I'm joining you Gozer!
OK, y'all can mark #62 on the list OFFICIALLY EARLY RETIRED! Today is my last day as a career gal, age 59. Not a early as I would have liked but I've been working part-time for the last 17 years so it's like I've been "practicing" for a long time!
I gave 2 weeks' notice in mid-November and was asked to stay until the end of January. I negotiated my 1/2 time job down to 8 hours a week, so it hasn't been that burdensome. Still, my time was never completely my own and I'm really excited about being free from the stress and obligations of work. Plus, my transition to a new person has worked out beautifully and I'm already hired back for one project at an hourly rte which is fine with me. I just don't want ongoing duties that tie me down.
I set up monthly distributions equal to what I was earning, and with my husband's Federal pension (he ER'ed 3 years ago at age 55) we are starting out with distributions of 2.3% of total retirement savings. Half are inside IRAs and half outside, and I'll be able to tap the IRA stuff toward the end of this year. I'd like to take more as we have no children and want to die with $20 in our savings, but we'll start out with what we've been comfortably able to live on and see how it goes. For the past 3 years we've been traveling about 40% of the time, mostly in a trailer but with one big international trip per year. We are pretty thrifty, own our home, living where there is no state income tax, and DH is a good do-it-yourselfer. We bought a sailboat and ski in the winter on $350 season passes, so we live a good life without a ton of extravagance. Unlike other ER Forum folks that have been posting about most of them buy new cars and replace them every 3-5 years, we buy slightly used vehicles and keep them for 200,000 miles so we've got that covered for a long time.
Of course, the month I retire the stock market heads down!
Yes, we did very well the past couple years but it would be a little less scary if the market was going up instead of down.
