A friend and neighbor retired at 47! He was an autoworker and most retired at 50 but he was offered a buyout that he took. He had a wonderful retirement until he passed away last summer at 61.
My uncle retired at 55. He worked at a large corporation that had retiree health benefits and a generous retirement. He had a great retirement, traveled a ton and they finally settled in Florida 4 years ago. He’s now battling stage 4 cancer, not sure he’s going to beat this.
My husband’s company has retiree health benefits. It’s very rare for any employee to wait until 65 to retiree if they are eligible for the health benefits.
I think if there was affordable health care, you would find many more retirees in their 50’s and early 60’s.
This is why we both retired at 60. We will never be rich, no matter how long we work. But the chances of running out of money even if we live a very, very long time are quite slim. My mom died when she was 75, and she had health problems for years before she died. Fortunately, my parents were able to enjoy some wonderful years of retirement together. H and I want to do the same, for a few years or for many years. To be honest, I think we’ll have a lot more time as a result of leaving stressful jobs when we did.
Some people plan to be able to retire at a 50ish age, even if they do not intend to retire then, because of the risk of job obsolescence and/or age discrimination.
Obviously, it is easier to do so without having to live “very spartan lives” (before and after retirement) for those whose work provides higher income. It does require that the person not be one to unconsciously increase spending to consume all available income.
This is also not one of our goals. We paid for their college education and they started their careers debt free.
My goal now is for my husband and I to live our best retirement life. To be able to enjoy each other and hopefully do sone great traveling. To have an active retirement before we get too old. My husband has some health problems and he’s healthy and active now. I hope it stays that way for a long time. But it might not.
My in laws were always waiting for something. They spent their active years watching grandkids (not mine) and being too busy at home to travel. Now they aren’t busy and not mobile enough to travel. I do not want that to happen to us.
Giving money to my kids and grandkids are not in the plan. If they are for others, that’s great. It’s just not my plan.
DH retires next month, and we just signed our wills today so lately have given much thought to what we want in the coming years.
Ds1 is married, and they are relocating 1,200 miles away. They definitely want a family, and we definitely want to be close to the grandkids. They close this month on a house big enough for us to visit and, he says, be reverse snowbirds. He says that we can summer with them once kids are in the picture. In this market, our house is worth a good chunk of change, and selling isn’t out of the question, but he made the good point that we aren’t used to the winters where they are and he doesn’t want to take us from our home. And, selfishly, he wants to be able to come home, too. That all was enough for us to cool our jets on the idea of cashing out on the house.
My first goal is to do what I was most worried about with my mom … I don’t need any big inheritance, I just don’t want to go poor caring for her. But she and my late dad did an amazing job of setting themselves up well in their old age. She won’t bankrupt me or my siblings, and we likely will get a nice little inheritance. If we spend down my 401k, which is highly unlikely, the kids still will get to split proceeds from the sale of this house so they will wind up in the same place as us – not worried about caring for us and some money to boot. Best-laid plans …
Being generous with my kids and grandkids, doesn’t mean working because I have to or working because I plan to sit home and taking care of my grandkids.
You missed the first part of my sentence there where I said I work now so I don’t have to scrimp and can travel and spend how I want AND be generous with my kids etc. I don’t have to work if I didn’t want to work and I could still pretty much do what I want to do. My kids have their college educations paid for, if they want to go to grad school that’s paid for too. If they don’t, then that’s fine. The one who didn’t go to college is completely self sufficient. The other 3 have nice little nest eggs of their own from working and investing. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to be generous with them because I can be, nor would I be sacrificing anything by doing so.
There are so many people my age that sit on their butt’s and do nothing. No self worth, no work ethic, have husbands who are work horses to support their high maintenance life style. That’s not me. I work when I want because I want to. But also I invest every penny I make and because I have done that, I haven’t had to work in about 30 years. I invested when I was young and invested damn well. My husband and I will be able to travel and do what we want, but we’re also not the type of people that feel the need to take it with us to the grave. Being charitable, donating funds, and sharing with our loved ones is important to us. I don’t see that waiting for anything or being too busy at home either. We have always made time for travel and unfortunately due to travel had a bunch of trips cancelled that we’re hoping to ramp back up shortly.
Awesome planning and thinking about both yourself and your kids!! They’re lucky to have parents like you. So many parents don’t think about anyone but themselves and then leave their kids to have to deal with a bad aftermath or with their own debt because they want to spend all their money while alive and don’t think about the costs involved in caring for them or burying them, etc.
This unfortunately is my MIL. She doesn’t have a lot of money. Spends it on junk nonstop and now is to the point of needing a caregiver to some degree but can’t really afford it. So, basically because she just keeps on buying crap, I’m going to be the one paying for her caregiver, etc.
Similar situation for me retiring at 59. My mom and 2 of her siblings have died young (70ish). They smoked and led “harder” lives that I have, and I exercise more. I am HOPING to live longer than they did, but you just never know. Dementia seems to run in my family too.
At some point you pick time or money. I decided time was more important to me.
That’s a bummer. We have lived a frugal existence, partly because we chose to (never upsized so never had to downsize) and partly because we had to once we decided that I’d quit my breadwinner job and stay home with the kids. My mom and dad had eighth-grade and sixth-grade educations, respectively, and did really well for themselves and us. That’s all I want to do for my kids, too. We managed to get them undergrad educations at top schools with no loans and even a grad degree for ds1 with no loans. We set them up nicely. They get to take it from here!
I haven’t tallied savings, but the places where I see the monthly bills decline are: groceries, water & corresponding sewer charges, electric (but not significant), and car insurance if the car remains at home. Sending the car to college will result in a higher insurance bill. Possible savings of fees paid for HS activities, trips and athletics?
Yep, we noticed the difference in many areas when all the kids were gone, but if they come home for long visits, that racks up expenses again, but mainly, just wait for the grandkids, not cheaper than the kids But more fun.
Yes! Thank you for reminding me of some of those things. I’m divorced and just got my last child support payment on Saturday. I received another payment from my ex husband of a true up as well for my son of some extra income he earned last year. It’s almost equal to one month of child support so I’m using that in my head for June. July and August I’ll have to go into my own pot. That’s the bummer about child support. It ends at 18 or high school graduation whichever is later. Doesn’t cover the summer after graduation which is silly but is what it is. So, in my mind I have to cover “child support” for the summer and there’s still that cost while my son is home. My ex still splits things like gas or whatever but doesn’t give the main support. Sigh.
So, as far as when he leaves in August I’m wondering how much it’ll save me per month in order to make up for the lost child support. For instance if child support is “$1,000” a month will expenses reduce by that much? Since there were also the extras my ex paid half and reimbursed me for I guess my share of those also essentially came from my share of child support so I can count that from the $1,000. I consider what my husband and I need to earn each month as a “nut”. It covers our monthly expenses. Then larger unexpected expenses (like new roof or taxes) come from savings. Anything earned over the nut each month goes in there. We also have a separate account for our fun stuff. I always called if the “slush” account. Then of course there are the savings. My husband is self employed so our income is variable. Anyway you reminded me about car insurance. No car is going to school so I can put my son on “away after school status” and that won’t cost anything for insurance. I’ll probably also take insurance off the car if it’s in our garage. I’m not worried about the roof caving in on it.
As soon as my 3 others went back to school or their own apartments this year I realized just how much I was spending on electricity so hopefully that and water will go down some but unfortunately I think it’s my husband who uses the most electricity. Lol. But you’re right. Food is it!!
I don’t want to have to go into savings to cover us for the summer but obviously I will have to. But I’m the long run it isn’t substantial.
We’re already hoping to do some traveling. Now the question is where!! We’re not quite ready to leave the country for a Europe but we are going to Bahamas over winter break hopefully. Ahhh not sure how life will be wirh NO kids!!!
Random question for hive minds here: This came up in a conversation recently. Understanding that we all have different circumstances and experiences, what NUMBER comes to your mind with the expression “a lot of money”. A friend was asked to help finding an attorney for another friend after her (the other friend’s) DH passed away and one son isn’t the most responsible, but she (the widow) and another son have “a lot of money” they want to protect. We always wonder someone’s frame of reference for “a lot of money”. So just curious, for kicks and giggles (not looking for “whatever makes you comfortable and not worry” answer) — just curious what $ amount folks consider “a lot of money”?
@jym626 Thinking about the specific question you pose, “a lot of money” would be $50m+ to me personally (I am assuming we are talking about liquid assets).
As to what I believe “a lot of money” might be to a family which doesn’t already have a lawyer and a financial plan pre-death of the head of household…I am thinking “a lot of money” in that case would probably top out at under $800k.
@beebee3 can you clarify— are you saying $50m as in million?Am assuming so since you also used K (for thousand) but sometimes m is latin for thousand and mm is million. Just wanted to be sure. Agree $50 million is a LOT of money, but is there a lower # you also consider a lot?
Maybe > $5 million. I’m not saying I don’t think less is a lot of money. I do. But in the context of that particular conversation, I’d automatically assume many millions are at issue, and I’d probably be wrong. lol
I’m with beebee3 in that if there isn’t already a system to protect the assets before the HOH death, their ‘lot of money’ is different than mine.
I’d guess up to $1 million, maybe a bit more depending on life insurance value.
But more fun.