Ready to submit resign letter.

[l8_apex]

Since I haven't seen some of the basics mentioned yet....

retire to nature - I'd suggest you read some of the other threads where people ask "am I ready to retire" or similar. You need to know what you expect your expenses to be and what your income will be. FIRECALC can help you with this with respect to stocks and similar, but doesn't do so well with real estate in my opinion.

Nevertheless, figure out what your monthly/yearly expenses will be, and include things that don't happen often, like buying a car or replacing a roof. Look at your income and see, is it enough? Do you have enough income if some part of it does not appear (like a tenant doesn't pay the rent)

And as has been mentioned, if it all fails, are you OK with going back to work? If so, then don't stress about it too much once you have all of the numbers.

 

[NateW]

Inheritance is not typically income.
You have a lot of learning to accomplish.

I went through this when my mother passed a couple years ago. Pushed my ER date about 5 years sooner too. Correct, inheritance is not income to you that you have to report. But any increase in value in the assets from the date of death until you receive them IS income to you. Likewise, any losses from the estate get passed through to you, as well, and you may take up to $3000 per year loss on your taxes until the loss is used up. Schedule K from the accountant or tax person hired by the executor or administrator should send a Schedule K to each estate beneficiary. The Schedule Ks also become part of the estate's federal tax return that is filed, so the IRS will have a copy too.

In my case, out of my inheritance received, about 0.008% was from income attributable to the estate (that's $8 for every $1000, a very small amount). There were also sizeable losses passed to me that I can carry forward for several years.

 

[scrabbler1]

Thank you for the reply. I am having a bit confusion about your quote part. can you please explain a bit more this part?

I totally understood the rest of part. That's why we need an insurance. Why I was hesitated to have one was, because if we hook a insurance, it limits which doctors, facility etc.

Even though I sounded like the naive one here, but I think most people think healthcare is only all good side. In my opinion, it has been just turned out to be a business in the competed field. We have to bring more patients to make profit. As RN, we were educated to get reimbursement from government fund etc. We have not to make patient condition worsening of course. But it is not just the concern of patient health, it is because the boss would bug RNs for the possibility no reimbursement. Yes, RN is much more ethical job than car dealer, but it is a still a job to deal with a boss and stress.

All the health related commercials would say, if you take this it would help your health. But that could be toxic too. I ran into many patients were cured diabetes by loss of weight. Or after stopped taking many meds, the health got better etc.

my impression about health from my patients, they dont change themselves for their diet, habit, or mindset, but they think it has to be cured because they have insurance so doctors will take care of them. But it is nor real resolution, what doctors do is giving the med for temporary relief way.

I felt more this way from my last year. all my healthcare issue was from the stress due to my loss and after I visited dr one time, always have cycle to go back since I have the insurance. I know that is not necessary but everybody said you have the insurance why not way.

I can explain more about the actively managed versus index stock funds. The actively managed stock fund, the one I had been in since 1996, generated dividends every year and cap gain distributions some years. The dividends were useful, supplementing the monthly bond fund income. The cap gain distributions were very erratic, sometimes small but sometimes large, especially in 2017-2019. Those distributions were so big in 2017-2019 that they pushed my MAGI (income) over what we call the "cliff" where the ACA subsidy immediately drops to zero, not slowly decreasing as in a phaseout.

When I saw I would go over the cliff again in 2019, I quickly sold off all the shares I held in that fund and bought a similar index find. I had to take a huge cap gain on the sale and pay taxes on it, but because I was already over the cliff I wasn't penalized any further on the ACA subsidy side. The comparable index fund, meanwhile, generates smaller dividends and way, way, way smaller cap gain distributions. Together, this will greatly reduce my MAGI for 2020 and allow me to again collect the ACA subsidy, a subsidy which has grown a lot in the last 3 years (meaning that if I forgo it, I take a lot of money off the table), unlike in 2014-2016 when the subsidy was much smaller (so I didn't care a lot if I didn't collect it, even though I did get it).

This is one way some of us manipulate out income so we can continue qualifying for the valuable ACA subsidy.

 

[ut2sua]

OP, a few things you may want to consider
1- Get health insurance to protect your net worth in case of serious illness. That is what I would do if/when I retire. Another benefit is to get some yearly check up. Personally, I have had HI all my life thru work, and I was one of those who would see my doctor once every 3 years (bad habit), but I have learned in recent years that an occasional check up is not a bad thing. You might have fixable health issues that could be discovered early (happened to me).
2- I am a landlord too. I was more involved in earlier years with doing things, but I have learned to make used of the services provided by property management companies in recent years, and that really has freed me up. Yes, they are not perfect, and things won't be done optimally the way you could yourself, but on the other hand, you would have a lot less stress and tons of time back. You can even keep your job, or find work with a new employer if you don't have to deal with the up keep of the rentals. You need to learn to get over the small irritations of not having everything done perfectly with the rentals. Keep in mind that there is a big cost to yourself to be so involved: all of your
time and energy. The trade-off has been great for me. I practically spent zero time and energy on my rentals in the last several years.
One thing you may have that many don't: it is probably fairly easy for you to go back to work if you wish to do so. Wishing you the best

 

[retire to nature]

Thank you for the all replies.

I guess I am not ready for ER right now. Since this post made me to change my plan a lot and also realized myself naive or not planned yet. Since I was frugal and pretty big money sitting there, I was so simple. But I have a long way to go, I better to stop and think about it.

Originally, build a tiny house and live minimalist way. Realized I wanna build a great house with zero energy etc and make income low etc. I just posted another one for my house situation which I better to get out of the current house. Also, the climate post made me narrowed which state would be the best.

Also, one more hesitance was covid19 since I can't do much activities. I will take more time to plan for the detailed ER.

I appreciate you all to put me in the right track!!!!

 

[Leo1277]

I’m a retired pediatrician. One of the lowest paid specialties. My gross income was <$150K most years, before taxes. Half of my career was as a hospitalist. For several years I was in a practice that was 70% Medicaid. A friend of mine has spent her entire career in a free clinic in San Francisco. She too has not chosen the highly paid route. I valued my time and integrity over the money.

Not all of us are as highly paid as you imagine. The money goes to specialists, surgeons, and the drug companies.

EastWest Gal, thanks for your service, good pediatric care is so useful and important, and thanks also to your friend.

I have friends and acquaintances who work in the medical and pharmaceutical fields, and the frequently voiced opinions that there is a huge amount of money to be made is not really typical for many cases. Several I know pursued some of the socially helpful aspects of medicine, including work in clinics in developing countries. Some pharmacists I know who own a chain of pharmacies in a first world country are now donating entire schools and small local clinics in a third world country from the wealth they have accumulated (it is amazing how inexpensive this is when viewed from a first world financial perspective), while living a lifestyle that is reasonable, but not at all reflective of what they could afford. So, many in the medical fields do not pursue this work as a quick way to riches, but because they genuinely care about helping other people. That kind of compassion we need much more of in our world.

It's also important to consider the educational aspects. A typical doctor may spend 10-15 years on difficult and grueling education that often eats up their entire time, and all that during the "young" years of their lives where others are out and about to have fun. Residency jobs are notoriously poorly paid and have even more grueling hours, and until somebody has a a setup of being a high paid specialist, it may take 20 years total. That is nearly half of their productive professional life, where the first half had no or low income, and rather typically accumulated six or nowadays even seven figure debt.

Then, even if such a person is eventually settled in one of the high-paying specialties (many medical people are not and don't want to, for various reasons including what EastWest Gal mentions), they usually still face a very stressful environment where there are long hours, night shifts, where mistakes can literally be deadly, and there is ever increasing amount of paperwork and other bureaucracy.

Many of those I know who work in the medical field are very worn out and weary about their future, and actually tell their own children to pursue a different profession. So, looking closely, it is all far less rosy than it may appear.

And all that was already true before Covid entered the picture.

 

[Leo1277]

One recurring theme in this thread is the cost of health care, including insurance, copays, drugs, or direct payments to providers. It is a common stereotype that these costs may be too high. But in the end, at least for most members of this forum, this is pretty much a red herring.

Why? If one of these health care companies have higher revenues than their expenses, i.e. charge too much, one should just look where the profits go. Most of these companies are publicly traded, so those of us in this forum can just buy their stock. That way, if they charge you too much as a customer, their profits and hence stock prices and dividends will rise, and you benefit as an investor.

The amounts of the investment can be adjusted to simply hedge against increasing medical costs, or if one truly believes that health care profits are rising unreasonably, which may well be the case, one can even make significant profit from such investments.

So for typical members of this forum who have investments, this issue is as much of an opportunity as it is an annoyance. The situation is entirely different for the large portions of the population who do not have enough savings to participate in the financial markets; for them it unfortunately presents one more mechanism of a wealth transfer from the less fortunate to the more fortunate.

 

[CRLLS]

......

In my case, out of my inheritance received, about 0.008% was from income attributable to the estate (that's $8 for every $1000, a very small amount).

Nate, you may want to check your math. $8 for every $1000 is 0.8% (close to 1%), not 0.008%. Whether that is a very small amount or not, I'll leave that up to you to decide.

 

[Global Wizzo]

Options

Hi,
Congrats first. If you plan to do some traveling, take a look at the GeoBlue Trecker policies. They require primary insurance, but are reasonable for an annual policy.

Once you have some time to relax and recover, picking up some short term contract positions in locations you want to visit can be a fun way to mix some extra income and travel

If nothing else, get a high deductible policy for the first year and plan to pay the deductible and then forget about it. Don’t let that ruin enjoying some free time.

If you don’t have it set up, consider putting the Rental portfolio with a professional manager and not dealing with the problems.

The estate paperwork can seem to drag on forever, just don’t let it drag you down.

Good luck and enjoy life.

 

[dixter]

another option.... go ahead and ER... you will then become a full time owner with a real estate career with you rental properties... if you ER and concentrate on your new land lord duties and learn how to properly do the job and make you money each month then you can decide if you want to go back to work as a RN "and" be a land lord... or will you like being ER and just being a land lord... you know have new choices for your life...

 

[VungTau]

Thank you for the reply.

This link is the right one. my research seemed like connecting to scam.

My lowest was $326, so it is reasonable cost. Still wanna lower if possible haha.

Thank you for the help.

Move overseas and it can and will be a LOT lower! I have a really great world-wide package with zero deductible and adequate coverage for about $2000 a year. Key clause - it excludes the USA! Our health care system in the USA is a mess.

 

[pdxgal]

No disrespect to OP, But I am amazed at the number of health care persons we get here that have no clue how insurance works, apart from an employer, or what it costs. Like many (and me) they have/had employer coverage while working.

There's really no reason health care persons (providers) would understand the nuts and bolts of how insurance works anymore than other type of employees. They're providing medical care, totally separate from the insurance that helps pay for it. And our convoluted healthcare system makes things even more complicated. I work for an insurance company and truly the vast majority of insured people are clueless about how most of insurance works. My company used to offer an "insurance 101" training to incoming employees, to explain the difference between co-pay, co-insurance, deductible, MOOP, annual vs lifetime limits, etc. It's complicated!

Not to mention that to 'optimize' which insurance to buy practically requires advanced algebra and scenario modeling.