Less than 6 months away

[BlueStreet]

Hi from Virginia. I'm thinking of retiring in 6 months. It could happen sooner since there are rumors of layoffs and I'm not sure I have the energy to find another job. I turn 61 in March and I'm in pretty good shape. My wife plans on working another two years or so (scaling back over time). We are recently married and plan to keep our retirement finances separate - her savings are fairly close to mine, though she is a year younger (she bought out 1/2 of my house a few months back).

My finances
100k cash
600k in a 401k (60% stocks/40% bonds)
473k in a mix of stocks
246k in a managed brokerage account
142k in an IRA (taking RMDs - my parent's old account)
40k in misc accounts (Robinhood/Etrade)

Our house is paid off and valued at around 700k. I owe around 10k on my car, but plan on paying it off before I retire. I plan on taking SS at 67 (or 70 if I can wait), providing me with around 36k a year.

Annual Budget
30k on general expenses
5-10k on travel
4k on misc college expenses for my son
2k a year on health care (through my wife's employer)

Firecalc puts my odds at over 90%. Am I missing any possible pitfalls?

 

[Lewis Clark]

Welcome!

I recommend you think through all of these items.

Some Important Questions to Answer Before Asking - Can I Retire?

1. What are your expenses? No, your real expenses that you have tracked carefully over a period of at least two years, not some rough estimate that you just pulled out of thin air. If you don't know where your spending flow goes now, you've got no business turning off the income flow. 2. Are...

www.early-retirement.org

 

[Koolau]

You indicate that you and DW keep your retirement finances separate. For the purposes of calculating whether retirement is possible (with FIRECalc), I would suggest combining them (mentally.) After all, you both contribute to all the combined expenses like housing and food, etc.

Welcome to the Forum. Please contribute often to these pages.

 

[Exchme]

I would think Firecalc would give tell you you would have had success in 100% of historical cases. Even if you didn't count SS, you are talking about a 2.9% withdrawal rate (46k/1600k). Once your son is out of college and SS kicks in, your withdrawal rate will be <1%. It looks like you didn't include taxes in your spending estimate, but I don't think those will be real burdensome for you.

If your new bride has similar assets/spending, it's unclear why she would need to keep working either.

Whichever one of you was the largest earner should generally wait until 70 to claim SS, the lower earner's claim date doesn't matter as much. You should look into the combined math on opensocialsecurity.com and scroll to the graph at the bottom and click on alternate combinations of claim ages to see what difference it makes.

 

[Out-to-Lunch]

Welcome aboard!

 

[BlueStreet]

Thanks for the responses so far!

Excheme, my bride doesn't hate her job as much as I do, lol. She is about 150k behind me in her retirement balance, but as a nurse anesthetist she makes more money than I do, so she should catch me within a year or two of my retirement. Her job allows her to scale back to four days a week or even days here and there just to bring in income.

Should I rebalance my old 401k more towards bonds (or even cash/CDs) since my other portfolio holdings are mostly stocks?

My 401k options are limited through an old employer (the balance is currently 610k). I was in a 2025 target date fund and have since moved to a 60/40 stock bond split.

Bond Funds
Stable Value Fund
Income Fund
US Aggregate Bond Index (40%)
US Tips Index Fund

Stocks
US Large Cap Equity Index (60%)
there are also mid and small cap options

Thanks

 

[Saintor]

"Firecalc puts my odds at over 90%. "

This doesn't mean that you'll go broke 10% of the times. It means that 10% of the times you will have to adjust a bit.

 

[PlayinwithFIRE]

I would be thinking about liquid cash to cover expenses .

Perhaps that is covered by your wife working? Consider what it might look like if your wife stops working for any reason.

PWF

 

[Surewhitey]

Health insurance is a consideration. If she no longer gets it from her employer, you'll have to think of your combined income based on the government's rules for any ACA subsidies (if you qualify). If not, this is a sizeable item.

Also consider one-off lumps like cars, roof or a/c replacement.

Otherwise you look pretty good imo based on your low-ish expenses.

 

[pacergal]

Welcome to the forum!
I second the review of the questions in #2 post by by LewisClark. They are an excellent review of readiness for retirement.
Look forward to hearing more from you.

 

[brydanger]

I say make it happen sooner. Go in there and tell them you'll save someone else's job by leaving now.

Might even find yourself with a severance package - but I can assure you that there is NO better feeling the the world than looking in your boss in the eye and saying the words (and knowing that even if they offered you a massive raise you'd still be walking out).

 

[Koolau]

I say make it happen sooner. Go in there and tell them you'll save someone else's job by leaving now.

Might even find yourself with a severance package - but I can assure you that there is NO better feeling the the world than looking in your boss in the eye and saying the words (and knowing that even if they offered you a massive raise you'd still be walking out).

Oh, yeah. A great feeling, indeed - not that there was any chance Megacorp would have tried to keep me. In fact, had I stayed on for 18 months, it turns out there would have been a package for me.

I don't regret missing it. How much money would I have accepted for doing something I didn't want to do for 18 more months? I could have "faked" it, I suppose, but that just is not me. When I was done, I was DONE and gone the next week.