Who Is Your Role Model for Retirement?

[Kamei]

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...

 

[razztazz]

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.

 

[Out_the_Door]

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"

 

[RetiredHappy]

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.

 

[RunningBum]

My dad retired at 62 and when people asked how it was going, he said "Every day is Saturday." That stuck with me.

 

[pacergal]

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.

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

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.

 

[Dash man]

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.

 

[Mr. Tightwad]

Vchan2177.

Always an interesting poster and replaces roof's at age 70 or so.

 

[Throwdownmyaceinthehole]

Robbie B

 

[marko]

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...'

 

[racy]

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.

 

[CardsFan]

Robbie B

I knew someone would beat me to this

 

[kgtest]

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.

 

[thod]

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.

 

[COcheesehead]

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.

 

[Dtail]

Don't really have a true retirement role model, but more so this forum and other select articles of reading.

 

[REWahoo]

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...

 

[FLSUnFIRE]

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).

 

[clifp]

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.

 

[Car-Guy]

My dad and my FIL.... Dad retired at 65 and FIL at 62...Both had a little savings and both collected small retirement pensions and SS... Both lived like they were destitute... Both did nothing from the day they retired until the day they died even though they could have....


Taught me a valuable lesson of how not to retire!

 

[jollystomper]

I do not need to look any further than my family.

My Dad worked until age 70. He could have retired at 64, when my youngest sister graduated from college and he and Mom had an empty nest. But he would just say with a smile "I enjoy my work". Having visited him at his workplace, I could understand that. He waited until 70 to retire, to maximize his pension and SS survivor benefits for my Mom, who pretty much had been a SAHM since they came to the U.S. in the mid-1950s, and also to pay off the house. He and my mom have a great 2 1/2 years of his retirement until a swift moving cancer took his life in less than 6 months. But his desire paid off, as my Mom was able to live another 20 years ion a very comfortable manner until she passed. Part of my retirement planning and timing was to ensure DW would be in the same comfortable situation if I die first.

Two of my siblings retired before me. My oldest brother retired after his last daughter married, his investment firm was bought by another and they wanted him to move across the country away from his grandchildren, he said no thanks. My sister had been a lawyer, and managed other lawyers, for an agency of a major city, and at 64 just felt it was the right time. When I started considering retiring, they provided me with a lot of good planning advice.

At this pint I really do not model my retirement after any persons in particular. I look at situations (such as the ones brought up on this forum), and evaluate if the advice and guidance works for me, both financially and mentally. I would classify my retirement as "lazy" - no real desire to work for money, deciding what I choose to do everyday. No much of a role model is needed for that .

 

[cathy63]

My Aunt J and Uncle B. They both took an early-out program from GM. I think Aunt J was about 48 at the time and Uncle B would have been 58. He just died at 91, so they had many years to enjoy retirement and continue their life-long passion for traveling the world (they met on a cruise to Alaska). She told me a few years ago that she's been retired longer than she worked.

 

[youbet]

Bob Brinker. Learned about low cost MF's (index and otherwise), AA, etc., from him on WLS radio, Chicago. His show was from 3 PM to 6 PM on Sat and Sun. That meant that sometimes I'd be listening on a little transistor radio and ear phone while working at my bench in the factory doing some overtime!

 

[nhcycling]

My parents were my role model, they lived below their means and retired early. They had a blast! Traveled, lived half the year in Florida in an oceanfront home and the other half on Cape Cod. My mom commented one time, retirement was like being on vacation every day! Bad role models, my in-laws. FIL died suddenly at 82 after a breakfast meeting, he was still working trying to save his failing general contractor company. And my 88 MIL is broke now, needs daily care at this point and honestly it’s very stressful for 2 of 4 of the kids including my spouse to not only deliver care but to support her financially.