Anyone planning to retire early?

[samy23]

How do you plan on doing this? I would like to also, if it's at all possible by that time, and am wondering what other people's plans are, who also hope to achieve this.

[Kyamo]

Sure, I'd like to. My general plan is that we are currently working on paying off debts (including mortgage) and then to save money. Later on when we actually have decent amounts to invest we will probably talk to a financial planner about how to invest what we have, and about figuring out exactly how much is needed to retire when. It is pretty general though, because we are still young and my job situation right now is pretty crappy.

[Carson]

Yes, we're planning on retiring early. DH is 32 now and we will probably retire in 20-25 years. I'm assuming that's considered early.

The plan largely hinges on his pension which is *pretty much* guaranteed, but as the last year has shown, you never know. We are still saving separately, but we wouldn't be able to retire the way we want to on those savings alone. It also depends on if I keep working, which I can't imagine not, esp, once all the little ones are in school.

I'm most concerned about healthcare, as they do not get healthcare until they are on Medicare, so we would be self-paying up until that point.

We will have our mortgage paid off by then and (don't laugh) we're actually considering moving abroad and buying a little place somewhere in Europe. I'm assuming it will be a phased-in transition where we stay somewhere long-term while keeping our house and find out where exactly we want to live, healthcare, visas, etc...

[Denvergirlie]

I would check out the book "Your money or your life" and also crusie at specific forums and resources like http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/


Early retirement will mean something different to each person and then of course that will require different resoruces and different amounts of monies to be saved.

[enfpintj]

Originally Posted by Denvergirlie

I would check out the book "Your money or your life" and also crusie at specific forums and resources like http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/


Early retirement will mean something different to each person and then of course that will require different resoruces and different amounts of monies to be saved.

Well, I agree with the above post. your money or your life got us started about 10 years ago or so. It made us realize that something else was possible and led us to a simplicity group where we saw people living like we wanted too. It was all invaluable.

I liked the early retirement forum for a while. It has people all over the spectrum. many haven't retired yet. many have a lot of money and a lot of people lived below their/(your) means (lbym). They aren't the easiest lot. They can be rough on people, but they know their finance stuff.

I really like the simple living network simpleliving.net and i listen to dave ramsey for inspiration which is sometimes hard to come by in this society.

We retired 20 months ago at 40. We live on little (about 20k) with no debt and hope to not work from now until dh's pension kicks in at 60. It is only a partial pension since he did not work 30 years, but it should be enough for us.

Currently, we're doing house repairs and waiting for the market to improve. We will sell and maybe buy some acreage and build a natural house or just buy a small house in a small town somewhere in the south east. We homeschool and enjoy being altogether instead of dh always gone. I highly recommend it, but every family is different. i don't know others IRL who would do it the way we are doing it though.

[sanguine_speed]

I don't want to retire early. But I suppose it would be nice to have the choice to do so in case I change my mind.

Right now though, I like the idea of working at least part-time for as long as I am able to. I find meaningful work enjoyable and enriching. The financial benefits are double also---more time saving PLUS less time using savings. In Canada, our government pension programs also rewards those who work longer.

[wendyland]

I don't want to necessarily retire early, but I want to leave my profession early. Right now, I'm paid too much to leave it. I want to have my house and basics paid for, have a good size savings, live cheaply, and work where I want to work regardless of what it pays.

[dancebaraka]

I will likely never stop working as I truly adore my work, but I certainly value the freedom to work as little as I want and to travel and take breaks often. The goal is flexibility and freedom. Our financial plan is to increase our earnings while still living on little. In a few years (after graduate work is done for dh & dd is in school full time) we hope to live on about $20,000 a year and earn around $50,000+. These are loose estimates of course, but you get the general idea.

[enfpintj]

Originally Posted by dancebaraka

Our financial plan is to increase our earnings while still living on little. In a few years (after graduate work is done for dh & dd is in school full time) we hope to live on about $20,000 a year and earn around $50,000+. These are loose estimates of course, but you get the general idea.

This is what worked for us. We kept our expenses roughly the same while dh's income kept going up. This and having an inexpensive house allowed us to retire early.

Retirement and work all mean different things to different people. We like the idea of being able to pursue non-paid work/interests, but I still consider it work even though I am not getting paid. I have accepted that I consider anything I do other than sticking my head in a book as work.

I am a writer. Maybe my book will never be published, but I have the opportunity to pursue my interest in writing. DH wants to have a big garden when we move. Maybe one day we'll sell at a farmer's market . He will likely do other things as well after we move and settle down. They may never be considered "real work", but we need to occupy ourselves intellectually. I also consider homeschooling to be work When the kids are grown we plan to housesit around the globe.

[PJJ]

without a pension

Thanks OP, for bringing this up.

I would like to but my DH and I do not have pensions.

I was on the FIRE boards too, but it seemed almost no one was retiring early without a pension.

Anyone retiring early and don't have a pension, now that would be some great advice to share with others on how you do that.

Sometimes the ones with a good pension did not do anything but get lucky enough to have one and not overspend.

Anyone out there?

[CameronsMama]

We have talked about this, but no really firm plan in place just yet. What we are doing now to prepare: we are contributing as much as we can possibly afford to dh's retirement plan through work, taking advantage of their matching policy. We are also aggressively paying on the mortgage, in order to pay it off early so that the house can either be lived in with no mortgage or sold for retirement money when that time comes. We try to live pretty simple lives, and save as much as we can, living within our means allows us to tuck some savings away each month. I also recommend Your Money or Your Life- we were already in pretty good shape financially when we read that, but it still really helped our attitude towards money, great book.

DH does not have a pension through his job, and he is likely going to be with this company for the long haul, so that won't change. We do have one major advantage that many don't, though, and that is a decent sized inheritance that got stuffed right into savings. That gave us a good head start, and we are only 28 so say if we want to retire at 50, we still have over 20 years.

[bobandjess99]

Sort of. In 6 years, we will be free of child support......greatly increasing our income..approx 5 years after that, we will have our home paid off. Once those expenses are gone, we will need very little money to live on. We would be able to live on 1 part time income. Our plan is to probably work full time for maybe 6 months, then take 6 months off and just travel, have fun, enjoy life, etc. In our fields, that isn't unreasonable. Or, one of us could work full or part time while the other goes to school....really, we'll have a whole lot of freedom. We wont be completely retired, but it'll be easy. At that point, I'll be about 40, and dh'll be just over 50. so..fairly early.

[velochic]

I, personally, am probably in the opposite situation. I wouldn't consider myself retired right now, but I don't really work much. I occupy myself with a very part-time job that breaks the monotony when dd is at school.

I will have to go back to work full-time in about 10 years. Dh is older than me and he may want to retire in 11 years, at 65. For me the bottom line is health care. I will need health care for another 10 or so years. If dh decides to retire at 65, I will have to find a job that provides health care to me.

So my question to those that are retiring early... how do you manage to afford health care???? That's the single issue with us.

Dh is a professor and enjoys the research, but doesn't like the teaching as much. If he could stay at the department without teaching, he would continue to work past 65 until his health failed. If he retired, he would just be bored to tears. He has no interests outside of his field. He would drive me NUTS to be home every day and under foot. We love each other very much, but we need our alone time, too. If we didn't have to pay for dd's schooling, we could probably retire now and live simply, but we don't (he doesn't) want to. We want enough to not have to live as simply as we do now.

And Carson, we, too have discussed retiring to the EU (Germany). Dh has a German gov't pension from his years of working there. Unless you are EU member, you have to prove that you are independently wealthy (or have outside income) to live in EU countries (in general and Germany specifically). We lived there until 2004 and I wasn't able to get a work visa at all (dh was getting paid by the university). My only concern about retiring there is that if something happened and we really NEEDED to get a job, we wouldn't be able to because it's impossible to get a non-sponsored work visa. Our plans primarily hinge on Turkey getting into the EU. Dh is from Turkey and would be able to get a non-sponsored work visa in Germany if Turkey gets into the EU. Unless we could were eligible for work visas, I don't think we'd pull up our roots here and permanently retire there. We'd probably buy some property and stay there part of the year.

[sanguine_speed]

We have the priivlege of public universal health care, so thankfully I do not feel we need to worry about health insurance. We may still want or need money for things not covered by our public health system like chiropractic care or massage therapy, but will work that into our retirement budget. It's really quite nominal compared to doctors, specialists, hospitals, surgery, emergencies and all of the other biggies that are 100% publicly funded. This also helps me now because I can choose a job that does not offer insurance.

[SleeplessMommy]

Originally Posted by velochic

So my question to those that are retiring early... how do you manage to afford health care???? That's the single issue with us.

We don't have much of a plan 25 years into the future, but health care is the #1 issue for us.

My other part of the plan is to have sustainable housing (small, highly energy efficient, walkable community, garden) Getting all of those is a challenge, and having it paid off into time to retire would be nice.

[HeatherAtHome]

It's hard to see into the future, who knows what life will bring us?

But, here's what I'm leaning towards at the moment. We'll have our house paid off in 15 years. DH will be 45, I'll be 43.

I guess to us, retiring early means quitting the 9-5pm job and spending your time doing what you love. For us, that would mean hanging out around home, gardening, walking in the woods, making things (crafts, sewing, furniture, art etc). I like taking care of kids, DH is a welder and would love to have a little biz on the side someday. All these things could bring in $$$ if needed.

For us it would mean making our own schedules and doing what we want. It might mean traveling for a month in winter (and not to Florida or Cuba, that is so done) or staying home instead of going out into a snow storm.

DH has a decent job right now and if the company stays afloat, he wouldn't mind working there for years and years.

I plan on fostering (soon!) and would be willing to do it for decades if it works out. (Although I've heard the lifespan of a foster parent is on average 3-5 years. )

When you get right down to it, we have simple tastes and a frugal lifestyle (except for the traveling dreams ) I cannot imagine us working 9-5 till we're 65.

We don't really worry about healthcare... I'm just hoping it will still be going strong when we're old and feeble.

[enfpintj]

Our healthcare answer: We have high deductible policy from humana. 8K deductible for about $260/month for me ,dh 42 and 2 kids. annual checkups are covered,nothing else until 8K is hit. So to get this low monthly premium we will always have money for the deductible, though several years of paying the full thing would hurt us. I would probably then get a part time job with insurance. or we'll see what happens with healthcare here. Though we've been questioning the ethics of using any healthcare aid since we have voluntarily decided to not work. We'll keep talking about that.

Someone else mentioned something about a part time job. When we got involved in a simplicity group related to YMOYL ( Your money or your life), we found people who were working part time jobs with insurance. We needed to see others doing different things with their lives for us to realize we could too. For a long time that was our plan, 2 part-time jobs, then 1 part-time job with insurance. Then we found the cheaper healthcare and my dh created the mondo spreadsheet. So, now we are no jobs. if I ever make any money from writing or whatever, it'll be extra cushion/travel money. It really helps to see what others are doing.

An answer to the no pension question. I'm glad we have a small 25% pension 20 years from now( it is not 65-85% of his highest salary like most pensions people get after working 20+ years, only 25% since he worked 13 years) , but I don't feel lucky to have it. DH worked extremely hard and missed out on the majority of his childrens' early childhood. He also worked hard to get his master's at night before we married to get the job that had the pension. So lots of planning and hard work, but no luck.

Having that pension lets us spend down the retirement money we have saved and some proceeds from the sale of the house. Given we live on very little, we have figured out that we would only need to bring in about $10k/year and stretch our savings to not even need the pension, such that it is. Or he could have worked another 15 years and retired at 55 which is still early. With that savings the pension would have not mattered either. So as I see it, the no pension issue means more savings or live on less and bring in something every year to offset.

I love these discussions.

[enfpintj]

Originally Posted by velochic

I will have to go back to work full-time in about 10 years. Dh is older than me and he may want to retire in 11 years, at 65. For me the bottom line is health care. I will need health care for another 10 or so years. If dh decides to retire at 65, I will have to find a job that provides health care to me.

So my question to those that are retiring early... how do you manage to afford health care???? That's the single issue with us.

When my dh left his state job (of which universities are a part here in the states) he was offered the choice of keeping our then health ins. We didn't because retiree ins. was the full price which was $800 for our family. Are you sure you won't be covered under your dh's insurance?

[velochic]

Originally Posted by enfpintj

When my dh left his state job (of which universities are a part here in the states) he was offered the choice of keeping our then health ins. We didn't because retiree ins. was the full price which was $800 for our family. Are you sure you won't be covered under your dh's insurance?

Covered, but we're not willing to pay the prices they are quoting. For all of us, it would be over $1100/month once dh is retired. That's what they are saying as of right now... who knows what it would be in 10 years. I'd rather work enough to get health insurance and not have to pay out that amount. It seems to defeat the purpose of retiring. That's why I wonder what others are doing about health insurance.

[enfpintj]

We have know way of knowing what the healthcare arena will be 10 years from now, but you could go to ehealthcare.com and check and see how much a policy would be for you and the kids or whatever combination you need with the future ages. Maybe having a ballpark figure could help. That's how we found our ins. and then went to humana's website.