I have read most of this thread with interest. I see lots of people posting “I have (X) number of months/years left to retirement”. My question is, how can you be so specific as to your retirement date so far in advance? I mean, I plan on retiring when I calculate I have enough to last me the rest of my life, making reasonable assumptions about expenses, expected investment returns, inflation, etc. But its all really just a guess and probably not very accurate until you get quite close to actual retirement. I mean, I’ll know it when I get there, but it probably won’t come into clear focus until I’m <1 year from retirement. So how can people know they will retire in, e.g., 5 years from now?
Predicting it 5 or 10 years out isn’t absolutely accurate - if you had asked me when I was 40 when I would retire , I probably would have said 55. I didn’t actually retire until I was 58. But “when I’m 55” was an absolutely accurate prediction of when I could have retired - that was when I was eligible to collect my full pension , which actually had me taking home more than when I was working ( lower taxes, lower health insurance premium , no deduction for retirement savings) and waiting until 58 had nothing to do with finances. My husband would have said he was going to retire at 62 until 6 months ago , when I finally convinced him to go a few months earlier. I suspect most people are saying they have X months or years until they expect to be able to retire - which might end up being different than when they really retire.
That’s when their pension maxes out, that’s when their calculations say that they will hit their number and it’s subject to change as the time gets closer, that’s when they are mandated to retire because they will be a certain age, that’s when they can start collecting a pension or social security…
Our plan for many years now has been for me to retire when my daughter graduates from college, which will be when I am 61. 62 if she decides to go the co-op route and take five years.
I unexpectedly got a late career boost in the last year and we discussed whether I might carry on longer, but there are things we’d like to do in community service and travel that are not compatible with the kind of work schedule I have
Since we are in the USA, bridging health care coverage between employer plans and Medicare is an open issue.
'Zactly.
Knowing years in advance is (mostly) about people who are in situations where some aspect of their finances / insurance coverage is not tied to their personal savings and market returns, but to some other aspect of the law or their employment arrangements.
If you (any you) are not in a situation with few or no external forcing functions, then yes, retirement becomes doable when your balance gets big enough compared to your expected remaining years on Earth, modulo a bunch of attitude factors.
That was me. (I was thinking specifically about you with the age thing). My target was 58 - 62. When I was 55 my friend told me that he thought I was there already. I called a financial planner and to my complete delight he showed me the numbers and I was definitely ready right then. I gave my employer a date six months in the future so I could get another year of 401k matching and my bonus and stock options and was 56 when it happened.
I see I stuffed an extraneous “not” in that sentence. Oops.
And even in your case, once the planner showed you it was doable, you fine-tuned the timing of your retirement based on external forcing factors.
For most of us it’s a blend. Had I had a better overall career I’d have been out years earlier. Given the relatively shitty career I did have within my field, I was actually unhappy to be forced out when I was. The good market returns since 2008 certainly made leaving when I was forced to a good situation, not a bad one.
My personal case is sort of an odd mix of a large bucket of terrible news and a large bucket of great news blending to an OK++ result.
When I was in my early 60s I was fond of saying that I’d work until I was 80, because I was fortunate enough to like my job, my bosses, and my salary. I thought I’d easily be able to do that, but didn’t foresee that age would catch up with me and make it harder and harder to tolerate that commute and to keep up with rapidly changing technology. And I started catching myself taking an unintended nap at my desk without warning.
So after my husband and I both took Social Security on top of our salaries for a year or so and socked it away, and I ran numbers through Schwab’s Intelligent Income tool, I saw that we’d be able to afford to retire. I did so at age 67 plus however many months that SS said I needed to qualify as “full retirement age”.
So I had planned to work a much longer time, but it just didn’t happen that way. Father Time decided it for me.
That’s a lot more true than long ago 50yo me would have thought. I’m now 66 and retired. It happens that this month is the 11 year anniversary of moving to this city with all the disruption that entailed. And the 11th anniversary of significantly changing jobs within my company.
I recall how much crap I got done more or less effortlessly every day back then. And despite being in good health now, I’m a lot less ambitious and hit my energy wall a lot earlier than I once did. The ambition loss is definitely the larger effect for me, but both are significant.
IME age 30-ish to 55-ish is pretty flat in terms of capability assuming no major health or injury problems. But then stuff just starts changing for the worse with no apparent cause. And picks up speed.
Eyesight and the commute did it for me. Only my left eye is fully functional (my right eye developed a herpes infection when I was young and the cornea is mostly scar tissue), and 41+ years of staring at a computer screen were taking their toll; and my commute took me through a stretch of I-5 that’s constricted by geography and a military base to about half its necessary capacity.
Another factor was that I was in a position that had been funded for two years (I referred to it as providing hospice care to an aging computer system while its replacement was being developed). But the replacement fell through, which meant a long-term support commitment I simply couldn’t make.
As it was, I made it just past the point (70½) where I had to start withdrawing from my IRAs.
I said that I’d work until I died, but as age, chronic illnesses, and treating COVID on the front lines hit me I realized I didn’t really want to die in prison. I retired at 64.75 years of age, but my 20 years of banked sabbatical time carried me on for another 6 months by which time, both the Mrs. and I had hit 65. So glad I stopped.
A variable in my case is that I stand to inherit (relatively) substantial money. I can’t rely on it in my calculations since I don’t know how much will be left when I get it. But it could speed up my retirement if it happens sooner than later.
My retirement age was based on how long I could get Cobra before my wife was eligible for Medicare. I hated the commute but I liked the job. It turned out that I didn’t officially retire for five months after my plan because my work paid me full salary for coming in one day a week. I answered emails other days, but didn’t do anything.
I didn’t have a pension in this job and I delayed taking Social Security until well after I retired.
In my case, the difference in age between my wife and me played a big role. I’m ten years older than her, and even if I took over the cooking and any household chores I wasn’t already doing, it would have been difficult for her to be having to go into work for year after year while I was staying home. So the game plan all along was for me to retire late, and her to retire early.
But I drew the line at working past 70, so that’s when I retired. (That my monthly Social Security check would keep going up the longer I worked until 70, but only cost-of-living after that, played a role.) The original plan had been for her to work until 62 when she’d be able to take Social Security too, but she wasn’t able to hang in there that long; she wound up retiring a few months before I did.
It’s still worked out financially to the extent that we haven’t had to touch our Federal TSP funds yet, and shouldn’t need to between now and late next year when she’ll start getting Social Security, at which point we should be in great shape.
Now that’s an interesting coincidence.
I’ve been hanging out with my current GF for almost a year. We get along great. To the point that we made noises about cohabiting. Problem is I’m retired and she has 10+ years to go. And she makes enough money that her simply quitting 10 years early takes too much off her table and leaves her much too vulnerable to any possible future flakiness from my side.
Anyhow, that’s taken the cohabit off the table and now we’re not sure where to from here. Might be the start of the fizzle of a truly great relationship … for the few day / hours we can be together at any one meeting. Sigh.
That’s really very dependent on the people/situation involved - my husband had no problem going to work every day for three years after I retired. But it was completely his choice to continue working which probably had something to do with why he didn’t find it difficult.
I guess this thread is as good as any.
My Wife and I, mid-60’s are going to retire, but in about a year. Between the two off us, 70 years working for county government. It’s just too much. Always another something to learn, all the while supporting legacy systems (some of which I developed).
We also are too long in the tooth for living at 11 thousand 200 feet. It was rough on me at 30 years old. At 64? Umm… Nope.
We found a place yesterday. Perfect for us, our 2 dogs and having friends and family over. We will be cutting down to around 5000 feet in elevation.
We’ll have -
- 1/3 acre
- 4 bedrooms and an office
- Backs up to open space with a dog park that is close.
- 4 car garage, so I have a place for tools and we have a place for bikes and stuff. Oh, It’s a heated garage and has hot and cold running water in the garage.
- End of a cul-de-sack.
It’s 95% of everything we wanted. My wife and I knew it was the place. We looked for about 2 years.
As my wife is a real estate appraiser, she did most of the heavy lifting on this. I’ve told her again and again and thanked her again and again.
Looking like we take ownership in a month. We will own two houses for a while.
Hooray!!1! I know this has been weighing on your mind for quite awhile.
I’m enjoying thinking of them being at a lower altitude, within better reach of EMS services and hopefully much less plowing and winching out to do.
Me too