I voted “after 65,” but the fact is, never. I will die in harness.
My wife is required to retire at 56 and I’d like to do them same. We are currently investing and positioning ourselves to make that happen.
Been retired 3.5 years, and it seems like 20. WhooHoo!!! When I go to visit my former “prison” all I see is long faces and hear horror stories. 
It was pretty obvious I was being shown the door at age 62(Lord how they came up with things to make me see I was “superfluous to requirements”) I went at the right time, my husband was already retired several years and I wanted to catch up. We have it fairly easy, no debts, no kids, homebodies,simple living.
You guys contemplating retiring, it’s never too early to start preparing. There’s a jillion things to consider: keep a list of questions you need answered, be knowledgeable about your income(s) and out-go, don’t assume things will fall into place and/or take care of themselves, be realistic in your projections, make contingency plans for EVERYTHING. When most of us retire, we don’t have the option of a do-over, so make sure you’ve done all you can to insure success before you walk off that job for the last time. Buona fortuna!
I would cheerfully retire immediately if I were not addicted to food and other luxuries.
- Apparently I’m an outlier.
The longer we work, the higher is the SS check.
:dubious:
I have a 2 step retirement plan that I’m hoping I can succeed at
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Partially retire sometime in the 45-55 age bracket. Right now I work a little over 2000 hours a year, I’d like to cut that down to 1000-1200 a year. Either full time seasonal work (work 6 months, then off 6 months) or year round part time work (work 2-3 days a week).
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Fully retire sometime in my 60s.
So ideally I can fully retire in my 60s, but who knows. Part of me fears my body will not hold us, but another part of me feels that tech advances may keep me able bodied into my 70s. I’m not sure what to think.
Social security uses the 90-32-15 reimbursement system. When calculating your monthly earnings, of the first $744 you get 90% back, for everything between that and $4483, you get 32% back, for everything between $4483 and the cap (which is something like 10k a month) you get 15% back. So if you only earned $744/month, you get a SS check for about $670, but if you earned 10k a month your SS check is about $2600. You pay 13x as much in SS taxes but only get 4x more in benefits.
So if you are already a decent earner, you aren’t going to get as much since that extra money falls under the 15% reimbursement bracket. If you work longer and harder, and get an extra $1000/month in income in your AIME, that means you get an extra $150/month in SS benefits. It may not be worth it.
My goal is to make sure I stay in the sweet spot (near the peak of the 32% curve) when all is said and done.
I would LIKE to retire now, if I could. Sadly, I just don’t have the money to do so. My original plan was to use stocks and investments I used for a start-up IPO company I started with to retire around 45-50. Unfortunately the dot com bust happened, so I’ve had to painstakingly rebuild my investments and retirement pretty much from scratch, and that’s put me behind. I figure I will have enough capital to retire around 65-67, and push my social security until 71 (I think you HAVE to take it by then) and basically have the same standard of living and quality of life I do now, which is pretty good. That’s assuming we don’t have another 2008 or dot com bust recession, of course, but I’m diversified enough now that even that won’t kill me…it would just push my time table back a bit.
Planned for age “pre-59”. Accomplished at age 56+.
I’m medically retired after a workplace injury. It sucks so badly. I was only 38 when I got hurt and I LOVED my job. I still miss it and think about it every day. It’s been ten years of absolute boredom. I miss the money and I miss the guys I worked with. If you’re wealthy and retire young life could be quite enjoyable I suppose. But, while I’m not crying poverty, not having a great deal of money leaves you without much to do. I’d rather be working.
That sucks man.
I am working from home only from past 1.5 yrs. I think probably some routine of getting ready daily and going out somewhere (a library in a college campus or to a group of friends or to a shopping mall or anywhere) for maybe just for 2 hrs even, would be good for me.
Otherwise it does get boring. what I can a routine right now is only going out for morning and evening walks daily.
My wife and I have both decided to retire later this year, in our early 40s. Quite a bit earlier than we originally considered we would, but we both have very busy, stressful jobs and have made the decision to jump off the treadmill entirely. We never managed to have children, so have no dependants or ties, so we’re off travelling and exploring for a few years before finding a new, quieter and time rich existence, most likely in the south of France. Everything we love to do (bar eating & drinking) is free- walking, swimming, cycling, drawing, photography, making music, reading & writing etc so financially we can sustain ourselves on fairly little. August is D-day, very much looking toward to the freedom and time we’ll have.
I retired at 63 4 years ago. I am not getting bored but I find I have too much time and too many interests for my income. I am bleeding down my savings faster than I had figured. I may go back to work part time to help finance my hobbies.
Sadly, while I will be eligible for a pension in the next few years, it is pinched, & painfully ungenerous.
The state of Arkansas gives it’s employees bonuses rather than raises so that they will pay us less retirement.
By that definition, I don’t think I want to retire at all. I feel like my “ideal” retirement would be staying on part-time with the successor to my accounting firm. I’d probably put in 20-hr weeks 6 months a year (Jan-Apr and Sept-Oct) and take the rest of the year off. I would only plan to give that up if some kind of illness or memory problem made it impossible.
I walked off my job in late January, and I’m referring to it as “early retirement”. I’m 53. We are lucky to be in a financial position where I don’t have to work full time. (My husband doesn’t work either, he’s been disabled since 1998). If I find the perfect part-time job, I would take it, but I don’t have to, and I’m not looking very hard.
I hope to retire about 6 months before I die.
OP: Maybe you meant this to be a private poll, but it’s not.
I retired at 62, seven years ago. I am very glad to be retired and have lots of things to keep me busy. My husband and I are very lucky.