Hi all,
Some of you may remember me though it’s been over 11 years since I posted to this board and there are a lot of new names though I do notice some of the familiar old names.
At that time, I was planning to FIRE in 2012. Well, it didn’t all work out like I had planned. My target lifestyle in retirement grew somewhat, we decided to help out some family members (6 nieces/nephews with post-secondary school), an interesting and lucrative w*rk opportunity came along, two serious illnesses in the family, and of course the 2008 financial meltdown put a damper on things too. That being said, I recently pulled the plug and retired at the beginning of October last year at the age of 51.
I’m not really looking for money advice or whether we can “do it”. I’m very well aware of the numbers side of this having worked it through pretty thoroughly over quite a number of years. Current estimates have us spending about 2% per year for the first few years not including the money that will come from selling the house. We do plan to ramp up the spending after a the first few years but the plans for those years need no more than 2% and that’s with a decent margin. The initial low rate is also a good hedge against sequence of return risk in the early years of retirement.
The house will bring in enough cash to pay for another home outside the Bay Area in the future and then some. Health care was COBRA for the remainder of last year and will be for all of this since I won’t be below the income level for subsidies due to deferred comp pay outs later this year (can’t defer it any longer) plus other passive income. The available plans are close to the cost of COBRA but are significantly worse in coverage. After the end of this year I won’t be a US resident and health care costs will be much lower. I am interested in first hand experience with any of the international health insurance providers (BUPA, IM Global, etc.).
Maybe I could have retired a bit earlier but I wanted to wait for some significant stock vestings and to make sure that certain family medical needs were looked after - remain in place and use the same health care plus potentially large expenses. That was made easier since I was able to take family medical leave two years in a row for both cases so I had time to do what was needed (California provides 6+ weeks for this and my employer made my salary whole). Unfortunately, my father’s condition worsened and he passed away shortly after my retirement but I was grateful that I was able to be with him at that time and that I had spent 6 weeks over the summer with him.
We’re planning to leave the Bay Area next spring - sell the house and drive around the US and Canada for a while. After that, we plan to continue being “homeless” for a number of years - thinking about residency in somewhere in a country with favourable taxes and other laws like Malaysia or Thailand to break US residency for taxes next year (we are green card holders), probably some time in Japan at language school and being close to family, perhaps setting up in Portugal later as a base to explore Europe.
Right now, we are seriously decluttering - selling what can be sold, giving stuff to charity or friends, throwing some out, and packing away a very small amount of stuff that we can keep with relatives. Also, looking to get all our pictures scanned, remaining music ripped, some books scanned (1dollarscan.com), etc. Way more work to this than I imagined.
I’ve been lurking on the board off and on over the last 2 years and more so over the 6 months before my FIRE date approached. I’m hoping to get information on the actual implementation of early retirement. I’ve already gotten a number of good items of info (e.g. Portugal as a base for Europe with excellent tax laws, the Chase Sapphire Reserve card).
Hyperborea
