Hi everyone! I've been around for a bit, but haven't introduced myself yet. Figured I'd take the plunge today.
Here's our background and status: I'm 49, DH is 56. We live in a HCOL area, have a paid off home, and no debt other than a car payment (at 0% interest) for another 18 months. We have ~$225K in my IRA/401k, ~$100k in my Roth, ~$200K in a pension annuity for DH and DH will receive a non-COLA'd pension of ~$13K. The pension and annuity could be more if he stays with his union and garners some work. He is currently looking for a job, so if something else does come along we will start receiving his pension early.
The plan: Our worst case scenario is to continue plodding along here for another ten years, sell the house and another property we own, move to Texas, and spend 1/3 to 1/2 of our proceeds to purchase another home outright. Running the numbers through FIRECalc shows us at 100% success with the Bernicke spending model. (Yes, I know. Not everyone is comfortable with this model, but the numbers make sense to me when comparing them to my parents' current income.) Running our numbers through i-Orp gives me about $10K less per year than we had been making the last couple of years. That's fine as it's still higher than what I think our expenses will be.
I have tracked our budget, so do have a very clear idea of what our expenses are. My problem? How to calculate what they will be when we've moved. My family all lives in the area we will move to and I do know that my parents live comfortably on Social Security alone. With DH's pension and 75% of our current SS estimate alone, DH and I would have 150% of what my parents currently receive. DH and I have talked about retiring earlier, but I keep telling him that's not in the cards unless he can find work and we can sock away a bunch more money.
Anyway, my biggest concern really centers around medical insurance costs. I hope that 2014 will bring some clarity to those questions as the exchanges should be up and running. That will let me get some "real" numbers to crunch and see if we can pull the plug earlier.
So, that's my story in a nutshell! Nice to meet you all and thank you for having such a great site!
Here's our background and status: I'm 49, DH is 56. We live in a HCOL area, have a paid off home, and no debt other than a car payment (at 0% interest) for another 18 months. We have ~$225K in my IRA/401k, ~$100k in my Roth, ~$200K in a pension annuity for DH and DH will receive a non-COLA'd pension of ~$13K. The pension and annuity could be more if he stays with his union and garners some work. He is currently looking for a job, so if something else does come along we will start receiving his pension early.
The plan: Our worst case scenario is to continue plodding along here for another ten years, sell the house and another property we own, move to Texas, and spend 1/3 to 1/2 of our proceeds to purchase another home outright. Running the numbers through FIRECalc shows us at 100% success with the Bernicke spending model. (Yes, I know. Not everyone is comfortable with this model, but the numbers make sense to me when comparing them to my parents' current income.) Running our numbers through i-Orp gives me about $10K less per year than we had been making the last couple of years. That's fine as it's still higher than what I think our expenses will be.
I have tracked our budget, so do have a very clear idea of what our expenses are. My problem? How to calculate what they will be when we've moved. My family all lives in the area we will move to and I do know that my parents live comfortably on Social Security alone. With DH's pension and 75% of our current SS estimate alone, DH and I would have 150% of what my parents currently receive. DH and I have talked about retiring earlier, but I keep telling him that's not in the cards unless he can find work and we can sock away a bunch more money.
Anyway, my biggest concern really centers around medical insurance costs. I hope that 2014 will bring some clarity to those questions as the exchanges should be up and running. That will let me get some "real" numbers to crunch and see if we can pull the plug earlier.
So, that's my story in a nutshell! Nice to meet you all and thank you for having such a great site!