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

I’ll be retired at 51. My plan is for a Savannah cat breeding program and to help take care of my children, in that order.

When I retire in 25 years I can't imagine what my Steam backlog is going to look like. I'll have plenty to do.

I plan to work until 66. My job is pretty easy and has little stress. The only down side to it is the inability to enjoy a certain plant due to random testing. Even after I retire, I might still do part time. Part Timers at the plant just cover for need of a license or extra body. They do even less work.

We are about to pay off our house in 6 months or so. At that point we have no debt. It sounds strange but debt is a driving force to continue doing something. After that it will be all about building up various forms of nest eggs.

Once we retire, I am honestly not sure what I will do beyond what I already do now. I guess do more of it? I can see why people just decline after work is done. The work was always the driving force.

An object in motion, stays in motion....

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

Haus said:

That does bring up another aspect of it.... What to do in your retirement?

I 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.

Right now that's cast artisanal doodadas in metal and sell if/when possible. Income not really the goal, but something to keep actively doing something. Also casting metal things means I virtually always have something moderately heavy handy to throw at youths who annoy me.

Click to expand...

I retired from having to work at a fairly young age. I have kept busy doing various projects and hustles. I'm a naturally busy type person, and have no end of things to do. If you are the same or similar, then time-burners will pop up.

The big thing to avoid is to not allow yourself to fall into a directionless, sedentary lifestyle. My dad retired early 50's and spent the rest of his life watching TV. Started wasting away in his 70's, and spent the last 4 years of his life in steep decline, and had no marbles when he checked out. Conversely, his cousin who is the same age, always kept active. He owned a business as well as having a regular job. He retired from that job eons ago and still works at his business 5 days a week. He could sell the land itself and make piles, but he had money a long time ago. Early 80's, still sharp as a tack and barrel-chested. My dad would still be around if he didn't waste away in front of a TV.

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.

Edit: Oh, I also want to add, if you really want to go down the rabbit hole, read about Sequence of Returns Risk. If you can mitigate SORR in the first decade, you're golden (we half assed it by taking our home equity from moving from CA to FL, plus a taxable account with about 4-5 years of non-retirement funds, to pull from). We got hit with the drop at the end of 2021 immediately, dropping our portfolio 20%. It was scary as shit. But we've pulled through and are well above our initial balance. Although we're also only about 4 years into retirement. Anyway, I think ERN has a bunch of good stuff about SORR.