hrdtoflw
Be very careful, if your job and retirement are both invested in one company.
Kodak. Enron. Sears. If the company goes south you lose both your job and your portfolio. No matter how great the company was or is.
As always, the "when to retire" thread is both somewhat informative and somewhat humorous.
I hope you all get it right and have the time of your life in your later years, no matter if you want to work till you die or quit when you're 50.
The sh^ts of it is we don't know when our "later" years are or our last day is.
If we did,retirement planning would be pretty simple.

I went at 55, wife at 52... never looked back... we have state benefits from her being a teacher. Our assets have grown nicely actually. I think the key is being debt free, we have no mortgage or car payments and all college education is behind us... We use CC's all the time, but pay off monthly for no finance charges and get the points...
We're pretty "middle class" IMO... it can be done.

i would love to go out earlier, but will try for 60. A man has to have some toys for retirement. If I get debt free sooner, I'm gone. Life is too short to spent it working, if you don't need to.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I'm 36 and I put a little back for retirement, my wife is a nurse and she is 32 and I have her putting 20% into her retirement. But we enjoy life now, we always take at least one good family vacation, I bought a place in Ohio and go there several times a year hunting, I also have 800 acres leased in Illinois and spend several weeks a year hunting it. I just want to enjoy life now while the kids still like doing things with us and we feel good. I've saw several people not enjoy anything while they were young and save all there money only to not feel like doing anything when they retire or die soon after. I guess its all how each person wants to live their life. I know I could put a lot more money away now but I'm enjoying everyday

A nice retirement community starts around 5k a month and goes up sharply, especially if you require assistance.

Go walk around a nice place. Then go walk around a Medicaid funded nursing home.

How much to save for retirement can at least partially be answered by how many years you want to be able to stay in a private funded retirement community before getting dumped into a Medicaid funded nursing home.

To me this is just a disgusting practice in general, for several reasons. Welfare at its worst.

I’m going at 65 got just under 3 years.got everything almost paid off except the house and there’s no way I can get that paid off unless I Used my 401 k money.We have one house we’re going to sell next year and should net around 70-75 k I’m thinking I might use that money to pay down our house which is 143,000 and refinance the balance for a long term small payment.I think not drawing down the 401 k to pay the balance would be best as half my 401k draw down of 4% will make the payment.What do you guys think.

One of the guys I worked with had said. " You don't make living, you live on what you make." He got cancer and died before he could retire.

I have 10 more years with the company to have 30 years and I’ll be 60 years old. The only expenses I will have (barring some catastrophic event) will be your basic monthly bills. I hope to retire then. I workout 6 days a week with weights and cardio and hope to continue as long as I’m alive. I have it in my living will to not do anything to save my life in the event something happens. No nursing home. Let me die and have a cookout when I’m gone. With my life insurance and retirement, my family will live very well when I pass. Death doesn’t bother me as much as where I die. I’ve always told them I hope it’s in the woods, and if it is to check the gun or bow and make sure an empty bullet isn’t in the chamber or that all arrows are accounted for. If not they better find the critter before removing my body! I plan on having a little fun after retirement, lol.

Used to say it was Sunday if I looked in the driveway and the big newpaper was there. Dont take the paper now.

I am not sure how much it will take either. I am now almost 40 and don’t have much in savings. My 401k looks good but not enough to live on. If I make it to 60 my plans are to have everything paid off and buy a good sized boat to live on traveling down the Mississippi River for the cold months and back north when it’s warm. Probably just a dream. I will not work full time after 60 if I can help it. Insurance is the biggest factor

Most states use about 25-30% of their budgets for their share of Medicaid. Typically, about 30% of a state's Medicaid budget goes for nursing home care.

I've never considered myself a big spender, only have owned 1 new vehicle in my life, my wife's 2003 Honda van that I'm now driving but I must be doing something wrong compared to some of you guys. Then again, I came to my real profession fairly late and didn't make much money in my 20s and 30s. Probably bought too big a house when we built this one in 2008 but I've enjoyed it here. On paper, I think our retirement funding is doing well but as of now we live check-to-check. My wife's 57 and has been a RN for 32 years but made the mistake of renting instead of buying a home in her earlier nursing days. Her 1st husband mooched off of her until they got divorced. We've been married for 22 1/2 years, first kid started college this fall but is living at home, second kid wants to do Army before going to school. He's a hs senior. Trying to get the wife to make it as a RN for another 5 years but she's pretty gimped up from multiple issues.

I had a cop friend in the old neighborhood who asked me, "when can she retire?" (city workers know exactly when they can retire!). I said, "when she thinks she's financially able to." It was foreign concept to the cop, his magic number was "75" (50 years of age, 25 years of service) but I heard he had to do another couple because of the great recession and he still works part time for the cops after retiring (that's sort of a racket here, local and state people pulling their retirement from those governments but coming back and working part-time sometimes in the same jobs as before). Big difference too if a person enters federal service in their 20s or in their 40s.

I plan to retire at the end of 2025, seems like a nice round number and I'll be 63, the wife 64. I still want to get some things done at work that I think should be done and if nothing else, I want to see how my section fairs after all the old guard SOBs who have ruled the place are gone in another 3 years or so. I'd also like to get the last advancement that I can probably achieve and then turn around and give the whole organization the double bird within a year or so. Everybody has their own reasons for how long they stay "working" for someone else and when they walk out the door and "work" for themselves until they can't anymore. So it goes...

Get out as soon as you can.I built up my pension by working lots of overtime the last 5 years I worked.My pension wound up as the same as my regular wage when working,and I was able to retire at 56,a year earlier than if I hadn't built up the pension thru the extra hours.

Most young people don't think about pensions and retirement,but when you are young is the time to salt away whatever you can by taking on extra work to build up your retirement fund.This will allow you to retire early with a decent income and you can do whatever you want whenever you want for a good number of years before father time catches up with you.After 5 years of retirement,I felt a lot better physically than I did my last 5 years of working.A lot of the joint pain has disappeared.

I drive 2 hrs. a day on a state highway that averages 6 fatalities a year. Heart disease runs heavy in my family, even though I'm fit and healthy, I have worked in factories since I was 18 being exposed to all sorts of "by products". At 45 I'd like to think I'll retire in 10 to 15 years, but who am I kidding ? Right ? I try to enjoy every minute of life with the people I still have with me, not pine away for some glory day fantasy of not going to work any more .

When my wife wants to buy something we really dont need I tell her to picture the item next to the cash money it costs, then deside which to pick up and go home with.

It depends on the life style. If you want to run the world and see everything, you better have had a good job with benefits with a wife working and have the same good benefits. Have a summer home, two new cars every few years. But if you own your home, and have a retirement plan from work. Have a health plan that helps pay your insurance. Item you can not get away from are taxes, light bill, food.
A lot depend where you live. If you live in the city you get stuck with other bill you can not get rid of. I retire when I was 56. I never look back.

I just started working my career, but am already dreaming of retiring. I worked my way through college, and with about 50% help from my parents (one of the greatest gifts I could get), I came out debt free with considerable savings. I was able to pay for my wedding and finance a home and some land. Wife is going to grad school, so when she gets out she should make decent money. Between personal contributions and a very generous employer match I'm contributing about 25% to retirement, and payingfor extra 10% on my mortgage. We live a very modest life, but we're comfortable and enjoy ourselves. No tv, spend our weekends working on our house, and working my new pup to be a bird dog. Goal is to have my 20 year note gone at 35. I'm 22 now. When the wife gets out and starts working we'll feel like we're rolling in money after living on one income for so long.

I have decided that saving my first million dollars is too difficult. So I will just start on the second million now. Lol!

Smart man here.

I didnt come into my career until my late 20's Before then I spent every dime I made and then some,but once I had a different job I started saving/investing. Due to some unforeseen events 1/2 of what we had put back is now gone. The plan was to retire as soon as I have in my 20 years, I have 3-4 years left till then. I drive an old truck, dont buy new extravagant things ,but do enjoy a treat now and then. We are down sizing the house right now. I can work longer if I would like because my pension does not max out at 20 years. I plan to work another job where I could get in 9 more years of paying into some type of retirement and downsize even more. OR I could hang it out where Im at and contribute more to the pension I already have. The down side to staying where Im at is the job is physically and mentally draining. The up side is I cant go anywhere else,start over, and make what I do now.I currently have several weeks of vacation, only work 36 hours a week,and have access to almost unlimited OT. We plan on and want to just live as simply as we can so we can afford to do things when we want.

The only down side to retirement now is heath insurance. Retiree insurance is ok but still expensive. I cant find anything on the market that is or will be any cheaper. Medicare right now dont kick in till you are 65 and you still need supplemental insurance.