What are your retirement plans?

[jackjoh]

Time to go to bed so will only put up high points of retiring at 62 and now 91.
Income at least 70% of present income.
Pick a place now, location, weather, people, cost of living, and hospitals.
Must have some form of medical insurance or rich enough to self insure.
Buy now do not wait.
Save now do not wait.

 

[Hickey]

I think I'll just buy a boat and live on it.

 

[ChestonScout]

Retirement???

HA

I’ll be working half day on the day of my funeral


Such is the construction life I suppose


Realistically I’d like to pay my home off in about 10 years. Sell it off then and build a little cabin on our families burned down property in the uintahs, And hang out there til I die. (Probably be the first winter 🥶)My wife has a decent retirement. Hopefully be enough to live off of for awhile.

More of a dream then a plan I suppose. 🤣

 

[Unimog]

Interesting points of view. Here are some thoughts from someone nearing retirement: I'm 58 and have been thinking about this quite extensively.

We are fairly prepared financially, but there are always details to deal with, more than I expected at this phase. I really love what I do for work, so I will likely work another 5-10 years, maybe part time another 5 or serve a mission or two after that. We just bought a diesel pusher to do a little touring and keep in touch with kids and grandkids since they are a bit spread out. I can work on the road pretty easily. Probably hang on to the big house another 10-15 years until most of the grandkids have outgrown playing on the lake, then move to something smaller or maybe full-time in the RV for a while. Lots of ideas about where, but no solid plans and I'm ok with that.

Forgot to mention I have a 16yo daughter at home still. We got rid of each of the boys pretty soon after high school, but this one has some anxiety and might need to hang around a little closer than her brothers did.

After retirement, I wouldn't mind moving to Ecuador/Panama/Costa Rica for a few years or maybe just spend the winter there for a year or two. We likely will not move permanently, since we have lots of family in the US. We will also have to see how the wife likes that third-world country adventure after experiencing it!

Now it is nearing my bed-time!

 

[Spork]

Sometimes I believe I'm on the same plan as @ChestonScout and will be working to the day of the funeral. To be quite honest my job used to revolve around a cubicle and with the Rona I've been working from home for the last 2 years. The thought has crossed my mind to change locations, somewhere with more land and cheaper, but to be honest I don't see it happening soon. I almost think a cabin somewhere and my current home would be where I would like to wind up. It's just been strange to me watching old people move in and out of my neighborhood. I guess when I'm 80 I don't picture myself moving unless it's to a nice grassy spot about 6' under.

 

[Vonski]

I’m just gonna continue ratcheting up my paranoid and eccentric ways until the Feds show up.

 

[Vonski]

…but seriously, when the time comes, hopefully they spell your name correctly. 🙄 For the record, the cats weren’t someone’s joke. I specifically requested them. 😻

 

[cruiseroutfit]

Doing a little copy/paste from this thread:

Let's talk about the F.I.R.E. movement (Financially Independent, Retire Early).

Dempsey (@TurboMinivan) started an excellent thread about investing https://www.rme4x4.com/threads/i-just-opened-a-roth-ira-and-am-ready-to-invest-in-the-stock-market.116843/ which got me wondering... are any RME-ers actively pursuing the F.I.R.E movement (A.K.A., early retirement). My dad...

www.rme4x4.com

I have no immediate plans for retirement rather I plan to keep partaking in any amazing experiences that are available now, even if financially dumb. I’ll work into my 70's if I have to. Simply put, many of the things I'm wasting money on now... won't be an option for a 50 or 60 or 70 yr old version of myself. What's a bunch of retirement money if you don't have anything "exciting" to conciously spend it on? Many of the things I like to do now are likely not going to be nearly as enjoyable when I’m 65, both due to my physics and energy level but also the rapidly changing world we live it. I’d be shocked if the Baja 1000 or KOH exist in another 20 years. I’d be shocked if driving the PanAmerican Highway of Road of Bones is any kind of an adventure in another 25 years. Who knows but it’s naive to say you’ll have the same enthusiasm and energy at traditional retirement age to dive into many of these hobbies.

Fwiw it’s not that I am not interested in early retirement. If I could afford to sell my business and travel, I'd do it this afternoon. I'm just not willing to replace the experiences I'm spending my money on today with the hope I'll be able to enjoy some extra retirement time from say 50-65 years old and in fact I'd rather work until 75 if it means continuing my current work/play balance lifestyle. If one can enjoy their life to their want/need AND save for early retirement, win-win. But I can think of many friends and family that are admittedly missing out on and/or regretting spending based on what it is doing to their retirement date... I have No Ragrets

Assume I did sell my business and real estate in the next 5-10 years. I don’t know that I would still fully retire. I’m just not a wake up, sip coffee til noon, golf, fly kites and ride bikes around the neighborhood kind of human. In fact that gives me anxiety. I’ve got some side jobs/business that I really enjoy doing (often doesn’t feel like work) and I could totally see myself doing those more like 20/hrs a week average and they do involve off-road travel so how is that a bad thing. In fact doing more of them excites me and I often wish I had the time to dedicate to them a bit more.

As far as where to retire? The Wasatch Front is getting stuffy but we have such a great cross-section of entertainment, public lands access, airport access, nightlife and cuisine that its really hard to think of landing anywhere else full-time. I’m really warm to the ideal of central Utah but get hung up on the nightlife and air travel. Perfect solution would be a mountain cabin, condo in SLC and small industrial space shop for toys. No lawn, no shoveling snow, etc. My wife and I often joke about this route but can‘t navigate that the dog scenario. Absolutely love big dogs and they need room a condo doesn’t provide.

 

[BlackSheep]

Who knows but it’s naive to say you’ll have the same enthusiasm and energy at traditional retirement age to dive into many of these hobbies.

Perhaps not a concern for you but both my Dad (56) and his Dad (54) died in their mid-50s. I made it a personal goal to retire at 55. In my mind, any day after my 55th birthday is a bonus and I'm not going to spend it working for someone else.

so, consider that - you may not live to be 'traditional retirement age'.

When I told a friend that I was going to retire, he asked me what I was going to do. This is a guy who loves his work and honestly I see him doing it until he is in the grave. While I didn't hate my job, I hated corporate america and could see the writing on the wall for the mess that it appears to have become. So, if I had been in a position of work which I loved and was able to go and do the travel and exploration I have been doing for the last year, maybe I would have simply cut back on my work time or figured out a way to do it from the road.

 

[4x4_Welder]

Yeah, I doubt I'm going to have any kind of retirement. I should be sitting behind a desk now as it is, but unless I find myself some sugar mamma to put me through school that's never gonna happen. I guess my most optimistic route is to at least be eligible for life insurance again before I keel over.

 

[zmotorsports]

I'm not trying to wish my life away but I've been thinking a LOT about retirement over the past decade and a half or so now especially. I don't want to be working much past 60. I just turned 53 yesterday so it's getting close and approaching faster with each passing year. We have done a decent job of planning and last year hit a major milestone and now we just want to keep our heads down and plow forward with the prize in sight. The prize being retirement.

We sold our race car and all related components in 2006 then paid off our first home thinking we would retire and then die there. In 2009 we sold the snowmobiles and one of our enclosed trailers. Then in 2012 we sold the sand toys and the kept the Jeep, coach and Harley. In early 2016 we sold the large race trailer and the last of the support equipment for racing as I didn't think we'd ever dive back into that money pit of a hobby.

In early 2016 we started looking to purchase a new home, our forever home. This was an unscheduled detour but we had the king of white trash move in next door only a couple of years before with his 17 non-running cars decorating his front yard and our once lovely neighborhood that had started declining a few years prior was now on the fast track to Shitsville. We thought we could tolerate it but ultimately started looking for a new place to call home in which we finally found in late 2016. We didn't think this would derail our retirement plans but we thought it would postpone them a bit and were willing to accept that to get away from the white trash neighbors and prolong our sanity. Now after being in our forever home for five years and getting the house, shop and yard set up exactly the way we want it for retirement we are back on track for retirement at nearly the same target as before we moved. We will have our home paid off in about 6~ish or so years and plan to retire within 1-3 years after that.

We have no plans to move again, this is our forever home and we will end up being here until the end. We bought this home, built the shop and designed the yard to promote what we want our life will look like once we retire. We do however, plan on doing more traveling in the coach once we retire. I could never full-time in our RV like many of our RV'ing friends, nor give up our stick & brick home but I do look forward to going out for extended periods of time in our coach. Our first trip after retirement is going to be pointing the coach to Alaska and hopefully taking about 3 months to enjoy that journey.

Now it seems like everything I do must support our retirement plans. I have found myself putting off projects that I would like to build because it will take funds away from paying the house off early and postponing retirement. I may have crippled myself in some aspects because I don't want to spend any money to play with more toys and just want to work and earn more to fund retirement but I figured I'll have more time to play with various projects once I can get the hell out of my full-time job.

We have traveled around most of the western U.S and ultimately love living in northern Utah. I can't imagine living anywhere else and love how close we are to many of the recreational places we like to visit.

 

[cruiseroutfit]

Perhaps not a concern for you but both my Dad (56) and his Dad (54) died in their mid-50s. I made it a personal goal to retire at 55. In my mind, any day after my 55th birthday is a bonus and I'm not going to spend it working for someone else.

so, consider that - you may not live to be 'traditional retirement age'.

100% a concern. This is why I'm not putting off the things I want to do or buy for that age to come and 'retire'. I spend 2-3 months a year doing something other than my day job. I'd like that to be closer to 4-6 months in my 40-60's and retire when I'm ready to sip coffee and golf

 

[kmboren]

So I work at a rare job that I have a pension as well as 401k. When Covid happened It allowed you to take money out of your 401K up to 100k if you were affected by covid. So I did that and refied my house to 10 years and payed it down to around 100k. My plan is to have house payed off before retirement. Live off pension and whatever is in 401K as I am now building it back off. Our house is large but everything needed to live is on main level. We have a unfinished basement that I want to finish part of it for a short or long term rental to help with whatever we need financially. Hopefully finish that in the next or so. Would love to retire in 11years @ 55 but will most likely be 60. Time will tell.

 

[Stephen]

With my current employer's retirement plan I'm set up to retire at 70 with a pretty reasonable chunk of change. Factor in my wife's retirement and our burgeoning real estate empire and we "should" be quite comfortable at that point. That said, I can already tell you that I'm not likely to stay at my current employer for the next five years, let alone the next 31! So I pump as much as I can into my Roth and am developing additional sources of side income in the hope that they will help me retire earlier, or as others have said, one of them turns into a gig that I'm happy to do well into my retirement days.
As for where we end up? Who knows. If wishes were horses, we'd land in Wollongong, Victoria or the Lake District of England; but thats a pretty long shot with family likely staying around here. I've always wanted to move to someplace in rural Utah like Bicknell or Torrey. But who's to say in 30 years that they don't turn into the next Moab?

 

[TurboMinivan]

Wow, I really appreciate everything that has been said in this thread. I see lots of great ideas, plus reminders to consider critical things when planning out one's future. After the wedding, we'll definitely want to sit down and plan out our long-term future together. Fortunately, my fiancee is a very low-cost-of-living sort of person (even more so than me), so maybe we can make things work and retire a tiny bit sooner than I was planning. We'll see, I guess.

Thanks again for this thread.

 

[YROC FAB.]

Die

 

[RustEoldtrux]

Probably the biggest drain on your ability to save for your future is your vehicles. I bought my last new vehicle in 2003 and have only purchased fairly cheap used vehicles since. Yes, I have to get more repairs done, but these costs are much less than making payments on new vehicles. The additional funds then went into savings. I retired at the end of 2018 and bought a home in SW Colorado with cash. My Evanston property sold 3 weeks ago for a significant increase in value since purchased in 2007. With my 401Ks, retirement funds, Social Security, and other income sources, I'm doing well at this time.

 

[zmotorsports]

Probably the biggest drain on your ability to save for your future is your vehicles. I bought my last new vehicle in 2003 and have only purchased fairly cheap used vehicles since. Yes, I have to get more repairs done, but these costs are much less than making payments on new vehicles. The additional funds then went into savings. I retired at the end of 2018 and bought a home in SW Colorado with cash. My Evanston property sold 3 weeks ago for a significant increase in value since purchased in 2007. With my 401Ks, retirement funds, Social Security, and other income sources, I'm doing well at this time.

I agree on vehicles. I've never purchased new for this very reason but I have been known to "over-maintain" my vehicles because I still like driving nice and reliable vehicles, just not new with heavy depreciation.

My FIL on the other hand has never bought a set of tires since I've known him in 35+ years. That is because he trades in vehicles before he needs tires and ALWAYS drives new vehicles. He will never buy a used vehicle and therefore to this day he doesn't have a pot to piss in nor a window to throw it out of. He also retired with a full pension so has never had to save nor really plan for the future. I have a brother that is the exact same way. I've always told my wife that if my brother had a hundred dollars in his pocket he would spend five hundred.

Vehicle depreciation is one of the biggest money wasters, however, I am glad there are people that only by new vehicles because then it provides decent used vehicles for many of us to choose from.

Mike

 

[N-Smooth]

Tell that to my new truck that’s appreciated $15-20k since I bought it 8 months ago 🤣

I don’t know if I’ll ever buy another USED vehicle. I paid for half of my truck with cash and will likely pay the rest off next spring. That’s a lot of money I can access (by selling) at any given time- if necessary.
I will however not have two vehicles with payments simultaneously. That’s too much stress for me.

 

[Houndoc]

Doing a little copy/paste from this thread:

Let's talk about the F.I.R.E. movement (Financially Independent, Retire Early).

Dempsey (@TurboMinivan) started an excellent thread about investing https://www.rme4x4.com/threads/i-just-opened-a-roth-ira-and-am-ready-to-invest-in-the-stock-market.116843/ which got me wondering... are any RME-ers actively pursuing the F.I.R.E movement (A.K.A., early retirement). My dad...

www.rme4x4.com

I have no immediate plans for retirement rather I plan to keep partaking in any amazing experiences that are available now, even if financially dumb. I’ll work into my 70's if I have to. Simply put, many of the things I'm wasting money on now... won't be an option for a 50 or 60 or 70 yr old version of myself. What's a bunch of retirement money if you don't have anything "exciting" to conciously spend it on? Many of the things I like to do now are likely not going to be nearly as enjoyable when I’m 65, both due to my physics and energy level but also the rapidly changing world we live it. I’d be shocked if the Baja 1000 or KOH exist in another 20 years. I’d be shocked if driving the PanAmerican Highway of Road of Bones is any kind of an adventure in another 25 years. Who knows but it’s naive to say you’ll have the same enthusiasm and energy at traditional retirement age to dive into many of these hobbies.

Fwiw it’s not that I am not interested in early retirement. If I could afford to sell my business and travel, I'd do it this afternoon. I'm just not willing to replace the experiences I'm spending my money on today with the hope I'll be able to enjoy some extra retirement time from say 50-65 years old and in fact I'd rather work until 75 if it means continuing my current work/play balance lifestyle. If one can enjoy their life to their want/need AND save for early retirement, win-win. But I can think of many friends and family that are admittedly missing out on and/or regretting spending based on what it is doing to their retirement date... I have No Ragrets

Assume I did sell my business and real estate in the next 5-10 years. I don’t know that I would still fully retire. I’m just not a wake up, sip coffee til noon, golf, fly kites and ride bikes around the neighborhood kind of human. In fact that gives me anxiety. I’ve got some side jobs/business that I really enjoy doing (often doesn’t feel like work) and I could totally see myself doing those more like 20/hrs a week average and they do involve off-road travel so how is that a bad thing. In fact doing more of them excites me and I often wish I had the time to dedicate to them a bit more.

As far as where to retire? The Wasatch Front is getting stuffy but we have such a great cross-section of entertainment, public lands access, airport access, nightlife and cuisine that its really hard to think of landing anywhere else full-time. I’m really warm to the ideal of central Utah but get hung up on the nightlife and air travel. Perfect solution would be a mountain cabin, condo in SLC and small industrial space shop for toys. No lawn, no shoveling snow, etc. My wife and I often joke about this route but can‘t navigate that the dog scenario. Absolutely love big dogs and they need room a condo doesn’t provide.

I can relate to a lot of that and have really considered the financial disadvantages and trade offs to an early retirement.

As our schedules and COVID allow (just had to cancel a trip today that would have taken me to Finland next week for a Jethro Tull concert) travel now that our kids are grown has been something we look forward to. It is a real trade off between earning the money that makes that travel possible and getting the time away from my business to make it happen. I also enjoy being able to help fund good philanthropic projects and retirement will limit the funds available to 'do good' as well.