Outstanding! Next week will be five months in. 49 now so a bit behind you. DW(43) still works. We both have military pensions so things are looking pretty good. My 22 yr old military son is motivated by Doug Nordman to fully retire at 41 with 20 yrs in the military. Good luck son and congrats to you Frayne!
Ten Years Gone
- Thread starter frayne
- Start date
ExFlyBoy5
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Tell your son to stick with it. There are a few of us military retirees that haven't gone to w+rk after the service.
Sent from my mobile device so please excuse grammatical errors.
johnnyfuego
Recycles dryer sheets
Congrats, and thanks for helping put a little anxiousness about impending retirement in perspective! Not so much the financial, but the non financial aspects. Just normal jitters I imagine...
haloFIRE
Recycles dryer sheets
Wonderful post!
Congratulations on 10 amazing years! May the next 10 be even better!
Your post, and the growing thread of replies really made my day
Congratulations on 10 amazing years! May the next 10 be even better!
Your post, and the growing thread of replies really made my day
Henry Lili
Recycles dryer sheets
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2009
- Messages
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Just under 2 years for me. Going well so far. Net worth up. Portfolio generates more income then I spend for now anyway. Pulled the plug just short of my 47th birthday.
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Ok so what is the secret to increase net worth?
I am very frighten to pull THE TRIGGER because on losing NW
I understand living below your means but 4.? 5.? Seems like a big number in my portfolio to draw that much
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I am very frighten to pull THE TRIGGER because on losing NW
I understand living below your means but 4.? 5.? Seems like a big number in my portfolio to draw that much
Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum
OP
OP
frayne
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Can't speak for the others but staying the course and invested in index funds at about a 60-40 split.
Can't say I really live below my means, more of within my means.
And the 800 pound gorilla has always been, no debt since about 1999.
Can't say I really live below my means, more of within my means.
And the 800 pound gorilla has always been, no debt since about 1999.
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Gunny
Recycles dryer sheets
I retire in 71 days. Age 52. Moving to a small lake town in Northern Alabama. Buy a bass boat and reconnect with good friends. I can only imagine how sweet life will be.
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Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum
Huston55
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Congrats Frayne! Well done for a Chattanooga (NW Georgia?) boy!
We've relocated from that part of the country but, still like it very much and return to visit friends. Today is our 1 yr anniversary, and we hope to be celebrating like you in nine more years.
We've relocated from that part of the country but, still like it very much and return to visit friends. Today is our 1 yr anniversary, and we hope to be celebrating like you in nine more years.
Looks like you have no problem figuring out what you're going to do all day!
I went over 13 this week. (On 1 June we had a huge south-shore swell, so I only surfed the 13-footers.) Our portfolio has nearly doubled over that time, partly due to multiple mortgage refinancings and a 28% cumulative COLA on my active-duty pension. But most of those gains came from staying in the market and rebalancing whenever our parameters were triggered. That includes 2002 and 2008-09.
It's beginning to seem that we're going to end up on the upper slope of the >80% success ratio.
A very few-- on this forum in 2004 it was me and GDER. The membership has grown by at least an order of magnitude since then, but today I bet we could take a muster on two hands and still have fingers left over.
You have several choices.
1. Follow the 4% SWR of the Trinity Study. If you have more than an 80% success ratio from FIRECalc then you're probably financially independent.
- If you want to avoid losing all of your net worth then put up to 20% of your assets into a single-premium immediate annuity. (You should probably include Social Security as part of that 20%.) That SPIA income will insulate you from total portfolio failure.
- Put the rest of your assets mostly into passive equity index funds. It should be at least 50% of your total assets, and if that makes you nervous then put it into passive dividend-paying equity index funds.
- When you need to withdraw from your portfolio to cover your retirement expenses, keep about two years' worth of that annual withdrawal in CDs and a money market fund. That way you can pay your expenses (beyond dividends, interest, and annuity income) for two years of a bear-market recession without having to sell beaten-down equities.
So your FI asset allocation would be something like 20% SPIA, 50%-75% equities, ~5% cash, and the rest in whatever other assets you prefer.
or
2. Follow Bob Clyatt's 4%/95% withdrawal method discussed in "Work Less, Live More". You cut your spending a little during a recession but your portfolio has a much higher survival rate.
or
3. Keep building your portfolio until you can live off its income (and never touch the principal). That way you don't care what your net worth is-- only that your net income keeps rising with your personal inflation rate. You'll probably have to work longer to accumulate a portfolio that's 30x-33x your annual spending instead of "just" 25x.
or
4. Work until some crisis (medical, family, layoff) forces you to "pull the trigger".
In the context of those four choices, #1 seems like a relatively good deal.
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OAG
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Just started day one of the 37th year of Military retirement on 7/1/15.
@frayne
Well done, and well said. I'm 5 months behind you and the first 8+ years were the best years of my life. Did what I wanted, when I wanted, volunteered, and none of whatever I didn't want (w*rk). Turned out that living below our means before retirement (high savings rate) was just practice for living on our retirement income.
Well done, and well said. I'm 5 months behind you and the first 8+ years were the best years of my life. Did what I wanted, when I wanted, volunteered, and none of whatever I didn't want (w*rk). Turned out that living below our means before retirement (high savings rate) was just practice for living on our retirement income.
