly over country when I get FIREd. Money saved will go to hiring Tiger's golf instructor and that will be the end of my mulligans .

 

[Walt34]

Thank goodness you posted this. I will go out and start working again immediately. I have a friend in Nigeria who is making a fortune sending out e-mails. And he promised me two goats also.

I dunno. Sounds like w*rk to me.

 

[martyb]

Wow, that humbled me...I have about $4700 a month to spend and usually don't go above $3200 including a mortgage. I thought I was rich! Guess not, but then again, I live in fly over country...

That's gonna be our range, too.

 

[Al in Ohio]

She is generalizing to suit the average clueless worker. Anyone with brains knows its a safe bet once you take a few hours or days to figure out both sides of the equation. The sorry thing is 90% can't or don't bother to get to that revelation.

....and the interviewer dude really got off base early by surmising that investment advisors would gain by trying to influence you to try to consider RE! It's just the opposite in fact and every piece of marketing is geared to keep you at work, earning more to stay in the game of wealth building as long as possible in order to pump more dough into their managed funds that increase fund fee yields