Class of 2007 reporting

[rocketdog]

It's about time I posted here, I retired at the end of 2007 when I was 52 yrs. I've been FIREd for 11 years and Firecalc (plus the help from this forum) helped us make the decision.

We did all the right things: we knew exactly how much we needed to live on, and exactly how much we had in our old, ignored, 401(k) and 403(b). I calculated how much we'd get from our pensions, though we didn't expect them to be there.

I made excel spreadsheets with 5% inflation and 4% yields (haha), used all the on-line retirement calculators and had 100% success with "reasonable" starting assumptions. Before we stopped w*rking we bought a new car, a tiny travel trailer, and a nice computer. Our planned entertainment was travelling across North America and playing video games.

We set aside five years of living expenses in absolutely SAFE investments. Savings and CDs.

A few months after we retired, the Great Recession happened! The stock market tanked. Our investments tanked. There were stockmarket bargains everywhere and we couldn't buy a thing because we were on a fixed income! Arggh!

So we rode out the recession, travelling the country in our travel-trailer and playing our video games. We lived fine on our set-aside money, we had a blast!

Now we're kinda stuck in one spot taking care of an elderly relative, so we sold the trailer and just play video games and go for long hikes. We sold our old house bought a new house to grow old in. We had profits fom the sale and were able to fix up the new house so there won't be future problems. We plan for the future like we'll live to be 100.

We were able to retire because we had a jobs with benefits. One job allowed early retirement at 55 years so that job also came with a 457 plan which is like a 401(k) except you can withdraw it without penalty when you're younger than 59.5 yrs old. For three years we lived on just one salary and put the entire other salary into that 457 plan! I can't believe it allowed us to put over 90% of the other salary into this retirement plan, but it did.

Health Insurance was pure LUCK. One tiny job from many years ago came with early retirement and Health Insurance. We get a pension of $236/month and health coverage from that job. Once health insurance is paid for, it's amazing how cheaply one can live.

What we learned: Having public employee pensions has worked out for us. The states where we get these pensions are both trying to take them away or recalculate them to be less money. The free health insurance is under attack constantly, but we are getting close to medicare age so we'll make it if they eleminate our health benefit. If you're counting on a State pension to retire you'll probably be OK, but expect it to be under attack. If you're hoping for a private company pension, I wouldn't count on it being there for you.

If we had waited to retire we'd still be working--the Great Recession would have scared us off. So if you think you can retire, do it!! Always have three years of living expenses worked out ahead of time. I suggest having five years set aside for the first five years of retirement. Then you will be carefree


ps: The plan is still unfolding as expected

 

[street]

Sounds like a success story to me. Great job. I have a question for a long time retiree, has your portfolio grown to more then what you started with in retirement??

 

[Carpediem]

If we had waited to retire we'd still be working--the Great Recession would have scared us off. So if you think you can retire, do it!! Always have three years of living expenses worked out ahead of time. I suggest having five years set aside for the first five years of retirement. Then you will be carefree

Thank you for the great update. Very informative and it's nice to hear from those who have been retired for awhile. The paragraph above gives me great comfort as I'm hoping to have 7-8 years set aside to live on in a MM fund upon my retirement.

 

[WestUniversity]

Thanks so much for the report. We’re only about 4 1/2 months in and so far it’s going well. I’m sure once we get a year under our belts I’ll relax more, but right now the plan appears to be working. Thanks for the voice of experience. It really helps!

 

[rocketdog]

As far as the question about our portfolio goes, when we started retirement there was money that was liquid and to be used for living expenses. Everything else was invested 60% equities 35% bonds 5% real estate. That invested chunk is higher than before the Great Recession but not what it "could" have been.



We have started dipping into it, but not like we thought we would. It turns out we are spending less than we thought, inflation is less than we estimated, gas prices are lower, and our house sold for more than we expected. We feel very comfortable with our position--which is amazing considering most of our friends are still w*rking.

 

[street]

Thanks for that explanation. I find it interesting to see how portfolio's do over time from people that have been retired for a while.

 

[pacergal]

Great update, thanks. We have a public pension also, and every election year, it is up for debate. Thankfully, changes are generally made for those who haven't retired yet, and can make adjustments to their plans. Which we had to do a few years prior to retirement when huge changes were made.