Anyone planning to retire early? - Page 2

[Poddi]

Bumping this thread. We really want to retire early, well, for DH to retire early. I hardly ever worked yet. Before kids came along we were living cheaply and saving lots. I was hoping for 40. Having two kids changed that a lot obviously. I haven't been working for nearly 9 years, plus kids cost money. I'm now hoping for 45, that's in 9 years. Our house will be paid off by then so hopefully our expenses will be low. DH and I would like to start a home business, doing things we love that might or might not bring in much money.

We have a friend who's been pretty much retired since his late 30s. He's really enjoying life with his wife. They don't have children so that made things a lot easier. I do think it's still possible for parents to retire early, just maybe not as early as singles or childless people.

[EFmom]

I wish. We are older parents and have two kids to send to college. We have always saved for retirement and dh will have a pension, but SS is considerably better if you work till 70. (And I do think it will still be there, but not counting on it.)

We'll probably work until we are 70, or at least I will. Dh may be burned out before that if the teaching climate in the country doesn't improve.

[annethcz]

This is something we've thought about off and on.

But after reading YMOYL for about the 3rd or 4th time, it finally sank in that we're ALREADY living the good life. DH has an extremely flexible full time job that he likes and that pays relatively well. He's able to work from home at least one day a week (usually more), he's got about 30 days of PTO every year, and although he doesn't have a passion for his job, it is something that he finds intellectually stimulating and it isn't usually stressful. DH is able to volunteer and attend all of the kids' big events. He doesn't want to work forever, but his job does fit well into his life and the life of our family.

As for me, I was mostly a SAHM for the past 10 years, and now I'm working part-time. I was suprised to find that I truly enjoy working. The job I have now is something that I enjoy, and fits PERFECTLY with our family life. Prior to this I was volunteering, and I like working so much more. After being a SAHM, working makes me feel like I'm a valuable member of society (not just a valuable member of my family). And having just a little bit of work outside the home gives a routine to my days that wasn't there before.

We are saving what we can, and we are hoping that DH will be able to retire at a younger than average age. Of course, so much depends on stock market performace, but if we continue on our current course DH should be able to retire in his early 60s if not before. But I'm not feeling as strong of a pull towards early retirement these days- now that I've realized how good we have it NOW. Retirement would be great, but there's also something to be said for worthwhile employment. If we were to become suddenly weathly and have the opportunity to stop working now, I'm not sure that our days would look that much different than they do now.

[WorldsBestMom]

Well hopefully by the time I have reached the age of retirement I want to be self employed and still have income coming in.

[newbymom05]

Originally Posted by EFmom

I wish. We are older parents and have two kids to send to college. We have always saved for retirement and dh will have a pension, but SS is considerably better if you work till 70. (And I do think it will still be there, but not counting on it.)

We'll probably work until we are 70, or at least I will. Dh may be burned out before that if the teaching climate in the country doesn't improve.

We're another old couple, and I joke that DH will have to work until he's 80. I think they'll be raising the SS age to 70 in my lifetime for sure. Now if anyone will hire me at 65+ is another story...

I don't understand how retirement is possible for the majority of people, unless you're talking about living a radically simplified life, ie living in poverty. The whole concept of "retirement" is a new one--up until very recently, people worked until they couldn't. They certainly weren't globe trotting or whatever.

My DH makes a good living, we save, we live in affordable housing. But even if our mtg was totally paid, we'd still have to pay property taxes, insurance, maintenance costs. For us, not having a mtg would only save about $400 a month--that is not enough to retire on IMO. And based on our parents, we will probably live to be 80+. I can't imagine how we could possibly save enough at 55 to live off of for the next 25+ years.

And of course there's health care. My father is still working at 70 until his 61 yr old wife is old enough to get on Medicare. She has health issues and her ins is over 1K a mo. High deductible policies between 30 and 55+ are very different cost-wise. Old people fall apart, lol.

I'm going to check out the links listed because I love the idea of DH staying home and everyone relaxing, but my middle class life is simplified enough, thankyouverymuch. And it took a lot of work to get here! We plan on saving, but I don't see how one or both of us won't be working until our 60's at least.

ETA Those who plan on retiring early, do you plan to contribute towards your children's college? Debt-free degrees are v. important to us, yet another reason we'll be working forever.

[Poddi]

Well mostly I meant semi-retire. DH's job is quite stressful. I can't really see him doing that until old age. We don't plan to travel the world or take flying lessons or anything like that, we both plan to work some part-time job that's not stressful. I think that should be possible with a paid off house.

[velochic]

Originally Posted by Poddi

Well mostly I meant semi-retire. DH's job is quite stressful. I can't really see him doing that until old age. We don't plan to travel the world or take flying lessons or anything like that, we both plan to work some part-time job that's not stressful. I think that should be possible with a paid off house.

And working part-time is not an issue for you because you have socialized medicine. For a lot of Americans, as I and other have pointed out, just health insurance alone forces people to work longer or in FT jobs they don't totally enjoy. It makes a huge difference.

I know this is an old thread, but to add to my old post, some people are already loving their jobs/careers so much that it would be more hardship to quit than to continue. Staying home would be the hard thing to do. This has been the case for my father, who is well into his 70's and retired almost 20 years ago.

So, what I'm saying is that the kind of "job" dh has, for example, is probably the kind of job that many people "retire" to have. That is, quitting a job that they hate to move to a flexible, part-time job they love. I think this is why dh will never completely quit academia. Even if we move abroad as we plan, he'll still work in some way with academia.

Many people don't want to retire early because they make good money and already have the benefits that "early retirees" have - a love of what they are doing.

[sanguine_speed]

Velochic, maybe if moving abroad is a possibility for you, you could plan ahead so that you gain status enough to benefit from socialized medicine so that you are not forced to take full-time work for the health insurance.

[velochic]

Originally Posted by sanguine_speed

Velochic, maybe if moving abroad is a possibility for you, you could plan ahead so that you gain status enough to benefit from socialized medicine so that you are not forced to take full-time work for the health insurance.

That's a great point and we do think about this.

[rightkindofme]

Define "retire" and "early". My husband will never fully retire. He would do his job in his spare time if he had to do something else to earn a living. He's a computer programmer and he loves it more than he loves me--which is saying a lot.

Our house will be paid off hopefully in 12 years. I will be 40, he will be 45. At that point we will also have college educations fully funded for our kids. If we are no longer paying on the house and no longer paying into their savings that will cut about $3k/month off our expenses. That's a lot.

My husband plans to go to part-time contracting. He can make as much money in three months of part-time contracting as he currently makes in most of a year. That means that we will take a small dip in overall income but our costs will be cut in half *and* we will suddenly have a tremendous amount of time we can spend together. It'll be great! Our kids will be in their early teens and we plan to take the first year off to travel the world. If we rent out our house here it will completely pay for the trip and then some.

We are really excited and working hard towards this goal.

Oh: what will we do for health care? As an independent contractor he will be eligible to set up a corporation. With a small bit of fudging he can list me as an employee and if there is one other person as an 'employee' we can have small company healthcare. It won't be cheap, but it will be way the freak less than we would pay as individuals.

[sunnysandiegan]

Originally Posted by rightkindofme

Oh: what will we do for health care? As an independent contractor he will be eligible to set up a corporation. With a small bit of fudging he can list me as an employee and if there is one other person as an 'employee' we can have small company healthcare. It won't be cheap, but it will be way the freak less than we would pay as individuals.

My experience is quite different. My DH works for a very small firm. The group healthcare is MORE expensive than individual coverage is. Our DD costs us less than half (closer to one-third) through her individual plan than DH's company's group coverage would be for her. This was as recent as February 2010. *IF* I could be insured individually, then my healthcare would also be much cheaper for us individually versus the small group plan. DH's company pays his premium in full.

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As for the original topic, we don't have as specific of a plan as others have mentioned. We live below our means and save as much as the government allows in retirement that is available to us plus we save outside of the tax-sheltered retirement. In total, we save nearly 30% of DH's good salary every month. I saved prior to becoming a SAHM and have kept nearly all of it in savings. I worked part-time when DD was little, too, for lots of reasons. (I worked full-time most of my life prior to marriage.)

DH is a computer programmer and LOVES it. He works on this stuff even when he isn't at work (or working from home). He helps a previous boss frequently for free and is always writing code for some idea or another for his own entertainment. He solicits side jobs when we need the cash or someone needs the work done outside of his parameters.

Retirement is such an individual thing. We are enjoying life NOW and are very grateful!

[madskye]

Check out insurance through professional organizations as well.

What about income options that allow for retirement from "the workplace"--I have been investigating buying some income properties in the Catskills, where DH and I would like to retire. I have a lot more research to do, but have been playing with the idea of buying 1-2 small cabins to rent out and supplement our "retirement" income.