Here’s another one of those “mistakes I made” posts that I like to do every once in a while. It has the added benefit of being a New Years resolution sort of post, which I simply love. 🙂
Doing “mistakes posts” helps me (and ESI Money readers) remember that I’m not always the perfect money manager that this site often seems to make me out to be.
In addition, it shows others that they don’t have to be perfect in how they manage their money to hit their financial goals.
And I’ve been far, far from perfect. In fact, here are other posts that demonstrate my lack of perfection:
Thankfully, I’m not the only one who makes mistakes. Here are some other mistake-focused posts I’ve run:
- The Top Eight Areas Where Millionaires Make Money Mistakes
- The Ten Worst Money Mistakes Anyone Can Make
- Top Ten Money Mistakes People with Modest Incomes Make
Yep, there are plenty of mistakes to go around. But one of my worst was detailed on a post I did for Get Rich Slowly.
Today I want to share that post with you.
The time I lost detailed below is part of what kept me from retiring a decade earlier when I was actually financially independent — or perhaps retiring even sooner than that. Ugh.
Thankfully I’m making up the time now. 😉
For your reading pleasure, here’s my mistake/resolution guest post from GRS which I wrote over three years ago…
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One of the key concepts JD discusses here is having a personal mission statement which in turn helps you develop a life plan. This plan enables you to develop action steps to be sure you achieve your goals.
I love this sort of thing. I’ve always been a New Year’s resolution sort of guy. Every year I make a list of what I want to accomplish the next year with an eye on five to ten years down the road for the big projects. I write down goals and then break them down into daily habits that set me on the right path.
But for many years I somehow neglected to go all the way in setting specific, long-term financial goals. And I missed five extra years of early retirement as a result.
This is the story of how you can get lost without a map.
A Bit of History
I have been an avid earner, saver, and investor for some time.
I’m not sure when it all kicked in but about 15 years ago I started putting this money stuff together. I had done well up to that point and had a decent net worth, but for some reason things started to click and I began to focus on growing my wealth.
By almost all measures I was doing well. My income hit new heights, my savings rate was high, and my investments were performing well. However, this success was a double-edged sword. Because I was doing well, I could afford to be sloppy. Even without a written plan, I was knocking the ball out of the park financially. So why take that extra step?
My (Vague) Plan
So I was on cruise control financially. My good progress allowed me to get away with a back-of-the-envelope plan. It was a simple SWAG based on what I knew about our finances.
This was the problem. My goal wasn’t SMART. Specifically, it wasn’t measurable or timed.
Instead my financial independence plan was simply this:
- $4 million in assets
- $100,000 in annual income from those assets (which would allow us to never have to spend our assets — we could live off the income alone)
I knew “roughly” that if I hit these goals I would be financially independent. I knew this instinctively because I had a pretty good grip on our finances (20 years of Quicken data will do that for you). I knew what we made and what we spent. And I was sure that if we hit those numbers we would have more than enough.
So life kept moving along, we kept saving, and all was well. That is until…
Life Happens
As could be expected, life threw us a couple curve balls, like it is known to do.
First of all, I was fired from my job the year after we had a record year. I considered retirement at that point but for some reason I still didn’t run the numbers. I simply stuck with my $4 million/$100k goal. Since I wasn’t there, I kept moving forward and got a new job.
Then that job started to weigh me down. I had a micro-manager boss who was next to impossible to please.
My work life got so bad that it jolted me into reality. I FINALLY ran the numbers and discovered that I didn’t need $4 million in assets or a $100k income to retire. My assets generated around $85k per year and with a few tweaks I could get that to $95k. Creating my retirement budget I saw that I “only” needed $95k to retire each year, and since I had that, I could retire anytime I wanted. Running the numbers and having a specific plan that was measurable made me see that.
So, I retired. And I’ve been loving it ever since.
What I Missed
Admittedly my lack of a formal plan was not a complete disaster. After all, I did retire at 52 with the ability to live off the income my assets generated. It’s hard to moan too much about that.
But most people do not have the finances we have. There’s not nearly the margin for error we had. That’s why I’m writing this post — to encourage everyone reading this to develop complete, SMART financial goals.
That said, we were impacted. Here’s what I lost by not having a SMART plan:
- We spent too much. Since we weren’t shooting for a specific goal, we spent what we wanted. It wasn’t extravagant but it was money we could have saved/invested a lot earlier. Looking back there was a lot of waste that really didn’t benefit us much.
- We didn’t save enough. Because we didn’t have a specific time we were shooting for retirement, we didn’t push our savings as much as we could have. We made a very good income which allowed us to save a ton for sure, but not save with intention. Again, we were sloppy. With just a bit of planning, we could have saved a bit more and retired much earlier.
- We didn’t allocate investments to generate income. I did invest in real estate, the move that eventually made my early retirement possible, but I didn’t buy as much of it as I should have. I also put too much money into retirement accounts. Yes, these are accessible before 59 1/2 but it’s not convenient to do so. A plan would have had me saving more after-tax (in a Roth IRA for example) to have more available post-retirement.
These three mistakes, caused by only having a vague goal, kept me from retiring much earlier than I did.
Five Years Lost
There were several times I could have retired earlier if I had a specific plan. Namely:
- If I had a plan I would have bought more real estate and retired in 2011.
- If I had a plan I would have saved more aggressively and been able to retire in 2013.
- If I had a plan I would have seen that I had enough to retire in early 2015 when I was fired.
In short, not having a plan meant I didn’t know exactly what I was aiming for. I was lost because I had no map (or at best an incomplete one). It cost me at least a few years.
Again, it’s hard to boo-hoo about my results. But consider the implications for the average family. Without a plan they could lose those five years too — and likely even more. For them it could mean the difference between retiring at 65 versus 70 or 75. Those are some critical years to lose that late in life.
So consider this post a public service announcement: Don’t be like me. Be SMART. Have a financial plan, work it, and achieve your goals.
Here’s wishing you a great and prosperous New Year.
Xrayvsn says
It is eerie but I am pretty much on a similar mindset/trajectory as you were.
When I first started thinking about FIRE (about 2012 or so) I just arbitrarily came up with a target of $5M net worth because it sounded nice. But then ran the numbers of what I really wanted and figured I wanted a SWR of $125k/yr (which would allow a pretty lavish retirement lifestyle for me bc of LCOL area and mortgage already paid off). This made $4M of income producing assets the target.
About 2.5 mo from hitting 49, I am in spitting distance of that goal. But I think I am going to push the goal posts a little further bc I am suffering from one more year syndrome big time (plus health insurance scares me and my daughter is a 9th grader so I can’t really do the retirement traveling bc of it so might as well work till she graduates and pad the nest egg even more (my target retirement age was 53 because of this since the very beginning).
I probably will have way too much saved by then but I can always up my lifestyle bc if it once I feel comfortable will not run out of money.
Danny says
Am interested in the plan that would allow you to get $100,000 annually in income from $4 mn. Can you advise?
ESI says
Well, all you need to earn is 2.5% a year. You can almost do that with dividends from stock index funds — and they aren’t designed to churn off income.
Danny says
Ok, but what about the other 1.5%? What am I missing?
Mr. Hobo Millionaire (MI-149) says
Danny, your math is off just a bit.
The extra 1.5% you ask about would put him at a 4% withdrawal. That’s 160K on 4M, not 100K. He’s at 2.5% withdrawal (100K), not 4%. With the 100K, 2% in yearly dividends alone puts you at 80K. It’s only another .5 (half) percent to make up the other 20K.
A 2.5% withdrawal rate is super safe. That’s pretty much my future plan. No bonds, all VTI, a little cash on-hand, and a 2-2.5% withdrawal rate.
ESI says
What you’re missing is that you asked about “the plan that would allow you to get $100,000 annually in income from $4 mn.”
You did not ask what the amount would be at 4% withdrawal.
Art says
Even a no risk CD will do that, which is what I am doing by the way.
Joe says
Yes, but at a fixed 2% the CD generates income but doesn’t keep up with inflation.
Kim @ The Frugal Engineers says
These are my favorite types of posts – being able to learn from the successes (and just as importantly, the mistakes) from folks who’ve walked down the FI path before me helped us set our trajectory throughout the years. Thank you!
Ty says
I’m curious of your analysis that you “saved too much” in retirement accounts? Could you explain more? Quickly reviewing your numbers above it appears you would have benefitted significantly from the tax arbitrage and early retirement age. Cheers
ESI says
By that I simply mean I don’t have easy access to the funds in retirement accounts today since I’m below 59 1/2. (Yes, there are ways to get the money, but they aren’t easy.)
That said, I really don’t need the money, so it doesn’t matter much. But if I did (and many retiring early do), it would be an issue.
Ty says
Seems like a great “problem” to have. Lots of options to gain to access to that money.
And even if you don’t want to touch the money prior to 59 1/2, it allows more tax free growth prior to Roth conversions all the way to age 72. Appreciate all your articles and insight. Cheers
Papa Foxtrot says
Most people never write down a budget, out of curiosity did you write a budget before retirement?
When the missus and I make financial plans, we actually talk about how long it will take to produce the money to buy certain things. For instance when we talk about our financial goals, we address how long it will take to reach that goal, then how much money we can put aside to reach the goal. Then it becomes easier to make a different plan to reach the goal sooner. Addressing how much time it would take to reach a goal before discussing how much money is needed.
ESI says
Yep, made a budget before I retired and keep one today (though I only update it quarterly).
With 20+ years of Quicken data, I have a pretty good handle on my finances even without a budget.