48, will ER end of May

[orangutan]

I have been lurking in this forum in the past 3 years. This is my first post. I finally gave notice to MegaCorp 2 weeks ago. Retirement date is set for end of May. Learning from the posts gave me the courage to pull the plug. It was a big decision after 25 years of daily grind. I was fortunate to be in the IT field building software products. Worked for a small startup that grew and grew and eventually acquired by Mega Corp almost 10 years ago. It was a successful startup. Mega Corp convinced a few of the founders to stay with stock options and incentives. They were worried that we would decide to ER after the acquisition. Before you know it, it was 10 years with MegaCorp. DW retired from work 12 years ago after our second child was born. Two kids are in senior high school now.

I decided it is time to ER to spend more time with my kids before they go off to college. Had been LBYM; no expensive hobby and overall family expense is 75K per year.

Ran FireCalc a few times for 45 years lifespan and all ended up with 100 percent success rate

 

[Meadbh]

Welcome, orangutan. Sounds like you are financially and mentally ready for some monkeying around!

 

[Bestwifeever]

Welcome, Orang! Spending your ER time with teenagers will make those megacorp days seem like a piece of cake but of course will be priceless.

 

[NanoSour]

Congrats Orangutan. I know how much it takes to make that leap of faith. For some strange reason, I haven't been able to make the jump.

I'm in similar situation with roughly the same living expenses. Could you possibly post more specifics as to what you plugged in to FIRECALC? FIRECALC returns $89K spending for my specific situation at 99.9% success rate.

My specifics are:

Portfolio: 770,000
Years: 40

Other Income

SSA: 16,300 (2026)
Spouse SSA: 5,500 (2028)
Pension: 16,000 (2029) Non Cola Mega Corp
Pension: 38,450 (2013) Cola Gov't Pension

Spending Model:

I Select Bernicke Model for reduced spending as I get older

On last Investigate tab I select 99.9% success.

I must say I question the 89K result as it is 11.56% initial withdrawal rate

Does this makes sense, or am I missing something?

 

[bo_knows]

Congrats Orangutan. I know how much it takes to make that leap of faith. For some strange reason, I haven't been able to make the jump.

I'm in similar situation with roughly the same living expenses. Could you possibly post more specifics as to what you plugged in to FIRECALC? FIRECALC returns $89K spending for my specific situation at 99.9% success rate.

My specifics are:

Portfolio: 770,000
Years: 40

Other Income

SSA: 16,300 (2026)
Spouse SSA: 5,500 (2028)
Pension: 16,000 (2029) Non Cola Mega Corp
Pension: 38,450 (2013) Cola Gov't Pension

Spending Model:

I Select Bernicke Model for reduced spending as I get older

On last Investigate tab I select 99.9% success.

I must say I question the 89K result as it is 11.56% initial withdrawal rate

Does this makes sense, or am I missing something?

From my experience with FireCalc, you're probably underestimating how much the future pension and SSA will effect the long-term outlook of your portfolio. You may start off with 11.56% withdrawal rate, but once those payments kick in (at 62?) the majority of your expenses will be paid by them.

 

[REWahoo]

I must say I question the 89K result as it is 11.56% initial withdrawal rate

Does this makes sense, or am I missing something?

It makes perfect sense if you are initially drawing all (or most) of your expenses from your portfolio prior to SS and pensions kicking in.

Our WR the first year was close to 10%. Seven years later with both DW and I drawing SS it is under 4% (of the initial portfolio value).