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When to retire?
- Thread starter BornToFly
- Start date
Xepa777
Banned
What's possibly more empowering than retiring is knowing that you can retire at any moment.
That frees you up to do more hobbies, find employment/start something in an area you care about, continue with your curent work but not get stressed out over the environment/promotion/your compensation.
I'm 30 and I can retire today FATfire. But like...it's actually made me appreciate my work even more. To really risk more and be more authentic in my interactions. To not really care about "the game" and just do what I think is the best. And honestly, in a way it's actually made me better at my job. I work in healthcare.
That frees you up to do more hobbies, find employment/start something in an area you care about, continue with your curent work but not get stressed out over the environment/promotion/your compensation.
I'm 30 and I can retire today FATfire. But like...it's actually made me appreciate my work even more. To really risk more and be more authentic in my interactions. To not really care about "the game" and just do what I think is the best. And honestly, in a way it's actually made me better at my job. I work in healthcare.
Good luck and that's great! I plan to play poker and board games a lot
Buckminster
Well-Known Member
MikeQ
Member
This is not what happened to me. In 2018 I decided I'd retire December of 2020. From that point on, I couldn't stand work anymore. Not needing to work made me realize how much I didn't like my job (Engineering). Dragging myself into work became increasingly difficult. I didn't make it to December. I had stock options that vested in August and stuck around for those. Retired September 1st and haven't missed work one bit.
Interesting thread. A couple prior posters mentioned real estate. I sometimes tell Mrs. Toe that the joke will be on us if the end result of wealth accumulation is that the "wealth" becomes worthless. Tesla and other stock recent runs produce what seems to be "wealth", but is really nothing more than a number on a website that you log into. If you sell your TSLA stock the same website says that your money is now sitting in "cash", something like the FDRXX money market fund. A non-FDIC insured vehicle that attempts to maintain a $1 per share price no matter what. Those with long memories may recall back in 2008 when the financial system almost imploded, with several MM funds "breaking the buck". The national debt back then was about $12 trillion dollars. We are now at $27 trillion and rising.
Don't ignore the black swan of another possible financial crisis. If everyone's MM fund gets a 10% haircut, or our old buddy inflation (circa 1979) decides that your $1 is really only worth $0.90 in purchasing power, then we are in a new realm not seen in a long time. That path never ends well. Of course, you would think that having more "money" puts you in a better position than having less money, no doubt about that. Until the actual value of the money you have comes into question.
I think this is why the Bitcoin rally is taking off. People are starting to question whether fiat currencies are going to be the best method of storing "wealth" given things that are happening now. Hence you get Musk wondering if he can move billions of "dollars" into bitcoin, and how that might work.
Not sure I know all the answers here, but physical assets like real estate offer some level of protection against inflation. Someone renting a house from you will need to pay the going rate for living there, whether that is in inflated dollars, bitcoins, or moonshine (which actually killed one of my grandfathers at 46). Hopefully the current pandemic is the last of the black swans we see for a while, and the next 20-30 years or so let us all play out our retirement fantasies like we are discussing here. I suspect another swan may be closing in.
I personally think that I would need to find something productive to do that contributes to the "greater good" in some manner, for lack of a better phrase. Us baby boomers have had it relatively easy with respect to prior and I believe future generations. Lots of older boomers had good paying blue collar jobs that have only recently been outsourced to countries where labor is much cheaper. Only older boomers have been subject to the "military draft", with the rest of us skating through life knowing that we were not going to be forced to trundle off to fight the bad guys. We also corked off unimaginable quantities of non-renewable resources to make this all happen. That's not going to continue for much longer for a variety of reasons.
Those graduating from college now face a much more uncertain future, that's not even getting into what happens to non-college educated people trying to get by. The pandemic provided a good glimpse of what many futures could be like going forward. So in the sense that society and past generations work provided me the playing field and opportunity to get to a place where I can retire and "do whatever I want", seems like a good time to give some of that back and help others who might not have been provided the same opportunity for a variety of reasons. I'm fine with this, as long as I can drive a Tesla while doing it
RT
P.S. Happy and healthy new year to all. Looking forward to getting the shot(s) and a slow return to whatever comes next.
High growth stock 27%
Dividend stock 8%
Real estate (equity) 42%
Cash 23%
Don't ignore the black swan of another possible financial crisis. If everyone's MM fund gets a 10% haircut, or our old buddy inflation (circa 1979) decides that your $1 is really only worth $0.90 in purchasing power, then we are in a new realm not seen in a long time. That path never ends well. Of course, you would think that having more "money" puts you in a better position than having less money, no doubt about that. Until the actual value of the money you have comes into question.
I think this is why the Bitcoin rally is taking off. People are starting to question whether fiat currencies are going to be the best method of storing "wealth" given things that are happening now. Hence you get Musk wondering if he can move billions of "dollars" into bitcoin, and how that might work.
Not sure I know all the answers here, but physical assets like real estate offer some level of protection against inflation. Someone renting a house from you will need to pay the going rate for living there, whether that is in inflated dollars, bitcoins, or moonshine (which actually killed one of my grandfathers at 46). Hopefully the current pandemic is the last of the black swans we see for a while, and the next 20-30 years or so let us all play out our retirement fantasies like we are discussing here. I suspect another swan may be closing in.
I personally think that I would need to find something productive to do that contributes to the "greater good" in some manner, for lack of a better phrase. Us baby boomers have had it relatively easy with respect to prior and I believe future generations. Lots of older boomers had good paying blue collar jobs that have only recently been outsourced to countries where labor is much cheaper. Only older boomers have been subject to the "military draft", with the rest of us skating through life knowing that we were not going to be forced to trundle off to fight the bad guys. We also corked off unimaginable quantities of non-renewable resources to make this all happen. That's not going to continue for much longer for a variety of reasons.
Those graduating from college now face a much more uncertain future, that's not even getting into what happens to non-college educated people trying to get by. The pandemic provided a good glimpse of what many futures could be like going forward. So in the sense that society and past generations work provided me the playing field and opportunity to get to a place where I can retire and "do whatever I want", seems like a good time to give some of that back and help others who might not have been provided the same opportunity for a variety of reasons. I'm fine with this, as long as I can drive a Tesla while doing it
RT
P.S. Happy and healthy new year to all. Looking forward to getting the shot(s) and a slow return to whatever comes next.
High growth stock 27%
Dividend stock 8%
Real estate (equity) 42%
Cash 23%
mspohr
Well-Known Member
I "retired" after I sold my business at age 45. However, I continued to do short term consulting work (international health) for aid organizations which I really enjoyed. Got to visit many interesting (mostly third world) countries and work with locals.
Finally stopped this work at age 70.
I've never worried about money regardless of how much I've had. I just adjust my spending accordingly. (Drives my wife crazy.)
Finally stopped this work at age 70.
I've never worried about money regardless of how much I've had. I just adjust my spending accordingly. (Drives my wife crazy.)
Correct. Also, it would be unconstitutional and require an amendment like income tax did in a 1913.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
My wife and I have both been retired for almost 20 years. I am in my early 70s and she is in her mid-60s. Here is my perspective on early retirement.
First, if you have the means, do what we did. Fill out your bucket list and do as much as you can as soon as you can, don't wait for some vague day in the future. Ski those black diamonds in British Columbia, climb that mountain in Tibet, dive the Great Barrier Reef. Believe me, by age seventy, those black diamonds are going to be a lot more intimidating than they were at fifty. Face it and plan for it-- after twenty years, your body will no longer work as well as it did when you first retired. Being able to retire while everything still works, and works well, is a gift. Don't squander those early years.
Next, treat retirement like a job. Create an office at home if you don't already have one. Establish goals, rank them and continuously track them. Maintain a working calendar Build and stick to a budget. Take advantage of your spouse's skills (mine is a CPA).
Beware the volunteer trap. It's great to volunteer and it can make a huge difference in your community, plus you will feel a real sense of accomplishment from successful volunteer work. Just know when to pull back. In our case, every worthy non-profit we supported seemed to need the skills of a CPA and an IT specialist. Before we knew what had happened, we were back to working sixty hour weeks, but this time for free! Yikes! It can be very hard to say "no" when your skills can have a very real positive impact on other people's lives, but understand that you must establish a reasonable limit on what you can contribute.
If you don't already live there, find and move to the perfect place to settle. The area where we chose to settle houses the state's flagship university and our public schools (we still had school age children when we retired) are second to none . We have an outstanding medical center, housing is affordable and our air is the cleanest within the continental US. We have a symphony orchestra and two venues for live theatre. A national park is within an hour's drive and I can be skiing black diamonds--lots of them--after a two hour drive. And if I want to immerse myself in a culture where everyone around me is speaking French (important to me because that's what I spoke at home growing up), in a little over four hours I can be in Quebec City.
So if you do decide to retire early, treat it like the dream job you've always wanted and enjoy the ride.
First, if you have the means, do what we did. Fill out your bucket list and do as much as you can as soon as you can, don't wait for some vague day in the future. Ski those black diamonds in British Columbia, climb that mountain in Tibet, dive the Great Barrier Reef. Believe me, by age seventy, those black diamonds are going to be a lot more intimidating than they were at fifty. Face it and plan for it-- after twenty years, your body will no longer work as well as it did when you first retired. Being able to retire while everything still works, and works well, is a gift. Don't squander those early years.
Next, treat retirement like a job. Create an office at home if you don't already have one. Establish goals, rank them and continuously track them. Maintain a working calendar Build and stick to a budget. Take advantage of your spouse's skills (mine is a CPA).
Beware the volunteer trap. It's great to volunteer and it can make a huge difference in your community, plus you will feel a real sense of accomplishment from successful volunteer work. Just know when to pull back. In our case, every worthy non-profit we supported seemed to need the skills of a CPA and an IT specialist. Before we knew what had happened, we were back to working sixty hour weeks, but this time for free! Yikes! It can be very hard to say "no" when your skills can have a very real positive impact on other people's lives, but understand that you must establish a reasonable limit on what you can contribute.
If you don't already live there, find and move to the perfect place to settle. The area where we chose to settle houses the state's flagship university and our public schools (we still had school age children when we retired) are second to none . We have an outstanding medical center, housing is affordable and our air is the cleanest within the continental US. We have a symphony orchestra and two venues for live theatre. A national park is within an hour's drive and I can be skiing black diamonds--lots of them--after a two hour drive. And if I want to immerse myself in a culture where everyone around me is speaking French (important to me because that's what I spoke at home growing up), in a little over four hours I can be in Quebec City.
So if you do decide to retire early, treat it like the dream job you've always wanted and enjoy the ride.
I retired the first of September at the age of 64. I truly regret having not done so earlier. Four months in, I am finally getting my head around doing exactly what I want. The freedom of time is life’s greatest asset.
Tiger
Active Member
Great post! The challenge is how to balance between "retiring" and "performing" ... duh! My dream job is driving so can't wait for a refreshed MXP
In case you didn't see this aspect, you can make a one time change from amortized or annuity to RMD. Retirement Plans FAQs regarding Substantially Equal Periodic Payments | Internal Revenue Service
Hmm interesting thread. I only found it since the investor thread was locked.
I retired at 65 in late August. When I was working I maxed out my 401k for almost 20 years. During that time it grew to "just" about 500k.
When I "discovered " Tesla I went all in (well almost..440k worth) That number has now grown to 4.4 mil.
Not a bad ROI!
Now my first world problem is how to tap into this new wealth. Part of me says just sell some stock...pay the damn tax and live.
Another part says if the POTUS can pay 750 in taxes...why can't I?
I have looked into asset backed loans but since the bulk of mine is in a IRA that does not seem available...at least at first glance.
I am sure there are vehicles to tap into IRA funds without selling the Stock...I just don't know what they are called...yet.
I retired at 65 in late August. When I was working I maxed out my 401k for almost 20 years. During that time it grew to "just" about 500k.
When I "discovered " Tesla I went all in (well almost..440k worth) That number has now grown to 4.4 mil.
Not a bad ROI!
Now my first world problem is how to tap into this new wealth. Part of me says just sell some stock...pay the damn tax and live.
Another part says if the POTUS can pay 750 in taxes...why can't I?
I have looked into asset backed loans but since the bulk of mine is in a IRA that does not seem available...at least at first glance.
I am sure there are vehicles to tap into IRA funds without selling the Stock...I just don't know what they are called...yet.
Looking through this.. lots of interesting stories
In medicine and burning out
TSLA is definitely going to let me retire early (will be able to cut back to 3 days a week this spring), but the biggest issue is to still be able to get health care here in the US for me and the family as I am only 52..
In medicine and burning out
TSLA is definitely going to let me retire early (will be able to cut back to 3 days a week this spring), but the biggest issue is to still be able to get health care here in the US for me and the family as I am only 52..
There seem to be a very wide array of approaches to 'retirement'.
I have always loved what I was doing at a given time so I never thought exactly in those terms. As a serial entrepreneur it was always unclear anyway. I do, over several decades, do consulting for other entities. Sometime about a decade ago I just stopped doing work for other entities and at more or less the same time sold off the assets fo my last firm.
Therefore it seems that I retired roughly a decade ago, soon after reaching the age of 65. It was not a conscious decision. It was just that I became very busy doing investments that appeal to my ethical outlook. That meant I spent more fo my time on renewables and doing research on evolving medical and energy technologies. That led me to, among other things TSLA.
I obviously am 'retired' since I do not generate earned income. I am actually generating more income every year than I did while 'working'. Now, though, I never do anything I do not have a personal vested interest driving me. Perhaps that is retirement.
If so, great! Life is good! Now if I could ignore politics...
I have always loved what I was doing at a given time so I never thought exactly in those terms. As a serial entrepreneur it was always unclear anyway. I do, over several decades, do consulting for other entities. Sometime about a decade ago I just stopped doing work for other entities and at more or less the same time sold off the assets fo my last firm.
Therefore it seems that I retired roughly a decade ago, soon after reaching the age of 65. It was not a conscious decision. It was just that I became very busy doing investments that appeal to my ethical outlook. That meant I spent more fo my time on renewables and doing research on evolving medical and energy technologies. That led me to, among other things TSLA.
I obviously am 'retired' since I do not generate earned income. I am actually generating more income every year than I did while 'working'. Now, though, I never do anything I do not have a personal vested interest driving me. Perhaps that is retirement.
If so, great! Life is good! Now if I could ignore politics...
MikeQ
Member
My goal has been to move as much out of my IRA as possible so that
1) I can move it into non-ira accounts, reinvest and from that point on pay only capital gains rates instead of income rates.
2) bring my IRA balance down so that by the time I'm 72, I'm not hit with insanely high required minimum distributions.
I started out with the annuity method on my 72t since it produce the highest distribution. Now that my balance has grown substantially, I will switch to the RMD method this year.
dgpcolorado
high altitude member
Some people enjoy their work and can't really see retiring early. I wasn't like that. Early on in my career I focused on saving like mad so that I could retire young. Towards the end, I was saving close to 50% of my modest $47k salary. After recovering from several financial reverses, I finally got downsized at age 45. Several months later I had pulled together my résumé but hadn't floated it yet. Then I came across a quirk in the tax law that allowed me to take more out of my IRA without penalty (SEPP, using an amortization schedule) than I had thought possible. Ran some numbers on a retirement projection spreadsheet that I had written and realized that I was retired, at age 45. Retiring young, with only a small nest egg, required being thrifty, but that's how I accumulated my modest savings and investments in the first place, so not difficult. (It helps that I have no expensive hobbies, such as foreign travel — that would require a lot more money. )
Several weeks later I began site preparation and house design work on the lot in the mountains that I had purchased for retirement years earlier. A month after that I moved three hundred miles to my new rural county so that I could declutter my old house to prepare it for sale.
For me early retirement, and the big move, was "Ready, Set, GO!"
I agree with the OP's take on the subject of early retirement. Being retired meant being able to do want I want, rather than what I must. I wanted to retire while I was still young enough to enjoy it.
Prior to retiring, I gave a lot of thought to what I term the "guilt factor" of no longer being a productive member of society. The obvious solution was volunteer work — I started volunteering while still working and found that I enjoyed the work and the people I worked with. Problem solved. (Being single, volunteer work also helps me keep socialized, something that my job took care of before.)
Now, twenty-two years later, I am still at it. The nice thing about volunteer work is that I can do it when I want, if I want, and there is (relatively) little stress or pressure. Some of my volunteer jobs are fairly structured, others are so obscure that few people even know about them — the work needs doing, in my judgment, so I make it happen.
If I croak now, no regrets — I've had a good run! However, with nonagenarian parents, I may have some years to go.
^ My car on a county road leading to my mountain house. No city, no traffic, no noise — just mountain vistas and wildlife as neighbors. That's what I wanted, YMMV.
Several weeks later I began site preparation and house design work on the lot in the mountains that I had purchased for retirement years earlier. A month after that I moved three hundred miles to my new rural county so that I could declutter my old house to prepare it for sale.
For me early retirement, and the big move, was "Ready, Set, GO!"
I agree with the OP's take on the subject of early retirement. Being retired meant being able to do want I want, rather than what I must. I wanted to retire while I was still young enough to enjoy it.
Prior to retiring, I gave a lot of thought to what I term the "guilt factor" of no longer being a productive member of society. The obvious solution was volunteer work — I started volunteering while still working and found that I enjoyed the work and the people I worked with. Problem solved. (Being single, volunteer work also helps me keep socialized, something that my job took care of before.)
Now, twenty-two years later, I am still at it. The nice thing about volunteer work is that I can do it when I want, if I want, and there is (relatively) little stress or pressure. Some of my volunteer jobs are fairly structured, others are so obscure that few people even know about them — the work needs doing, in my judgment, so I make it happen.
If I croak now, no regrets — I've had a good run! However, with nonagenarian parents, I may have some years to go.
^ My car on a county road leading to my mountain house. No city, no traffic, no noise — just mountain vistas and wildlife as neighbors. That's what I wanted, YMMV.
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MikeQ
Member
An interesting note on the 72t (SEPP). The wording that outlines how you can take money out only speaks of 3 methods RMD, annuity and amortized. However, if you read closely, those are just examples. You can come up with your own method but will need to run it by the IRS.
I was thinking of doing this when I started my 72t because it was right after Covid hit and the mid term AFR rate used for two of the calculation method had dropped from something like 2.26% to .52%. I was considering using the 2.26% rate and explaining to the IRS that this AFR rate collapse was a short term occurrence and would resolve itself. In the end I decided not to go this route because I figured it would delay my retirement. In the end it really doesn't matter since I'll be switching to RMD this year.
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