ScottFromUtah
Recycles dryer sheets
My DW and I have decided to retire effected summer 2008, she at age 63 and I at age 63½. We are both professors at the same university. She will have 16 years and I will have 30 years of experience at our university when we retire. We had seven children--four daughters and three sons. Six of the seven have graduated from college. Our oldest daughter hasn't graduated yet; she is married with three kids, dropped out of school while her husband was in medical school but has returned to school and will graduate in two years. Besides teaching and doing research, DW and I have coauthored 40 books together, most of which have been good-selling or best-selling textbooks.
We have loved our professional life, but it's now time to retire and move on to other things in life: doing genealogical research, serving our church, traveling (mostly to visit our big family), and pursuing other hobbies (music, reading, writing, and fitness). We are essentially debt free, own two homes with no mortgages, have saved fairly aggressively over the past 20 years, have a nice pension from our university, continue to receive royalties from our books, and of course have social security. When I run FIRECalc (the advanced version), everything works out well.
We do have some concerns, however. First and foremost is our health. We are both overweight, having each gained about 30 pounds over the past 3 years as our exercise levels have been hampered due to health issues. DW has plantar fasciitis, so she's been unable to walk much. I have a history of high blood pressure and heart disease, in spite of the fact that I have run many marathons (including Boston 2004) and have done several cycling centuries and triathlons. When we retire, I hope to spend more time with my fitness hobbies.
Our second concern is that we will become overbooked as retirees, and end up busier than we are now working full time. We have several friends that have fallen into that trap--becoming over-committed to family, church, and other volunteer pursuits. They have full, active, fulfilling lives, but they are are not truly retired; they're just not getting paid for their "full-time jobs."
Our third concern is that our money will be insufficient to sustain us if we should need assisted care or full nursing care in our advanced years.
Any comment, criticism, or advise on these concerns would be welcome.
I have one specific question: What do you know about long-term care insurance? It is work looking into?
We have loved our professional life, but it's now time to retire and move on to other things in life: doing genealogical research, serving our church, traveling (mostly to visit our big family), and pursuing other hobbies (music, reading, writing, and fitness). We are essentially debt free, own two homes with no mortgages, have saved fairly aggressively over the past 20 years, have a nice pension from our university, continue to receive royalties from our books, and of course have social security. When I run FIRECalc (the advanced version), everything works out well.
We do have some concerns, however. First and foremost is our health. We are both overweight, having each gained about 30 pounds over the past 3 years as our exercise levels have been hampered due to health issues. DW has plantar fasciitis, so she's been unable to walk much. I have a history of high blood pressure and heart disease, in spite of the fact that I have run many marathons (including Boston 2004) and have done several cycling centuries and triathlons. When we retire, I hope to spend more time with my fitness hobbies.
Our second concern is that we will become overbooked as retirees, and end up busier than we are now working full time. We have several friends that have fallen into that trap--becoming over-committed to family, church, and other volunteer pursuits. They have full, active, fulfilling lives, but they are are not truly retired; they're just not getting paid for their "full-time jobs."
Our third concern is that our money will be insufficient to sustain us if we should need assisted care or full nursing care in our advanced years.
Any comment, criticism, or advise on these concerns would be welcome.
I have one specific question: What do you know about long-term care insurance? It is work looking into?