I thought about putting this in the retirement thread, but that gets so bogged down in the technicalities of Medicare and RMDs and Roth conversions. I want this thread to focus on aspirations.
I have been a faithful follower of the retirement thread and learned so much from so many of you. Although dh and I don’t make anywhere near the money that a lot of you on there make, I think we’ve done it. After meeting with a couple of FAs and running through the Vanguard scenarios, I finally feel like I can exhale. We probably won’t be gifting children homes or making a big enough contribution to get a grandkid in a ritzy college, but I feel pretty confident that we have enough to take care of our needs without being a burden to the kids and even have some left to pass down.
How will you know that you’ve “made it”? Is it a dollar figure or an attitude adjustment?
For dh and I, it was all about emotions, overcoming the fear that the numbers are lying. We could have twice as much money, and that wouldn’t make a bit of difference. It’s all about getting out of our heads. We have scrimped and saved for so long; for most of our marriage one of us was supporting the other so money always has been tight. It’s difficult to let go of that thinking and believe that it’s OK to eat at the fancier restaurant or take that extra vacation.
We worked two years after we made our nut but not due to fears, just wanted to bank some extra cash to acquire a few final things and finish feathering our new home. Our FP asked us why we were still working to make sure we weren’t moving the goal posts late in the game but, if we were, she wanted to understand why so she could help us adjust our plan if necessary. She had always told us that stepping off would require a faith position in the hard work we had done but that, if we weren’t changing our objectives, we were good to go. We really didn’t need to hear that to assuage any late-stage concerns, but it reinforced that any money made after that point was truly gravy and we could freely decide when to cut our corporate ties. We also had the benefit of our son’s fully-funded 529 coming back to us penalty-free (minus taxes on the gain) in annual increments as he completed his years at the service academy, and SS was also a bonus as we didn’t count on it in our financial plan, so taking it early added to our cushion.
I think because I started planning for retirement from the first day of my first job out of college, I looked forward to the end of my corporate life with excitement and jumped off the carousel happily and without fear. I don’t think of it as having “made it,” just having accomplished a lifelong goal that I’m now free to enjoy.
Drawing from that hard-earned pile is why we built it in the first place, that’s what it’s there for, so no concern about using it as it was meant to be used. It’s funding the life we planned for this last stage of our lives, and we intend to enjoy it.
Congrats, @Youdon_tsay! You’ll get used to your newfound freedom and funds. Honest.
It’s not a question of option A vs option B – it’s both. You need to have adequate financial savings to support desired retirement spending. You also need to be psychologically and personally be prepared to change your life, when transitioning to retirement. Lacking either can result retirement being an unpleasant experience and/or returning back to work.
I do not need to work for financial reasons, yet continue to do so. I am not in a rush to transition to retirement. I enjoy my job most days, as it involves creative problem solving. I also work 100% remote, have a flexible schedule that is not time intensive, has little pressure, and work with a team that respects one another. If any of this changes, my attitude towards work and retirement may also change.
Instead I’ve been taking more time off for things like going on walks with dog, or general enjoyment. For example, yesterday we went on full day hike through a scenic grassy plateau trail in the mountains. I chose to go on a Thursday because it is expected to rain on the weekend and didn’t want to delay. I previously wouldn’t have prioritized this type of thing over work.
We have accumulated more assets than we had anticipated and should be able to remain comfortable financially for the rest of our lives and provide support for the rest of D’s life, even if she remains medically disabled.
We believe will have more than enough to hire whatever care we need and live comfortably in our own home or where we may wish to move to. We do gift our children and hope to help fund a 529 for any future grandkids.
H happily retired in 2012 and I’m a semi-professional volunteer in selective Boards and Foundations. H is enjoying doing the deferred maintenance of our house and hand woodworking.
Life has its ups and downs, twists and turns. My divorce was a big hit to me financially (and emotionally), and due to unforeseen job termination I had to keep two residents. For 5+ years I was very frugal and also did a complete replanning of my finance.
Fast forward 10 years later, I am exhaling. It feels good to me that I could retire any time now. I will be able to travel and buy more bags.
The funny thing is I actually enjoy my job now. It’s challenging, not too stressful, and I feel like I am making a difference.
I am very thankful that I lucked out with a good career and was able to get new job(s) after 55
I haven’t worked since the end of last November due to continued Covid related health issues. My Vanguard adviser reassured me that I don’t have to work a day in my life as long as I continue my modest lifestyle but I really miss my work which was very satisfying.
I spent a long time trying to think of the title of this thread. I don’t mean “made it” like you’ve got it made and you’re rolling in dough. I think I meant it more like made it over the hump, be that financial or emotional. I had a long text exchange with a friend who is considering retirement but whose dh isn’t ready. Their FA tells them that they can, but the dh doesn’t believe them. I really relate to that.
I’m sort of there in a different way. We aren’t near true retirement. H is retiring in a couple of months and I will in a few years, but we will both still have to work part time (at least) until Medicare. But we can have easier jobs…
But for most of my kids’ lives, money was SO tight even with both of us working full time always. I would quite literally cry every month after getting paid and paying the bills because we just couldn’t manage to save anything. If we did have a couple of decent months, something would inevitably break. We bought so little we didn’t need. We patched everything together. I’d go years without buying any clothes, and what little I did came from Goodwill. We only took kids to the doctor when absolutely necessary. We had to turn down meds because they were just too expensive to “See if they help.”
I finally got a decent raise a little before older S went to college. Just in time to fill out FASFA, yippee… But in the last few years, raises have finally been good. I feel like I can breathe. My employer switched to 2xmonth paychecks, and I realized in this last year, I don’t really need my second paycheck most of the time.
I know we should be saving more, but these last couple of years I just want to finally enjoy life a little. I like traveling, so we have gone on some nice trips - though splurging for us is comfort plus seats. I like that I can buy the kids a couple of extra things. They don’t remember the super lean years quite as well as I do, but they still do appreciate it a lot.
So yes, I do feel like I’ve made it… (though I think some CCers make in a month what I make in a year, lol)
I do feel like we’ve “made it”. I’ve successfully launched my child into adulthood, we are financially secure, and most mornings I wake up feeling happy and content with my life.
This is where we are. We are aiming to retire this year. Our advisor said we could three years ago, but DH wasn’t comfortable we had enough. Now that there is only one child left “in the nest” and she is half-way through college, he is ready. Personal and family health issues have helped him place more value on the time over the money.
The hardest thing for us is getting comfortable we have enough for unexpected large expenses without ever feeling pressure to go back to work or burden family. We aren’t aiming for a luxurious lifestyle or anything. But we now are fairly confident we have “made it.”
Our FA has been very helpful over the years in helping us to achieve our goals. H and I are still working, but we have the financial security to know that we could step away at any time if our jobs made us miserable. I still have 1 more year until I am medicare eligible. We can afford to pay for insurance for me if I stop working this next year. H is now up to 6 weeks of PTO a year and we travel and use every day of it.
D1 gets married in May and we have been doing lots of home remodeling which we have been paying for from current salaries in addition to increasing our savings.
H and I are just finishing our 5th ski/road trip in the last 5 years. We started doing these since we love to ski and did not want to wait until retired in case our health did not allow us to do this. We both feel that life is good for us and we are enjoying this stage.
Yes, we have made it (with hearty encouragement from he FA)…. even though we worried a lot along the way that the original pension predictions didn’t pan out. Nonetheless we still struggled a lot emotionally with mindset of transitioning from Big Savers into asset depletion mode. The FA assured us that those feelings are very common.
To get to where we are required a lot of decades of very simple living—we had very low income and worked hard to live within it. We still live below our now much higher income, but feel OK about treating ourselves & splurging and gifting the kids.
Not yet but there is a light at the end of the tunnel (and it is not the train coming).
H had a high paying, high stress job. During those years, the money was excellent but his health was getting poorer and poorer. One day, (in his mid 50’s), he asked if it was OK with me if he could quit that job. I have held a steady, moderately paid job and we have only one child.
I said yes. He quit the next week. He later told me that he believed he could have had a heart attack or a stroke had he lasted much longer on the job.
He works part time now, happy and in good health. No need for any medication including a blood pressure med.
Our house was paid off before he quit that job. My kid graduated. I am going to retire at the end of 2025 when I will maximize my pension. I will also have retiree’s health insurance for us.
We have always lived below our means and saved aggressively. I think we are good. I am counting down each month.
We were very fortunate—H loved his job enough to stay there with same general employer for 45 years. He got some raises and promotions along the way. As we were starting to plan retirement, his office was taken over by another federal division for payroll processing, so his salary was increased to match the counterparts in the new division. Also around that time, US Senator Akaka from Hawaii finally got the legislation he had fought for throughout his career passed, helping HI workers have their pensions on better parity with continental US counterparts. Both of these things made a huge difference for H’s pension and our subsequent ability to be more confident we would be financially OK after H retired.
We count our lucky stars that things lined up as they did and that H mostly enjoyed his job.
We feel that we’ve made it. We had a number of years when money was really tight, and we had a setback when D’s company froze his pension at a level well below what he had been told that it would be at retirement. Fortunately, living below our means allowed us to muddle through everything & come out just fine. I retired 5 years before I had planned to retire, and I worried at first . Once I understood that the difference between me retiring at that time & me working another 5 years wasn’t the difference between being poor & being rich, I realized that we have made it to the point where retirement is affordable for us. We definitely aren’t rolling in the dough, but we are able to afford the things that we want to do or to purchase.
Me neither. My youngest son would likely tell me I’m an idiot, and to spend more money, but we’re not there yet. Don’t know exactly when we will be, if ever.
And honestly it’s good to know where you’re at. We do know people that over-optimistically retired too soon and regretted it.