Leeman said:

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Trying to make it without quitting until August to get to the last big payout.

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Nothing wrong with that. Last year I told my Boss on February 4th I was retiring not having any idea of when my last day would be but if he told me two weeks I was prepared to go. He let me quit traveling, work from home with no sales quotas, just answer the phone and emails from customers. It was so easy and my last day ended up being August 29th.

Get as much as you can on your way out !

MEENag said:

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AgOutsideAustin said:

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Anybody have the countdown on and retiring this year ?

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My countdown timer on my phone currently says 403 days, which is 1 week before I turn 50.

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Love it, impressive.

MEENag said:

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AgOutsideAustin said:

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Anybody have the countdown on and retiring this year ?

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My countdown timer on my phone currently says 403 days, which is 1 week before I turn 50.

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Congrats to you!
What is influencing your decision, if you don't mind? Money in the bank? Tired of your job? Other goals or life events?

You'll never guess what I'm doing right now.

PDEMDHC said:

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YouBet said:

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PDEMDHC said:

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My last day full time is 12/19! After discussions, I'll work part time (increased hourly rate and still get PTO/keep laptop) up to 10 hours a week. If I work the full allotted amount, It will pay for 80% daycare for the 3 little kids, which is our biggest expense next 5 years… so may do that for a few years.

Otherwise it's a little day/swing trading, focus on health and family and see where life takes me. My wife has been super supportive and even told me… just take 3 weeks before you start your side money projects. I can't remember the last time I did anything for myself.

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Congrats! I'm 2.5 months into mine without starting any side money projects because the last time I retired I ended up getting myself hired full-time again for another 3 years. I'm going to try and not make that mistake again!

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Just giving a 1 month update. Life has been good. Lost 9 pounds as work stress is gone. Focused on changing bad habits and will now switch over to daily workouts Monday. I work a lot less than expected part time but the day trading has been very successful so far and has more than made up for my previous salary to date. It's been wonderful to help out around the house more and see the kids more as my wife's job is seasonally awful and is hitting her hard. I took care of our 3 kids for 5 days straight during the winter storm and then took care of them when they had the flu the prior week.

That has been stressful but a different kind of stress that doesn't come with having a boss. I'm loving every second of it and wish everyone can have this feeling.

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Same except for day trading and kids. However, I just spent 10 days at my parents taking care of them and have hit that point in life where we've come full circle and I'm taking care of them as needed, so they are like kids now.

Felt like we were getting there back in September when I retired and sure enough, we had a health scare that put my dad in the hospital for a week while I happened to be there to help them get through the ice storm.

So, being retired helped here because I would have missed about 10 days of work otherwise. And this scare would likely have been fairly catastrophic if I had not been there.

I have not told anyone at work and will not until the end of the year. From time to time my company will offer packages and that is what I am hoping for. I do get asked by coworkers when i plan to retire, my standard answer is "24 Hours or 24 months. Piss me off and I will be gone tomorrow otherwise a couple more years."I will be 62 this year and my wife retired last year and has been pushing me to retire. I have not been mentally ready until now. I plan to play a lot more golf and spend more time at my coastal home wade fishing and time with grandkids.

jja79 said:

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You'll never guess what I'm doing right now.

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Go ahead, make me jealous…..

Not positive I'll pull the trigger next year but I am seriously thinking about it. My youngest is still at home as a freshman in high school so if she's still in school, we won't be moving to our retirement destination until she graduates. I might as well get paid if I'm going to be sticking around, but everyday is a struggle to show up. I'm 53 now and don't need to work but circumstances are such that I might as well.

Joan Wilder said:

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I want to thank this thread for teaching me the phrase "the youth of my retirement years." I'm 53 and now seriously considering pulling the trigger in a few months. My dad retired at 58 and between the health issues of his MIL and developing heart disease and Parkinson's himself, he didn't get to live the retirement he saved his whole life for. We're not guaranteed health or time and I feel like I'm wasting these years living in a state of stress and aggravation for a few more bucks in the bank.

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What's the point of being the richest guy in the graveyard?

drwong said:

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I'm 51 and leaving at the end of March. Some family health issues coupled with the worst boss of my career has made it an easy decision.

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Awesome, congratulations!

Love seeing all the early retirements on this thread. Inspirational tbh

Kool said:

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MEENag said:

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AgOutsideAustin said:

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Anybody have the countdown on and retiring this year ?

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My countdown timer on my phone currently says 403 days, which is 1 week before I turn 50.

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Congrats to you!
What is influencing your decision, if you don't mind? Money in the bank? Tired of your job? Other goals or life events?

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You made me an excellent list of answers.
We've invested steadily, maxing out 401k's from the beginning, and both make good salaries, so the money is there. I've been at my job for 25 years and I like it well enough, but I'm ready to not have to spend so much time at it.
I have lots of hobbies that will occupy me, but my main goal in the first 5 years of retirement is to record an album. I can play drums and guitar enough to get by, but I'm actively working on getting better at guitar, taking lessons and such. Woodworking is one of my hobbies and I just finished making my first guitar (from raw wood, not a kit) and I plan to make a bass next.
In addition to the music, I have a lot of home improvements to make… painting, redoing showers, stuff like that.
My wife likes her job and doesn't want to retire yet even though I showed her that she could, so insurance will not be an issue and money will still be coming in for a few years. Since she will still be working, I'll take over some of the stuff she's mostly handled to this point ( eg cooking). I also plan to start a garden to grow vegetables and such.
Our son is a junior at Purdue and our daughter will start A&M in the fall, but a good chunk of their tuition will be covered by their 529s.
We have ~ 2 years left on our 15 year mortgage, but since the rate is in the mid 2's we won't pay it off early.

This wasn't a big factor in the decision, but did reinforce it; my mom retired at 65 a few years ago, healthy as far as she knew, but was diagnosed with cancer and passed away within 5 months of retiring. I sure hope I live well passed 65, but if I don't at least I'll have had a decent number of years enjoying being retired.

I'm a Type 1, well controlled diabetic but one wonders when the cumulative effect of 40 plus years of diabetes will take its toll. If I have enough today to retire comfortably, why am I still grinding?? Ahh, the struggle to feel comfortable about retirement is real. Today we sit on a million dollar plus pension and about x in savings not including the pension.

The nagging health issues hit me at 45 and it's been a parade of ailments ever since with brief periods of respite scattered amongst it. That helped me hang it up last year at 51. And knowing I have all of my Dad's DNA since I seem to be following his footsteps of non-stop joint crap tells me what I have in store. Thus, I'm wanting to enjoy my life now.

Since 45 I've had:
- Frozen shoulders in BOTH shoulders for a total of 3 years downtime (ie no upper body workouts).
- Left shoulder surgery for arthritis in AC joint and torn labrum (3-4 months recovery - unrelated to frozen shoulder)
- Microdiscectomy back surgery (few months recovery)
- Mysterious nerve pain from hips downward which halted my exercise bike riding (about 3-4 months of this bull**** and never really diagnosed as to what it was)
- Surgery in December for a digestive issue that I've dealt with 2 years prior to that
- Achilles tendinitis

I'm assigning one of the frozen shoulders and the mysterious nerve pain to the Covid Moderna shot (just got the first 2) since we have data showing they caused huge spikes in these categories.

Other than that, I'm in perfect health. lol.

X with a pension. It's X without the pension. We have our money invested as aggressively as possible and will likely stay that way throughout retirement.

We have a X 401k with 25 percent of it in a Roth 401k; the balance in traditional, pre-tax 401k.
We have two Roths with a total between the two of about X.
Our brokerage account has approximately $Xk.
We also have an HSA with about $X.
We keep cash in TMCXX of about $X and growing.
We have about $X in home equity.

My wife is 47 and I'm 53. I do have a health insurance benefit where a portion is subsidized by my company in retirement. I anticipate having an obligation of something between $16k-$18k/year in insurance costs until I turn 65.

We do plan on retiring to Coeur d'Alene, ID so I will have to buy a home up there and do not wish to have a mortgage so it will come out of cash. Assume something between X not including the equity in my current home.

you just described getting older!

I would think most people need at least 2 million dollars to retire in their 50s in 2026.

that is what the podcasts of financial planners are basically coming to-

and that is still using a 4% rule living on

just $6700 a month.

hardly wealthy

jja79 said:

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Being in control of 100% of your time is worth more than all the money in the world because time isn't for sale for any amount of money.

This thread seems to have a bunch of people who need someone to talk them into or push them into retirement. Do it.

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have you ever met an elderly poor person?

YouBet said:

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LMCane said:

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you just described getting older!

I would think most people need at least 2 million dollars to retire in their 50s in 2026.

that is what the podcasts of financial planners are basically coming to-

and that is still using a 4% rule living on

just $6700 a month.

hardly wealthy

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I personally think that's way too low. I would argue $5M is minimum needed if you are retiring in your 50s. I have no desire to struggle by on $6,700 per month.

Y'all fire away.

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All depends on spending habits. My number is $2.5mm. I know several people in their 50s with less than 2mm and are living exceptional retired lives.

Also, the 4% is now 5% per Bill Bengen himself.

It varies based on what you own (still have a mortgage?) and what you want to do in retirement.

If you want to fish and play golf in retirement that's one number. If you want to fish and play golf and travel internationally every year, that's a completely different number.

Hoyt Ag said:

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YouBet said:

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LMCane said:

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you just described getting older!

I would think most people need at least 2 million dollars to retire in their 50s in 2026.

that is what the podcasts of financial planners are basically coming to-

and that is still using a 4% rule living on

just $6700 a month.

hardly wealthy

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I personally think that's way too low. I would argue $5M is minimum needed if you are retiring in your 50s. I have no desire to struggle by on $6,700 per month.

Y'all fire away.

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All depends on spending habits. My number is $2.5mm. I know several people in their 50s with less than 2mm and are living exceptional retired lives.

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Must be smarter than me. We can't live on $6,700 per month.

Hoyt Ag said:

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YouBet said:

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LMCane said:

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you just described getting older!

I would think most people need at least 2 million dollars to retire in their 50s in 2026.

that is what the podcasts of financial planners are basically coming to-

and that is still using a 4% rule living on

just $6700 a month.

hardly wealthy

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I personally think that's way too low. I would argue $5M is minimum needed if you are retiring in your 50s. I have no desire to struggle by on $6,700 per month.

Y'all fire away.

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All depends on spending habits. My number is $2.5mm. I know several people in their 50s with less than 2mm and are living exceptional retired lives.

Also, the 4% is now 5% per Bill Bengen himself.

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The interesting part is that a lot of the FIRE movement types already think that 4% isn't safe for any age, let alone early retirement and want to go more conservative like 3-3.2%

Early 50's. Well past FIRE and no concerns for money. 3 teenage kids + easy job + Work 3-4 dys/month is what keeping me still in the game.

Once the kids go to college and declare their eventual career/major, I will be out of the game.

Recent health issues has made me decide to cut down to 1-2 dys/month of work.

When I graduated and started working I did some math and came up with 2 numbers to shoot for: work 30 years and retire with $X. My models said it mostly didn't matter if you retired at 45 or 70, you needed about the same amount of $$ to ensure your retirement income paced inflation for the rest of your life. So $X will put me where I want to be on income, and 30 years ought to be long enough to get there. Now I'm halfway to 30 years and halfway to my nest egg goal, which is ahead of the pace because the growth is moving more towards exponential instead of linear.

Market conditions can obviously fluctuate, I might get to the target 5 years early or 5 years late. And I may be loving my work and keep going awhile longer, or I may find something easier and more flexible to keep me from getting bored and make a little spending money. We'll see when we get closer, but in the meantime just keep socking it away.