SenecaInExile
Confused about dryer sheets
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2020
- Messages
- 2
Hello fair forum folk! I’ve been a lurker here for little bit and seeing the posts really got me thinking/dreaming that I myself, may actually be close to FIRE.
Having lived an ascetic life so far, just basically only focusing on work has kind of turned me into I guess what is called a ‘good investor’. i.e. contributed the max to my retirement accounts and never really looked at balances or news or anything over the last 30 years so pure buy & hold. It’s only been the recent forced closing and a lot of upheaval at the office (moving pretty much all jobs overseas; shutting locations, etc.) has really brought my mind to even start thinking about starting my second life. Perhaps see the sun; pick up a good book or ten; try my hand at gardening and cooking.
I am hoping to entreat the fine denizens here for some opinions on my current financial standing or what, if anything, I may do to perhaps improve things if I am coming up short.
Age: 50
Status: single
current Federal effective tax: 16%
current State tax: 5% (0% when pulling from retirement accounts)
House: ~300K (paid off)
Savings/Emergency Fund: ~$120K ( 3 years expenses; not included in assets; )
SS=$18K/year (assuming starting at 70 and with a 20% haircut)
IRA/pre-tax: ~1.8MM
TrowePrice Mid-Cap Growth Fund RPMGX: 35%
TrowePrice New Horizons Fund PRNHX: 35%
TrowePrice US Bond Enhanced Index PBDIX: 30%
I have been blessed with relatively good health and have been thinking of ‘self insuring’ until 65 for medicare/medigap. Since I haven’t really needed anything for the last 50 years that I haven’t paid out of pocket already figured 15 more shouldn’t be too much of a gamble?
As for long term care was thinking about self-funding that and tried to model that in firecalc (50K/year for the last 5 years of plan adjusted for inflation). Don’t know if that is right or not, plan was for 95 (have many people in my family live to 92-103). Granted, they did a LOT more physical labor than I have so perhaps I won’t be anywhere near as lucky and die early.
I live rather meekly, and have historically lived on ~36K after income tax but including property taxes, so with the calculations (with 10% penalty) that seems to be around 48K pre-tax. Was planning on keeping it that way for the next 10 years to minimize penalties, and then when 59.5 increase the withdrawal by another 28K/year inflation adjusted that I can use to try and pull funds to minimize RMD’s in the future as well as help pay for other items (new roof; siding; car; etc).
It all sounds good to me, however I don’t really have a good feel of what a 95% success rate actually means, if trying for 100% that would mean several more years of working. Is that needed? What % do people target?
Firecalc run
Also tried modeling this on portfolio vistualizer, though I’m concerned here since this is only going back to 2000 for the tickers, and even though we had two major breaks in there and two more short 20% drops; I think it may be too much recency bias.
portfolio visualizer
So looking for any comments; criticisms; concerns; is early retirement even possible? Should I engage a RIA; CFP; or CPA/PFS? (perhaps I'm not understanding what they provide but on the face of it, it they don't seem to offer much for the $$, or am I wrong?)
Thanks for looking.
Having lived an ascetic life so far, just basically only focusing on work has kind of turned me into I guess what is called a ‘good investor’. i.e. contributed the max to my retirement accounts and never really looked at balances or news or anything over the last 30 years so pure buy & hold. It’s only been the recent forced closing and a lot of upheaval at the office (moving pretty much all jobs overseas; shutting locations, etc.) has really brought my mind to even start thinking about starting my second life. Perhaps see the sun; pick up a good book or ten; try my hand at gardening and cooking.
I am hoping to entreat the fine denizens here for some opinions on my current financial standing or what, if anything, I may do to perhaps improve things if I am coming up short.
Age: 50
Status: single
current Federal effective tax: 16%
current State tax: 5% (0% when pulling from retirement accounts)
House: ~300K (paid off)
Savings/Emergency Fund: ~$120K ( 3 years expenses; not included in assets; )
SS=$18K/year (assuming starting at 70 and with a 20% haircut)
IRA/pre-tax: ~1.8MM
TrowePrice Mid-Cap Growth Fund RPMGX: 35%
TrowePrice New Horizons Fund PRNHX: 35%
TrowePrice US Bond Enhanced Index PBDIX: 30%
I have been blessed with relatively good health and have been thinking of ‘self insuring’ until 65 for medicare/medigap. Since I haven’t really needed anything for the last 50 years that I haven’t paid out of pocket already figured 15 more shouldn’t be too much of a gamble?
As for long term care was thinking about self-funding that and tried to model that in firecalc (50K/year for the last 5 years of plan adjusted for inflation). Don’t know if that is right or not, plan was for 95 (have many people in my family live to 92-103). Granted, they did a LOT more physical labor than I have so perhaps I won’t be anywhere near as lucky and die early.
I live rather meekly, and have historically lived on ~36K after income tax but including property taxes, so with the calculations (with 10% penalty) that seems to be around 48K pre-tax. Was planning on keeping it that way for the next 10 years to minimize penalties, and then when 59.5 increase the withdrawal by another 28K/year inflation adjusted that I can use to try and pull funds to minimize RMD’s in the future as well as help pay for other items (new roof; siding; car; etc).
It all sounds good to me, however I don’t really have a good feel of what a 95% success rate actually means, if trying for 100% that would mean several more years of working. Is that needed? What % do people target?
Firecalc run
Also tried modeling this on portfolio vistualizer, though I’m concerned here since this is only going back to 2000 for the tickers, and even though we had two major breaks in there and two more short 20% drops; I think it may be too much recency bias.
portfolio visualizer
So looking for any comments; criticisms; concerns; is early retirement even possible? Should I engage a RIA; CFP; or CPA/PFS? (perhaps I'm not understanding what they provide but on the face of it, it they don't seem to offer much for the $$, or am I wrong?)
Thanks for looking.