Poll:What influence has E-R.org had on your ability to retire early?

[Bestwifeever]

I came for the FIREcalc and stayed for the fun. I spent months reading virtually every thread, I found them that entertaining, even those dealing with detailed formulas to determine HVAC requirements . It was then and continues to be a diverse and smart(ass) crowd even as folks come and go, just as all Internet sites evolve.

Every calculator including FIREcalc that I could find showed that DH and I were in good shape to go so I bailed first; DH would never have left his job a few years later, though, if I hadn't been able to convince him with the FIREcalc data showing we would be fine.

 

[marko]

I was retired already and was surfing around and found FIRECALC which led me to the forum...kinda backwards...story of my life.

I have learned SO much here. If not for ER I still would never have heard of the ACA subsidies (potential of $10K/yr in my pocket), the easy use of TurboTax ($750/yr in my pocket), travel tips, LTC, and tons of other stuff.

Plus, just a great friendly group of knowledgeable, welcoming folks. On a rainy day, I'll just poke around and read just about anything here... it's like visiting with friends.

Sincere thanks to the Mods who keep it from turning into a b*tchfest.

 

[karluk]

er.org is great at getting together smart, like-minded people who know that early retirement is possible but don't gloss over the need to precede it with aggressive savings, wise investing, and careful planning (plus the need to make critical non-financial lifestyle decisions). I know I could have safely retired a few years before I actually did, but I wasn't ready then. Now I am, and er.org helped me get to my current mindset.

 

[martyb]

Not much influence on my basic retirement, because I will have a couple of pensions that when both are incoming, will cover all basic+ needs. E-R.org has greatly increased my awareness of my non-pension resources, to include TSP, wife's 401k & our Roth IRA's. Also, I had never heard about the 4% rule, so that will govern our future withdrawals...more or less. I have learned & benefited a good deal from my association here.

 

[imoldernu]

Neat Poll... For me, a confessional...
It was almost a quarter century ago when DW and I left the w*rking world, and to tell the truth, If ER had been around then, we wouldn't have retired, "too scared"... But we did, and bumbled our way through by trial and error to a wonderful life, mostly by being cheap, and being lucky.
This is a great place to learn, share, and enjoy the online companionship of people who have a common interest.
Rather than building security to allow for satisfying dreams, we went at it backwards... by structuring our lives to fit what we have. As it turned out, retirement has been far beyond our fondest dreams, and as we age, our financial status seems more secure. (Much easier to plan for 10 years, than for 30.)

So, maybe not an effect on the retirement decision, but most certainly a very pleasant part of retirement, in sharing knowledge and experience.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

I really appreciate the collective wisdom of the investment, tax and health insurance advice here. I will probably never 100% retire. I just like having different income streams that don't involve an 8 - 5 job in a cubicle.

 

[travelover]

I had just retired when I joined the forum, but I quickly realized that I was not alone in aspiring to be a lazy bum.

 

[Free To Canoe]

I was already retired when I found the forum but it has been a great help to me in ER.

 

[RunningBum]

E-R.org has definitely helped, though it's hard to say how much, partly because I don't remember what I knew before and what I learned here, and I don't know how much I'd have learned otherwise. For example, did I have an AA before, and did I learn that from here or from Vanguard? Likewise with a tIRA->Roth conversion plan. I think the forum at least drove home some concepts for me.

I think the forum also helped my confidence factor, though it may have delayed my ER a couple of years. I learned more about what kind of unexpected expenses people face in retirement and part of why I delayed ER is that I hadn't finalized my expected ER budget. When my budget finally stopped moving for a few months, I was ready to pull the trigger with confidence that I'd be ok. I might've continued "one more year" for longer without that confidence.

 

[scrabbler1]

I had just retired when I joined the forum, but I quickly realized that I was not alone in aspiring to be a lazy bum.

+1.

 

[jollystomper]

I had nebulous plans regarding retirement, but this site helped me put a better focus on them. It has also encouraged me to move up my target retirement date and take a little more "risk" in doing so.

 

[haha]

I was already retired for some years before I came here. I had been living out in the country and could not get a high speed connection, so I only used internet for necessary things.

After moving to town and getting a better connection, I learned general attitudes toward spending less, and also some very specific helpful things, like the now gone payback SS and restart later method. I tended to spend more than i really needed to, and I am considerably more attentive to that now. Also learned about Pen Fed, and made some relationships on the board that are enjoyable and at times helpful in choosing investments.

I learned to choose the Medigap F plan from a former participant who was a life and health insurance broker, and also to buy it through a broker who then would at no cost to me be able to help with issues.

This is really the only forum I spend any considerable time on, though I did go to Bogleheads when I needed some specific help with a screwed up 1099 from the SS, and got some good suggestions there.

Ha

 

[sheehs1]

Almost 10 years ago, I had planned to retire early at the end of the next 10 years. I started to self-educate myself reading financial books, Wall Street Journal, The Economist, virtually anything I could put my hands on. I tried to figure out how I was doing versus the rest of my age group and the rest of the United States...etc. I became frustrated because none of my friends talked about this stuff. In fact, the minute I mention investments, retirement or money I could feel the mood shift. Thru an online search about retiring early I found this website. With it, I have found people with a common interest and that support has been priceless. It was great to get validation regarding my own thoughts on annuities, advice on a 2nd home purchase (which I have not done), recommended withdrawal rates, Firecalc, ...all enough to let me know I should feel confident retiring at the end of this year instead of wondering if I had enough. Thanks to everyone here.

 

[panhead]

I had the idea to retire early while I was in college. Once out I began investing and made plenty of mistakes early on, but learned a lot in the process. Didn't have a lot of money then so the mistakes didn't cost as much as they could have. I found the Retire Early Home Page and the associate Motely Fool forum back in 1997 (I think) and participated a bit there. That was closed and this opened and I've been here ever since (2002). I'm FI now and this forum has helped me learn what I did wrong long ago, and taught me several other things (backdoor roth, treasurydirect to name two). As much as this place is helpful, the idea was formed in my head before I found it, and lbym has always been a natural thing to do.

 

[Ronstar]

I wasn't retired when I joined, but the plan was well under way. Still not retired, but I'm in the last year of a 10 year transition from 50 hrs a week to 0. This board has given me some great financial insight and glimpses of what retirement is like for younger retirees. The posts here have helped remove the mental obstacles I had in retiring.

 

[HFWR]

...because I didn't have anything to contribute...

That has never stopped me...

 

[martyp]

My decision to retire happened very quickly. From idea to decision was 30 days. Within the first few days of the idea I found this forum and started using FIRECALC. The concepts I read about in this forum helped me organized my thoughts about my financial status at the time. I discovered that I was unwittingly LBYM. I also needed to wrap my head around the non-financial aspects of ER. Reading Zelinski's "How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free" and reading the "Life after Fire" threads in this forum helped to ease my mind about life after ER.

 

[smurray5991]

As others have already said, I have always unwittingly been preparing myself to be FI with aggressive saving, LBYM approach to spending, and basic familiarity with investment approaches, etc. – but (a bit surprisingly) had not ever made a decision about when specifically to stop working, much less thought about RE.

However, when my job was eliminated late last year, and my BS bucket was full enough that the thought of another full time job wasn’t too appealing, I started searching the internet for ‘early retirement’ to see what came up. Finding this forum was an enormous gift from the first day I started exploring it, and has provided multiple values as I have rapidly passed through ‘stages of ER’:

- First, just through reading back posts I learned that FIRE was an actual real choice/possibility, and many had been there before (I had never considered it before!);
- Second because of the confidence immediately provided about my financial ability to RE based on FireCALC and member reassurance on my specific circumstances posted in an introductory post;
- Third because of the tons and tons of excellent, practical, concrete advice about financially managing the numerous dimensions of living in RE (many of which I have already acted on, and many more that I plan to);
- Fourth because of the terrific balance of the ‘practical’ and the ‘emotional’/’lifestyle’ aspects of FIRE – it is wonderful hearing about people’s personal journeys from all sorts of starting points. I can already see that this is a place where you can always find something relevant to whatever ‘stage’ of FIRE you are at.
- Fifth because of the very high caliber of members – smart, engaged, experienced, funny, -- and the very positive, constructive tone of the site overall (thank you moderators!).

And I’m sure there are sixth, seventh, and umpteenth more examples of what this site has given to me already, and will no doubt continue to give. I have come to the forum virtually every day since I began considering ‘retirement’ four months ago and have always taken something valuable away with me from every visit. My final day at full-time work was last Friday , and I very much look forward to continuing to grow with all of you as I further define my form of ER going forward. THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!

 

[gardenfun]

to smurray5991: you said it!! And very eloquently. My experience almost exactly.

Thanks everyone!!

 

[Onward]

These forums helped me ER by showing me there were real people out there who had actually done it, and who were making it work.

This site had a huge impact on my ER plans and execution.

 

[FUEGO]

I voted "Not retired - E-R has helped but it's not the main reason why I'll be able to retire early"

I think I have always had the idea that money was instrumentally valuable to provide the necessities and some fun stuff in life, even when I was a kid. Finding the forum almost 10 years ago (around when I first started working full time post college) helped me crystallize those thoughts into a workable plan that has evolved over the years.

Along the way, it has been a great help to bounce ideas off other smart people working toward similar goals. I enjoy finding tips and/or discussions on investments and taxes. The low expense, index fund, don't-try-to-outsmart-the-market crowd here convinced me to dump the full fee adviser I had for a year or so right out of college and jump to fidelity and vanguard (to my great benefit almost 10 years later).

I think I have managed to sharpen my wit and analytical skills here as well. Going through life, you just don't seem to bump into that many introspective, analytical, critical thinkers as you do here. I mean I know a few in real life, and that's why I value them as friends, but some of you folks are real gems!

I'm pretty sure I would be set to ER at a relatively early age whether I found this forum or not, but my finances and my plans would look different without doubt. And I found a really impressive artichoke dip recipe here.

 

[ERD50]

I had a lot of the basics before retiring and discovering this site. I can't recall all the sources, just a lot of reading I guess, and I was always skeptical of 'get rich quick' schemes.

I really got the low-cost index fund 'religion' from Bob Brinker's radio show. Even though he has a 'market timer' newsletter, his holding periods were very long, and the show was more about DCA, indexing, low cost, etc - at least back in the 90's.

Before FIRECALC, I did the back-of-the-envelope calc using the low end of the range I had heard about stock returns, some typical bond returns (seem high now!), and a 3% inflation number. That came up with averaging ~ 8% stock returns with ~ 4% fixed returns for 6% (assume 50/50 AA), minus 3% inflation gets you to 3% WR. That didn't take into account volatility, but it seems conservative enough to agree with some FIRECALC runs.

This website has helped me understand how conservative I am and I need to work on this.

Why do you need to work on it? In your later posts, I think you shared that your WR will be low enough that it doesn't matter what your AA is.

-ERD50

 

[Grigori]

This forum has provided some excellent and useful advice. I'm grateful. Mostly it confirms what I thought I knew, but wasn't able to talk about with anyone.

I think the forum will help me move confidently toward a much earlier retirement than I would be willing to take otherwise.

 

[braumeister]

I couldn't begin to put a price on the information about dryer sheets.

Actually, I had been FIREd for years when I found this site, but it grew on me very quickly. I still visit most days, and will probably stick around for some time yet. Way more than enough "good people" to make up for the few nuisances.

 

[MooreBonds]

I voted "It helped, but not the main reason I will someday retire early", but I was torn between that and "the forum was the primary reason".

There have been some definite beneficial lessons I've learned from the collective wisdom of the forum - mainly, investing more in equities given my age, and the fact that you only need roughly 30x-35x expenses for a very strong, safe ER in your 40s.

And I would be remiss if I didn't give a [-]whisper[/-]shout out to "pssss.....wellesley"

Not to mention the whole "some things in life are more important than the money, and don't be afraid to leave your job if it's a truly toxic environment".