Share Your FIRE Milestones - 2021

[Alex The Great]

I have a question to those who has 100% success with FireCalc: do you include retirement income, such as Social Security, etc?

 

[tb001]

I have a question to those who has 100% success with FireCalc: do you include retirement income, such as Social Security, etc?

I do. We’re four years away from DH collecting at 62, so that seems close enough. I’m farther away from collecting, hopefully at an older age, but I assume any change would be a haircut, not a complete elimination.

It’s a risk, but we have buffer in our spend.

 

[Dtail]

Not OP! I'm similar. I planned for Summer 2020 and a year ago from today was super excited. 2020 took the wind out of my sails... my LWN now is 22% higher now but my optimism has been shattered. I used to mostly read the threads about life after FIRE and now I'm back to overthinking do I have enough (bouncing around a 2.5% WRD overall but also accessibility issues with a majority in deferred accounts).



I'm not pessimistic but just don't know what to expect (easy come easy go). I index invest (and discount cashflow when I choose individual securities) but still know that I am ultimately buying equity in individual companies as an owner and just feel things are "frothy" now... if we keep printing money and the vaccine reopens shuttered sectors of the economy maybe I'm ok.. or maybe not. I just don't know and piled on top of that is many of the things I want to do when free from the chains of employment are impacted by COVID. So, I take it one day at a time trying (not that successfully) to maintain my sanity... then I feel so lonely to be in such a "good" position but to be feeling constant anxiety when there are so many more that are suffering (some good friends and several I know who have lost almost everything) when I am wishy-washy on quitting my job with much more money than I had a year ago. Wordy I know, a bit of stream of consciousness.


There needs to be an ER therapist that understands our unique population but all the qualified ones are retired!!!


FLSunFire (Grateful to have such "problems" to deal with)

Pb4uski and I will have to work on you at the next SWFLA get together.

 

[RobbieB]

Now retired for almost 7 years. Started out with "X" amount of dough. Over the 7 years I spent a quarter (probably a bit more) of my original stash. But I now have a third more dough than I started with.

I'm making dough more than twice as as fast as I can spend it. Which is very cool!

 

[UnrealizedPotential]

Thank you jollystomper for your words of support. I also want to thank Senator who in 2014 told me to keep up the battle no matter what, it will be worth it. I have done that and will continue to do so.
Really everyone here has encouraged me over the years, so I thank you all.

 

[kgtest]

Well, I'll play the role of the "little guy". But as of close yesterday, my investments are now over $500k.
It truly is a snowball. The first $100k was the hardest!

I'm not a C-Suite Exec or high income earner. Just LBYM and save 35% to 50% of my income. Ready for the next $500k.

We have a lot in common. I never thought we would reach 100...then 200 came so much faster, and 300,400,500...

our last 100k came in less than 6months...not bad for a 39 and 37 year old social worker/IT worker . We have some decent equity we started that train before I got serious about investing though.

 

[Alex The Great]

I do. We’re four years away from DH collecting at 62, so that seems close enough. I’m farther away from collecting, hopefully at an older age, but I assume any change would be a haircut, not a complete elimination.
It’s a risk, but we have buffer in our spend.

Thank you. Currently, I'm around 28X of projected expense and I do have 100% success from Firecalc when social security is included. However, I've never been able to get 100% success from Personal Capital retirement planner: it always say 99% even if I put some random large number like $20M there.

 

[Morgan22]

If you were ready last year and now are in even better shape, why wait?

I think I read too much Bogleheads. It seems if you are 15 years away from Medicare you need 33x expenses. And I worry too much.

 

[RxMan]

Well, I'll play the role of the "little guy". But as of close yesterday, my investments are now over $500k.
It truly is a snowball. The first $100k was the hardest!

I'm not a C-Suite Exec or high income earner. Just LBYM and save 35% to 50% of my income. Ready for the next $500k.

Congrats! That is quite a milestone and it’s certainly a big accomplishment. I remember hitting the same milestone not that long ago and it was rewarding to know that it was something that wasn’t easy to do. You are well on your way to the next milestones. Good luck with your future financial goals.

 

[Retch The Grate]

Well, my big milestone was a negative move in investable assets, but DW and I own a house now, which is having surprising impacts on things I'm thinking about. Definitely different than renting. Next milestone will actually be moving in. Feels weird having so much of our investments now in a house instead. Will be interesting to see how long it takes to get back above $2m invested again.

 

[dheb]

Last night I saw that my invested savings now exceed the amount FIREcalc projects I could retire on and continue to spend about the same amount I've been spending, if I live to 102. I'm planning to continue working for at least a year (probably a year & a half, as my job is in academics and I'd rather leave in the summer than mid-year) because if I continue working into 2022, that's the year I turn 55, and I can draw from my 403(b) without the extra 10% penalty once I separate from my employer (and I need to be drawing from my retirement account to stay on my employer's health ins as a retiree).

 

[SlowlySaving]

Semi-Retired in 2019. Wife will work another three years before possibly retiring. In the big drop of March, I sold a portion of our portfolio, then tried to figure out when to get back in. I got back in at a few percentages below or even when I got out. I never sold in the past but this one SPOOKED me. I won't make that mistake a gain.
Started 2020 at about $2.5 million and finished the year at about $2.8. Hoping to hit the 3 million mark in 2021!

 

[dtlister]

You’re not the little, probably the young guy. In any case, impressive accomplishment

 

[dcrambler]

New to the board and first post. Hit $3.4M NW and $2.5M IA. Would love to see 10% growth this year. Would call that success.

 

[success108]

Looks like most had a good year in 2020, congrats. Our target is 33x expenses, excluding pensions/SS. As of the end of 2020, we're at 58% of target. Probably have to work another 5 years of work (to age 46) before hitting our target number.

For fun I charted FIRECalc success rates against expense multiples starting with where we were as of 12/30/2020. Success rates are based on FIRECalc defaults with a 50 year horizon. Looks like diminishing returns once you hit 28x expense target.

 

[stlguy57]

Retirement Check in

I walked out the retirement door at 58 on 12/31/2015 with 2.43M in our portfolio. Husband retired at 56 in 12/31/2016. In Dec., the portfolio was at 5.2M. I never expected it.

Maybe could have gone sooner but no one can predict the future.

 

[Flyfish1]

Big Milestone for us

I announced to my biz partners I will be retiring in summer of 2023. I'll be 59 1/2 at that time. We will be selling the primary house, and moving to our home on the coast. Sale will pay off the mortgage balance and hopefully let us buy a boat. None of my prior biz partners ever retired before 65 , so I think the group was shocked. Love it!
Good yr last year - market assets up 31%.

 

[Maidensong]

If you've got your plan mapped out, and you reach your $ goal, don't be afraid to pull the trigger.

My DH retired six years ago at 60 (tried to opt out at 59, but Google didn't want to let him go!) Amazingly enough, our net worth has increased every year since 2015, even though we have been living on our savings and rentals and investments. We haven't been scrimping either. We completely remodeled our home (new kitchen, baths, flooring and repainted) and added a third garage. We spent about 150 days cruising prior to Covid and have pre-paid for a 122 day World Cruise leaving LA on Jan 10, 2022. On Friday, we'll sign the closing documents to buy a home for one of our daughters (the other one will inherit the one we live in.)

This year we are both finally on FRA SS and Medicare, so we'll be pulling less from our savings, investments and rentals. Having multiple streams of income to draw from has made all the difference. We have been incredibly blessed and the best part is my DH and I get to spend our days together, which is why we got married in the first place. Our life is finally our own and that's worth everything.

 

[Flyfish1]

Maidensong - Wow very cool for you two!
I know and I've debated that as well.One issue is my buy out is tied to company EBITDA, which just dropped over 30% this year. So, logically the best move is to delay for a year...but trust me I am considering exactly what you mentioned.
We are heavily into boating and a bigger buy out covers a bigger boat, etc..
Everything else is covered right now at about 28x expenses. We could live with our present boat - but we both want to cruise New England in style when we retire. I'm going to hang tough for another 2 years....I think... Totally agree on multiple streams of income.

Love hearing about your success ...makes me smile. Thx.

 

[Lienlord]

Hasn't happened yet, but just signed contract to sell our primary home and a commercial office duplex that sits behind it. We built this house 26 years ago, and the office duplex 20 years ago. My wife used one office space for her children's music studio all that time, until COVID influenced her decision to retire last August. Selling both to the same buyer, who plans to live in the house and use one of the offices for their business and rent out the other.
Our plans are to rent something for about a year, then look for something that fits our new empty nest needs. I'm sure others have gone through this, but trying to wrap our minds around the emotional aspects of selling the home you raised your family in. It's tough!

 

[Flyfish1]

Congrats Lienlord - Ain't easy. We downsized a year ago- stayed in the area and will until I retire. It was hard but our kids were supportive and that helped.

 

[ArmchairMillionaire23]

Hit 1.25M net worth (not including home value) as of this morning!

 

[walk]

On paper I've been above my FI number for over a week now, after first hitting it in December.

I don't feel FI. I'm far too young to retire. Also, the golden handcuffs of stock appreciation at my current job make it hard to consider leaving even to another company.

Those golden handcuffs will disappear one way or another, probably in fewer than two years. My next goals are:
- Move assets out of company stock into something more diversified (the tax hit is going to hurt...)
- For my next job, the people and the work should be a much higher priority than salary or "career"
- Check in with myself in five and ten years to make sure that I'm enjoying my work and, if not, do something about it
- Post-pandemic, I owe myself a vacation

 

[Letj]

I walked out the retirement door at 58 on 12/31/2015 with 2.43M in our portfolio. Husband retired at 56 in 12/31/2016. In Dec., the portfolio was at 5.2M. I never expected it.

Maybe could have gone sooner but no one can predict the future.

Just curious. Is this all from market appreciation or was there a windfall/contribution?

 

[stlguy57]

Just curious. Is this all from market appreciation or was there a windfall/contribution?

This is all market appreciation with no new funds since I'm retired. I'm an aggressive investor, with no bond exposure. I have one index fund (S&P fund) and a significant share of AAPL. I own both of these for the long term and do not trade them. I was up 29% in 2020.