Won the game - when?

[pb4uski]

^^^ Way to go. While I enjoyed my work, it was just a means to an end and wasn't what defined me.

 

[pacergal]

I won the game when I was born into a family that taught "live below your means", "Pay yourself first then cover all your financial responsibilities", "earn a living at something you love", "enjoy what you have", and "take care of family", . Later I learned some investment basics that provided for a comfortable retirement. Not extravagant but just fine for us and financially worry free.


Cheers!

+100

 

[TheWizard]

My most recent "winning of the game" would be this year, when I claimed SS at age 70.
Together with my pension/annuities, I seem to have enough income that I have an excess to invest every month.

Now a lot of this excess is because travel plans have been cancelled since March.

I retired in 2013, so for seven years, I did monthly withdrawals from investments in lieu of SS.
So I had very modest Sequence of Returns Risk.
But now I'm through with that, so I win...

 

[ncbill]

I think everyone has a different interpretation of "winning the game". For some it's a multiple of cash to cover their expenses. For others it's a generous pension that pays all the bills.

Yep, a have a relative who retired over 25 years ago from a skilled blue-collar job with low five figures saved & a modest pension...but it is COLA'd.

Also got free retiree health insurance...no premiums, deductibles, or co-pays...he and his wife complained when they had to start paying Medicare Part B premiums...their retiree health insurance then morphed into a premium & deductible/copay-free Medigap plan.

 

[capjak]

I think realistically if you have 33X expenses (subtracting pension/SS) you are good to retire and don't need to take additional risks with investments, if the future is no worse than the past 100 years than no worries.....

33x is essentially a 3% withdrawal rate, if you go down to 2% you are pretty much bullet proof financially.

 

[Major Tom]

I never like the term "won the game". It's not a game. It's life. If you lose a game you feel a little sad, angry, dejected. But if you run out of money you might be living in a cardboard box, or eating cat food. Or to a lesser level, spending your days at home because you can't afford to take a trip, can't afford to fix your car (if you still have one), and so on. Or maybe you're scouring the want ads to see who is paying better than minimum wage to an old-timer who doesn't have current marketable skills. None of this sounds like much of a game to me.

I suppose what you're looking for is when you can breathe and sleep more easily because you don't see any of the above happening except for a black swan event. For me that was sometime around when I retired, or maybe even during OMY times, or maybe a few years into retirement when my nest egg continued to rise even as I had no more work income coming in.

My other issue with the "game" mentality is that nobody knows the rules. I feel very secure nearly 10 years into retirement. But what if one of those black swan events does happen? Where is that in the rules? The only game life possibly compares to is baseball, where no matter how big of a lead you have, you can still lose if enough bad things happen. It's not over until the final out, which I guess equates to your death. Maybe beyond death if your needs went beyond you, perhaps to leave enough for a special needs child. You could be pushing up daisies but still "lose the game" if the trust for that child runs out.

Sorry for the rant. I think I'll just ignore threads that talk about "the game".

Pretty much what RunningBum said. I don't think in terms of "winning the game" either, as everything is risk and probability to me. There are no guarantees, nothing is 100% certain, and I'm OK with that.

When I first stopped working, I wasn't sure that I wouldn't have to go back to work. Gradually, I became more confident - a confidence which was helped by the nice long bull market we enjoyed over the last 10 years. There have been other uncertainties along the way, healthcare being one of them. Learning how to manage my withdrawals so as to control my AGI, in order to keep healthcare costs very affordable, has been a help.

Nevertheless, there is always the chance that an unforeseen calamity, either in my own life, or the world around us, could throw a spanner in the works. Retirement is much like the working part of my life was, in that I am continually assessing the various risks and potential future risks and upcoming changes, and figuring out how to deal with them, if and when they happen.

It's fun. I quite enjoy this kind of risk assessment and planning.

 

[foxfirev5]

Won the game when I figured I had enough to pay the bills and fill my needs and wants. This gave me the freedom to work on my health and wellbeing. Just 5 years into retirement I already feel better. Still prediabetic but holding my own, lost 45 lb and physically performing at a 2002 level.

 

[ncbill]

I never like the term "won the game". It's not a game. It's life. If you lose a game you feel a little sad, angry, dejected. But if you run out of money you might be living in a cardboard box, or eating cat food. Or to a lesser level, spending your days at home because you can't afford to take a trip, can't afford to fix your car (if you still have one), and so on. Or maybe you're scouring the want ads to see who is paying better than minimum wage to an old-timer who doesn't have current marketable skills. None of this sounds like much of a game to me.

I suppose what you're looking for is when you can breathe and sleep more easily because you don't see any of the above happening except for a black swan event. For me that was sometime around when I retired, or maybe even during OMY times, or maybe a few years into retirement when my nest egg continued to rise even as I had no more work income coming in.

My other issue with the "game" mentality is that nobody knows the rules. I feel very secure nearly 10 years into retirement. But what if one of those black swan events does happen? Where is that in the rules? The only game life possibly compares to is baseball, where no matter how big of a lead you have, you can still lose if enough bad things happen. It's not over until the final out, which I guess equates to your death. Maybe beyond death if your needs went beyond you, perhaps to leave enough for a special needs child. You could be pushing up daisies but still "lose the game" if the trust for that child runs out.

Sorry for the rant. I think I'll just ignore threads that talk about "the game".

How far short will someone reading forums like these really fall?

If they planned at all for retirement but somehow ended up with only 15x-20x expenses instead of 25x-33x it most likely means fewer vacations/travel, not literally losing the roof over their heads.

As for "Black Swan" events, I agree with Bernstein who says that any success rate over 80% is meaningless because of potential future "failure modes" that simply can't be accounted (pardon the pun) for via financial calculators.

The Retirement Calculator from Hell, Part III

 

[socca]

At what point has one "WON THE GAME"? Interested in different perspectives ...

'The' game? Nope, not my preferred terminology. 'A' game? OK - but the financial game is only one among many, and might not be the most important.

I understand the counterargument: for folks who start out with nothing and work full-time toward financial security, the modern workplace can make so many demands upon personal time and energy that the financial game can sometimes seem like the only game in town. So, one could argue that the opportunity to consider games other than financial is a luxury enjoyed only by the rich.

What are these other games? Further discussion is beyond the scope of this thread. However, I will note that there are plenty of folks who win the financial game but nevertheless have lives that are a complete disaster.

Does my personal opinion on what winning the game means really matter? The US gov't considers me a winner and taxes accordingly. Maybe that is enough.

 

[CindyBlue]

We're all winners.

Must be Lake Woebegon

 

[HI Bill]

For me, winning the game means I achieved FI, actually RE, and then get to enjoy the fruits of my former LBYM lifestyle for at least 20 more years with reasonable health. Achieving FI, only to have a chronic health condition or accident happen, means your success was very shortlived.

I have a multi-millionaire friend who was living in the SF Bay Area, making tons of money in commercial real estate sales. He was all set to retire, and BAM! His car was broadsided, and he ended up with two steel rods in his lower back. He won the financial game, but that one accident reduced his later quality of life.

 

[nap470]

I felt I had "won the game" of life back in 2000 when my daughter (only child) was born. Every minute since then has been awesome.
Financially, the win came earlier this year when I had the confidence to walk away from the office lifestyle at 59 1/2 knowing that we would be fine and our daughter would have a safety net for her life also.

 

[Major Tom]

Must be Lake Woebegon

 

[KevinZ]

I feel I won the game when I was born in the United States. No matter what somebody's situation or circumstances in this country, there are countless stories of success.

I feel I won the game when I arrived in this great country (legally, as a scholar) even only with less than 100 bucks in my pocket.

 

[Zathras]

At what point has one "WON THE GAME"? Interested in different perspectives, as there have been a few people who have posted that they 'won the game'. Everybody is different, but what is the minimum?


My minimum - everything paid for, retired, minimum 10k/month coming in off investments/pensions.

I’ve “won the game” when I pass without having run out of money.

 

[Retire52]

I first felt I was winning the financial game when my annual passive income exceeded what I saved with 3x summer jobs during my jr year in college. I w*rk my tush off to save $3500 that summer of 90, and when I saw my investments made more in interest in a year, I felt a great sense of accomplishment. I think this happened about 97.

big wins when I hit 20 years to vest in a pension at work in 2011. cracked the $1mn barrier in investments in 2014. by this time DW and I were lean FI.

won when we received enough passive income to live comfortably and RE in 2017.

I know nothing is ever permanent, so I am grateful and enjoying life today and looking forward to tomorrow.

 

[ckelly78z]

In comparison to many of our co-workers who have no plans/hope of retiring early, if we can get out the door before 65 years old, we are winning the game.

My own opinion on my situation, is to have my wife (also 55) retire in about 2 years, and me to retire at 62 when I can take SS early, with my pension as well, and we have enough to travel, and spoil the grandkids.

 

[bada bing]

Mega-corp offered a buyout 5 years ago and at that time I strongly considered taking it, but my end analysis was I wasn't ready, I hadn't "won the game" yet. At that time I had about $1M saved and qualified for $2K/month in pension. I was 56. I was sort of bummed because conventional wisdom was there would never be another package offer.

A year ago mega-corp announced a sale of the asset I worked at, and made another, quite a bit better package offer. The terms were I had to stay on an additional 10 months, which almost exactly coincided with my planned retirement date. I left with a package that put me comfortably well past my "won the game" finish line. I'm not superstitious, but I have a feeling someone is looking out for me, or at least they were with respect to my retirement planning.

One thing I experienced was the acceleration towards the "won the game" finish line over the last 5 years. The combination of kind markets, high end-of-career savings rates and the years of life being used up made the finish line rush forward and ultimately I blew past it.

 

[audreyh1]

My most recent "winning of the game" would be this year, when I claimed SS at age 70.
Together with my pension/annuities, I seem to have enough income that I have an excess to invest every month.

Now a lot of this excess is because travel plans have been cancelled since March.

I retired in 2013, so for seven years, I did monthly withdrawals from investments in lieu of SS.
So I had very modest Sequence of Returns Risk.
But now I'm through with that, so I win...

Good deal!

 

[albireo13]

when I had enough stash so I could leave my "mind numbing" job at Megacorp last year at 64.

 

[G8tr]

when I had enough stash so I could leave my "mind numbing" job at Megacorp last year at 64.

Everyone has their breaking point. Sounds like your mental health was worth more than your j*b.

 

[goingtotravel]

The first time we 'won the game' was a few years ago when we had 30x our expenses saved (less pensions and SS) for retirement. At that point neither of us were eligible to retire with our full benefits. Maybe we actually won the first time when we decided to take jobs with pension benefits even when we started out earning much less than our peers.

The second time we realized life was going to be OK (can't say we won anything for this) is when DH finally was awarded his claim against the VA and was granted disability pay. He suffered for decades before getting that claim paid. The extra money will help us ensure we can give him the best care for the rest of his life medically and hire people to help us for home maintenance, lawn care, etc.

The third time we won the game was when DH finally told his supervisor that he will retire on January 31. Due to his health issues he never thought he would be able to complete his career and get full benefits.

The fourth time we will win the game is in May when I retire. We never expected to have this much 'winning' in our lives. We got married and immediately started saving but with DH sick we always were waiting for the day things may not work out. We kept working hard at our jobs despite the obstacles and there were many. We decided to balance saving vs spending money on travel while working and while healthy enough to do so. No regrets at all Somehow it all worked out or it will in May!

 

[retired1]

$0 mortgage, $0 Debt (no car, credit card etc.), 1 Yr savings, $5K/mo off investments.

 

[latexman]

I will win my race, when I have lived “extremely” large off my pension + SS + savings *and* I leave $1,000,000 to each of my 5 kids.

“It is better to aim high and miss than to aim low and hit.” Les Brown

"Don't give up; don't ever give up!" Jim Valvano

 

[CyclingInvestor]

When I hit FI in 2004 2 years before I retired at 48, when my passive income (stock dividends) exceeded my salary (adjusting for health insurance, 401k contributions, etc).