Question about the crowd here

[dessert]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maurice Makes sense - FWIW, I'm type 2 - maybe it should be part of peoples sig line? 1 = retired miltary 2 = wall street guy 3 = white collar uber-saver in his late 40s early 50s 4 = other government pension plan

By the way Maurice, I am a "3" with megacorp pension. Only spent 6 years in the military.

[MissParker]

I would be a 4 by the Maurice index. I did serve in the Navy for eight years right out of high school. Now I work for a public agency in California.

[martyb]

I'm a

1. Federal Government Civil Service Employee who will retire in 5 yrs with a total of 36 yrs service. I'll have very close to a 70% fully COLA'd pension at 55 yrs old. Also will carry my health plan (BCBS) into retirement which the govt. pays I believe approximately 75% of.

2. US Air Force Reservist with currently approaching 31 yrs total service from which I will retire at the same time as my Civil Service job (age 55). Therefore, I'll have a fully COLA'd penison from this job as well, although it won't kick in until I reach age 60. When it starts, I estimate it will be around $18000 per yr.

Been maxing my TSP (govt version of a 401K) for awhile & will continue, with a healthy portion in the stock market, and will continue to max until I retire.

Wife has a 401k as well, and we hope to start maxing it very soon, but she has 8 more yrs to work. She qualifies for full SS, I will get a minimum amount due to being a govt. employee.

Hopefully we won't have to eat dog food!

[Darryl]

I missed all the 1,2,3,4's too

44 EARLY 40's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wouldn't call ourselves Uber Savers though this is our closest column.

All private sector I've got a nice income (constantly under assault) and DW makes a little over 10k per year. This is our weak link one customer buying my time. We live on a little more than the average family in america makes and we give the rest to uncle sam employer 401K other empleoyer 403b and AF and VG and Charles Schwab believing that one day we will poke our heads through the clouds and notice that the megacorp pension and AF and VG and Charles Schwab have the rest of the money we need and are anxious to give it back.

Marty one of the most important tag lines on the board. Without beer dog food would be unpalateable.

[Cattusbabe]

We would be a number 5. I'm a Burnt out nurse. DH is a burnt out therapist. Inherited enough to retire and did.

[deserat]

Oooh - you missed private sector pension - USAF Reservist here who can retire - will wait a few more years - work in civilian healthcare sector which has pension, 403B and 401a (yeah, gotta look that one up!), IRAs, after tax savings, house almost paid up....looking at least 2-3 more years of work, most 7 years - after that.....RETIRE!!!!!! Projected age is between 45 and 50. (Won't quite meet the bar of the Kaderlis or Terhorsts, but early nonetheless) Spouse is active duty military who will retire in 1-7 years as well. This whole 'retire early and live off your investments/pensions/etc' was an eye opener for him when we got married - he likes it :-)

[SteveR]

Megacorp, Mini-Megacorp and Used to Be-Megacorp worker Bee and management positions for 33 years. Not a Uber saver but did save a lot and lived below our means for years but still enjoyed life and had our share of "toys".

No military time; just the cold war of corporate life.

[lhamo]

In school until 30 (me)/40 (DH, who worked in between but didn't save anything), but left with two Ph.Ds. and no debt.

Went straight into a career in international development. Earned decent but not extravagent salaries while based in NYC for a little over 2 years, continued to live more or less like grad students (saving over 50% of income, basically living on less than one salary). Bought a nice but cheap apartment in a gentrifying neighborhood in Queens in 2000. Had kid #1 in 2001. Moved overseas in 2002. Salaries stayed the same but expenses dropped to almost nothing. Sold apartment for more than twice what we paid for it in 2003 (and didn't have to pay capital gains because the sale was related to a relocation). Had kid #2 in 2005. I went to part-time for over a year after that -- killed my career in organization. Went back to full-time in mid-2006 and planned escape from said organization. During this entire time we were able to save 60-80% of our gross income due to tax-free expat status and very low living expenses. I resigned in May, but DH continues to work. We relocated to a more expensive city in June. At this point we are pretty close to the FI point, but have many uncertainties in the future including insurance and schooling costs. I am applying for a new position in our new city, to get us a more secure status here and build up the nest egg some more. Depending on what happens with that, I may keep working for another 2-? years (I think it will be a job I will like and can grow with). If I don't get that position I may do some consulting, or take some time off to do some other projects I am mulling about. DH is not comfortable with the idea of FIREing yet, so he will likely keep working for a few more years too.

Our path is very unusual, but worth considering -- most people don't seem to think about moving overseas as a FIRE strategy, but rather see it as a post-FIRE option. I look on in amazement at the extravagant expat lifestyles I see among many here in our new city, and have to bite my tongue to keep from spreading the FIRE gospel!

lhamo

[Maurice]

Thats a good point, lhamo. I was an expat for about 3 1/2 years. It was earlier in my career, so I wasn't making nearly as much money as I am now, and I hadn't started thinking about retirement (although I always maxed out 401ks, even then).

But in my case I had my expenses covered at the expat location, had essentially 'turned off' my US expenses by giving up my apartment. Thus my entire net pay became disposable income. My first expat stint, one year in Mexico in my mid-twenties, is what allowed me to become debt free.

[Rambler]

I'm an expat with Mega-corp, have been for the last 8-1/2 years. Mid-40s. Housing and local expenses paid by mega-corp, so almost all of my salary, bonuses and stock options in the past few years have gone to Schwab. Before that most of salary/bonus went to building our dream home, which is paid for ().

Came on a one year assignment, and HR advised us to keep our home in the US, which we did and now cannot sell without being eaten alive by taxes. We will live there for two years when we return to the states in about 18-24 months so we can sell without too much tax impact. We can't rent it out either without most of the proceeds going to one form of tax or another because the US would tax the rental income as well as the local country (if you live here over 5 years you pay tax on worldwide income...company takes care of all taxes here and equalizes us so we don't pay any more total tax than we would have if we stayed in the states, but that does not cover personal income on investments etc).

So far we have kept most investments in growth funds and stocks with low yields, but now beginning to add to higher yield investments and bonds.

Someone mentioned the extravagent lifestyles of expats...it is so true. Many of our acquaintances live like there is no tomorrow, and when tomorrow comes many will be sorry for it. We do take some nice vacations from time to time, but usually they are either tacked onto a mega-corp function to which DW is invited, so we have seen a few places for not too much cost. Airfare for most of our own vacations is usually paid for with my air-miles (I was a heavy traveller for about 5 years, thankfully slowed down a bit now).

We always have been LBYMers, but it took a while for DW to understand that LBYM is the best way as she grew up in a family that were definitely NOT LBYMers. But now that we have been living this way for so many years, and since she can see that by doing so we can FIRE before too much longer, she is grateful that we have lived this way.

We have no debt, and if we sold the new house and lived in the older one, we could FIRE now, but it is hard to sell your dream home. Ultimately we will probably sell it and downsize to a less expensive location, but that is a good 10-15 years down the road. We also have a daughter still in HS, so really that is a very strong consideration for me to stick it out for another 18 months. We would like her to finish school here. Then we will go home to be closer to both of our children.

Rambler

[old woman]

I am old and not retired yet, just here to try to get inspired to jump into retirement. Living life waiting for something to push me into retirement because I am afraid to jump. I have a net worth of over 650K mostly in investments I could sell my house and by an acceptable house for 250K or so in cash and still have about 400K left invested and with a roommate and no mortgage I should be able to live on 4% and only 2.5 years until SS and 5.5 until Medicare. But my job is easy, pleasant and pays about 1K a week so every week I earn money is one thousand better off. Let my boss yell at me once and I quit or if the company folds or my boyfriend retires but for now I sit at the edge of the cliff and think about jumping off.

[Darryl]

Met a Federal employee a few months ago who was about 44 and said he would be retiring in two more years or one bad day.