<p>Thanks everyone. How did we retire so early…my husband says there was no magic formula. We certainly have been blessed. No family money, no big paying job, no big pension. Just steady employment and no life tragedies enabled us to live a typical middle class life …modest house (and mortgage), car payments, two kids through public schools and colleges. We’ve always had short term and long term financial goals, and saved religiously for them. We’ve always lived by a budget, and mostly stuck to it. Living by a budget for 30 years, we know our expenses very well…both required and discretionary. Knowing your expenses is essential to knowing financial resources needed for retirement. But it’s also important to recognize that you don’t know what will happen, and that you’re not in control. Therefore, you recognize that regardless of how much you have, you’re still taking a gamble. So, we decided to gamble while we still have our health and are ready for a different adventure. </p>
<p>Wow, packmom. Such long term willpower! I can have great willpower for a day, but 30 years? Very admirable, you deserve to be rewarded.</p>
<p>Congrats, PackMom! </p>
<p>I do see the advantage of retiring early while health is good. But we really fear the idea of having less income AND having to pay for our own health insurance plan. </p>
<p>@Packmom- I don’t know what part of the South you’ve moved to, but when my Dad was in Pinehurst, NC, he had pinestraw (pine needles) instead of grass. It was pretty common in that area, but there were lots and lots of pine trees too.</p>
<p>I just read this whole thread and there wasn’t much discussion about paying for a kid to go to college and the conflict of saving for your retirement. Do most people on this thread have kids who have already graduated from college? We just finished paying for one to go to college last year and the tuition kept going up so fast that it ended up costing way more than I thought it would. We still have one more to go to college and I’ve got such huge concerns with the retirement trigger.</p>
<p>packmom seems to sugget they send their kids to public institutions. The tuition is going up there too but still much less than a private institution. I hope I don’t come across mean spirited but I am really annoyed at people complaining how high the tuition is and how others should help them pay, after they turn down a good scholarship at a decent public institution.</p>
<p>There was a survey on how prepared people are for the retirement. Not many feel they’ve saved enough but no one was willing to modify their life style to save more.</p>
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I just read this whole thread and there wasn’t much discussion about paying for a kid to go to college and the conflict of saving for your retirement. Do most people on this thread have kids who have already graduated from college? We just finished paying for one to go to college last year and the tuition kept going up so fast that it ended up costing way more than I thought it would. We still have one more to go to college and I’ve got such huge concerns with the retirement trigger.
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<p>this is a concern that comes up in many other threads. there have been thread where families are debating which way to go — pricey private - or cheaper state or merit school - and the question about retirement funding often gets mentioned.</p>
<p>most recently in the $500k debt thread, those parents mention that they have not saved for retirement.</p>
<p>I think HappyMomof1 says that retirement needs to be handled like the airplane air-mask warnings…put yours on first, then help your child. i think some kids who’ve reaped the benefits of parents borrowing/paying for their pricey schools at the expense of funding parents’ retirement will find themselves supporting those parents later. While some may think that is fair, it isn’t something that some young folks (and mates) will welcome.</p>
<p>CMU, our financial advisor suggested we contribute the maximum to our retirement plans ASAP. He did NOT suggest college savings. He advised us to each contribute the annual max which I believe started at $15,000 a year when we began, and is now up to $22,000. He wanted us to have as MUCH in those accounts as possible before our kids went off to college. He then said that, if needed, we could reduce our retirement contributions while our kids were in college and use THAT Monty to pay the college bills…but at least we would have a nice nest egg earning retirement interest.</p>
<p>He further said that if our retirement incomes were adequate, we would be able to repay loans if needed for college. BUT that we would never be able to catch up on retirement contributions if we waited.</p>
<p>So…that is what we did. Max contributions to retirement accounts. The good news for us…we actually didn’t need to reduce the contributions when our kids went to college. </p>
<p>I’m not a financial advisor, and I’m not saying this is what everyone should do…but it worked for us.</p>
<p>I think it also helps that we don’t have a lot of consumer debt, and our home is payed for.</p>
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This is a good question, and one we’re thinking about. I’d like to retire before my wife does–perhaps five or six years before, or even more (her uncle is still working full time at 84). I am concerned about what stresses that may impose on us, even if finances are not a problem.</p>
<p>I retired three years ago. My husband plans to work at least five more years from now. </p>
<p>Hunt, since you are a modern-thinking person, you may not have many/any issues. </p>
<p>In other situations where the home-related-chores have been the “wife’s job” and the newly retired H leaves most/all those chores for his working wife to do once she is home, there will probably be more issues/annoyances.</p>
<p>I know a good number of households where duties are still split with “man outside, woman inside” kind of thinking. We are facing that right now, since H retired in April (and we have a yard service). In theory, H has said that he is willing to split household duties…in practice, that hasn’t yet happened. He does help me with our rentals.</p>
<p>I would not mind having some $50 mlns for retirement, I do not see why anybody would mind it.
I have no plans to retire. When I am kicked out, I will not find another job because of my age - so this is one option. This may change if we buy a second house. But no way under the sun that I will leave on my own before 70. I do not see how I can fill my 8 hours in more entertaining way than my job (despite the fact that I have accumulated several hobbies in a past 7 years). My H. is planning to retire when he is 66. Next year (2015) we will know the situation about second house. No longevity in my genes at all. I am living bonus years already.</p>
<p>Getting back to the OP: It’s debatable when (and if) I retired. I stopped working for a paycheck not that long after 9/11/2001. For a while I had a local business, and then sold it and became a full-time SAHD. As my kids get older, start driving, and head off to college (penultimate kid next year, last one 2 years later), one could argue that my daily life is more and more like that of a retiree.</p>
<p>My wife still works outside the home, and doesn’t seem to give any signs that she intends to retire soon. She enjoys her job, but it is stressful and the day might come when she announces that she called it quits that afternoon. Her continued employment does make a difference to our finances, but we have “enough.”</p>
<p>Regarding chores around the house, we’re lucky to have help, but I’m nearly always the one who cooks, does dishes, trains the dog, chauffeurs, makes doctors/dentist appointments, sets the coffee maker for the next morning, waits up if a kid is coming home late, etc. I think that 2014 is late in the day for a “man outside, woman inside” delineation.</p>
<p>In response to the original question: for the sake of argument, let’s call when I no longer had employment outside the home my retirement, in which case I retired at age 52. My wife is still employed outside the home at 55. We could live, with moderate frugality, on SS and pensions, but we will also get more than we need from taxable and tax-deferred investments.</p>
<p>Our older D graduated from (a private) college last year with whatever the Stafford loan limit is. If she goes to grad school I will probably payoff her undergrad loans. Our younger D has another year plus a quarter or 2 at an in-state public. She won’t have any loans. If she goes to grad school, we’ll probably pick up whatever the net was for #1D. Since we put away around 25% of our gross income each year, I don’t think either would impact our retirement significantly.
We are fortunate in that there will be some inheritance which will make retirement much easier , but we’d still do ok with just our own assets.
My H’s sister is going to retire by the end of this year and her husband by mid-2015. They are 57 and 55. No kids. I’m jealous. </p>
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<p>I agree. and it would especially be for those marrying today. This is more of an issue for those who married 30-40 years ago, and it is hard to change those patterns…partly because of habit and partly because a person who has only done work “outside” often has no idea of what all needs to be done inside.</p>
<p>^^^And vice versa!</p>
<p>Our mortgage is well below what we could qualify for…we bought in 1998 at the bottom of the market. It has more than doubled. It’s our starter house and is probably close to topped out on market value. OTOH, buying a 3 BR condo in this area would cost us more than what we’d get for our current house.</p>
<p>We purposely bought a cheaper house, knowing that tuition would be beastly. One more year, and we get a huge raise. 
Most of our savings are in 401(k)/pension/IRAs. We don’t have expensive cars (we drive them til they die); our furniture is from the 80s. The guys’ bedrooms were under 100 sq ft and did not have TVs or computers. OTOH, our big splurge is travel, though we do that via FF miles and searching for good deals. DH expects to work until at least 65, so I think we will be fine. If something happens to him, he has a big term policy which will help me with medical expenses and some $$ to live on in addition to his accrued retirement benefits/SS. </p>
<p>Just got back from a family reunion in Kansas City. My cousin has my perfect house – $160k, 2600 sq ft, two master BRs, 1 smaller BR, office, 2.5 baths, large family room. The second master opens to a patio and would make a MOST excellent craft studio. Everything we’d need is on the main floor. $135/mo for HOA fees, including full yard maintenance.</p>
<p>Would love to retire at 55, but D2 will still have a few years left of HS at that point. Barring unforeseen economic disaster, we should be retiring within a year or two of her graduation.</p>
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As one who wants to retire young for me one big factor is while I have liked most of my jobs and found them fairly interesting and challenging my jobs are not my calling by any means. In “retirement” I’ll be able to volunteer or work part-time and for little money at things I find more rewarding.</p>
<p>In addition, I have a huge bucket list … on the scale of 100 items … and “travel around Europe” is one item (not one item for each of the many many places in Europe I’d like to go). And I’d like to do all these things while I’m still able to really enjoy them.</p>
<p>Mom3ToGo’s bucket list is slightly shorter (about 100 items shorter) … so I will likely retire WAY before her … and that likely will be an issue for both of us.</p>
<p>A lot of folks retiring young here. Impressive!</p>
<p>The spouse is waiting for a pension to vest in eight years. My plan is to retire later than that, depending on if my employer still wants to have me around. We live in a relatively expensive area, and I don’t see us willingly moving somewhere cheaper. So my retirement age will be somewhere in the mid-60’s to early 70’s. And this with having saved for retirement from when I started working out of undergrad. </p>
<p>In real life, I know many folks hereabouts who tell me they’ll be working until their 80’s. Part of that is living in an expensive metropolitan area. In other cases, it’s been career changes late in life, along with the tuition to pay for a new degree. </p>