Two points more:

1) I like the youtube channel This is our Retirement. Norm and Tina are average people 5 years into retirement. They give practical experience based observations. They are a bit un-flashy in presentation but they give excellent non-advice.

2) No disagreements with anyone above, but you will retire when you retire, with the resources you have. You cannot predict when that will be because your health or other circumstances will come into play. You cannot predict how much wealth you will have because the economy is not predictable. You cannot predict how much you need because you don't know how long you will live or what your spending will be in retirement. All the spreadsheets in the world fail the test of reality. Their best function is to scare you into saving for retirement. The salesmen use the fear to get you to buy their product.

So the best you can do is set yourself up on a good plan, which is one you can actually do. Understand the power of compounding is true, so save as much as you can as early as you can. Reduce expenditures now. Arrive debt free into retirement.

The rest is fine detail. Those actually don't matter until you get the basics started, like maxing your 401k match.

There are many good books that explain stocks, bonds, etf, mutual funds, options, etc. Good info to have. But don't think you're going to outsmart the market. Diversify. Harness compounding over time.

quote:

Originally posted by Fly-Sig:
you will retire when you retire, with the resources you have. You cannot predict when that will be because your health or other circumstances will come into play.

Sure, there are people that are unexpectedly forced to retire earlier than anticipated due to unforeseen family/medical issues rendering them no longer able to work.

But while that may end up being what happens for an individual, that shouldn't be the norm, or the goal. The goal should be to have a plan for when you'll retire, build towards that plan, and then retire as planned. Not just "I plan to work until I drop and then just hope my money holds out".

Especially for the folks who plan to retire early, before traditional retirement age. (I'm currently shooting for retirement at age 50ish.)

First, thank you everyone who has contributed. I truly appreciate your perspectives!

The video I posted has a formula that (says it) takes into account that as a retiree ages they spend more for the first 10 years, then a bit less for the next 15 years or so, then generally much less after that as they age into the point that they are pretty much going through basic functions and only going to special events for whatever years remain. In looking at this and believing that this is generally true for most people, I also know that my wife and I are thinking to retire younger than most (mid 50's to early 60's) and so this timeline would stretch out by probably another 10 years.

Because we didn't know much about investments and had an innate distrust of the markets, our savings plan has pretty much always been Dave Ramsey-ish; that is, to pay off all debt first then save in the lowest risk manner possible and just put it in the bank. Unfortunately, this protection from stock market losses also precluded us from capturing stock market gains, and so my calculation of what it'd take to retire has pretty much looked like "we spend X amount per year and I think we will live Y years, so X x Y equals Z, so that is what we need to have banked in order to retire." This appears to have been the hard way of going about retirement, according to a few of my friends who are living quite well on the interest from less savings than what we've saved already.

I also realize that cutting back as we retire will have a role, but since we do plan to do some traveling, any cutting back will be minimal at least initially. After we get to see what Montana and some of the West and Southwest look like, we will revisit overseas a bit. After that I will probably want to take stock of which fishing lures need replenishing, and it'll slow down considerably thereafter...

I am very open to all input from those in positions to advise from a position of experience, as I have none. All I've known to this point is to work hard and try to sock away enough to pay for a day that might not ever get here, and now that it appears that it actually might, I'm a little squirrely on the whole thing about giving up a paying job to loaf about.

Also, I'm not a caveman, so when opportunity has knocked, I have taken the opportunity to open IRA's, etc. with matching programs and so forth. So we have managed to sock away some funds in some of these type vehicles. I'm just not savvy on all of it, I guess is what I'm trying to explain.

quote:

Originally posted by Powers77:
What ReyHRH said above about the Monte Carlo simulations. I know from working with the Fidelity software that it will run it at rates based on "Standard Deviations" from historical norms. So for example , it includes the market average and 1 or 2 Standard Deviations below that. So it's basically backed up by Statistical data and not just a WAG. Now the market can always perform below that but the assumptions are based on currently valid data.

I was going to recommend looking into Fidelity’s software calculations. We’ve been with them for over 30 years and found their software tools to be a little on the conservative side BUT that is a good thing IMHO.

Here is their page that links their various programs and you do not have to be a client to use them.

https://www.fidelity.com/calcu...-calculator/overview

The other thing is, as potentially useful as the programs and Monte Carlo simulations are (assuming they're done right, of course) the value of the output is completely dependent on what information about your specific situation went into it.

Meaning, the simulations and models can reflect the past behavior of financial markets and the current tax laws, etc. but they need to know what your needs are likely to be and when they will kick in.

TL: DR - Your inputs matter - garbage in, garbage out.

And it's not set and forget. Tax laws/rules change, family situations change, etc.

quote:

Originally posted by slabsides45:
Also, I'm not a caveman, so when opportunity has knocked, I have taken the opportunity to open IRA's, etc. with matching programs and so forth. So we have managed to sock away some funds in some of these type vehicles. I'm just not savvy on all of it, I guess is what I'm trying to explain.

You can do a lot worse than taking the Dave Ramsey approach. Especially if you don't have some sort of specialized financial knowledge and even then Dave's approach often wins.

Don't let anyone bamboozle you and stick with what you know. Even some really smart people get tripped up by more sophisticated investing and have to start over sometimes.

The problem with quitting in your 50's is that your healthcare insurance starts going up tremendously once you reach your later 50's and really bad over 60, and ending Social Security "contributions" will cut that back substantially too. Plus idle time at that age is more likely to result in increased spending.

Lot's of people say Social Security won't be there by the time I get there and they may be right, but who knows. I heard that all my life too and now I'm in my later 60's and having a work history since 16 through 66, I get close to the maximum.

Having that check there and no debt along with a few other reliable income items makes me sleep better at night. The stock market has had it's share of extended downturns too and if that happens just when you get to the age you thought you could retire, that's a real downer. The 100 year averages won't mean much to you then.

quote:

Originally posted by 220-9er:
Let me give you the gun version of what you're asking for. I want to be able to protect myself so I want to buy a gun and a book on self defense. I don't want to go shoot it at the range of take any lessons, I just want to be competent.

I suspect to get the one you describe is going to be one that caters to large accounts. Unless you just luck out through a personal reference you may have a hard time finding that person. Then you would have to pay them.

That's why you need to develop some understanding of the subject yourself, not to become an expert, but so you can have a better understanding of the true expertise of an individual.

I'm now in retirement age myself and never found any of the bank or brokerage referrals to be anything other than salesmen with enough knowledge to sell their own particular product.
The calculators to plan are just fancy spreadsheets with some data attached. They don't account for things like the recent run-up in real prices, not the official 7% inflation they claim.

That's where you have to have a true seat of the pants understanding of the real financial world and commission salesmen aren't going to do that for you.

If I was going to use your approach, I'd go to Fidelity or Vanguard and use their age based planners with low fee mutual funds.

You've essentially said the reverse of what I posted. Hard to believe someone could read that into my post, but you managed to do it.

I guess you missed the part about how I manage half of my investments and my financial advisor manages the other half, which shows I have quite a bit of expertise.

And go to Fidelity or Vanguard?? That's about the worst thing you could do, hiring people who aren't smart enough to become financially independent themselves to show you how to become financially independent.

A good financial advisor, like mine, will talk to you often and at length and explain things, teaching you as he goes.

The guys at the big houses, like Vanguard or Fidelity, don't.

Oh well, good luck.

I'm not positive, Flash, but I thought that 220-9er was addressing me when he was responding in the thread. Basically I was asking about plug and play investing and he said I need to be prepared to get my hands dirty is how I interpreted it-but I might be wrong?