Two questions for the retired.

[El Sargento]

1. What's the one thing that you did in preparation for your retirement that you are all so glad you did?

2. What's the one thing that your kicking yourself in the butt wishing you'd of done it before retiring?

 

[bob boag]

I have ten weeks to go but I have an answer for #1 - I am sooo glad I have devoted the last year to a self-paced financial education. Mostly by reading this board and Bogleheads and the books both recommend. I went from a position of complete ignorance to today's state of semi-ignorance.

I cringe at what many contemporaries are doing such as blindly trusting financial advisors who extract 1%+ anually from their portfolios

 

[Alan]

1. - hung on to my Megacorp job long enough to ER with retiree health benefits at age 55. Great peace of mind even with the knowledge that it might be taken away in future.

2. - 15 months into ER and I haven't come across anything I wish I'd done in preparation.

 

[East Texas]

1. What's the one thing that you did in preparation for your retirement that you are all so glad you did?

It's not "one thing".

• Worked for a megacorp that offered pension and retiree health care.
• Saved and then saved more.
• Always planned on retiring at 55, so I was mentally and financially prepared when the time came.
• Lived below my means
• Avoided debt like the plague

2. What's the one thing that your kicking yourself in the butt wishing you'd of done it before retiring?

• Wish I would have had put more of my 401K into taxed instead of deferred (we had that choice).

 

[jimnjana]

1) Leave when I did.

2) Wish I had more cash vs investments in my taxable accounts.

 

[scrabbler1]

1. What's the one thing that you did in preparation for your retirement that you are all so glad you did?

2. What's the one thing that your kicking yourself in the butt wishing you'd of done it before retiring?

I will interpret your questions as doing something or not doing something intentional in preparation towards retirement as opposed to simply "lucking out" or being unlucky.

As to your first question, I would say the lengthy research to find the bond fund which is now generating the dividends I use to pay for my expenses. This fund was fairly new at the time but I carefully tracked it and was able to gather some back data points so I could get a good idea as to the amount of dividends it was generating. I also made sure to get some costly dental work done in 2007 and 2008 in anticipation of losing my dental insurance coverage once I stopped working at the end of 2008. I figure this saved me about $1,500, not a huge amount in the grand scheme of things but not trivial, either.

As to your second question, I wish I had done a little more research into a particular individual health insurance plan. It is more of a catastrophic plan, I have since realized, but I did not realize that until a few months ago. I have just switched to it after my previous plan raised its premiums 50% in the last 2 years.

 

[donheff]

2) Wish I had more cash vs investments in my taxable accounts.

Why there rather than in qualified?

 

[ksr]

1. I'm glad I paid off the mortgage. I know this is a subject of debate, but for me it gives me peace of mind that I can live on a relatively small income now.

2. There are a couple of home improvements I wish I'd done while I was still making good money. I'm a little reluctant now to spend the money, although I am fairly certain I will do it in time.

 

[ksr]

As to your second question, I wish I had done a little more research into a particular individual health insurance plan. It is more of a catastrophic plan, I have since realized, but I did not realize that until a few months ago. I have just switched to it after my previous plan raised its premiums 50% in the last 2 years.

Scrabbler, would you mind elaborating a bit on the catastrophic plan? I am thinking of making a switch as my premiums have also increased 50% over about the past 3 years. I'm looking at higher deductibles with lower premiums, but also have to factor that none of the higher-deductible plans available to me are eligible for an HSA.

 

[rescueme]

For me? As an answer to #1, I would say:

- Having a life partner that shared my financial "dream", which not only saving/investing for retirement, but also generally agreeing to a LBYM lifestyle.

- A personal goal (driven by my late father). He didn't give a damn about his family, but only to satisfy (through whatever means) his personal "desires". I strove to do better. I found that taking care of my family drove me to ensure our financial independance, which in turn lead to a retirement at an earlier age than most. Not ER, but at age 59, better than most of the folks I wor*ed with.

#2?

Sorry to say that I have no regrets as pertaining to retirement preperation. Even though I've been retired only four years, I have no second thoughts nor to I think I could have done anything "better" (yes, I'm lucky).

 

[grumpy]

1. Refinanced with a 15 year mortgage to have house paid off before I retired.

2. Retiring even earlier.

 

[Rustic23]

1. Tracked expenses three years prior to retiring
2. So far (5 years) I have not come up with anything.

 

[Beryl]

1. I'm glad I paid off the mortgage. I know this is a subject of debate, but for me it gives me peace of mind that I can live on a relatively small income now.

2. There are a couple of home improvements I wish I'd done while I was still making good money. I'm a little reluctant now to spend the money, although I am fairly certain I will do it in time.

What s/he said.

 

[East Texas]

Having a life partner that shared my financial "dream", which not only saving/investing for retirement, but also generally agreeing to a LBYM lifestyle.

Yep. Should have put that on my list.

 

[Sue J]

1. We repurchased 5 years of service credit in DH's pension system so that a couple of years later when he lost his job he had 26 years (eligible for pension) instead of 21 years (not eligible). In 1981 he had cashed out the 5 years in order to pay for graduate school.

We also paid off all debt (mortgage, cars, credit cards, student loans) which makes our monthly cost of living low.

2. Raising kids, living on one income, we deferred a lot of home maintenance and repairs. We're slowly getting caught up but I wish we would have already remodeled the kitchen. It's functional and the appliances are current enough but it really needs a ceiling to floor renovation. I know from watching home renovation shows that a kitchen can start out at one estimate and end up costing double. I don't have fancy taste but when we do it I want to do it right. And who knows what we'll find in terms of electrical and plumbing that leads to extra costs.

 

[freebird5825]

1. Everything.
I had to shift from Plan A to Plan B in very short order when my husband passed. Plan B included ramping up my contributions to my TSP 401(k) and being faster on my feet than I had anticipated. It was tough, but I got through it all and came out shining.

2. No regrets.

 

[mystang52]

I'm not retired yet, so for what it's worth:
1) Always lived by a budget, ergo LBYM.
Never paid a cent in credit card interest, but do use my credit card to get the substantial rebate $$.
Paid off my mortgage 2 + years ago.
Like another poster, I've been reading and researching retirement issues (my target is 16-24 months from now).
[I suspect some members may disagree with this one] We have not scrimped up to now, and make sure to take a nice vacation,often two, each year.

2] N/A for me, at this point [sigh]

 

[kcowan]

1) Passed up numerous lucrative job offers because they did not offer a pension plan. Took my reduced DB pension on special golden handshake at age 49. Payouts total over $1 million and counting.
2)Cancelled my whole life insruance policies sooner and invested the proceeds plus the ongoing annual fees for our benefit.

 

[W2R]

1. What's the one thing that you did in preparation for your retirement that you are all so glad you did?

It's a toss-up and I can't decide - -

1) I'm glad that I waited until I was eligible for retiree health insurance even though I could afford to retire earlier.

2) I'm glad that I took all of my vacation time during the last few months of w*rk instead of cashing it in, because it really eased the emotional transition into retirement.

3) I'm glad that I paid off all my debt so that I could retire debt free.

2. What's the one thing that your kicking yourself in the butt wishing you'd of done it before retiring?

Absolutely nothing. I have more time now than before retiring, and I have more money to spend because I am not saving for retirement. So if there was anything in this category I'd do it now. But there isn't.

 

[mask]

There is a long way to go for us (DW and I) considering we've just out lived our 20's. Also, we live in India so our situation is different i.e. we don't have any social security or pension in our country. So we've have been working towards our ER for the last 6 years or so and the one thing that we are so glad about is that we already have a house and a car paid off. We have two more mortgages going on which we plan to pay off in 2 years time. We already have our emergency funds set aside about $12K (which comes to half a million in local currency) and we keep it growing with inflation. We have our own life and health insurance (we don't want to depend on employer's insurance). Once we pay off all the debt, we would have about 15 years to build our retirement nest so I can retire at 50!! DW is already a HW!

Keeping our fingers crossed and we have no regrets so far!!

 

[Onward]

1) Read A Random Walk Down Wall St.

2) Wish I'd read it much sooner.

 

[FIREd]

1. What's the one thing that you did in preparation for your retirement that you are all so glad you did?

2. What's the one thing that your kicking yourself in the butt wishing you'd of done it before retiring?

1. I am glad I started to hang around ER.org and read retirement books well before retiring. It made the transition to retirement that much smoother.

2. I would say that the health care situation in this country is probably the only note souring my decision to retire early. Health care is my biggest source of worry and frustration for the future. So, in retrospect, I should have focused more on retirement benefits when I was looking for jobs. I turned down a job at a state university because the pay was subpar. I think it may have been shortsighted.

 

[Tiger]

1. Bought a house when prices were low and sold it last year at an excellent profit (on the first day it was shown).

2. I wish I had started earnestly investing at a much younger age.

 

[flyfishnevada]

1. Discovered the idea of frugality and LBYM. I am also glad i started planning the non-monetary side of things. I have no shortage of things to keep me engaged, in fact maybe too many

2. Wish I would have discovered it sooner. I also wish I would have saved more, but one was prevented by not discovering the other.

 

[Mulligan]

1) Buying service retirement years to start pension early.

2) Not creating a meaningful tax free revenue stream to supplement pension with Roth IRA money.