Retirement: When would you like to retire? Do you have a plan to get there?

[TOGIE]

i'm socking away for retirement, we put effort into saving hard and budgeting well, and we do. but my wife and i are also trying to keep the mindset of enjoy more now at the cost of working more later if that's how it shakes out.

i heard someone say recently that you will likely never feel as good, be as healthy, be as mobile, and as capable, as you are today, right now. so take advantage. i'm 31.

i'm not looking to give up the now too much for the sake of retiring a little earlier than average. frankly, #*^@#* that. let's go hunt and hike and fish and camp and travel and spend time with our family NOW doing things we enjoy doing.

 

[huntin24/7]

Planning for 55-57 and am 41 now. I don’t particularly enjoy my job, and I’ll have 30 years in then. The house will be paid off in 10ish, and then it’ll be time for a remodel, so after I can pay that off, I’m out. Probably a part time job to make a little extra but we’ll see. I’ve never had a hard time finding things to do do retirement shouldn’t be hard to adjust to.

 

[nwihunter]

I’m 54 years old with 36 years into the carpenters union and am sitting on max pension credits for someone my age. Our full retirement age is 60 but we can go as early as 55 but you take a 5% hit for every year you go before 60. I am able to continue my union health insurance plan for my wife and myself for around $600 dollars a month which I think is good considering how good of insurance we have. We also have a HSA fund that I can use to pay for my insurance when I retire so this should give me several years before I pay insurance out of pocket. I would love to go at 55 but I feel like I’d be leaving to much on the table. That being said I also cannot imagine fighting Chicago traffic to and from work for another 5 years. After 36 years of it I’m done. I’m looking at going at 58 and taking the 10% hit. As others have mentioned I need to sit down with an advisor and have it all laid out in front of me.

 

[Deleted member 48080]

It's adorable that you all think we'll still have a functioning society in 20 years.

 

[Bob-WY]

I am coming up on 1 year retired. I walked out the door on a software engineering career at 58.

Our plan:

We've been with the same Fina cial advisor for 20+ years and day 1 we discussed long term plans.

We got our 2 sons through college and then slammed the mortgage as hard as we could. We've been 100% debt free for about 8 years.

Once debt free we shifted all those mortgage payments into savings gs accounts and other 100% liquid vehicles. The goal here was to be able to live, for up to 3 years, on our savings.

Health insurance is a problem with solutions. My company will allow me to pay 50% of the cost and stay on that plan. That WAS our plan. Investigate how your state implemented the ACA. I hate the thing but I will take advantage of it after paying for it for all these years. Due to our EXTREMELY low income, me retired wife works part time. The ACA subsidies cover 100% of BCBS for us.

At 60 my wife's teacher pension ki ks in, at 62 SS kicks in

Takes 2 things, a SOLID plan, and the income to allow that plan while living your life

For us, my blood pressure made it an easy decision, plus I didn't like my job and it was getting worse.

I LOVE retirement

 

[Straight Arrow]

Probably a part time job to make a little extra but we’ll see. I’ve never had a hard time finding things to do do retirement shouldn’t be hard to adjust to.

We had detemined we needed PT work to make our plan work, but with a $$ conscious mindset change we didn't have to work at all. We too are always busy, with fun stuff and with a project always. Plus we don't take cruises or visit exotic overseas places. I would rather take a beating than fly on commercial air!

 

[westbranch]

Our goal is to have the ability to retire/scale back significantly at 55. About 20 yrs out. It will all be on savings/personal investments with no pensions. Based on past performance that should not be an issue but goals/life can shift significantly and not too worried about it. Still some wildcards on kids and hoping that we still like our jobs/where we live. But with our planning we should have flexibility and the ability to have some fun in the meantime.

I know its not the "normal" situation but through work I talk to a lot of people that are working until late 60s while over saving. They had big travel plans and other goals that did not pan out due whether its due just getting older or bigger health issues. Early retirement might work out for some of their heirs.

 

[TN2shot07]

It's adorable that you all think we'll still have a functioning society in 20 years.

Every generation looks at the current one coming up and thinks, damn, the world is going to the crapper. I tend to agree but the world keeps going! I’m not sure we will recognize it if we stay on the path we’re headed down tho…

 

[noharleyyet]

We probably all know someone who has a parent or parents in assisted care @ 15k ea. per month.

 

[Gut Shot]

I'm planning on being semi-retired by 60. I don't think I'll ever fully retire. Some of my investments (Commercial realty and ag.) mean I'll always have some work to do, and I'm fine with that. I'm currently 50, debt free, and enjoying life but I can see slowing down some. I want to get my dream home built before retirement though.

 

[Irrelevant]

I've crunched the numbers, and fine-tuned a plan my wife and I can both accept. I should get to retire 2-days after I die.

 

[Irrelevant]

in all honesty, both of my grandpa's retired just after 60 and both immediately started working again when they saw what staying at home was going to be like... My Dad walked away at 60 and is loving it. My actual plan is to try to beat him with 59.5. But seeing how they went from being really comfortable to just manageable with some out of the blue medical issues and astronomically high insurance (only 1 single option available to them in their County for a while), I may try to do something to maintain health insurance, even if it's take a lower level position doing something more enjoyable. I'm also just 6 numbers away from buying my own private island in this little scheme I call P-O-W-E-R-B-A-L-L.

 

[hank4elk]

Happy with my little square and 2 wells.
My dreams come peacefully in my sleep.
I wake each day early and plan as I go.
Manana.

 

[rjthehunter]

I'm only 26, so I'm clueless on when I'll retire. Social security won't be a thing by the time I retire.

 

[Irrelevant]

I'm only 26, so I'm clueless on when I'll retire. Social security won't be a thing by the time I retire.

yeah it will, it'll just look a little different. It's a relatively easy fix if you just bump back the age you can get benefits.

 

[TN2shot07]

I'm only 26, so I'm clueless on when I'll retire. Social security won't be a thing by the time I retire.

I’m a couple years older and agree that ss will probably undergo some kind of shift by the time we can draw it. I don’t run any retirement calculation that includes ss, whatever we get will be icing on the cake. I’m not a fan of just depending on the government for my financial future

 

[Deleted member 52098]

At 42 and self-employed, I haven't put a lot of thought into retirement yet. For 8 of my company's 14 years I made enough to live a good life, but didn't have the funds to run a 401k for myself. Now I have my previous employers 401k cash and 6 years worth of 401k contributions, but it wasn't until we got our house and settled into that routine that I could start actually envisioning what savings, etc we needed long term. The work I do, I could easily do into my 70s and still enjoy it, as its not labor intensive and I could just hand pick the clients I want to keep working with, and the work can be done wherever I want. I also am starting to spend more time on Boards, which eventually will lend itself to paid Board seats.

The key for me now is working on setting up my daughter in whatever way I can. I believe this year I will start paying her as a contractor, and dump all that into a ROTH IRA for her. I get a lower tax bill and she gets to start building wealth.

I agree strongly with @TOGIE that I am not going to be one of those guys that has a shit ton of savings - from doing nothing - only to maybe die right when his life "frees" up. I am going to live my life now and enjoy it. As my dad told me, you can't take it with you, so don't kill yourself for a bank balance.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

I've crunched the numbers, and fine-tuned a plan my wife and I can both accept. I should get to retire 2-days after I die.

 

[Addicting]

I'm only 26, so I'm clueless on when I'll retire. Social security won't be a thing by the time I retire.

I hear getting a 52 year old cougar to pay for your jollies is a good plan….

 

[Irrelevant]

I found a retirement planner, that if a mess with the numbers, but staying with reality, either shows I'll have a growing principal during retirement and die at 100 with 13 million, or I run out of money before I hit 65 and end up under a bridge down by the river...