Crises present opportunities.
Once I amass a fortune of at least $10 million or ideally $100 million while being over 60-70 years of age Iād consider retiring.
$10 million also isnāt what it used to be due to inflation $10 million now has the same purchasing power of $1 million in the seventies.
My car, my career, my lifestyle, my medical care, my electronics, etc., would all be unrecgnizable to my grandfather, much less the founders. I like to think of it as progress.
Politics is fine, in its place, but I wouldnāt bet the ranch on it.
I can do you one better @IxnayBob - when H went to middle school to do an engineering talk, only one student knew what the object he had in his hand was - a slide rule. Hās was in the last freshman class at Milwaukee School of Engineering to learn/use (in sophomore year, they were all required to buy a TI calculator). I just tell the kids to watch the movie Apollo 13 to see it being used. H attended college 1974-1978, and he worked in test engineering; his first job was for TI facility that was building early computers (guys he knew started Compaq). The electronics capabilities during our generation have been mind-boggling.
Things are moving so fast that it now is different even in a generation or less for many things.
Many professional jobs can be done very late in life - I am curious on what the 85 YO mom is doing for work. It may be keeping her active and involved - some routines are often great for longevity.
At daily Mass, our 69 YO priest was commenting about age, but then said it got put in perspective as the male that was the altar server was 85. I was shocked that a widower in Wed night Bible Study was married in 1952 - he looks great for his age, and I see no decline in physical or mental capability.
I am not sure which generation from ours will have a higher life expectancy - pushing up to 121.
My FIL, in his mid 80s, still works and I think that stopping would be bad for him. He leads seminars and does leadership mentoring, mostly in Africa. MIL, somewhat younger, just got her PhD from UCSB. Why? Because she could.
Think young and therefore stay young! Great about PhD - that is a real achievement no matter the age.
Anyone else feeling a little battle scared when looking at their portfolio after the past 2 weeks? X_X
@doschicos, I use Quicken, which updates everything daily. On the front page, thereās a net worth today and 1 year ago. As long as the delta is positive, Iām relaxed. It got briefly negative some months ago, but I try not to sweat it. It makes me more at peace with DW continuing to work ā thereās always a silver lining. :))
What software do you folks recommend for modelling options in the retirement years?
For asset/savings tracking DH has a very elaborate Excel spreadsheet. It does a nice job summarizing our assets. Iād like to investigate software that helps us model the retirement income/spend-down picture. Weāve recently been viewing nice charts via the free consultant service (workplace benefit). But weād like to tinker more on our own too.
If your H is handy with Excel, check if Oracle still offers a free trial of their Crystal Ball for Excel. It is an easy to use Monte Carlo simulator.
On the Bogleheads.org forum, this is one of the frequently referenced calculators.
I decided to pay for the ESPlanner software. It was about $200, I think. We had relied on Vanguard giving us a free financial plan every year, but they stopped in 2015.
I like FireCalc ( http://www.firecalc.com/ ).
It lets you construct fairly detailed income and spending models (if you want, you can use very simple assumptions as well) and then runs simulations against actual market conditions going back as far as the 1870s. You come out with a percentage of how often your money would have lasted for the duration of your retirement.
I am not as confident about comparing situations now to any past situations dating back to 1870.
I think the economic situation today is different than any situation in the past 150 years.
For example, central banks are playing with negative interest rates. Who the heck knows how this is going to work out? The central banks donāt even know. 
I read things about the financial markets like thisā¦āin the last 100 years, this situation only came up 9 times and the market behaved positively 8 timesā. When I read stuff like this, I think, is 9 times really enough to come to conclusions on how markets behave?
For a while, people were talking about the Super Bowl indicator. If a team formerly from thr NFL won, the stock market would rise for the year. If a former AFL team won, the stock market would drop. I thnk this indicator had over an 80 percent success rate in predicting the stock market. But did this indicator really predict stock prices?
I do like FireCalc. I donāt think I am going to be as wealthy as some of their calculations predict. 
^ All true, but we have faced a pretty large variety of economic circumstances over the last 100 years. While conditions today are not exactly like any we have faced in the past, are they going to be radically different over the next 30 years?
Maybe, maybe notā¦ the economy and stock markets go in cycles, and I think using data for simulation that reflects those cycles has value, in a way that Monte Carlo simulation canāt provide.
Thatās not to say Monte Carlo has no value, of course.
FireCalc has a lot of knobs to twiddle as well, which I havenāt seen in other calculators (not that Iāve exhaustively tried them allā¦) For example you can add in lump sums at various points, such as you might get by downsizing or getting an inheritance, you can program in SS and pensions to start at specific times, you can simulate with randomly performing portfolios where you set the average return and variance (closer to a Monte Carlo-type model), you can specify your portfolio to have specific asset allocations, use varying inflation adjustments, you can give an amount you want to have left to provide as an inheritance, you can even twiddle the fees mutual funds charge.
Itās almost too complicated. 
Yes. Situations can be radically different in 30 years.
For one thing, I could be dead. That would be radically different for me.
+100 for ESPlanner. it is worth every penny.
@doschicos your comment about the last two weeks had me check our 401k again. I had checked our account during and through first quarter, and the hit from the first few weeks of 2016 pretty much recovered even though the quarter said still down for the quarter (our money recovered to end of 2015 statement). Our account from April 1 to today says down 0.66% but is up a few thousand in comparison to end of 2015 (plus a few thousand contribution and company match). Our mutual funds are 66% large cap stock-growth, and 34% small cap stock-blend. I have totally gotten out of international, and wish I had done so before 2014 because it beat up my 2014 gains.
It sounds like you need to feel more assurance with your investments so you can SWAN (sleep well at night).
I hope to be around in 30 years too @dstark - that definitely would be a radical change.
Nah, I still sleep well at night. Some evenings I just choose not to look at my portfolio. Iām a little overweighted in a few sectors that have taken a bigger hit lately but Iām not in a squeeze. But it has been a few weeks of more down days than up days all around. Iām done with one tuition payment so that feels good!
I am done with two tuition payments now, if all goes well (one kid just finally submitted his grad application).
I think I just need to plan to work foreverā¦
Anyone want to take a guess - If I will get a pension of 35% or more of my salary, and I hope to be close to paying off my mortgage, is there some number of x my salary thatās likely to be enough for retirement? I have probably been too conservative with my retirement funds over time. And it seems like whenever I decide to be less conservative, we have a downturn.
But Iām much better off than MANY, and I am thankful every day.