I keep saying the same thing to my husband??
^^I kept saying this to my husband, but he decided to take on a small project that might lead to forced retirement in a year or so! 
I will continue bringing home the dough for as long as I can (and stash away that $25k in my 401(k) and bump it up to $26k next year and so on).
The vast majority of people arenāt good at market timing. Thatās why you should be in the market according to your personal timeframe and risk tolerance.
Iām retired but still have a heavy weight in equities. Knock on wood, Iām going to be living several more decades. Even when retired, at least a chunk of oneās money has a long term time horizon. Nobody welcomes a down turn but I can weather a down turn. But, thatās a personal call each investor needs to make for themselves.
Just to clarify - market fluctuations due to this and that (been there through dot com bust and RE crash) worry me much less than the possibility of us being involved in yet another prolonged military conflict. That would kill the economy and bring on gloom and doomā¦
As they say in the investment world, past performance may not be indicative of future results, however historically the stock market has performed well in periods of wartime due to an expanded economy through increased government spending, despite uncertainty that comes with war.
Just a few articles addressing the phenomenon.
https://www.barrons.com/articles/war-is-hellbut-not-for-the-stock-market-1492702379
There is a big common denominator - all those wars were fought elsewhere, not on the American soil. I have a bad feeling that if the US gets tangled up in a new military conflict, there could be casualties or war acts on the American soil. It took a while for the economy to rebound from 9/11, so imagine a worse scenarioā¦ a dirty bomb, a power grid attack, etc. This is what is frightening. The more technologically advanced we are, the more vulnerabilities there are.
Not to mention severe climate change issues. I eat my imported fruit, chocolates, ice creams etc and imagine a future where we are eating soylent green, cornmeal mush and foraged greensā¦ Scary thoughtsā¦
^^ Foraged greensā¦ starting to be happy that I am so bad at clearing dandelions from my lawn! ???
Man this thread has taken a dark turn.
Cornmeal mush and foraged greens? Probably better than my cookingā¦
DH (7 years older) really seems to enjoy retirement. I will definitely NOT work another 7 years 
After he gets to 65/Medicare next year, I might join him. Butā¦ psychologically it is will be really hard to switch mindset from Save-mode to Deplete-mode.
@colorado_mom we have the same problem. Canāt get into deplete mode.
Not on deplete mode here either. But, do I need to be?
My H has reached a point where he is over his job and ready to retire. Itās not going to happen but we can take more time to travel and get away from the day to day stressing he feels. I just need to make the plans.
I think we have plenty saved and even once he stops working a good chunk of our income will continue as itās from a passive source( though he actively manages the assets). My concern is if Ca experiences huge losses in a major earthquake it could have an effect on our income.
We have not had group health insurance for over 30 years so high premiums and high deductibles have always been a part of our budget. We both have a number of years before qualifying for Medicare.
We meet with our financial advisor on Monday to discuss the options. Iām already retired, but I have two untapped IRA accounts. I have a pension. DH is not yet retired, but wants to have a āwhen is it OKā plan. He will collect SS, and has two IRAs as well. He has no pension.
It will be interesting to see their analysis of our finances.
We had to send them everything including our debt load (car loan payment of $290 a month).
Iāll report back on Monday night.
āNot on deplete mode here either. But, do I need to be?ā - I depends on your situation. The more pension you have, the less youāll be relying on savings.
There is no ONE answer. So much depends on individual current and future income (pension, SS, ira, rental, etc) l and expenses.
H retired in 2012. We mostly are not depleting anything here either.
If you retired recently, it can be difficult to withdraw enough to exceed the gains in your portfolio during this long-running bull market. My personal view is thatās not likely to continue (āwhatās not sustainable wonāt be sustainedā), but Iād love to be proven wrong.
" it can be difficult to withdraw enough to exceed the gains in your portfolio during this long-running bull market" - Ha, well it depends on size of savings and how long you think it will run. For long term retirement plans, you need to be ready for all scenarios.
We met with the retirement/financial planner yesterday. Good meeting. They will be preparing several options for usā¦retire one year from now, two years, four years. DH thinks itās well worth the cost to have them crunch these numbers for us. I think we could do it ourselvesā¦but he is the one getting retirement options now.