How many times did you move the goal posts?

[tulak]

I haven’t had a goal post until the last few years, even though I’ve been thinking about ER for a long time. For me, it was always a financial goal. Even if I hit my financial goal now, I’d likely still wait, unless it was significantly higher and work becomes unpleasant. But in the back of my mind, I flirt with idea of running up the scorecard.

My current goal is 2028, at 54/55, which conveniently is when I get access to my 401k.

And if I didn’t get divorced over five years ago, it could be that I would already be retired. Just goes to show you never know.

 

[Lorenzo]

I never had a goalpost. A few years ago, a European friend who had already retired because he hit some magic age enshrined in his country's retirement system asked me if I was retired yet. I said no, not yet. He said, "Oh, right, that's how it works for Americans--you retire when you feel you have saved enough."

 

[dunkelblau]

My OMY string ended unexpectedly when a bunch of us volunteered for a RIF exactly five years after my #42 post here. It did turn out to be health that pushed me out, but not mine, so it wasn't a goal post that I predicted much less planned around. I was able to juggle my caregiving tasks with remote work, but when Covid hit and everyone wanted to continue on remote after the surge passed, this pre-requisite for me to stay on was coming to an end.

Looking back over my work years I think it's ironic how early on I was so desperate to ER as quickly as possible, but as time passed ER seemed to grow less desirable so I kept putting it off. Now that my COBRA time is coming to an end, I think I can say that postponing via OMYs was right for me because life seemed a bit better with work in the mix. But perhaps this state of mind became possible only after I reached FI? I have a close relative who began his retirement preparations late and perhaps consequently has a much less sanguine opinion about staying on at his job longer than necessary.

 

[Dtail]

Never thought about early retirement until I volunteered for a package at 55. Calculated by 57 y.o. that I could retire.
Would have been earlier if I knew about this site earlier.

 

[RetiredHappy]

I chuckled at the original post. We are in the we need 250K to 300K a year camp, how can anyone live on 25K a year. Seriously, when we retired 8 years ago, I felt that we needed a couple more million dollars saved to be able to generate enough income for us to retire on. Because we sold our business, continuing to work wasn't an option, unless I sought employment elsewhere. Fast forward, we are just fine. We do live on $250K-$300K before tax for the past 8 years. I hope that we will crank that down to about $200K when we slow down on travelling as we continue to age, maybe in 5 years time. We didn't change the goal post. The goal post moved up for us when it wasn't ideal.

 

[marko]

Goalposts were moved for me. Had "thought" that 58 was a good time to quit but never took it too seriously...having too much fun at work.

Company was acquired and I suddenly realized that they put me involuntarily over the goal line at age 52. Never went back to work. Best thing that ever happened to me.

 

[Chuckanut]

Divorce caused me to delay retirement two years. I'm glad that's all it cost me. We managed to settle things amicably and keep down the legal fees. That helped a lot.

 

[srblanco7]

Many years ago forecasted that we'd have enough in our late 50s to ER. Stock market performance as well as company merger created some positive financial outcomes which meant we had enough to ER at 55. Rather than full ER, I agreed to stay on 3 days/week to facilitate transition to my successor and will plan to do that for 12-18 months. This will give us some "practice" with our ER budget and to see how we do with filling up the additional free time.

 

[iloveyoga]

I did not really have a number. I knew what we could afford to live on and went by that. I left my full time job at age 54 when I got a new boss and could see what the future would hold. I was very lucky to get in 33.75 good years at a very good financial service company.

 

[jebmke]

Never had a number. Ended up moving the date though.

 

[rkser]

I was getting stressed at the Job, I retired 9 yrs back due to health issues & am fuzzy about the number we had then.
Happy to say the savings have grown quite well

 

[Exit 2024]

Original plan was set in 2015 to retire in 2024 with $3M total NW and $2.7M investable.

Did not hit that number yet and also reset investable target to $3M due to higher than anticipated inflation. Hope that will be it, unless we see additional spikes in inflation.

So, to answer OP question - once so far.

 

[Dtail]

Original plan was set in 2015 to retire in 2024 with $3M total NW and $2.7M investable.

Did not hit that number yet and also reset investable target to $3M due to higher than anticipated inflation. Hope that will be it, unless we see additional spikes in inflation.

So, to answer OP question - once so far.

Might have to change your avatar. lol

 

[Exit 2024]

Might have to change your avatar. lol

Haha, I would, but it represent my forum name and I can not change that one.

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

Like Sengsational, I never had a magic age or number. I got lucky, landed a good position and started enjoying work. Magically, 20 years rolled by and I got old enough and financially secure enough to retire.
DW was less happy on the job and left at 55, five years before I did. I probably could have hung it up at that point, but stuff like health insurance and fulfillment at work kept me hanging on.

 

[calmloki]

We were rolling with the rentals - an investor/builder offered us cash for two little houses on a big chunk of land in town in mid 2007, which we took. Thought, wow, maybe we should sell everything and retire at 60 in 2009. Next place we sold was 12/2009 and took over a year with me holding it vacant and shining it up between showings. My divest and retire from RE neatly coincided with the RE crash. So much for Retire Early with Real Estate. We just kept renting the other places out and stacking cash. Will be 75 at the end of this year and we still own a triplex and a 16-unit while taking payments on four other places and a couple property loans. We do go south for six months, but it's looking like retiring early may be missed...

 

[RetireAge50]

No goal post change. In a college finance class learned about compounding. Did an example based on 10% return for 30 years. Did the math and talked to my girlfriend now wife about retiring at age 50. Worked out exactly as planned. Compounding is still happening so need to make new plans. Maybe I should of run the numbers for 60 years back then (maybe I would of retired earlier).

Interesting Side Note: Since I graduated from college in 1989 the stock market has averaged 10.2%. Therefore the plan succeeded on pure math.

 

[Safire]

Prior to you making the plunge to RE, how many times did you change your “number”? I am 2 yrs away from my latest launch date, but have found that I have moved the goal posts multiple times, particularly over the last 10 yrs. I have probably changed my number 5 or 6 times, doubling my desired number at this point over the last 10 yrs from what I originally set. I suppose much of this is due to a combination of adopting/learning more conservative withdrawal strategies and setting a more conservative AA, desiding I would like a little more discretionary income in RE, and perhaps some additional fear/OMY syndrome. Like most on this site, I have been working my plan for years and my exit time is still pretty much as I planned 15 - 20 yrs ago, but I now want a significantly larger nugget. I find it interesting how FI is relative and so different for so many people on this site. Some define their FI when they can generate $25K - $30K yr, others $250K - $300K yr. I suppose the person who is happy with $25K thinks the $250K person should have retired yrs ago and the $250K retire wonders how can anyone live on $25K? I would also suggest most of us want to replicate a standard of living we have been accustomed too during the re ent years prior to RE and not take real steps backwards so our FI number can move due to lifestyle creep. Aside from certain events which dictate a retirement before the planned date (I.e. health problems, lay off), I suppose we are all entitled to set our own definaition of FI.

Once we settled on an FI number, we ended up moving posts only once after learning that we / his trust could have to pay a % of our income (even in retirement) towards our son's housing costs, if he were to live in a group home as we got too old or too incapable to care for him.

This "tidbit" meant that we had "under-budgetted" what we'd need in retirement so we had to up it by.... a considerable amount as we want him to live in a nice home with amenities and not in anything purely Medicaid funded. That sounds demeaning, but it's just a fact. As a parent, I would want my son to be well cared for even if it meant $$$$ for said care.

The new number has added years to our working life but it is what it is. It's either work more years or leave your child to Medicaid's mercy. What's a parent to do?

 

[Gumby]

Once we settled on an FI number, we ended up moving posts only once after learning that we / his trust could have to pay a % of our income (even in retirement) towards our son's housing costs, if he were to live in a group home as we got too old or too incapable to care for him.

This "tidbit" meant that we had "under-budgetted" what we'd need in retirement so we had to up it by.... a considerable amount as we want him to live in a nice home with amenities and not in anything purely Medicaid funded. That sounds demeaning, but it's just a fact. As a parent, I would want my son to be well cared for even if it meant $$$$ for said care.

The new number has added years to our working life but it is what it is. It's either work more years or leave your child to Medicaid's mercy. What's a parent to do?

We do what we must to get where we want to be. No shame in that.

 

[Koolau]

When my pension and employee supplied health care supplement vested, I checked my "stash" and decided I was financially independent and able to retire. I waited several years since I was (wait for it) having fun. When I wasn't having fun anymore, I left Megacorp with more than I ever thought I would. So, the only goal-post was "when" and not "how much." YMMV

 

[pjigar]

Dollar goal post is alway moving for us since it is a percentage of expenses which is always going up! But I always expected to be FI by 50 (and looks like we are on track). As to when I stop working is another question all together!

 

[5Miler]

My original goal was to retire from my Megacorp at 55 but getting laid off at 48 after a large merger put a big dent in that plan. I was laid off in Sept 2001 just a few weeks after 9/11 and the job market was tough. Took me 10 months to land a job but had to take a 25% pay cut. I ended up working at a company I had worked at previously when my old VP found out I was looking for work and brought me back on board. I stayed there 10 more years retiring at 58 in 2012 when I finally hit my number.

Actually, I had already hit my FI goal but I hung on as I liked what I did. After another corporate merger, I volunteered for a package if any of my management peers were to be impacted in a layoff. About 6 months later I was asked if I still wanted a package and walked out the door about a month after that with the deal. As it turned out, all of my management peers were let go within a year of my "retirement" due to restructuring. I left at a good time.

 

[brett]

Once. Ready to but waited a number months or so because I knew that a lucrative exit package was coming my way.

We used that few months to make some early retirment plans, etc. It was more like me being paid while actively planning my early retirement. I was happily coasting.

 

[RobLJ]

I calculated a number in Quicken, FireCalc, and Fidelity. Two years after we hit "the number" I qualified for State Employee Retirement Health and the portfolio was up about 20%, so we semi-retired to Reno.

The goalposts that have been moved is spending; the portfolio--despite withdrawals--is up about 45% and I've told DW several times that we can spend more. This year we will hit a bit below what FireCalc tells us we can spend, but only because we're flying 1st class to the Scotland hike for our 40th anniversary and taking the oldest son's family to Hawaii for a week over Christmas.

 

[marko]

I calculated a number in Quicken, FireCalc, and Fidelity. Two years after we hit "the number" I qualified for State Employee Retirement Health and the portfolio was up about 20%, so we semi-retired to Reno.

The goalposts that have been moved is spending; the portfolio--despite withdrawals--is up about 45% and I've told DW several times that we can spend more. This year we will hit a bit below what FireCalc tells us we can spend, but only because we're flying 1st class to the Scotland hike for our 40th anniversary and taking the oldest son's family to Hawaii for a week over Christmas.

Notably increasing one's starting portfolio number seems to be a common theme on this forum. Much to my surprise, I've more than doubled my starting balance despite having withdrawn that full amount over the past 19 years.

Now at age 72, we're at the point where we can't seem to get ahead of whittling down the balance (despite DWs best efforts) as, with 25 or fewer years ahead of us, we're running out of time.