Retirement... (i.e. what are you going to be after you've grown up)

Punko · Monday at 1:49 PM

TJT said:
I will have two houses paid for. A strong amount of dividend, rent, and other income to survive on. Along with very few bills. At least that is the plan. I'd be down to do some consulting on the side in a specific capacity (Salesforce because I have done it before). So I will be preparing for that contingency as well.

Deloitte is pushing salesforce globally and giving the product an extremely bad reputation. You might want to diversify your product knowledge.

I don't think salesforce will make it.

Gravel · Monday at 1:52 PM

That reminds me too of something I'd read a bit before we retired. It was about how it's pretty uncommon for someone who is able to actually save up enough to retire to go their entire retirement without picking up any extra income here or there. When you calculate you need $x a year, it's possible you mitigate that a bit because you get a few thousand dollars in year 2 and another in year 7.

We absolutely found this to be the case. It sounds weird that you'd just "find money" but it happens. It could be doing some part time work in the field you used to work, or maybe a new one, or just some weird flukey shit.

TJT · Monday at 1:52 PM

Punko said:
Deloitte is pushing salesforce globally and giving the product an extremely bad reputation. You might want to diversify your product knowledge.

I don't think salesforce will make it.

lol okay

Haus · Monday at 1:55 PM

Gravel said:
I'm not as old as most of you (41).

But the first thing you need to do is figure out what your annual expenses are. Like, no shit what they are, not guesstimates. Include everything. That means the bullshit you spend $5 on here and there, all the way through your mortgage and health insurance (which are our two biggest monthly expenses in retirement).

Once you do, I really think the Trinity study's 4% rule should be what guides you. That means if you find out your annual expenses are $70k a year, multiply it by 25 and you get what your nest egg should be ($1.75m). The Trinity study found that in the US, the 4% rule was a safe withdrawal method for 95% of retirement years for getting you through 30 years of retirement (the goal being you don't run out of money; some retirement years you 4x your money, some you end up with $0 at the end of 30 years). It worked through 2 world wars and a great depression. The only years it really failed were late 60's where you end up getting double fucked by stagflation in the 70's.

However, the caveat I throw out is the Trinity study used a ridiculous asset allocation of 50% stocks and 50% bonds (which is a massive drag on returns). It also doesn't include additional sources of income in retirement which could be pensions or social security. Finally, it doesn't really consider fluctuating expenses, which could be something like Medicare that drops your expenses significantly (we use an ACA program to get Blue Cross Blue Shield).

Honestly, in retrospect, I think the money part is actually the easy part. It's just math. The hard part is the "what does my life look like in retirement." It's a massive adjustment. It probably took me a year and a half before I lost that work mindset. At this point I go out places and forget that other people have jobs. But for a long time I assumed people would be like "why aren't you at work" if I was out somewhere. Turns out, no one cares because there are loads of adults out there not doing shit during the middle of the day.

In the spreadsheet I mentioned I do exactly this. Since it's attached to my budget spreadsheet I have a very acute picture of my monthly expenses, which then rolls to yearly, and I have a "how long do you REALLY think you're gonna live" field which I'm optimistically setting at 90 right now (which would tie my grandmother for oldest at time of death).

For me, the key numbers are :

Yearly expense rate?
How long do you (and/or your spouse if planning for 2) plan on living to?
How old do you plan on being when you retire from actively working?
How old are you now?
How much in assets do you have in your egg (401k + additional savings + stock + rental properties you could liquidate, etc...)

Which gives you.....

#1 times (#2-#3) = How much you need put away (buffer for inflation, so I calculate it at this times 1.2) total
(#1 times (#2-#3

- #5 = How much more you need
#2 - #3 = How many years you have to get to that point.

#1 times (#2-#3

- #5)/(#2-#3) = how much per year you need to be socking away.

For assets I look at tiers of assets :

Total assets : everything
Net Assets : total assets number minus debt (secured and unsecured)
"Tier 2 assets" : Net Assets minus your primary residence as you need a place to live.
"Tier 3 assets" : Tier 2 assets minus 401k/retirement (Your assets you can leverage to build towards retirement. For me this is independently held stocks, company stock ownership plan/package, savings, a small bucket of crypto, and smaller bucket of metals)

Punko · Monday at 1:56 PM

TJT said:
lol okay

In Europe they are pushing the model where you hire a salesforce application manger from Deloitte.

Given how 'smooth' the update process actually is this ends up being outrageously expensive.

Haus · Monday at 1:57 PM

fred sanford said:
I'm planning on soft retiring at 55 (9 years). Technically I could flat out retire but I wouldn't mind having a part time gig doing something related to my hobbies. Something that could also net me a discount, like working at a golf course or tennis facility.

That is a dangerous spot for me. There's an old bit of wisdom I was given "Don't make the hobby you enjoy into a job, it ruins enjoying the hobby" and I'm working against that right now even since I am also looking at puttering in my hobby and trying to sell things in retirement.....

Haus · Monday at 1:59 PM

Punko said:
In Europe they are pushing the model where you hire a salesforce application manger from Deloitte.

Given how 'smooth' the update process actually is this ends up being outrageously expensive.

I was the SFDC admin/deployment guy/everything person for a small company I worked at around 8 years ago. Found I could manage the SFDC stuff ok since I treated it as just an DB app with a very dynamic front end to work against. Learned a TON about how our business operated in helping move everything possible into SFDC, and in the last year still ended up hiring an outside consultant to do heavier lifting. heh

Mahes · Monday at 1:59 PM

I think that if you work a job that is not stressful, there is no problem doing it til a person is 66. Now I speak of the average person. If you are wealthy, then you can do whatever you want within the law. Most people will not be able to save 1+ million(With Adjustments to inflation) by the time they are 60. People on these boards are above average for the most part.

My family might have 1 million set aside(Or invested) by the time I hit 66. That being said, I actually feel like even I am a little above average. This country is going to change a lot in the next 10 years that will drastically effect what the average person is capable of doing financially. It is already starting now.

This is why despite being 56, I have already just planned on working until 66. Even at that point I could(Health willing) Stretch it out to 70 if The United States has a financial crisis. Getting out of debt was the first objective. Now I want to maintain the house and vehicles while building up a varied portfolio in savings.

BrutulTM · Monday at 2:04 PM

Haus said:
know people who are "I'm going to vacation, travel, and laze around" and I don't see myself being happy like that. My grandfather raised me and as I've gotten older I see more of his behavior in me than I ever admitted growing up. I saw when he retired. He fixed everything around the house he never had time to do (took a couple years), then fished a lot (took another couple years), but then "ran out of things to do" and that is exactly when I started seeing his decline. Not sure the two are connected, but it feels to me like they were. So I'm hoping to find some probably small cottage industry type thing I can do in retirement to keep busy.

Fucker said:
My dad would still be around if he didn't waste away in front of a TV.

I've seen my grandfather and a neighbor make the mistake of thinking that retirement means just relaxing and having fun for 20 or 30 years and it went badly for them. Just because you like going fishing for a week once a year doesn't mean you will be happy doing it every day of your life for decades. My grandfather fished hard all over the country for 4 or 5 years but it didn't take even that long for him to get sick of it and realize he couldn't really afford to be on vacation year round even if he did want to.

In the end he wound up spending most of the day sitting at the kitchen table playing solitaire and hoping someone would come by to talk to. The neighbor I mentioned just sat in her recliner and watched TV all day. Over a period of about 5 years I watched her decline shockingly fast to the point where she would be in her pajamas at 2 pm and seemed to be living mostly on Walmart vanilla sandwich cookies. She quickly got to the point where she was not physically capable of doing anything. It was actually really dangerous for her to get down the six stairs in front of her house and she would have me come over when she had to go to the basement because she was so afraid of falling. This was in her early 70s. My grandmother at the time was 10 years older than her and in much better shape both mentally and physically. She also declined mentally and it became hard to have a conversation with her because she was just so checked out of life. My mom is the same age as she was when she died but seems 20 years younger.

When a lot of people think about retirement they imagine themselves sitting on a lounge chair on a nice day sipping a margarita. That's nice for a couple of hours but it's not a life. Slowing down and even leaving your career is fine, but if you want to have a fulfilling life you need to have a reason to get out of bed every morning even when you don't feel like it and you need to have a way to be useful to others, not just occasionally but on a regular basis.

It could be working part time, volunteering, serving on the city council, being on the board of various organizations, or a lot of other things but relaxation and pleasure seeking gets empty real fast. Doing hobbies all day every day for no real reason will just make you start to dislike the hobby.

Haus · Monday at 2:12 PM

BrutulTM said:
I've seen my grandfather and a neighbor make the mistake of thinking that retirement means just relaxing and having fun for 20 or 30 years and it went badly for them. Just because you like going fishing for a week once a year doesn't mean you will be happy doing it every day of your life for decades. My grandfather fished hard all over the country for 4 or 5 years but it didn't take even that long for him to get sick of it and realize he couldn't really afford to be on vacation year round even if he did want to.

In the end he wound up spending most of the day sitting at the kitchen table playing solitaire and hoping someone would come by to talk to. The neighbor I mentioned just sat in her recliner and watched TV all day. Over a period of about 5 years I watched her decline shockingly fast to the point where she would be in her pajamas at 2 pm and seemed to be living mostly on Walmart vanilla sandwich cookies. She quickly got to the point where she was not physically capable of doing anything. It was actually really dangerous for her to get down the six stairs in front of her house and she would have me come over when she had to go to the basement because she was so afraid of falling. This was in her early 70s. My grandmother at the time was 10 years older than her and in much better shape both mentally and physically. She also declined mentally and it became hard to have a conversation with her because she was just so checked out of life. My mom is the same age as she was when she died but seems 20 years younger.

When a lot of people think about retirement they imagine themselves sitting on a lounge chair on a nice day sipping a margarita. That's nice for a couple of hours but it's not a life. Slowing down and even leaving your career is fine, but if you want to have a fulfilling life you need to have a reason to get out of bed every morning even when you don't feel like it and you need to have a way to be useful to others, not just occasionally but on a regular basis.

It could be working part time, volunteering, serving on the city council, being on the board of various organizations, or a lot of other things but relaxation and pleasure seeking gets empty real fast. Doing hobbies all day every day for no real reason will just make you start to dislike the hobby.

I'm watching it play out in real time with my mother right now. 75, and never really planned/saved for any retirement. Only has her Social Security. Saved by the grace of :

That my grandmother put the house we were all raised in into a trust so that she'd have a roof over her head
She had me take over running her finances to make sure the bills were paid.
My sister and brother in law moved in to help take care of her and are covering groceries and some stuff.

But she's literally just laying in her bed watching TV almost all day, every day. Her body has started deteriorating, even with my sister and I trying everything we can to get her up and moving and doing things. She just doesn't have the will to fight anything, and now I'm dealing with the pragmatist part of my brain saying I probably have, at best, 3 years left with my mom around.

Gravel · Monday at 2:15 PM

Mahes said:
I think that if you work a job that is not stressful, there is no problem doing it til a person is 66. Now I speak of the average person. If you are wealthy, then you can do whatever you want within the law. Most people will not be able to save 1+ million(With Adjustments to inflation) by the time they are 60. People on these boards are above average for the most part.

My family might have 1 million set aside(Or invested) by the time I hit 66. That being said, I actually feel like even I am a little above average. This country is going to change a lot in the next 10 years that will drastically effect what the average person is capable of doing financially. It is already starting now.

This is why despite being 56, I have already just planned on working until 66. Even at that point I could(Health willing) Stretch it out to 70 if The United States has a financial crisis. Getting out of debt was the first objective. Now I want to maintain the house and vehicles while building up a varied portfolio in savings.

The problem becomes, many people that say "I want to work until I'm 65+" end up being pushed out of the job prior to that. You don't want to be one of those people.

I also disagree with your assertion that people can't save up $1 million by retirement. They absolutely can, the problem is people live well outside of their means. A couple who maxes out their IRA starting at age 30 can amass $1 million in 30 years (likely sooner, I used a 7% annual return, which is slightly less than the market returns after inflation). Hell, if we ignore inflation, $6k a year at 10% per year gets you to a million in 30 years for a single person.

Punko · Monday at 2:17 PM

Haus said:
I was the SFDC admin/deployment guy/everything person for a small company I worked at around 8 years ago. Found I could manage the SFDC stuff ok since I treated it as just an DB app with a very dynamic front end to work against. Learned a TON about how our business operated in helping move everything possible into SFDC, and in the last year still ended up hiring an outside consultant to do heavier lifting. heh

People starting to become aware of that.

In Europe they are aggressively trying to conquer the public market, but even if their total package was of higher quality, declining budgets don't allow for their prices once TCO is taken into consideration.

4 different Deloitte consultants have tried to push salesforce on our company, in 12 months. Its a fucking meme by now.

Ever since we told Deloitte that we are ending our cooperation, they've been grasping at straws to generate business and tell us the same story in a different format.

I'm working for a company with 1500+ employees btw. What do you mean by "small company"?

Mahes · Monday at 2:23 PM

Gravel said:
The problem becomes, many people that say "I want to work until I'm 65+" end up being pushed out of the job prior to that. You don't want to be one of those people.

I also disagree with your assertion that people can't save up $1 million by retirement. They absolutely can, the problem is people live well outside of their means. A couple who maxes out their IRA starting at age 30 can amass $1 million in 30 years (likely sooner, I used a 7% annual return, which is slightly less than the market returns after inflation). Hell, if we ignore inflation, $6k a year at 10% per year gets you to a million in 30 years for a single person.

I work for the city government. I am not getting pushed out.

I should have said people will not save that much money for the very reason you stated. People want the new cars, and new phones, with a daily Starbucks coffee. People rarely look that far ahead, or you have people like me who took a long time to find something I could enjoy doing. If everyone saved like they should, our economy would absolutely tank, as it is dependent on people spending money. The low percent of people capable and willing to save like you have, get to benefit from it, while others will pay for the decision later in life.

Lambourne · Monday at 2:30 PM

I have a job that has a mandatory retirement age so I am looking at retiring in 2030 in my mid 50s. I'm not married and don't have any kids so once I am no longer working I am not bound to any location so I am exploring options to move to another country, either just to spend the winters or maybe permanently. This will also help me avoid turning into a NEET that plays games all day which is definitely what will happen during the long rainy winters in the Netherlands if I don't get something to push me out the door.

I have been putting some time into this over the past year and there's quite a few countries that welcome retirees that can show assets or income (often at quite modest levels). Some are literal tropical islands. This site was pretty helpful, lots of information about health care, required steps to acquire a visa (for retired US/EU/UK citizens), cost of living etc.

Global Retirement Report

Life expectancy has risen dramatically across the globe over the past several decades, reflecting significant improvements in health care, nutrition, and living conditions. According to United Nations data, people are not only living longer on average, but the gains in longevity have been...

www.globalcitizensolutions.com

As it stands now, I am thinking southern Spain since it has good weather in winter and good availability of places that cater to the retiree demographic specifically (many gated communities with pools, golf, option to rent the house to tourists in summer etc). Healthcare is good too. Have been working on learning Spanish for a few months now because I don't want to be entirely stuck on an enclave filled with retired Germans/Brits either, knowing the language will open up more options (both socially or for part time work if I want)

Dubai is also interesting since it offers a near-zero tax rate. Never been there, heard it's pretty clean. I may check it out sometime before then.

Mahes said:
Europe is not the Europe that existed, when I lived in Holland in the early 80's. It saddens me...

It is and it isn't. The large cities feel like a different country entirely. I live in a small town out in what city people call "the middle of nowhere" and it's as pleasantly boring and sedate as it ever was. Not 5 minutes' walk from my house it looks like this. Only the good kind of jogging happens here.

Based on the news headlines alone, the US looks like it's under occupation by Mexico while violent gangs loot every store whenever the cops shoot someone, and the rest are fentanyl zombies that live under a tarp on a sidewalk. It's not that none of this is happening, but it's a microcosm and not representative of the country as a whole.

Khane · Monday at 3:15 PM

My outlook was always to try to be retired by 50. But it's looking more and more like I might be forced into early "retirement" much sooner.

Debt has been paid off for years and the plan was to get the brokerage accounts to around 6.5 million and pick a good summer months area to live and a good winter months area to live, get memberships at nice golf courses in each, and eat, drink, golf and be merry.

Instead of being an experienced software engineer where that just happens, I'm probably going to have to scratch and claw to make it happen by around 55, instead of 50, or try to pivot careers entirely.

I always thought I'd have a more normal mid life crisis than this. Ya know... with things like cocaine... and prostitutes.

Mahes · Monday at 3:45 PM

Lambourne said:
I have a job that has a mandatory retirement age so I am looking at retiring in 2030 in my mid 50s. I'm not married and don't have any kids so once I am no longer working I am not bound to any location so I am exploring options to move to another country, either just to spend the winters or maybe permanently. This will also help me avoid turning into a NEET that plays games all day which is definitely what will happen during the long rainy winters in the Netherlands if I don't get something to push me out the door.

I have been putting some time into this over the past year and there's quite a few countries that welcome retirees that can show assets or income (often at quite modest levels). Some are literal tropical islands. This site was pretty helpful, lots of information about health care, required steps to acquire a visa (for retired US/EU/UK citizens), cost of living etc.

Global Retirement Report

Life expectancy has risen dramatically across the globe over the past several decades, reflecting significant improvements in health care, nutrition, and living conditions. According to United Nations data, people are not only living longer on average, but the gains in longevity have been...

www.globalcitizensolutions.com

As it stands now, I am thinking southern Spain since it has good weather in winter and good availability of places that cater to the retiree demographic specifically (many gated communities with pools, golf, option to rent the house to tourists in summer etc). Healthcare is good too. Have been working on learning Spanish for a few months now because I don't want to be entirely stuck on an enclave filled with retired Germans/Brits either, knowing the language will open up more options (both socially or for part time work if I want)

Dubai is also interesting since it offers a near-zero tax rate. Never been there, heard it's pretty clean. I may check it out sometime before then.

It is and it isn't. The large cities feel like a different country entirely. I live in a small town out in what city people call "the middle of nowhere" and it's as pleasantly boring and sedate as it ever was. Not 5 minutes' walk from my house it looks like this. Only the good kind of jogging happens here.

Based on the news headlines alone, the US looks like it's under occupation by Mexico while violent gangs loot every store whenever the cops shoot someone, and the rest are fentanyl zombies that live under a tarp on a sidewalk. It's not that none of this is happening, but it's a microcosm and not representative of the country as a whole.

View attachment 596768

Yeah, that is kind of how I remember Holland. I lived in Soesterberg. Looking at Google map, a lot has changed. What part are you at?

Lambourne · Monday at 5:06 PM

Mahes said:
Yeah, that is kind of how I remember Holland. I lived in Soesterberg. Looking at Google map, a lot has changed. What part are you at?

South-east corner near the German border. The Randstad part of the country (Amsterdam/The Hague/Rotterdam/Utrecht triangle) has probably changed the most in the last 30 years. I thought that part of the country was too busy back then, it only got worse. Apart from immigrants it also has a shitton of tourists clogging everything up since all the internationally well known sights are there.

TJT · Monday at 5:06 PM

Gravel said:
The problem becomes, many people that say "I want to work until I'm 65+" end up being pushed out of the job prior to that. You don't want to be one of those people.

I also disagree with your assertion that people can't save up $1 million by retirement. They absolutely can, the problem is people live well outside of their means. A couple who maxes out their IRA starting at age 30 can amass $1 million in 30 years (likely sooner, I used a 7% annual return, which is slightly less than the market returns after inflation). Hell, if we ignore inflation, $6k a year at 10% per year gets you to a million in 30 years for a single person.

Yeah most people are just bad with money. Even when they're trying to be good with money. Watch Caleb Hammer or Dave Ramsey for just a few hours and be stunned how bad people are with money. High income or low income earners.

I naturally had good spending and saving habits. Hit 7 figures at like age 32 or something? So 16 years from when I started working. Going through various jobs and career paths. Hit six figure income when I turned 31. The rest of it was just diligently investing every single month and not impulsively doing stuff.

I, personally, am naturally cheap and thrifty for whatever reason. I don't enjoy stuff for stuff's sake.

Cad · Monday at 5:09 PM

Lambourne said:
South-east corner near the German border. The Randstad part of the country (Amsterdam/The Hague/Rotterdam/Utrecht triangle) has probably changed the most in the last 30 years. I thought that part of the country was too busy back then, it only got worse. Apart from immigrants it also has a shitton of tourists clogging everything up since all the internationally well known sights are there.

It’s good that there are still good parts, but you shouldn’t have to hide in a corner or in the hinterlands to find peace. All of your country should be like that. As should ours.

Ultimately I think human connections are far more important than the environment/weather itself, so I would not want to move away from family/friends in retirement. Being socially isolated will be more painful than any lack of things to do.

Haus · Monday at 5:51 PM

Cad said:
It’s good that there are still good parts, but you shouldn’t have to hide in a corner or in the hinterlands to find peace. All of your country should be like that. As should ours.

Ultimately I think human connections are far more important than the environment/weather itself, so I would not want to move away from family/friends in retirement. Being socially isolated will be more painful than any lack of things to do.

This is one of the considerations in "project Peaches" which is to buy land away from Dallas and build on it. But I still have most of my family, and even more of the wife's family who are around DFW, so we're kinda trying not to move that far away. That and I don't know if I could deal with actually living in Oklahoma, just thinking about it makes me feel a tiny bit unclean.

Retirement... (i.e. what are you going to be after you've grown up)

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