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Who Is Your Role Model for Retirement?
Old 11-17-2021, 07:45 AM   #1
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Who Is Your Role Model for Retirement?

Just wondering about your Role Models for retirement. In other words, who is the person(s) you are currently using as a positive (or negative role) model as you make day-to-day retirement decisions? Many thanks to those of you who are willing to share this personal info...
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Old 11-17-2021, 08:31 AM   #2
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Nearly every adult I knew growing up, and most I have known in general, have been good examples of bad examples. What not to do.

I did have one uncle who retired at 50 as a GS 15 from the Fed Gov. But he was one of those depression era/immigrant stories who thought life had to be about work... money... work... money... work... money, so even after he left his job he continued to own a dry cleaning business until his 70's and heart problems slowed him down. I cannot say he was a bad life manager. He was great! Even the part about not having too many kids. If working turns you on do it. But he could have retired as GS 3 and done that. IOW he never really stopped working.

Parents and all others, including my peers the last 45 years, were horrible life managers. I did not want to grow up to be like them in any respect.
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Old 11-17-2021, 08:57 AM   #3
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My dad...he worked until almost 80..physical labor jobs and then promptly dropped dead once he stopped...I told myself at that time "that's not gonna be me"
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Old 11-17-2021, 09:14 AM   #4
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My father worked until his early 80s and I had always wanted to keep working like him, which is to not retire. I would have continued working until 62 and even later than that. However, my older husband wanted us to retire together, so I retired at 53, leaving money on the table.
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Old 11-17-2021, 09:20 AM   #5
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My dad retired at 62 and when people asked how it was going, he said "Every day is Saturday." That stuck with me.
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Old 11-17-2021, 09:21 AM   #6
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Not really a role model for retirement alone, but for life in general: My Folks.
Mom and Dad always taught us to split money three ways: Save, Give, Live on what's left. When you got $0.10 allowance, that was hard!
My Dad was my go-to financial inspiration and knowledge person. We didn't live in poverty, but money was not free flowing growing up. He didn't start making his big bucks until age 50, did really well until retirement at 65 as a VP at a major company.
My Mom was my major "how to live life" person. She firmly believed in giving back, to church, to society and to enjoy/be thankful for what you have in life.

I miss them both and work to honor their teachings. Retired early, for us, at 60 having more than I ever thought we would. We are blessed.
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Old 11-17-2021, 09:33 AM   #7
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My friends Allison and Dylin, who retired in their early (or maybe mid-) 40s and now spend a lot of their time traveling internationally and visiting friends all over the country. They are writing books and blogging about it, but mostly for fun, as they don't depend on the income. I won't link to it, but their blog is called Retire By 45. I started pretty late, but I aim to spend a lot of my retirement traveling and visiting friends like they do.
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Old 11-17-2021, 10:47 AM   #8
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An uncle I had was an inspiration to me. A WWII vet, a COO at a major corporation (in his day) and the nicest guy you would ever meet. His family cherished him.
After he and my aunt passed, the truth came out. He was very loyal to his old megacorp and held on to their stock, never diversifying it. His kids found he had mortgaged their house to pay for the grandkids education and was living off his pension with few assets left. They had to spend some of their own money to update the home to get a good price for it. Do they each got something, but not as much as they hoped. Fortunately, they’re mostly doing okay, though a couple of my cousins could have used the boost in their finances.
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Old 11-17-2021, 11:05 AM   #9
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Vchan2177.

Always an interesting poster and replaces roof's at age 70 or so.
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Old 11-17-2021, 11:27 AM   #10
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Old 11-17-2021, 11:40 AM   #11
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I may have posted this before but my late uncle was my RE inspiration. He was FI from birth but his general lifestyle was something I found attractive.

"...When I was a kid in the late 50's, my FI uncle's primary occupation seemed to be mostly washing his car and sunbathing in my grandmother's yard.

He was part of a crew of similarly fortunate friends, leeching hangers-ons and folks who's job description had a lot of free/flexible time built in (music teacher, mortician, "artists", attorney, tennis instructor etc).

While even at a young age it did occur to me that 6 or 8 people lounging in grandma's living room sipping someone else's scotch, telling jokes and discussing where they would all go to dinner together was not how normal people spend a weekday afternoon, the whole lifestyle did have its appeal figuratively if not literally.

I had planned on an early retirement for myself but got caught up in a fun job with lots of perks and international travel instead.

Due to a set of circumstances beyond my control, I was able to return to my earlier plan and RE at 53. Not so many similarly fortunate friends but it had been my dream to begin with...'
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Old 11-17-2021, 12:12 PM   #12
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I can't think of any person. I just knew I needed a college education. The key, for me, was learning about Compound Interest and the stock market. Aha! All I needed to do was invest early and steadily.
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Old 11-17-2021, 12:51 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Throwdownmyaceinthehole View Post
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Old 11-17-2021, 01:03 PM   #14
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I would have to say my best man's neighbor. He doesn't really know me and I never really knew him...but what I did know is that I found out at 50 he was ER'd. That was probably when I was around 25 or so that I first heard early retirement was a 'thing'. He unkowingly planted the FIRE seed into my brain that got me thinking, $hit if they can do it why can't I? My ol man always preached the opposite...hard work until Social Security and Medicare etc. So in a sense, DF is kinda my second role model because between these two characters it was sort of a rich dad, poor dad manifesto where I saw one guy that DID it..and one guy that almost levied AGAINST it. I saw that my ol man worked almost too hard, as he states "Overkill" in terms of working too long.

In terms of the FI part of FIRE, my model was my mom, only because I saw a women who worked sooo hard in her life to never have much add up. A lot of this was the choices she made, and it showed me as a model that if I just made different / better choices I could probably have a different result.

And finally, RobbieB! Mainly because of his blunt, straight-to-the-point, matter-of-fact ways and personality along with showing the BTD side of ER that to me is really the lifestyle I crave. Having the $$ to not have to worry about spending a bit here and there on the things that make us happy.

Amethyst also is a bit of a role model to me. I read her story about sailing and early life adventures and such and always admired her class and dignity in how she presents information and justification. She sort of modeled that hey, W*RK doesn't need to be that bad if you keep on having those fun adventures.

And "my god" or perhaps just simply the faith that knowing anything is possible is probably a large portion of it for me. SO many people have told me this goal is not appropriate, not worthwhile, not achievable or simply nonsense that it takes a lot of faith following what is important even in the face of adversity.
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Old 11-17-2021, 01:28 PM   #15
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No one inspired me in particular. But it did turn out my father retired early around 56. But I do not think he had a particular plan, it sort of just happened.

What was really most important was that right out of college, I knew I wanted my wife to be able to stay home with our kids. That meant that we should not get used to living off our combined incomes.
We made about the same, so we were saving alot if money for about 5 years until kids came along. By then my career was doing pretty well. Eventually my wife did return to working once the kids were in school.

At that point, momentum and the compounding of the markets took over.

Last year when I finally got laid off, some quick calculations and we realized we could both retire at 52.

I did read financial books, Dave Ramsey, etc. but that was more being financially independent. The thought of stopping working did not really come until I was around 50 and read stuff about it on the internet.
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Old 11-17-2021, 01:36 PM   #16
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Good question, but I didn’t really have one. I knew no one that retired as early as I did and with similar resources.


My neighbor however commented the other day that he is going to use my Facebook picture posts as a model for his retirement. My wife and I are enjoying our best years.
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Old 11-17-2021, 01:56 PM   #17
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Don't really have a true retirement role model, but more so this forum and other select articles of reading.
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Old 11-17-2021, 02:22 PM   #18
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My HS classmate, Stan, who first introduced me to the possibility of retiring early. I ran into him shortly after a career change in my early 30's and he told me about his plans to retire in his early 50's. I was so miserable in my new job that the concept of not having to work another 30 years was life altering.

Stan retired at age 52, shortly before the DotCom bust. He was spooked by the market into returning to work, then forced into retirement again at age 60 when diagnosed with Frontotemporal Dementia and died at age 67.

RIP Stan...
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Old 11-17-2021, 02:44 PM   #19
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John Greaney was my early "FIRE" inspiration. I also need to say the Terhorst's as an inspiration. I bought their book used (for a little more than the original cover price) in my early 20's and still have it... at one point they got pretty expensive. (ETA, Amazon has used for $95... I'm still keeping mine. Not sure I've read it in two decades so maybe I'll read it next!)



I guess my grandfather too. He founded his own business in addition to other pursuits but from his 50's on he took half the year off to spend in Florida in addition to many other vacations during the summer months (over a million on the RV that drove to every state except Alaska, most more than once) , eventually selling the business (my cousins own it now) and being technically retired. He definitely had the FI down but I think many of his generation did (or at least the principles of thrift and self-sufficiency that meld well with FIRE). I'd be happy if I prove to be half the man he was (not so much the FI part but the greater man he was).
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Old 11-17-2021, 02:50 PM   #20
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My dad, retired at 55, in order to build his wooden airplane. Financially, they really didn't have any business doing it but they made it work.
My now brother-in-law retired in his early 30s to sail the Pacific, he actually had to go back to work a couple of times.

My dad took 3 years or so to finish the airplane but he got to enjoy it for a dozen year, before he developed a brain tumor and died a 73. If had waited until he was 65 to retire he would have had only two years to enjoy his dream. Life can be short.
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