retiring

[polkwrangler]

just seeing what everyone thoughts wanting to retire at age 50 .what would be a good amount needed in my retirement accounts thanks

 

[Wagtail]

Crikey, that's a 'shotgun' question.

In your profile you say that you've got a 13 acre property... not really a lot to make a living off of (unless there's something you haven't told us). Is it payed off (or will be by your 50th BD)? The same for the house? Outbuildings? And you can't get away from annual property taxes, even if you're mortgage free. Home & contents insurance?

Are you on town water and/or sewage? Power/electricity prices... the list isn't exactly endless but it comes down to figuring what your annual and monthly budgets are, today, then factoring in the average rate of inflation for 50 years old AND beyond that.

Vehicle/tractor life? How long until you need to replace them? Insurance & maintenance & petrol costs (annual/monthly).

Health care, including dental? What happens if there's an emergency?

Then you can start to factor in grocery (including alcohol/'libations')/home maintenance expenses.

Lastly... after all of the above, have at least US$20,000 in the bank as a 'buffer' against something unexpected happening.

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Long term planning can reduce a lot of the above. I don't know how far off your '50' is.
I managed to retire at 55.

 

[coobie]

just seeing what everyone thoughts wanting to retire at age 50 .what would be a good amount needed in my retirement accounts thanks

Retire without debt is one key.Will you be getting a pension check each month?How much $$ do you have in your 401K plan? Who is going to be paying your heath care plan??

 

[JD15302155870]

I was released shortly after 9-11. Fortunately i was able to get a pension at age 55. We began watching our money and where it went. I took a job as a contracter to make ends meet. When i did get another job we had more than when i was laid off. Scary time with two daughters in college and Me without a job. We survived and found we knew how to get the most out of our resources.it was a blessing in disguise.

 

[fishheadbob]

Not enough information . A realistic answer needs to consider debt, pension, health insurance, and on and on. Standard of living too, do you live high on the hog or frugally, and still on and on.
Then I thought what fool would ever consider any advice received on an internet chat board regarding such an important topic when it concerns the rest of a person's life. There are much better resources to tap than here.

 

[duffer]

just seeing what everyone thoughts wanting to retire at age 50.

Sure you can retire at 50....you just have to be dead a week from Saturday.

 

[Oldoak]

Not enough information . A realistic answer needs to consider debt, pension, health insurance, and on and on. Standard of living too, do you live high on the hog or frugally, and still on and on.
Then I thought what fool would ever consider any advice received on an internet chat board regarding such an important topic when it concerns the rest of a person's life. There are much better resources to tap than here.

Best advice anyone could have given. :thumbsup:

 

[Thomas]

Lot good advice has been given,try and keep rainy account for things you would expect...$$'s home repair,auto,higher taxes,love ones,etc.

 

[Kingsqueak]

It takes a very large amount of money to earn enough interest to live on that without eroding the principal.

You need to figure out how much income you need per year and allow for inflation as well with taxes just never ending and continually rising. Health insurance is massively expensive. Repairs and maintenance on property, vehicles etc will continue as well.

Remember as you age you will likely be able to do less on your own so that brings added expense.

I've given up on the idea of "retirement" and the target is now to have some way to have a basic level of income from some sort of business or service that I can do relatively easily into older age vs having to be on the rat race treadmill. Basically keep my overhead as low as possible to subsist with minimal effort.

I am 50 and would love to "retire" but to literally do nothing would take a few million in the bank in order to rest easy and I certainly don't have that. Even if I had that level of money, I would shift to setting up a shop to make furniture or something along those lines where I work on my own terms to stay busy and help offset the burn rate.

I think a lot of us want to retire because we hate the circumstances we are working in rather than wishing for being idle. Generally it's time OR money, you only get one, having both is the real dream.

There's a talk radio guy, Ric Edelman that has very conservative investment advice generally focused on retirement planning, I recommend listening to him for a while to pick up on strategy.

 

[oosik]

The best advice I can give - seek the council of a professional retirement planner who is not trying to sell you something. I'm retired. I quit the rat race at age 42 because I could and I had no grand illusions of sailing off into the sunset.

At the age of 42 - 35 years ago - conditions presented themselves and I grabbed the iron ring. I do not live high on the hog. I'm not on an existence income.

It was just one of those times when all the planets aligned and I could retire or work the rest of my life. I choose to retire and have never regretted it.

 

[MossRoad]

My wife and I could retire yesterday if it wasn't for health insurance. That's our biggest concern.

Let's look at some examples.

If you work another 8 years, and earn between $62,500-$125,000 per year combined, you bring in somewhere between 500K - 1M after purchasing health insurance through your employers. If you quit working today, health insurance would cost you between 175K and 225K over 8 years, assuming about $1700 per month for health insurance(that's what it would cost us, so I'm using that in my example).

That's a potential miss-out of up to $1.225M over 8 years, not including the compound interest some of that money would earn in any investments, 401ks, IRAs, etc...

So, I'd say first:

Find out how much money you need to live on per year to maintain/enhance your current lifestyle and afford health insurance.

Second.

Make sure you have guaranteed streams of income. That's known amount coming in every month. It can't be variable returns like stocks. It has to be known. Like guaranteed bonds, annuities(I hate annuities), withdrawals from savings like 401Ks and pensions, etc...

Of course, I am not a financial advisor, planner, etc... those are just my opinions and part of our plan. I did not sleep in a Holiday in last night either. :laughing:

 

[EddieWalker]

My parents retired at age 65 with a decent income and excellent health care. Then Obamacare came along and they where forced into it. Their medical expenses went up dramatically and now they are forced to deal with what it costs them to stay alive instead of enjoying their remaining years. I don't know what they could have done differently, but it does scare me to think about retiring and expecting certain things to remain in place, only to have the government change all of that. 50 is still pretty young. I'm 54. I can't imaging retiring any time soon, and will probably only do so when I'm unable to keep working. I also enjoy what I do and look forward to every project that I take on.

When I was with the Teamsters, part of their pension plan was based on how long people lived after retiring and collected their pension. 3 to 5 years is how long most of them live. They no longer have something that they have to do, and they end up spending all day watching TV, or sitting around, not doing anything physical.

My wife is a nurse. She says that the most scare age for people is when they hit 50. That's when a lot of heart attacks happen. I've seen this happen with dozens of friends that I went to High School. They haven't lived a healthy life and they pass just before or right after turning 50. It's a very scary age.

Of the friends and clients that I know who have lived through retirement, it's painful to see how much they struggle with a purchase or repair to their homes. A lot of the time, the repair might cost a few grand, but they only have a fraction of that and they want me to do what I can to get them by for as long as possible. It's very sad. There is very little left over after paying the bills, food and healthcare. You can never have too much money to live off of, and sadly most realize this after they retire.

 

[goeduck]

^^ at 65 why not Medicare?

I agree with others that 50 is young, in fact the prime of many peoples careers. Also agree that medical insurance is the major reason to keep working (why I am still working and I have multi Ms worth of investments).

 

[Kingsqueak]

Health is everything really. People say it all the time, but wait until you hit 50 and see friends start to drop. It's not a very real concept unfortunately until you are at the line.

The co-CEO of Oracle just dropped at 62, guy had more money than I could ever even imagine and a lot of good it's doing him right now.

Rather than focus on retirement, focus on being healthy and enjoying the time you have, right now. I've made many choices over my career that were not wise financial choices, but were for quality of life. Those decisions were the best ones I've made.

I'll be lucky to live until 70 the way my family goes and if I do make it, I'll be even luckier if I still have my wits about me. 20 years is not a lot of time, so I got my crazy tractor now .

 

[goeduck]

I am about as conservative as they come, but something does have to be done about the cost of Medical care. Not who pays for it, but the COST. Until the cost is controlled we will not be fixing this problem. Normal market forces are not in play here.

 

[MossRoad]

^^ at 65 why not Medicare?
......

That's what I don't yet understand. Doesn't medicare kick in at 65 for most?

 

[EddieWalker]

To clarify, my parents are on Medicare, but their retirement had a supplemental coverage that was to pay for additional things like prescriptions, dental and eye care. When Obamacare passed, they where dropped from this additional coverage that they had paid for. So now they have to pay Blue Cross for their additional coverage, which has a much higher deductible and doesn't cover a lot of their expenses. Dad has had cancer twice now, and both of them have hearing aids. For the medicine for my Dad's cancer, the original cost to them was $30,000 a month after their insurance paid their part. Eventually, after many hours or research and effort by my wife, who is a RN, they where able to get that down to $1,500 a month. Out of pocket cost for their hearing aids has been around $5,000 each. This was covered under their original supplemental plan that the retired under, but isn't covered by anything now. Dental has also been a huge expense, especially with my dad and his teeth falling out. It just keeps adding up and getting more expensive every year for them.

While this only applies to them, it has been very disappointing to realize that what they paid for and planned on wasn't allowed to happen.

 

[EddieWalker]

My parents retired at age 65 with a decent income and excellent health care. Then Obamacare came along and they where forced into it. ...

I misspoke in saying that they where forced into Obamacare. That wasn't accurate. Obamacare forced them to have to pay for additional coverage that wasn't anywhere near as good as they had when they retired. For a lot more money, they are getting less coverage then they did before Obamacare happened.