<p>I want to be a bum…ASAP</p>
<p>I figured out that I need roughly 45% of my current income, if that. Currently 33% of my pay goes to a 401(3)(b), roughly 12% in taxes and ssi, $6500 to Roth IRAs, and a bunch for the kids’ school stuff. Virtually none of this will come out when I retire. State provides defined benefit plan, and then there is Social Security, and the money in the retirement accounts. And if I live half the year in India, as I hope, (where it costs me roughly $3.50 a day for everything), I should have plenty to give away. </p>
<p>Of course, my wife is finishing up her nursing degree, and I have about 6-7 more books to write. </p>
<p>I wish it were tomorrow. We have lots of folks who come back to work part-time at my workplace, but me - they’d never see my face again.</p>
<p>LTS, I also have the same fantasy about meeting someone wonderful and getting married and traveling and playing, but in my fantasy Mr. Wonderful is also Mr. Filthy Rich and we don’t have to worry about the money. I already tried being married to Mr. Always Broke and it didn’t work out so well. </p>
<p>Garland, I notice in your post about what you would love to do, you wrote “My H and I…” My point is that travel, walking, biking, cooking, etc. are not much fun for one person to do by herself. OK, I do admit that my dog is very good company on the walking thing. But while I can of course hang out from time to time with friends, they all have their own lives and families, and most of my opportunities for “fun” or for meeting new people seem to come in one way or another through work. I just can’t see “retiring” as a single person - though I agree with tsdad about the “retirement job” – I think I already have that, though. I “retired” from practicing law 10 years ago precisely because I was sick of the anger and stress. There probably is no thing as 100% stress free work, but I now have a work-from-home job which generally is conflict-free and involves getting paid for a lot of things that used to fit into the “goofing off” category. (My career change kind of started with the thought, “I spend so much time playing on the internet, it’s a shame I don’t get paid for it…” followed by the lightbulb going off in my head…) But as a self-employed lawyer I wasn’t making much money at the law thing either - the income came in spurts, with the good years offset by the relentless high overhead during the bad years. So for me it was never about the money. </p>
<p>I think I just have the attitude that I’ve always managed somehow, and I assume that I will always be able to manage in the future, one way or another. I also have a fantasy where I join the peace corps at around age 70… so I guess my real retirement plan is my flexibility and willingness to live cheap. One of my favorite fantasies is the one where I manage to somehow rid my house of all the clutter and all the stupid <em>possessions</em> (books, pictures, trinkets) so that all my belongings can be easily moved from place to place, and I travel and work at the same time, going wherever I want as long as there’s a good wireless connection. So far the world seems to be cooperating with the wireless connectivity thing.</p>
<p>If you want to earn money without really working for it…send me five dollars and I will share my secret…lol</p>
<p>I don’t want to retire, I might like to sell lemonade by a nice beach someday for a month. I took my retirement from 1969 - 1975, when I was younger, healthier and foolish enough to enjoy it.</p>
<p>Calmom–I certainly didn’t mean to imply that this way was the only way. I just didn’t agree with the idea that no work means dottering old age and endless crocheting.</p>
<p>I can’t prove it, of course, but if I were single, I believe these things would still be my priorities. I have a lot of single friends and family members, and I see them living full lives, and think I would spend time with them. but truthfully, many of the things I listed I am very happy to do by myself, but then I’ve always had a loner streak (it actually runs in my family). My mom was widowed at 43, and never felt the need of a partner; now retired, she is much more healthy and relaxed than she was when she was working a very stressful job.</p>
<p>There are two ways to get rich–make more money or need a lot less. We are about six months away from going the latter route to semi-retirement. We had a sale today–sold some of our stuff. In another six months, the rest will be gone and so will the house. The 34-foot Bounder motorhome is already in the driveway. My husband will quit his job (and be a lot less harrassed!) as of Dec 31 and start drawing SS early in Jan. Between that and a small pension from an earlier job, he’ll bring in about three-quarters of what he brought in before. I’ll keep working via e-mail as I’ve done for the last 17 years. We’ll have a sat dish on the road. He’ll camp-host when he feels like it. I’ll pay for health insurance. He’s a few years away from Medicare. I’m WAY far away from it.</p>
<p>It’s all in how you look at it. We could “need” a lot more money and tell ourselves we can’t afford to take off now or ever. Or we can just go. Most people we know think we’re crazy. We’re going to just go and live modestly, not on constant vacation but full-timing in our Bounder–and we’re VERY grateful to our son for getting that nice scholarship so we can do this without feeling guilty!</p>
<p>I plan on working until my health fails me, partly to pay off my kids’ college expenses, and partly because I love “working for money” - coming into lots of money will put a severe damper on my life.Currently, I have the added benefit of enjoying my work but in later years, any decent job will do, as long as I can “work for money”.</p>
<p>From my calculations, my husband and I should fare well, as our retirement funds should provide a good source of income from our late 60s. If we continue on a similar earning path, we should be done paying off for both kids’ college education and our home by that time too. Any social security benefits we receive will provide the extra fun of spoiling the grand kids, if we are lucky to have some.</p>
<p>Cytmom–that sounds like big fun!</p>
<p>I am also of the “want less” camp, and our plan is land in a rural area where everything is cheaper. That and some bikes, and we’ll be good to go! :)</p>
<p>Calmom, I do all that stuff by myself now - I go out to dinner, movies, sporting events, camping, and of course traveling. It can serve up some icky moments every now and then - for example, going out to a nice restaurant alone on a Saturday night and cringing at the “just you, by yourself???” and “no one will be joining you???” and “are you waiting for someone???” questions from wait staff etc. can be irritating when the question is posed three or four times from reservation to seating to taking my drink order. Or worse, sometimes gentlemen see me alone and decide to make an inelegant approach. Popular movies can have some bad moments too - “is this seat taken - are you all alone???” “are you SURE we can have the seat - you’re sure you aren’t expecting anyone???” etc. Ick. But I’m not about to let anyone else decide how much fun I’m going to have - five minutes into the food or the movie or whatever I’ve forgotten the sting. And I’m very happy by myself - also have a loner streak like Garland. I figure that if no nice man ever comes along and marriage never happens, by retirement age I’ll have the going by myself thing down cold. </p>
<p>I ignore social security when I run the numbers; have taken the position that there either isn’t going to be any social security, or if there is, there will be some new set of laws in place that will say I won’t be allowed to have any of it based on savings etc. If I’m wrong and there’s still social security then it will be a bonus.</p>
<p>Simba, when you evaluated your spending, did you learn anything that surprised you? And how did you get control of cash spending? I pay the bills on line now so that part is easy - it’s the cash that we carry aound where we seem to have the greatest bleed, I don’t know where it goes. I also reviewed my accounts for the last six months and was shocked to see how much money we’re spending on food - both grocery store and restaurants. How can we possibly be eating so much…</p>
<p>latetoschool: Yes some of the things were surprising and shocking, and it helped us to control certain items - Suze Gorman calls it the Latte factor. To minimize the leakage, we charge everything (including $2 items). Many advantages: Less trips to banks, kickbacks from credit cards, easy to see stuff and it also helps prevent spread of the underground cash economy (Trust me, the stuff you pay cash in small mom and pop shops may never get reported).</p>
<p>I like bankrate.com
<a href=“Bankrate: Guiding you through life's financial journey”>Bankrate: Guiding you through life's financial journey;
<p>Inflation is a wild card and could be a killer.</p>
<p>Thanks Simba. I’m going to try that, when you posted “Latte factor” I remembered where at least some of the money is going lol. Good point about the cash economy, I never even thought of that.</p>
<p>Dstark, that’s exactly the site I’ve been using to work numbers, that’s what has me up at night worried about having enough retirement money. I’ve tried and tried to find flaws in their formulas and cannot. The other wildcard of course is health…</p>
<p>latetoschool, look at the bright side. If your health goes bad, you will die quicker and you won’t need as much money. Unless… a chronic il… no, we don’t need to go there.</p>
<p>My retirement strategy will probably end up involving a wearing blue vest.</p>
<p>“Life is no more than a dewdrop balancing on the end of a blade of grass.”</p>
<p>Retirement!?!</p>
<p>Yes to the dewdrop. And when it falls, we want to have had our time wandering around the country in the woods.</p>
<p>Amen to that! How about Geneva woods? New Hampshire? San Francisco? Angels Camp? I wish I knew what woods. On a wing and a prayer, it will be just fine. :)</p>
<p>Interesting.</p>
<p>To add to Simba’s comments - you can charge to a debit card attached to your checking account - so you don’t have to really “charge” to a charge account. Then you can dump your statement into a financial program (I use Quicken) and see where it’s all going. </p>
<p>Re: Retirement: I agree with figuring out how to get paid for doing what you love and that being a retirement plan. </p>
<p>I’m not sure I trust the traditional retirement planning methodologies: save, save, save … invest, invest, invest… and pray it’ll be there when I need it.</p>