Early retirement experiences?

Datsun240ZGuy said:

Guys - don't wait too long to enjoy retirement - my friend had a stroke and passed away on Wednesday- 67 years old.  

I'm really sorry to hear that.  This is a huge reason why I called it a day at 51.  Life is short.

Duke said:

In reply to CAinCA :

Yeah, it was Thursday for me. The rest of this year will be like normal holidays, but I expect January to be... weird. Good, but weird.

 

I hear you. It won't really sink in until the beginning of the year. 

Scott_H said:

In reply to Duke :

It took me over a year for it to really become the new norm.

I was on medical leave for six months and then went back to work for 3 weeks. That was surreal. 
 

I got used to being home. I didn't miss work at all. The concept of being retired is strange though. 

Duke said:

In reply to CAinCA :

Yeah, it was Thursday for me. The rest of this year will be like normal holidays, but I expect January to be... weird. Good, but weird.

congratulations, Duke!

I just read through most of this thread. Early retirement does sound appealing, but in my 60s now I think it's too late for me to do it 'early'. Finances seem right, healthcare is taken care of with military retirement. I could pay off the rest of the house with non-retirement savings, but the return is still better than the mortgage rate. Re-stated; I can comfortably retire with two weeks notice any time.

The last six months has been difficult in that the 4-man rotation I work, keeping 24-7/365 coverage, one of our four had a (minor) heart attack so it's been three of us doing the time of four. I'm tired and miss having time with my wife and family. I'm so busy keeping up with things on my off days that going to work is my chance to relax. When we get our fourth man back in rotation will I feel retired having the 'extra' time back? Maybe. Right now I'm thinking one more year, maybe two. I enjoy my job, the people I work with, and I'm still very good at it.

einy (Forum Supporter) said:

kff.org has a decent ACA subsidy calculator that has been useful for my planning process ... link is below.  You might be surprised at what income levels you still currently qualify for a subsidy.

Health Insurance Marketplace Calculator | KFF

Vanguard has another good healthcare cost estimator in this link ... free to all, I have used it and do not have an account with them:

https://advisors.vanguard.com/advisors-alpha/health-care-cost-estimator/calculator

 

Bringing this back up.

I did some quick estimates and it seems I could get coverage for like ~5-6k for the year.  But its only providing an estimate for "coverage", not really any indication of what my healthcare costs would be.  What would typical max OOP be?

The second link shows some higher costs, but doesn't tell me where they come from:

This is for "average" health.  I'd like to think I'm quite a bit above average, however thats foolish to count on.

This is for a "Gold" plan.  Silver came in at ~12.5k, bronze came in at ~13k

Also, this is for age 50, the calculator wont let me select my age (41)

Living in California finally paid off for me when I retired. When I retired at 56 I had to switch to CoveredCa for my health care. It doesn't care what you're worth, only the bottom line on your annual income. From age 56 until I turned 65 I was paying $2 per month for health care (Silver Plan) for my wife and I. When I turned 65 it jumped up to $340 per month each.

In reply to TravisTheHuman :

Save your money on the dental insurance.  Just set up a health savings plan instead

Datsun240ZGuy said:

Guys - don't wait too long to enjoy retirement - my friend had a stroke and passed away on Wednesday- 67 years old.  

Sorry to hear that, but I had multiple friends either die while still working or very shortly after retiring.  And that's been a factor for us to retire after 30 years for a long time.  If I happen to die at 67, I will have been retired for 17 years- which will end up being more than half my time that I worked.  Which is pretty good.

I'll be 85 when I hit the same number of working years to retired years.  

In reply to alfadriver :

One of my friends is a retired engineer that worked for Northrop Grumman.  He learned that their pension administrator knew that retiring employees would, on average, die six months earlier for every additional year they worked.  All things being equal, one would expect healthier employees to work longer and a big / established corporation like NG is going to have a sample size that's too large and spanning too much time for the correlation to likely be a coincidence.

As they say "this job is killing me"

Edit...to be clear, that six month reduction wasn't time in retirement but rather age at death.

In reply to RX Reven' :

So 10 extra working years takes off 5 at the end....  On average.

For the people I knew, I didn't know if they had any health issues or something just happened that was totally unexpected.  But I figured that traveling while we are healthy is important.  

Hit my FIRE number a few years back, hit the FATISHnumber this year markets come and go though so I am sure I am below that number again due in the short term over the last two weeks.  Could live like a overweight monarch in Mexico/Europe or stay in San Diego and still work on cars and have hobbies and never worry about anything but health care costs getting out of control. 

At 43 I am not done yet. Having way to much fun working with the younger guys in science. I think my plan is to take my pension at 50 which puts me at 30 years of time with points, sell the big house and find something with a real shop inland from the coast and then just consult when needed. Should be right at 8ish figures invested plus property and  hard goods and then I think you can stick a fork in me. If we get a early retirement program and they offer 3-4 years like they normally do I would have to reconsider. 

wearymicrobe said:

 Could live like a overweight monarch in Mexico/Europe or stay in San Diego and still work on cars and have hobbies and never worry about anything but health care costs getting out of control. 

 

An overweight monarch huh?  Heading off to research Mexico life...

SKJSS (formerly Klayfish) said:

wearymicrobe said:

 Could live like a overweight monarch in Mexico/Europe or stay in San Diego and still work on cars and have hobbies and never worry about anything but health care costs getting out of control. 

 

An overweight monarch huh?  Heading off to research Mexico life...

We travel to Mexico at least two times a year and have extended family there. It is not like the US.  paperwork and just life in general take time. But when your retired that is acceptable. The people are wonderful and after living among the SoCal wealthy/elite for my entire life I must admit they are more my type of people. 
 

I think that we could live in the coast in a gated community near family in Cabo for about 80k a year and travel to Europe or the US about twice each and be pretty happy. Not enough surf in that town for me but I could be persuaded. Investments pay about 3-4 times that now on a very conservative bond / Vanguard split and much more over the last decade with how I have it setup now. It's a dream though. We will likely end up in Reno or Las Vegas so i could consult and still travel easier. 
 

The answer for how much I need to walk away is always twice what i have. 
 

SKJSS (formerly Klayfish) said:

wearymicrobe said:

 Could live like a overweight monarch in Mexico/Europe or stay in San Diego and still work on cars and have hobbies and never worry about anything but health care costs getting out of control. 

 

An overweight monarch huh?  Heading off to research Mexico life...

See also Panama, and several other Central American countries.

Properties like mine have gone completely stupid in the last few years. If we sold we could move somewhere warm and buy one of those waterfront homes that are all windows on the front. But I've decided that, at least for now, I like my summer life. I work at the track, and ride every day, I have all my tools and equipment here. I guess I could set up a life like that elsewhere, but it would take a lot of work, energy and effort, most of which is in shorter supply these days.

The kids are coming over for Christmas in a few hours, I'm going to propose that, if they're thinking of moving which, for them is likely Mexico, then we keep one place up here and I can continue to do my thing as long as I still can.

Geez, you guys are making me feel like a loser.  Retiring in your late 30's or early 40's?  Damn, lol!

My wife and I talk about where we could move that's less expensive than Denver, but it always circles back to the fact that all her family are in Denver, all our friends are there, the hobbies I like to do are there (mtn biking, dirt bike riding, skiing, tracks) so I doubt we'd leave.  

In reply to docwyte :

Sounds like you are also doing a decent job of enjoying life while you are still working.  If I could afford to live in the Fruita/Grand Junction area, I'd probably be willing to work again just to have that kind of environment.

docwyte said:

Geez, you guys are making me feel like a loser.  Retiring in your late 30's or early 40's?  Damn, lol!

My wife and I talk about where we could move that's less expensive than Denver, but it always circles back to the fact that all her family are in Denver, all our friends are there, the hobbies I like to do are there (mtn biking, dirt bike riding, skiing, tracks) so I doubt we'd leave.  

It comes down to what type of life you feel comfortable with in retirement.

You could likely sell your $$ Denver house/business etc. and move somewhere else and easily retire, but that may not be what you are looking for.

I don't need to be a big spender to be happy.  Time and freedom from a job bring me a lot more happiness than a fancy car or house would.  But that also means I'm not planning on doing any track days, skiiing, or expensive hobbies once I pull the cord.  And my travel will probably need to be on the cheap.

To tim's point above, one consideration I've had recently is to really enjoy life while I still work, since I have saved enough that  don't really need to contribute to retirement funds aggressively.  Maybe I need to put more research into that sabbatical.

In reply to TravisTheHuman :

"Build the life you want and then save for it"

This is how we're trying to target our early retirement. 
 

for those on this board who have gone through it I am curious what got you there

1. working for the man and saving
2. real estate /landlord?
3. Start or buy a small business
4. Something else?

Hoping for "optional" by mid 40s over here, still a ways to go both time wise and financially. Fun to read this thread and be inspired!

In reply to classicJackets (FS) : I was very fortunate in my career working for a great boss. I worked on almost pure commissions and he never capped them.

But I made even more in real estate. I bought into (25%) of my first property as a junior in high school with $5k my grandmother left me and have traded/split/retraded/resplit that into where I'm at today 50 years later. 
 

classicJackets (FS) said:

for those on this board who have gone through it I am curious what got you there

1. working for the man and saving
2. real estate /landlord?
3. Start or buy a small business
4. Something else?

 In my case, all of the above with a fair bit of luck mixed in.

The most important thing is to live within your means

Peabody said:

classicJackets (FS) said:

for those on this board who have gone through it I am curious what got you there

1. working for the man and saving
2. real estate /landlord?
3. Start or buy a small business
4. Something else?

The most important thing is to live within your means

This, but only #1 in my case.  If you are living within your means, you can save a substantial amount.  If you have a low cost of living, it also means you need to save less to actually retire.

One thing that will greatly extend your retirement date is to let your lifestyle creep up with your salary.

In reply to TravisTheHuman :

I agree about lifestyle creep but everything has jumped way high in prices. 

Hence the reason we're drinking Dr. Thunder at our Christmas party this week. 

In reply to Datsun240ZGuy :

If your retirement is in a decent 401k or IRA, it's more than kept up with inflation.  Ours have pretty strongly.

Which is kind of the point of starting as young as you can to fund a 401k or IRA.

The other thing about lifestyle, there may be an inflation, but as you age, the ability to travel and do stuff goes down, so there will likely be a deflation at some point, too.  That happened with both of our parent pairs.

In reply to alfadriver :

Datsun240ZGuy was referring to those who are still in the earning/saving for retirement  phase, to them, inflation is a killer to the family budget.