WhiskeyJack
Dryer sheet wannabe
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2014
- Messages
- 10
Hi,
I am 53.5, married, kids out of college starting their own lives, no debt including house and cars. The company I have worked for the last 26 years offered a voluntary separation package which I have accepted. I will continue to receive my salary and full benefits for another year at which time both will stop. I qualified for special early retirement which reduced the discount rate on my small non COLA pension.
My job experience is in financial planning. I have used Quicken to track income/spending/investments for the past 15 years or more. I have run (and re-run many times) every retirement planner I can find including Firecalc. I have four excel files created on my own that I use to model different scenarios.
Everything says that I can retire after my one year severance ends and make it with room to spare. The only real variable to me is spending. Which brings me to my title point (finally some of you might say).
After all these years of saving and watching the investment portfolio grow can I really make the transition to start spending it?
I know that this will have to come eventually but just making this change now (or more accurately a year from now) is a change we know will be very difficult to make.
Over the past 26 years we have definitely lived below our means and I don't see that changing in retirement. However we have never really worried about what we were spending. If we believed we needed (or maybe wanted) something we spent the money and bought it. But already a change has come over us and we are now starting to question do we really need (want) this item.
Thanks for reading and any advice/comments regarding making the transition from saving to spending you can offer will be appreciated.
I am 53.5, married, kids out of college starting their own lives, no debt including house and cars. The company I have worked for the last 26 years offered a voluntary separation package which I have accepted. I will continue to receive my salary and full benefits for another year at which time both will stop. I qualified for special early retirement which reduced the discount rate on my small non COLA pension.
My job experience is in financial planning. I have used Quicken to track income/spending/investments for the past 15 years or more. I have run (and re-run many times) every retirement planner I can find including Firecalc. I have four excel files created on my own that I use to model different scenarios.
Everything says that I can retire after my one year severance ends and make it with room to spare. The only real variable to me is spending. Which brings me to my title point (finally some of you might say).
After all these years of saving and watching the investment portfolio grow can I really make the transition to start spending it?
I know that this will have to come eventually but just making this change now (or more accurately a year from now) is a change we know will be very difficult to make.
Over the past 26 years we have definitely lived below our means and I don't see that changing in retirement. However we have never really worried about what we were spending. If we believed we needed (or maybe wanted) something we spent the money and bought it. But already a change has come over us and we are now starting to question do we really need (want) this item.
Thanks for reading and any advice/comments regarding making the transition from saving to spending you can offer will be appreciated.