Retirement

saracelica

saracelica

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saracelica
Talking with hubs about retirement. We're doing old school... Figuring we won't crack the golden egg but take payments from it. Got me wondering what other pilot folks are doing? Is automation going to take over and going to be like star trek where money isn't an issue?
 
I'd love to retire soon, but will probably have to work until I drop dead.

But seriously, the wife and I need to work on our strategy this summer. That and a will. I have a decent 401(k) we will draw from...someday.
 
Do a bottoms up estimate of what your monthly needs are. See if your income from a pension or SS will cover your basic need. If not, you will have to make that up somehow through part-time work or drawing off your 401K or IRAs/investments. Most common approach is to assume you take 4% a year from the nest egg, bump it by 3-4% a year to account for inflation, assume a 5-6% annual return (made up of 60% equities/ 40% bonds), and see how long it will last. Easy to build a excel spreadsheet to run out the numbers. Most people fall down in doing a good bottom up estimate. I tracked expenses for a year before convincing myself I could retire. Top level approach is assume you will need 70-80% of your current gross income. That always seemed high to me if you have no or little debt.
 
I like what I do too much to retire. I'll keep at it as long as my health allows.
 
Rcmutz said:
Do a bottoms up estimate of what your monthly needs are. See if your income from a pension or SS will cover your basic need. If not, you will have to make that up somehow through part-time work or drawing off your 401K or IRAs/investments. Most common approach is to assume you take 4% a year from the nest egg, bump it by 3-4% a year to account for inflation, assume a 5-6% annual return (made up of 60% equities/ 40% bonds), and see how long it will last. Easy to build a excel spreadsheet to run out the numbers. Most people fall down in doing a good bottom up estimate. I tracked expenses for a year before convincing myself I could retire. Top level approach is assume you will need 70-80% of your current gross income. That always seemed high to me if you have no or little debt.
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Great advice. I made just such a spreadsheet last month, playing with different starting balances, draw downs and ROI rates. I figure we can live comfortably on 50% of what we're now bringing in. If I can reach the higher target balance for the "nest egg", we could milk it for 20 years. I have about 12 years to get there. Just don't know if I want to work that much longer.
 
I worked with a general surgeon once who told me with excitement that he had come up with a new retirement plan; he said he planned to keel over dead one day at work!

I wonder / fear what the growing national debt and growing demands for governmental redistribution of private income and assets will bring to this country.
 
If I time it right, I'll die old and broke.
If I die early, then I'll die while spending a lot of money.
 
Hopefully ,I planned well enough,that I can afford my airplane/flying,with enough money,untill I can't fly do to medical reasons.
 
I'm a retired Army Lt Col. Been working in civilian sector since a week prior to my official Army retirement. Wife works as a school teacher. Current employer has been pretty good to me with stock options and stock purchase plan. I have a 401k as does wife (teacher retirement in two states we are trying to tie together). Neither of us are eligible for full SS until age 67. My financial guy is trying to convince me I have enough to retire whenever I want. I still have one kid in college for two more years and two weddings to pay for (already funded through long ago established college/wedding savings accounts) before I will begin to feel safe retiring. I am hoping I can pull the trigger on retirement by age 58. I'm 53 and change right now.

I'm not sure I'll ever feel really comfortable enough to retire. Few folks I ever talk to ever are. Eventually, everyone just has to take the plunge and find out. Even in "retirement" I expect I will still work part time at something I enjoy.
 
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Retired 19 years ago and fortunate to have a good pension that covers all basic living expenses. Now I get RMD's from my two IRA's and Social security for all my extravagances like travel, grandkids, flying, skiing 10 weeks a year, building a Fokker D-VIII and a Onex, golf and generally goofing off.

Cheers
 
N659HB said:
Great advice. I made just such a spreadsheet last month, playing with different starting balances, draw downs and ROI rates. I figure we can live comfortably on 50% of what we're now bringing in. If I can reach the higher target balance for the "nest egg", we could milk it for 20 years. I have about 12 years to get there. Just don't know if I want to work that much longer.
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In addition to doing the spreadsheet budget, try a retirement planning calculator. Here's my favorite:

http://www.marketwatch.com/retirement/tools/retirement-planning-calculator?showsmscrim=true
 
I have a pension from the Air Force plus myself and wife's SS. Been retired almost 3 years from the airlines and haven't touched IRAs & 401K (moved into IRAs). I don't pay union dues anymore, don't save for retirement anymore, no health care premiums (pay for Medicare Part B & dental), no commute expenses, taxes less, etc. Living comfortably and don't expect to hit the IRAs until I have to at 70 1/2. So factor things you don't pay any longer as when you were working and you may be closer to retirement than you think.
 
Xscaliber said:
I'm 67 going on 68....what's this word "Retirement" you speak of ?
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I retired from the auto industry about 4 years ago.

A full time gig at a local university fills the income gap, but I don't get as much time off as I used to get.
 
My wife and I are hoping to retire when I'm 60...give ourselves the chance to spend time together alone. ;)

We're going to have to downsize quite a bit, and probably no airplanes ( :( ), but some residual income, tapping slightly into IRA/401k, and maybe some seasonal work should take us to Social Security age, which hopefully will provide a little more. ;)
 
I retired last June. My wife retires the end of June this year. Between SS, her pension (teacher), my 401k, her 403b and other investments we're set. I'm consulting to raise extra income as I'm still active in national and international standards committees, and the travel adds up. I'll do this for about another 6 years and then probably pull the plug. In the meantime we're traveling as much as we want. Following the advice my mom's parents gave Mom and Dad when they retired - travel while you have your health.
 
My 401K has been seeing negative growth for the last two years. I probably should be managing it more actively than relying on the company's portfolio of funds. Mobutu that said, I have no desire to work (at this job anyway) until I kick the bucket. I'm looking at rental properties that will fund themselves until end of mortgage, then hopefully I can draw on the income or sell the properties to fund my retirement.
 
rtk11 said:
My 401K has been seeing negative growth for the last two years. I probably should be managing it more actively than relying on the company's portfolio of funds. Mobutu that said, I have no desire to work (at this job anyway) until I kick the bucket. I'm looking at rental properties that will fund themselves until end of mortgage, then hopefully I can draw on the income or sell the properties to fund my retirement.
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Easier to invest in these types of companies. Not that they're doing much yet, their stock is stubbornly flat, but there's interesting things in the 10K. It's a "Booming" industry. (If you see what I did there.)

https://www.nyse.com/quote/XNYS:BKD

Here's a list you can use for research.

http://www.seniorliving.org/basics/corporateseniorcare/

Their profits only seem to be limited by Medicare rules. Someone could buy off some politicians and make them really profitable. Or make them crash.

Caveat emptor.
 
Had a semi-forced retirement at age 60. Company offered very lucrative early retirement packages so I ended up taking it. There would be layoffs after, with not so good packages.

Worked the budget to make the money last until I hit 62, took my SS and have not looked back.

Only regret was not getting the mortgage paid off, but it's worked out. Cost of health insurance can be a big consideration.
 
I have worked for myself since I was 18. I am 51 now and have my first child due in June.

I am not too sure what retirement is going to look like for my wife and I. She is much younger than I.

Over the years I have bought and paid for quite a portfolio of commercial, residential and multi-family properties. I have a monthly income goal set for myself to begin 'thinking' about retiring...I am about 80% of the way there. I have an Simple IRA that I am not even using in my calculations...but it is there...I'll decide when to draw on it and my SS later on...my goal is for neither of these to be a factor in my retirement financial planning picture.

I should be OK to live a decent lifestyle, fly a plane and travel...no telling what it is gonna cost to raise my son. That'll probably keep me working right on...

My wife needs about 13 years to retire from her job...she will be good with or without me...my goal is to have her be good with me!!
 
A word on Social Security...when the Government keeps telling you to delay taking it you should consider who's interest they are protecting. If you do not plan to work then there is no offset, if you do work then wait until the offset goes away at your full retirement age. I suggest everyone build a chart, put your age across the bottom starting at 62. The first line starts at 62 and has a slope of your monthly benefits. Start a new line each year with the corresponding benefit. I found that if I wait until full retirement age to start collecting, I will have to live to 87 before I start collecting more money than if I started at age 62. I plan to spend it when I'm young and not be so active when I'm 87. YMMV.
 
I retired three years ago. And when I say retired, I don't mean retired but still working. There are a couple of things. First of all, you can sit down and figure out what it is going to cost you to live when you retire using any formula that you want, but when you actually retire you are going to find out that before you retired you had no idea what your expenses were going to be after you retired. The nice thing about it is that I did a lot of planning before I quit working, and I found out over time that I spend less in retirement than I thought that I would, but I sure thought that I had it figured out beforehand. The second thing, and this is what I did after the first year of just winging it, is my wife and I sat down and budgeted our spending, then stayed within our budget. Again, the last two years it hasn't seemed like we are doing without in order to stay within our budget. That is probably because when we made the budget there was nothing in our budget about doing without. But it is important to know what is coming in and what is going out, and at what rate it is coming in and going out, and a budget gives you a handle on that. Those are the two things that I have found.
 
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Most of the "retirement calculators" just do arithmetic on numbers you put in, trying to give you a target amount you'll need to hit an income level that you also specify at an inflation rate you specify. Pretty close to garbage in, gospel out.

There is one that IMO is much better: http://esplanner.com/ The seller, Larry Kotlikoff, is a fairly hotshot economist with good credentials. Just Google him. He's not just a figuehead, either. I've talked to him on the phone; he is very engaged and passionate about the planner. The punch line is this: The planner takes all your future financial information including college expenses, inheritances, asset sales, savings rate, etc. and gives you back a projected safe spend rate for the rest of your life. It considers state & federal income taxes, required minimum distributions, social security rules, and it will even do Monte Carlo simulations/projections based on your current investment asset mix. It is not just oriented to retirement; it is more a lifetime financial planning tool. Feeding it all the data is a PITA of significance and it is not the cheapest tool around,but the results are really comprehensive and well worth it.

(I have no connection except to be a very satisfied user.)
 
There's talk of basic income kicking in once computer take jobs...don't know how long that will be though.
 
My wife and I were going to retire in 2013. Two months before we were going to pull the plug she up and died. She was already drawing Social Security, so I lost that income, but after recalculating, I retired anyway. Still working a couple days a week in an office. She worked all her life and got exactly two years of Social Security.

Clocked out at the airline, turned in my badge and ID and never looked back. I do not miss that rat race, not one bit, but I do miss the people. Some of them.

Have not had to tap the 401k or IRAs yet, but that day will come. Airline bankruptcies did a job on my pension but the PBGC is buying the groceries.

It is good to be retired. 35 years was enough. And now when I go to the airport, it is for fun.
 
After the last few weeks, I have decided to outright die without any of the annoying stress that comes with adapting to retirement.
I'm ok with it.
 
Mason said:
Clocked out at the airline, turned in my badge and ID and never looked back. I do not miss that rat race, not one bit, but I do miss the people. Some of them
.
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I concur, they had a friggin' cake at 9am when I flew my last leg, and a zeroxed crap certificate that I threw away when I got home. All I wanted to do was turn in everything and nonrev home.

Sorry for you loss. Keep yourself busy man, good luck.
 
Never retire....... just stop doing the stuff that ain't fun.
 
I retired at 39, it doesn't suck. We have enough investments and property to live a decent life, kids college funds are secure. I actually just got a part time job just to stay busy and fill the tanks of my airplane. My part time gig of driving trucks is fun since I know I don't have to do it.
 
mscard88 said:
Sorry for you loss. Keep yourself busy man, good luck.
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Thank you sir. I'm doin' OK, my two sons and 4 grandchildren keep me hopping. Retiree travel benefits are a good thing, if somewhat tenuous. But I have been flying standby for a long long time. It's like flying VFR cross-country. Ya gotta be prepared for diversions, layovers, and hotel bills.
 
Luvrv8 said:
I retired at 39, it doesn't suck. We have enough investments and property to live a decent life, kids college funds are secure. I actually just got a part time job just to stay busy and fill the tanks of my airplane. My part time gig of driving trucks is fun since I know I don't have to do it.
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There is no freedom that compares to having a job that you do not need.
 
Mason said:
Thank you sir. I'm doin' OK, my two sons and 4 grandchildren keep me hopping. Retiree travel benefits are a good thing, if somewhat tenuous. But I have been flying standby for a long long time. It's like flying VFR cross-country. Ya gotta be prepared for diversions, layovers, and hotel bills.
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I still have nonrev benefit but haven't used it since I retired almost 3 years ago. I'll eventually try it, just not anxious enough yet. :D
 
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