almost_there
Dryer sheet aficionado
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2007
- Messages
- 41
This is going to be a long post so if you are reading this and have better things to do feel free to stop now. I won't be offended
and honestly this is as much for my own cathartic benefit as anything else. First of all I will admit that I am no longer an
early retiree. That ship has sailed. My first post to this forum was when I was 59. I am now 65. I ended up getting stuck in OMY syndrome. In my defense
it was because the money was good and I had a job where (other than work related travel) I got to work out of my home.
My company provided, internet access, laptop computer, cell phone, etc. While it was work it was about as good a work environment as you could ever have.
I knew that if I left it and had to ever go back to work for some reason I would probably never have it this good again. The thing that
I disliked about my job was the constant interruptions. I did not necessarily work "hard" but when there was an emergency I was a
"senior" guy who got escalated to and could be interrupted at pretty much any time to handle a critical situation usually involving an
angry customer who's system was "down". Since what we sell is a medical product many of these situations were stressful and pressure packed where we would hear things like "I've got a patient on the table so you better fix
this fast!". The interruptions could come in the middle of the night, on weekends, days off, etc. When not in
one of these "emergency" situations I did some other things but basically had to be "available". This really wasn't too bad except I could
never complete most long-term projects from beginning to end. A classic example was when I was when I had just started painting my house
and my cell phone rang (always had to have it with me) while I was on a scaffolding having just started some second story painting. I didn't
even have a chance to clean the brush!!
At any rate today is my last day as a full time employee. After all the OMYing the day has finally arrived. This is my original post (under a
different user ID) from Sept of 2014:
=================================================================================================
59 Year Old Who Could Go Tomorrow Except For One Thing
Hi All - Have been reading some good stuff on this forum and I am learning a lot. My situation is that I am 59 and have a good news/bad news situation.
I live in what most people would consider a good size house on about 10 acres. If I were to sell out and down size I could probably retire tomorrow.
The thing is that I really like where I live. My health is good and I like being outside working around my house and property (yes even in the summer in SW FL).
My wife no longer works and I am fortunate enough that I get to work out of my home as a tele-commuter.
As a result I have older cars with no payments. My only debt is my mortgage which is $300k. The house is worth about $850k.
My stash between pre-tax retirement savings and others is $700k (about 600k is pre-tax). The kids are grown and on their own.
My annual expenses with the mortgage payment would normally be about $60k.
It has actually been about $84k because I have been throwing lots of extra money at the mortgage (after contributing the max towards the 401k).
I am fortunate enough that I get a $30k (gross) per year pension that I have been collecting for the last 12 years.
Without the mortgage we could easily live (even in this house) on about $30k net. Some day SS would make this even more tenable.
My plan is to pay off the mortgage.
My combination salary and pension makes it possible to aggressively pay extra principal each month so it will take me about 3.5 more years to pay it off.
My main concern is that I will be involuntarily retired. While I have a good job it is tied to the healthcare industry which as we all know is in quite a tizzy these days.
If something happens to my job my ability to rapidly pay of my mortgage disappears and the house basically then becomes a big drag on my ability to retire.
Any thoughts or comments are most welcome.
======================================================================================================
If you are still reading I have some updates to the above:
Thankfully my health is still good (just had a physical while I was still on my work health insurance)
I still live at the same place except now the house is paid off and according to Zillow it is worth $1.2M
I no longer have the $30k per year pension. A one time pension buy-out offer came along and I took it. The amount was $482k.
I rolled that into a Vanguard IRA (mostly invested in their 2020 target date fund) that has grown to $650k
The $600k pre-tax money was in a Fidelity 401k account and another IRA. The balance has grown to $947k. The 401k was rolled over to
a self directed Fidelity IRA. This is invested 60/40 stocks/bonds. Most of the stock investment is in a zero expense ratio total market fund (FROZ)
and the bonds are in a low cost U.S. Bond Index Fund (FXNAX).
I did thhe rollover after maxing out the 2019 contributions in an attempt to get out of paying the 401k
management fees that are usually deducted at the end of the year. Don't know if that will work but I figured it was worth a shot.
So basically I am going into retirement from full time work with a paid off house and a nest egg of
(between tax deferred - $1.7M, after tax - $71k, and a small ROTH - $44k) approximately $1.8M
So now this is where the "Sort of" from the title of this post comes from. Three weeks ago my company came to me quite
out of the blue and asked me if I would be interesting in training (technical training on how our software product works) some new hires
on a consulting basis. They flew me up to our offices so we could discuss this. Basically I took my salary and calculated how much I was
making an hour. I gave them this number as the minimum hourly rate I would consider as a part-time employee.
I was not interested in being a 1099 consultant and dealing with additionaly tax complexity.
I also told them that I would only consider doing this if I got to maintain the training environment remotely which would require 1 day per week of work.
They agreed to this and even added $15 per hour to what I had told them was my minimum!
So at the end of the day we agreed that I will start work again part-time on Feb 17, 2020.
Part-time means I work one day per week except when I need to actually conduct training which will mean
I have to work at most for a week (especially if there is travel involved).
So now I feel like I have the best of both worlds. A nice part-time gig with the same company doing something different and without much stress.
Most importantly I will have 6 days per week of glorious uninterrupted free time. No more getting a critical escalation while hanging off a ladder!
Finally, I want to thank the folks on this forum. I would not have gotten to this point without the wisdom acquired here. While I have not done much
in the way of posting I am an avid reader and have learned much.
Also, I an located on the Gulf Coast of Florida (Sarasota area). I know that there are some folks on this forum in my area that have occasional
get-togethers. I am looking forward to joining one of the upcoming ones.
If you are still reading, thank you and feel free to critique or advise. I am going to have to look at the impact of the part-time income on my withdrawal plans from the tax deferred accounts in 2020 and I am always willing to learn!
and honestly this is as much for my own cathartic benefit as anything else. First of all I will admit that I am no longer an
early retiree. That ship has sailed. My first post to this forum was when I was 59. I am now 65. I ended up getting stuck in OMY syndrome. In my defense
it was because the money was good and I had a job where (other than work related travel) I got to work out of my home.
My company provided, internet access, laptop computer, cell phone, etc. While it was work it was about as good a work environment as you could ever have.
I knew that if I left it and had to ever go back to work for some reason I would probably never have it this good again. The thing that
I disliked about my job was the constant interruptions. I did not necessarily work "hard" but when there was an emergency I was a
"senior" guy who got escalated to and could be interrupted at pretty much any time to handle a critical situation usually involving an
angry customer who's system was "down". Since what we sell is a medical product many of these situations were stressful and pressure packed where we would hear things like "I've got a patient on the table so you better fix
this fast!". The interruptions could come in the middle of the night, on weekends, days off, etc. When not in
one of these "emergency" situations I did some other things but basically had to be "available". This really wasn't too bad except I could
never complete most long-term projects from beginning to end. A classic example was when I was when I had just started painting my house
and my cell phone rang (always had to have it with me) while I was on a scaffolding having just started some second story painting. I didn't
even have a chance to clean the brush!!
At any rate today is my last day as a full time employee. After all the OMYing the day has finally arrived. This is my original post (under a
different user ID) from Sept of 2014:
=================================================================================================
59 Year Old Who Could Go Tomorrow Except For One Thing
Hi All - Have been reading some good stuff on this forum and I am learning a lot. My situation is that I am 59 and have a good news/bad news situation.
I live in what most people would consider a good size house on about 10 acres. If I were to sell out and down size I could probably retire tomorrow.
The thing is that I really like where I live. My health is good and I like being outside working around my house and property (yes even in the summer in SW FL).
My wife no longer works and I am fortunate enough that I get to work out of my home as a tele-commuter.
As a result I have older cars with no payments. My only debt is my mortgage which is $300k. The house is worth about $850k.
My stash between pre-tax retirement savings and others is $700k (about 600k is pre-tax). The kids are grown and on their own.
My annual expenses with the mortgage payment would normally be about $60k.
It has actually been about $84k because I have been throwing lots of extra money at the mortgage (after contributing the max towards the 401k).
I am fortunate enough that I get a $30k (gross) per year pension that I have been collecting for the last 12 years.
Without the mortgage we could easily live (even in this house) on about $30k net. Some day SS would make this even more tenable.
My plan is to pay off the mortgage.
My combination salary and pension makes it possible to aggressively pay extra principal each month so it will take me about 3.5 more years to pay it off.
My main concern is that I will be involuntarily retired. While I have a good job it is tied to the healthcare industry which as we all know is in quite a tizzy these days.
If something happens to my job my ability to rapidly pay of my mortgage disappears and the house basically then becomes a big drag on my ability to retire.
Any thoughts or comments are most welcome.
======================================================================================================
If you are still reading I have some updates to the above:
Thankfully my health is still good (just had a physical while I was still on my work health insurance)
I still live at the same place except now the house is paid off and according to Zillow it is worth $1.2M
I no longer have the $30k per year pension. A one time pension buy-out offer came along and I took it. The amount was $482k.
I rolled that into a Vanguard IRA (mostly invested in their 2020 target date fund) that has grown to $650k
The $600k pre-tax money was in a Fidelity 401k account and another IRA. The balance has grown to $947k. The 401k was rolled over to
a self directed Fidelity IRA. This is invested 60/40 stocks/bonds. Most of the stock investment is in a zero expense ratio total market fund (FROZ)
and the bonds are in a low cost U.S. Bond Index Fund (FXNAX).
I did thhe rollover after maxing out the 2019 contributions in an attempt to get out of paying the 401k
management fees that are usually deducted at the end of the year. Don't know if that will work but I figured it was worth a shot.
So basically I am going into retirement from full time work with a paid off house and a nest egg of
(between tax deferred - $1.7M, after tax - $71k, and a small ROTH - $44k) approximately $1.8M
So now this is where the "Sort of" from the title of this post comes from. Three weeks ago my company came to me quite
out of the blue and asked me if I would be interesting in training (technical training on how our software product works) some new hires
on a consulting basis. They flew me up to our offices so we could discuss this. Basically I took my salary and calculated how much I was
making an hour. I gave them this number as the minimum hourly rate I would consider as a part-time employee.
I was not interested in being a 1099 consultant and dealing with additionaly tax complexity.
I also told them that I would only consider doing this if I got to maintain the training environment remotely which would require 1 day per week of work.
They agreed to this and even added $15 per hour to what I had told them was my minimum!
So at the end of the day we agreed that I will start work again part-time on Feb 17, 2020.
Part-time means I work one day per week except when I need to actually conduct training which will mean
I have to work at most for a week (especially if there is travel involved).
So now I feel like I have the best of both worlds. A nice part-time gig with the same company doing something different and without much stress.
Most importantly I will have 6 days per week of glorious uninterrupted free time. No more getting a critical escalation while hanging off a ladder!
Finally, I want to thank the folks on this forum. I would not have gotten to this point without the wisdom acquired here. While I have not done much
in the way of posting I am an avid reader and have learned much.
Also, I an located on the Gulf Coast of Florida (Sarasota area). I know that there are some folks on this forum in my area that have occasional
get-togethers. I am looking forward to joining one of the upcoming ones.
If you are still reading, thank you and feel free to critique or advise. I am going to have to look at the impact of the part-time income on my withdrawal plans from the tax deferred accounts in 2020 and I am always willing to learn!
