Work for someone...you’ll become a serious believer in retirement, lol! I don’t plan to become a vegetable, just work at what I enjoy doing more than what I do now to provide for my family.

I love retirement-now I do what I want,when I want,totally on my own terms.
Retirement doesnt mean you stop working-at least to me it doesnt.it is another form of real freedom not the paper freedom.

I know i will get flamed for this, but Bob, regardless of his age, it financially smarter than many on here who mock him. Im hearing lots of reasons why a person cant succeed financially from people who have probably proven it in their own life. Just cause you didnt make it work, doesnt mean others cant. I am sure more people become fianacially independent following sound advice like Bob's, than by making up excuses why Bob doesnt know what he is talking about just because he is young. "Youve never seen a bad market", "You dont know what the future holds", "You only been at this ten years"....bla bla bla. Tortoise always wins the race.

Let the flaming begin

I don’t think anyone is really bashing Bob. Heck, at that age I had it all figured out too. Planned on being a multimillionaire by retirement too...then life kicked in and a couple nice crashes and I realized if I work now for another 20 or 30 years (barring no more crashes or company takeovers) then my dreams might come true. Hope Bobs dreams come true and life throws him NO curves and all his investments make 10% a year and he leaves his kids enough they never have to work a day in their lives.

I wish I had've been that financially smart at 31. I wasnt.

56 now and dont have a nest egg saved up to live off of. But do have a decent pension and peace officer's annuity that will keep me close enough to what Im currently making. Home is paid for. No other big bills.

Im retiring in 19 months. That's 30 years of service to the state of Ga.

I am sorta retired. Work sometimes and dont work more often. Don't think I would like not working at all. If the fish are biting, or I want to hunt , or need to take care of something away from home or any other reason that comes up, I don't work. Its nice to be able to put the things I want to do at the top of the list instead of the bottom like I have done most of my life. I have managed to take off the whole trapping season more often than not. A few times in the last 20 I couldn't swing it. When my kids were little I had to keep working all winter.

I figure when its my turn to die, if I have time to reflect, there will be things I regret I have no doubt. I don't think not working more will be one of them.

Good for you but I ain't working till I die unless I croak in the next 9 months. Ive worked swing shifts for the last 36 years. The day I turn 55 Im DONE

Maybe if you enjoy what you do, it doesn't seem like work?
Some reach another season in life and begin anew.

Couldn't have said it better. Full pension at 52, kept 100% of my benefits. Everyday I decide, is this going to be a play day or a work day and there's not much difference between the two.

You are right where I’ll be very soon. Nobody can really tell another person what they need for retirement. A persons vision of retiring should not be compared to someone else. Living within your means is the key to a life of freedom. Some people never go through life with a plan. No amount of advice can help people, whom live week by week.
I, for one, could have not imagined myself in the position I’m in now, as I near the end of my working career. I work for a company, that I have invested in for years, and now the payoff is treating me well.
Coonman, you can do it when the time is right. Remember that you take care of you!

Amen Mark June! It's a beautiful thing when you love your work. My goal is to go hard until at least 75, as long as I am still enjoying it. That's what will work for me, maybe not everyone else.

People are talking about a younger poster on this thread having a lot of answers. He sounds like a smart fellow but one thing I've come to realize in life is the older I get, the less I KNOW.

10% is more than optimistic.
Historical level of accepted " safe " withdraw has been 4%.

Plus, there's this thing called inflation.
Just because people are ignoring it, or downplaying it, doesn't mean it isn't there.
Or waiting to explode!
And their goes the value of your dollar.
QE, Covid Stimulus $$$$ are propping things up

It's great you are doing what you are doing, and you are way ahead of most folks.
But moderate your expectations.

Worse case, you'll do better than you thought.

Huh?

There's a reason I don't call my financial advisor for trapping advice!


"Even if you file taxes jointly, Social Security does not count both spouses’ incomes against one spouse’s earnings limit — it’s only interested in how much you make from work while receiving benefits.

In other words, if your income exceeds the cap on yearly earnings — which in 2020 is $18,240 for people who claim benefits before full retirement age — Social Security will withhold money from your retirement payments. (Full retirement age is 66 and is gradually rising to 67 over the next several years.) Regardless of how much your spouse earns, it will not affect how much is held back from your benefit.

Your spouse’s income only affects you if your spouse has taken Social Security early and you are collecting spousal benefits on his or her work record. In this case, your spouse’s earnings could trigger withholding from both his or her retirement payment and your spousal benefits."

If you have $200,000 in your account when you retire and you spend $20,000 a year you will be broke in 10 years....think of retirement that way.

Not exactly right because the money you still have in a retirement account is hopefully making money during those years. Is your "burn" rate higher than your "repalcement" rate? Yes. But your 200k is going to last longer than 10 years, unless you're in really crappy investments.

Coonman,you'll be fine if Biden wins the election-the commies will bring in basic income and you'll get a 2g cheque every month just for being an american.
And free healthcare to boot.

You need 1,000,000 in the bank to draw $40,000 @ 4% is what I teach our children.
They usually say, "$40,000?" What's that buy?

Well then, start early, save more often I guess.

Rob, I have a quick and dirty plan to accelerate our retirements.
It will likely involve that Smith and Wesson from the winter meeting a few years ago..

Zim

^ true!!
joker jo u won't have to buy anything he will flip the bill. You will even be able to go to college for free, free health care a guy will have it made.

Yes, but that also assumes no other income besides that annual rate of return. Usually (hopefully) people have more than one revenue stream after retirement. That also assumes you're never going to burn down any of that original million bucks.I suspect that many retires wouldn't die broke if their burn rate was twice as much (8%) of the 4% "replacement" rate.