Need courage

[piano88]

Hi,

I appreciate an opportunity to vet my situation with the good folks on this forum.  What a super resource!

I’d like to get up the nerve to take a lower paying job and begin to partly live off investments at 50.  Please help me assess if this is doable.

I am 49; wife is 48.  Two kids 20 and 17.  The kids have “start up” funds for college, whatever. Total for them is $384,000. Already paid down 2 years of tuition for kid number 1.  Glad to save this money for them. Maybe they’ll find me a nice nursing home one day…

Retirement budget for two: $60,000 including taxes estimated.

Current income is $160,000 gross for both of us.

No mortgage on house with current value approx $250,000 in upstate (way upstate) New York. Will stay in current house.

Tax deferred retirement funds (IRAs, 403bs, annuity): $900,000
Cash/Savings Account: $30,000
Other Taxable Investments: $300,000

Thank you for any feedback,

 

[JPatrick]

Need Courage?? Here's what I do.

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Ok, it was important to me to do that.
Welcome to the board.
You seem well on your way to your goal if not complete.  A couple of issues are missing.  What will you plan to earn in your lower paying job?  Are there any defined benefit plans on the horizon?  Assume you are both going to get soc sec one day, yes?
Wow 384K seems a bit strong for college especially with one already there.  Then again, I've got a kid in med school so maybe not.

 

[acg]

Hi,

I appreciate an opportunity to vet my situation with the good folks on this forum.  What a super resource!

I’d like to get up the nerve to take a lower paying job and begin to partly live off investments at 50.  Please help me assess if this is doable.


Thank you for any feedback,

Here is some courage for you!

"If I had my life to live over, I'd dare to make more mistakes next time. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but I'd have fewer imaginary ones. You see, I'm one of those people who lived sensibly and sanely, hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I could do it over again, I'd have more of them. In fact, I'd try to have nothing else...just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day. If I had my life to live over, I would go to more dances, I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies."                                        -Nadine Stair (age 85 at the time she wrote it)

I am 48 and recently retired with similiar circumstances. I jumped off the bridge and lived to tell about it. Go for it and ENJOY!

 

[Nords]

Retirement budget for two: $60,000 including taxes estimated.

Tax deferred retirement funds (IRAs, 403bs, annuity): $900,000
Cash/Savings Account: $30,000
Other Taxable Investments: $300,000

Welcome to the board, Piano.

Looks like you have $1.23M for your retirement portolio, and spending 4% of that gives you $49K/year. There are several penalty-free ways to extract money from those tax-deferred retirement accounts before age 59.5.

Now all you have to do is find a job paying $11K/year... or boost your retirement withdrawals up to a riskier 5% rate that will still probably (!) survive for the remaining years until you start collecting Social Security. Another alternative would be to throttle your spending back to meet your 4% withdrawal rate.

You can tinker with the numbers in FIRECalc and see what options work best for you, but I'd say you should give notice & color yourself gone. Happy holidays!

 

[brewer12345]

Does that $60k include health insurance of are you expecting that to come from the job?

 

[SteveR]

Hi,

I appreciate an opportunity to vet my situation with the good folks on this forum.  What a super resource!

I’d like to get up the nerve to take a lower paying job and begin to partly live off investments at 50.  Please help me assess if this is doable.

I am 49; wife is 48.  Two kids 20 and 17.  The kids have “start up” funds for college, whatever. Total for them is $384,000. Already paid down 2 years of tuition for kid number 1.  Glad to save this money for them. Maybe they’ll find me a nice nursing home one day…

Retirement budget for two: $60,000 including taxes estimated.

Current income is $160,000 gross for both of us.

No mortgage on house with current value approx $250,000 in upstate (way upstate) New York. Will stay in current house.

Tax deferred retirement funds (IRAs, 403bs, annuity): $900,000
Cash/Savings Account: $30,000
Other Taxable Investments: $300,000

Thank you for any feedback,

Welcome to the board.  It looks like you have been pretty good about stuffing your retirement accounts and your kids college funds.  My two cents..

I understand your desire to fund your kids free ride in an expensive private school but $380,000 for two kids, with two years already paid seems like a whole lot of kindness on your part.  Can you cut this back and invest the rest for your retirement?  Can they work even PT while in school?  I have found that having the kids pay for part of the "ride" they are a bit more motivated to get out and are more careful about overspending when it is partly their money.  

Also, will your wife retire when you do or will she wait until she reaches 50?  If not, that gives you some more income to play with before you hit the wall and have to take out living expenses at the $60k/year rate.  

As for you working PT, what do you really want to do in retirement?  If you are looking for a change from your current job but still like the structure and social aspects of working then by all means keep working but find a job you like rather than one you HAVE to do to make the right amount of $$.  If you don't you might as well stay were you are until you have enough to fully retire and generate the $60k/year you need.  

Good luck.

 

[piano88]

Thank you for the wise feedback and "encouragement". Health insurance (about half costs) will come from wife's public sector employment. Am stopping contributing anything more to the kids.

Again, thanks.

 

[TromboneAl]

Welcome, Piano,

- Trombone

 

[Mr._johngalt]

Here is some courage for you!

"If I had my life to live over, I'd dare to make more mistakes next time. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but I'd have fewer imaginary ones. You see, I'm one of those people who lived sensibly and sanely, hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I could do it over again, I'd have more of them. In fact, I'd try to have nothing else...just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day. If I had my life to live over, I would go to more dances, I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies."                                        -Nadine Stair (age 85 at the time she wrote it)

I am 48 and recently retired with similiar circumstances. I jumped off the bridge and lived to tell about it. Go for it and ENJOY!

Amen! Have no fear. Just go for it. You'll be dead soon enough.

JG

 

[Dawg52]

Welcome to the board.  It looks like you have been pretty good about stuffing your retirement accounts and your kids college funds.  My two cents..

I understand your desire to fund your kids free ride in an expensive private school but $380,000 for two kids, with two years already paid seems like a whole lot of kindness on your part.  Can you cut this back and invest the rest for your retirement?  Can they work even PT while in school?  I have found that having the kids pay for part of the "ride" they are a bit more motivated to get out and are more careful about overspending when it is partly their money.  

I agree. My parents paid about 1/2 and I paid 1/2. Took out a loan and paid back over 10 years. My first 2 years I attended a Jr College which was very cost effective.

Good luck with your plans!

 

[WhodaThunkit]

Just go for it.  You'll be dead soon enough.

(not to attempt to pick on this poster, but) . . . didn't one of the old-time comics have a line that went something like "I have enough money to last me the rest of my life . . . provided that I die by 7:30 Tuesday morning"?

Anyone with a few hundred K in the bank can retire with no trouble, and do fine for a while. The uncertainty concerns whether the retiree runs out of money later on. So the tradeoff is the risk of working too long and dying early, vs retiring too early and running out of money. My point -- risk is there either way.

Just my 2 cents worth.

 

[Mr._johngalt]

(not to attempt to pick on this poster, but) . . . didn't one of the old-time comics have a line that went something like "I have enough money to last me the rest of my life . . . provided that I die by 7:30 Tuesday morning"? 

Anyone with a few hundred K in the bank can retire with no trouble, and do fine for a while.  The uncertainty concerns whether the retiree runs out of money later on.  So the tradeoff is the risk of working too long and dying early, vs retiring too early and running out of money.  My point -- risk is there either way. 

Just my 2 cents worth.

I agree. IHMO, y'all should ask yourself "What's the worst that can happen?"

JG