Here’s our latest interview with a retiree as we seek to learn from those who have actually taken the retirement plunge.
If you’d like to be considered for an interview, drop me a note and we can chat about specifics.
This interview was conducted in January. This interviewee is a personal friend of mine as well as one of the most liked and respected mentors in the Millionaire Money Mentors forums. He has previously completed several interviews here including:
My questions are in bold italics and their responses follow in black.
Let’s get started…
GENERAL OVERVIEW
How old are you (and spouse if applicable, plus how long you’ve been married)?
My dear wife and I are both 59 years young.
We have been married for 33+ years after dating for 5 years so I have known my wife for nearly 65% of my life.
I suspect I am way more excited by this fact than she will be when I bring it to her attention.
Do you have kids/family (if so, how old are they)?
We have three pretty amazing sons who are the center of our lives. They are currently ages 30, 29, and 22.
The two older sons are completely self-sufficient and have been for several years. The 22-year-old graduated college in May 2024 and is slowly embarking on his next adventure.
Within a year from now, we should truly be empty nesting!
What area of the country do you live in (and urban or rural)?
We have lived in Florida for the past 2+ years and I suspect this is where we will stay throughout retirement. However, we spent most of our lives in Northern New Jersey and that is where we raised our three children.
Our Florida home is located in a fairly busy and certainly growing, tourist-centric suburban portion of Florida.
Is there anything else we should know about you?
Hmmm… I can’t whistle (not sure why), I really have no fashion sense at all (and hardly care) and when I dance (not often) I do so in a manner that is eerily similar to the gopher from the movie Caddyshack.
RETIREMENT OVERVIEW
How do you define retirement?
In the simplest of terms, I visualize retirement as the transition away from trading your time for money. Most people eventually come to realize that time, not money, power, or status, is a person’s most valuable and yet finite asset.
Some realize this earlier in life (Go Team FIRE) and some realize it on their deathbed (less than ideal) but most everyone eventually arrives at this truth. Retirement is that glorious stage of your life when you cease trading your time freedom, or life force to borrow from Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez, for money.
How long have you been retired?
I retired in April, 2022. I was fortunate enough to be able to retire early (age 56.5) and on my terms, thus I was able to hand-pick my retirement date.
I chose April 1st which is April Fool’s Day. I chose April 1st for a variety of solid financial reasons however I will add that if you want to playfully screw with your workplace leadership, pick April Fool’s Day to retire.
More than one member of leadership pointedly asked me if my early retirement announcement was an April Fool’s joke. No sorry, the joke was on them.
Is your spouse also retired?
My dear wife’s greatest starring role has been as the pillar of strength who raised our three sons, kept me out of trouble (no easy task), and provided a loving, supportive household for our family. This is a role with no finish line so in many ways she will never get to retire.
She did, however, also work part-time for 40+ years at a small but incredibly busy family candy store where they made the best-tasting chocolate. She retired from that role about 6 weeks after I had retired primarily because she wanted to support her employer during a particularly busy seasonal time.
What was your career and income before retirement?
I have an engineering background but spent most of my W2 career in roles that were focused on the softer side of engineering (Quality Assurance, New Product Development, Process Engineering).
I was fortunate enough to have a lengthy professional career that was rewarding both personally and financially. My annual earnings peaked in 2020 at $338K but probably more importantly I had 18 significant plateau earning years where I averaged about $210K annually.
Why did you retire?
Our retirement was completely a planned event. We set a goal, crafted a solid action plan, executed the necessary plan tasks, and completed the plan.
Seriously, it was that simple. We were completely focused on FIREing before age 59, developed a plan to do so and we were relentless in our pursuit of that goal.
PREPARATION FOR RETIREMENT
When did you first start thinking seriously about retirement and when did that turn into a decision to do it?
We ramped up the intensity of our execution about 10 years before we actually retired. That is when we got very serious and we ratcheted up that intensity every single year until we eventually retired.
We were always making solid financial moves up to this point but 10 years out was the beginning of us being absolutely relentless.
What were the major steps you took from deciding to retire to developing a plan to do so?
Ten years before we retired, we got very serious about capturing our financial data and developing applicable metrics that would allow us to achieve our goal. This started with very detailed annual net worth measurements that not only summed up our net worth but also allowed us to project future contributions and investment growth based on our actual account asset allocation.
Additionally, we focused on key financial metrics that are often overlooked by most people on their financial journey. The most impactful metric that we found was our Savings Rate.
We measured both our Gross Savings Rate and our Net After Tax Savings Rate. We looked to grow these metrics every single chance that we could.
These peaked two years before retirement at 46% and 62% respectively. Your journey really starts to accelerate at these savings rate levels.
We also leaned into utilizing 8 to 10 retirement calculators annually to provide guidance on our progress. We actually still re-run these calculators annually as a check on our journey’s likelihood of continued financial success.
Why 8 to 10 calculators? Even the better retirement calculators are inherently flawed but if 8 to 10 of them agree that your financial plan is sound, it is very likely that you will be just fine.
Lastly, 3+ years before retiring we starting building cash flow projections for our retirement years. This is very important to address prior to retiring.
It is easy to say that you are projecting to spend $XXX dollars a year in retirement (adjusted annually for inflation) but it is way more challenging to specifically state every year where these dollars are being withdrawn to be spent. These details are hugely important as you need to build your personal paycheck from your assets.
What did your pre-retirement financials look like?
We retired with zero debt so we have no financial liabilities. I realize that holding a modest mortgage in retirement may technically be a solid financial move (vs spending down assets to pay off your mortgage).
However, I find a real joy in being debt-free at this point in our journey so frankly I did not care what the spreadsheet says.
Our net worth on our retirement date was $3.1M. This included approximately $2.8M of investable assets as well as our mortgage-free retirement home in Florida.
At retirement, our investable assets were still heavily invested in US equities. However, we knew that within a few months we would be selling our mortgage-free home in New Jersey and moving to our vacation home in Florida.
Therefore, we quickly went from a position of having little cash to adding $450K of cash to our portfolio. This not only provided a large cash buffer but also allowed us to add a bit to our brokerage account equities at a time when the US market was in a short-lived bear market. Winner winner, chicken dinner.
Our tax diversification at retirement was and still is less than ideal. Shortly after adding the funds from the sale of our house, our tax diversification stood at 28% taxable accounts / 70% tax-deferred accounts / 2% tax-free accounts.
Not ideal but our sizable taxable accounts are allowing us to bridge our spending until we reach ages of >59.5.
What was your overall financial plan for retirement?
Pre-retirement we had collected several years of annual spending data which we used as a guide for retirement planning. Our initial plan was to spend similarly initially in retirement.
This proved to be an erroneous approach as we had really ratcheted down our spending leading up to retirement. Our time freedom initially in retirement greatly increased our ability to spend and we wanted to do so.
Luckily, we had built-in buffers to allow for increased spending.
We had never used a strict budgetary approach to spending during our accumulation phase and so far we have not done so in retirement. We simply attempt to spend mindfully but freely on things that we value.
This has resulted in us spending between 4.0% and 5.0% of our net worth annually. This may concern some 4% Rule purists but it does not worry us at all given the significant Social Security which we will begin collecting in 6 to 11 years.
Once our Social Security starts rolling our annual spending will likely drop to 2% to 3%.
Did you make any specific moves to prepare your finances for retirement?
We made a few key financial moves leading up to and into our retirement…
I became eligible for the 401K at my last employer in the fall of 2021 and I retired on April 1st of 2022. In that short 5-month window, I placed 100% of my salary into the 401K maximizing our 401K contributions for both what remained of 2021 and the 1st 3 months of 2022.
It was nice to bang these retirement accounts two last times before retiring. My wife’s face when I told her that we would not get a paycheck for 5 months was priceless but it all worked out just fine.
A few months after retirement, we sold our mortgage-free NJ home for $500K and moved to Florida. Doing so instantly provided us a cash cushion in our portfolio that previously was at least 95% invested in US equities.
With the help of a dear friend who is a long-time employee of a regional bank, we opened a $100K HELOC using our Florida vacation home as collateral. Typically, banks are hesitant to open HELOCs on rental properties, so we called in a favor.
This money serves as our “just in case I screw this up” money.
Who helped you develop this plan?
For good or bad I can honestly say that this plan was completely the brain tulip of my wife and I with me being the chief warped architect.
Along my journey, I have consumed and continue to consume a tremendous amount of information from FIRE and personal finance knowledge via blogs, podcasts, and YouTube. My personal finance resources have evolved over time as my personal finance interests have changed.
My list of recommendations is 25+ long so contact me if you want some resources and I can direct you best based upon where you are on your personal journey. I also have found great value being a member of two very unique personal finance tribes:
- CampFI: Amazingly helpful extended weekend conferences in several locations throughout the US at which 80 to 150 money nerds get together to discuss their FIRE journey in great detail. Absolutely worth attending again and again. I will be attending my 4th CampFI this March.
- Millionaire Money Mentors: A really fantastic online forum of largely self-made millionaires and those well on their way to being millionaires. These folk are bright, really bright. They openly share great practical life/financial advice in a kind and helpful manner.
We do not have a financial planner however some 40% of our investable assets are managed by a professional money manager with 25+ years of investing experience. He is very happy to answer specific personal finance questions and adds value to our lives in many ways.
What plans did you make in advance to leave your job?
I created a detailed Excel spreadsheet in which I logged about 60 tasks to be completed prior to our actual retirement dates. These “to do” tasks focused on healthcare, financial, professional, and personal needs.
I found that having this document allowed me to organize my thoughts at a granular level.
What were your pre-retirement concerns (financial or non-financial)?
I really was pretty confident in our ability to execute our plans (perhaps overconfident?). I honestly did not have many pre-retirement concerns other than the pressure to get our long-time house sold as mortgage rates rose quickly in 2022.
In the end, like so many worries, this proved a non-issue, and our home sold quickly for slightly more than we were asking.
How did you handle deciding on and paying for healthcare?
We are utilizing a high-deductible healthcare plan through the ACA. This is our 3rd year doing so.
Overall, we have been pleased with the value presented by these healthcare plans. The ACA is an imperfect program for sure but it is far better IMO than what the world looked like prior to having this program in place.
The protections for people with pre-existing conditions alone make it a winner (FYI – we do not have any but I can recognize the need for these humane protections).
We briefly considered a healthshare option and we may do so again in the future but the fact that it is not contractual healthcare concerns us even though we have some friends who are very pleased with their healthshare program.
I realize that healthcare for an early retiree can seem daunting and it is certainly often presented that way by the media but it is simply just another solvable challenge. My advice would be to not let a fear of healthcare coverage challenges in early retirement keep you from living your dream life.
How did you tell your family and friends of your plans?
Tell them? I never shut up about our plans to FIRE for 10+ years.
I told everyone who would listen to me and I told those who did not care anyway. It was a surprise to nobody but my last employer that we were on a timeline to retire early.
I do think many friends were surprised that we were able to execute our plan. There was quite a bit of – Holy Crap they actually are going to retire early.
Did you have/make any plans for how you’d spend your time in retirement?
Absolutely. I had heard all of the common wisdom about retirement transitions.
The resource that really helped me frame my retirement was a book by Ernie Zelinski called How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free. This is a very atypical finance/retirement book that drives home the point that you need to craft your Get-A-Life Tree before you retire and just as importantly you need to continue to nurture and grow this tree throughout your retirement.
I literally had an entire wall in our den covered in color-coded Post It notes showing my Get-A-Life tree. I spent many hours on this and it paid dividends.
My wife crafted her own tree as well but honestly not with the same zeal as I did. I think this may be a small part of the reason why the actual retirement transition was much easier for me than it was for her.
THE ACT OF RETIRING
How did you ultimately retire?
Several months before my actual retirement, I selected April 1st as my target retirement date. The choice was perfect.
It allowed me to max out my 401K one last year. It was a Friday so the end of the work week.
It was the 1st day of a new month so it allowed me to have company-sponsored healthcare for an additional month. And, of course, it was April Fool’s Day which seemed like a great FU to Corporate America!
What went well?
The few months leading up to my retirement announcement through my actual retirement went very smoothly. As I neared retirement, I was searching for a person within the organization that I could secretly partner with to tie out on some details of my plan.
This is tricky and it is very hard to find an individual, in a leadership role, that you can fully trust. Ultimately, I decided to trust the HR Director who reported to my boss as well so my choice could have easily gone poorly.
My judgment of the HR Director’s character turned out to be accurate and we well worked together to make my transition a victory lap vs a hot mess.
What didn’t go so well?
There was very little that did not go well. I was fortunate to work with some absolutely amazing people throughout my career and this was true of my co-workers at my final employer which was a smaller startup company.
I was actually the very 1st retiree from the company and they gave me a loving, heartfelt sendoff which I still cherish.
I think the biggest surprise to me regarding my final weeks of employment was how very invisible I became to leadership from the very day that I announced my pending retirement. I had purposely given 4+ weeks’ notice since I knew my broad role would be hard to fill and I wanted to help with the transition as much as I could.
It turns out, they did not want my help. I went from the go-to guy on every significant manufacturing, distribution, and quality assurance question to an invisible, non-participant.
Very odd but I suspect this might be more common in the corporate world than I had realized.
I could have easily been bitter about being made invisible but since I now had a great deal of free time while still getting paid, I decided to use that time for the greater good.
What did I do? I first went around and helped as many people as I could people set up their 401K plans and get started investing in their future.
Since I was not a part of HR, I could be very specific in terms of financial recommendations. I was just a friend helping friends.
Second, I held one-on-one meetings with anyone who wanted to learn about FIRE and how I retired early. I showed them everything including all of my financial data. It was a very rewarding final 4 weeks of my career.
How did you ultimately find the courage to do it?
In complete honesty, I never actually suffered from one more year (OMY) syndrome. I very much enjoyed my work career and I feel very fortunate to have had such a rewarding career.
I especially cherish all the friends who I made over my many years. However, I was very happy to pivot to my encore career as an early retiree.
Life is very much different now but both portions of my journey have been wonderful.
RETIREMENT LIFE
How was the adjustment, especially the first few months after retirement?
I definitely experienced a short decompression period but it really took very little for me to embrace my new time freedom.
How is retirement life now? What do you like about it and what do you dislike?
Easy – I do not dislike one damn thing about my retirement life! Honestly, my life could not be better.
Of course, being retired does not remove every challenge from your life. Real life can be messy and that does not change just because you are financially independent or you retire.
However, attacking challenges in retirement is much more enjoyable than when you are dealing with work life stresses.
We adore our time freedom. We tend to keep very busy but we enjoy a fast pace and many stimulating activities.
It is wonderful to wake up the vast majority of your days and tackle whatever YOU feel is important at that moment. That is true freedom.
What do you do with your time? What does an average day look like?
A typical day in our retirement life looks something like this:
- Sleep until we wake without an alarm (usually between 5:30 and 7:00am)
- Catch up on e-mails, financial content (blogs, YouTube), personal finances, Millionaire Money Mentors forum, etc.
- Daily exercise for as long as we wish (typically 1.5 to 2.0 hours with travel time) at either our fitness center or into the fresh air for a long jog/walk
- Household chores or projects (I actually like working on household projects as an amateur handyman)
- Have some fun (Disney theme park, live musical entertainment, sightseeing)
- Future travel/event planning
- Very small amount of evening television
- Read before bed. I am a ridiculously slow reader but my dear wife can devour books whole
Despite being retired, I do find that I still feel the need to accomplish both physical and mental activities every day. Even if I have a productive day but I do not get both mental and physical activity, I do not feel positive about the day.
Maybe that is just how a lifelong Type A person behaves in retirement (or maybe I am just an odd duck).
What are the major activities that fill up your time in retirement? Are there any new ones you’re planning to try?
For many years we have been semi-focused on physical fitness but early retirement really has allowed us to make this a key daily activity. We spend anywhere from 1.5 to 2+ hours a day, at least 5 days a week exercising with a purpose.
We like to travel and be active so planned travel is a big part of our schedule. Since retiring we have taken at least half a dozen cruises, some of these for longer than a week.
Additionally, we travel throughout Florida and everywhere else as the fancy strikes us. We just returned from a short 4-night trip to Las Vegas.
We also love a good road trip so we often get in the car and take long road trips up to NJ to visit family and long-time friends. This is travel-based but much more about socialization than seeing new places.
We live 10 minutes away from Walt Disney World so we spend many, many, many days enjoying all the Walt Disney World attractions and hotels. We often head out to various local spots for some live music, food and drink.
We are looking to try some slow travel in the future in which we would travel but live somewhat like locals vs spending every day as tourists. We are targeting 2025 for our 1st attempt with a 2-month trip to the New York Adirondack region.
What is your social life like?
Our social life has always been pretty robust. We are “peoply” by nature.
Retirement itself did not hinder our social life one bit. I have always stayed in touch and met socially with many people who I worked with over my career. It is a big part of who I am so retirement did not hinder that at all.
Our physical move away from our very rich social network in NJ to Florida has most definitely hindered our social network on a day-to-day basis. However, since we now in a very tourist-centric area that is fun to visit, we find that we get many, many visitors who stay with us often.
It is like we opened our own bed and breakfast in retirement! We are also slowly making new Florida friends.
This is definitely a slower process when you are older and it takes some effort.
Looking back, what would you have done differently?
There is really not much that I would change. I will share a few words of caution regarding change.
Most people dislike or are fearful of change. For some people it is a combination of both.
My wife really dislikes change. Change has never been a hurdle for me but I can recognize that I am in the minority on this topic.
Our plan as executed included a great many changes in a short time. I retired. My wife retired.
We started living off assets (vs paychecks). We sold our long-time home. We moved 1,000 miles aways from lifelong friends.
All of this happened in 7 months or less. In hindsight perhaps I should have allowed for a longer window for these changes to take place.
Was there any emotional impact from leaving the workforce?
There was some and honestly that surprised me. I had excitedly anticipated this day for so long (15+ years) and planned most every detail.
When the day arrived, I was very surprised how emotionally draining it was to close this chapter of my life. I knew it would be more emotional for my wife given how long she had worked for the same family but I was surprised that I was a bit of a trainwreck emotionally myself.
What surprises (financial or non-financial, good or bad) have you had since retiring and how have you handled them?
I have been surprised how much money remains a topic in my head. I have slowly begun to relax as we near 3 years in retirement but I am surprised how conscious I remain about our financial plan.
I remain an optimizer although I am working on toning down my efforts. I would not use the term worry but it has definitely taken a while for some of the angst to diminish even though by all measures our plan is very sound and most future decisions will hardly move the needle much.
Talking about this angst with others who are on their own FIRE journey has been very therapeutic. My advice: find a few mentors or peers that you can trust and share openly.
I am surprised how joyful it is to be unimportant. When I was in the peak years of my career, I held leadership roles in which I was important to day-to-day operations.
I was in many ways, very important. I absolutely enjoyed being important. It was a rush.
Now I am happily retired and I am in many ways completely unimportant. I no longer make critical daily decisions.
I no longer develop strategic plans. I no longer lead a team of professionals. I no longer, hire, fire or promote people.
I am by many measures now unimportant. I thought becoming unimportant might bother me quite a bit.
Surprise – it has not bothered me at all. There is real peacefulness in being unimportant.
What are your future plans?
My plan is simply to stay healthy both physically and mentally as long as I possibly can so that I can spend as many active years with my amazing wife and family. I think being active and engaged is a key to a long and happy life.
I also do very much enjoy most personal finance topics and I would like to continue to help as many family members, friends, and even casual acquaintances get over the retirement wall as early as they would like to do so. There is plenty of room on this side of the wall for great people to join us.
RETIREMENT FINANCES
How has your financial plan performed compared to what you had estimated before retirement?
We retired into the beginning of the 2022 US stock/bond bear market. Granted it was a fairly rapid bear market and the market recovered quickly however nobody would want to retire into the start of a bear market.
Fortunately, we had taken precautions in case of such an event and had a large cash cushion as well as other margins of safety in place so we did not have to see equities at lower prices. Since the end of 2022 Mr. Market has been very generous and we have been rewarded for keeping to our planned high US equity asset allocation.
Therefore, despite 2.5+ years of solid spending, our network has grown significantly. As of year-end 2024 our Net Worth has increased from $3.1M at retirement to $4.1M.
One footnote: there are approximately $300K of additional monies added to our net worth after retirement through a lump sum pension payout and a small inheritance. Even with these additions removed, our net worth has grown by $700K (+23%) over 2.5+ years which is far greater than I would have ever imagined.
Can you give us some insights into your post-retirement spending and income? How much do you spend annually and on what? And where does the income to pay for your spending come from?
We have spent between $135K and $156K annually each of the past three years. This is significantly more than we were spending leading up to retirement ($85K the year before retirement).
Peter Drucker, renown business author/educator, is credited with saying: “Tell me what you value and I might believe you, but show me your calendar and your bank statement, and I’ll show you what you really value”. I think there is great truth in this statement.
Here are the largest spending categories for our household in 2024:
When reviewing spending habits, it naturally helpful to focus on the larger spending categories and assure that this spending is in line with your personal goals. Additionally, much can be learned by looking at what you spend very little money to acquire.
Here are some notably modest spending categories for us in 2024:
There is nothing wrong with spending significantly on these categories if they bring you joy however, we clearly did not value them much in 2024.
We generate almost all of our income from spending down assets. At the moment, given our age, all of the spending comes from our taxable brokerage and online savings accounts.
The current plan is to slowly start tapping out traditional IRAs in 2027. This will accelerate after we enroll in Medicare at age 65 and ACA income limits are lifted.
How are you handling Social Security, required minimum distributions, tax issues and the like?
This is absolutely one of the more significant financial challenges that we are grinding through mentally. Additionally, we have ACA subsidies and necessary capital gain harvesting challenges.
These are all interrelated. This puzzle is really one that cannot be easily optimized given the unknowns involved.
I find that a reasonable approach when you encounter these types of complex challenges is to strike a balance. Thus, we are doing annual Roth conversions up to the 12% federal tax bracket limit which results in us retaining some but not all of our possible ACA subsidies.
Additionally, by staying in the 12% federal tax bracket, our long-term capital gains that we are harvesting are taxed at 0%.
All of these annual moves mean that only a portion of our traditional IRAs will get converted before RMDs begin at age 75. However, we also plan to spend fairly significantly from our traditional IRAs beginning at age 62 so this will help keep our traditional IRA balances from growing exponentially.
I have a keen eye on this situation but at this time I am not terribly afraid of RMDs. We saved this money to spend it in the future, so let’s spend it.
Did you return to paid work? Why or why not?
We have not returned to paid work in any way. We are not opposed to doing so in some modest, low-stress role but frankly our time freedom has been so amazing that we cannot imagine. compromising it for a few more dollars that we will never spend.
We have enough and knowing that we do is golden.
Did you find it hard going from being a saver to a spender?
Surprisingly not one damn bit. That is actually a bit of a shock since we had always been somewhat frugal and we really had ratcheted down our spending greatly the last 5 years of our working years.
We retired in our Go-Go Years and we are Go-Going. I realize this is somewhat unusual for those who FIRE, even late FIRE but honestly, this has been no problem for us.
Looking back, what do you wish you knew in advance?
We are nearing three years as retirees and we are honestly still discovering new quirks about this amazing lifestyle. I think one of the hardest lessons that I am learning very slowly is to relax regarding our finances.
Once you have won the game (retiring at age 56 is a win to me), it is fine to keep playing the game. However, you do not need to optimize every financial decision any longer.
Get things directionally correct and chill a little bit (man I suck at chilling out).
What advice do you have for those wanting to retire?
My middle son shared this with me in a cherished retirement congratulations card. I am overjoyed to share this with all of you now.
The sooner one learns this profound life lesson, the sooner one can really start living fully.
Thank you for sharing. In each interview / update I hope for one or two nuggets and you reinforced one of our toughest decisions: how aggressively do we drawdown our assets early in retirement? Our situation is like yours in many ways including finances, and we have debated the amount of our drawdown spending and how to rationalize it. Like you, our spending has actually increased in the first years of retirement compared to before retirement and we are doing things we wouldn’t have done pre-retirement. Your view about spending what you have saved echoes our conclusion. We are withdrawing more than we need: a. because we safely can; and b. because we can always reduce our withdrawals later, but we can never regain lost time and don’t want to regret not having done something we might want to because we decided not to withdraw enough to do that. So our attitude is to spend away especially in our early years. If we have extra we use it to help our kids in some way and we love the appreciation they show when we do!
Congratulations on your success and thanks for sharing your story.
Great comments and points M268!! and great Retirement story #56!!
Thanks Pete!
Hey M268 – I agree 100% with everything that you shared. We saved it to spend it mindfully but spend it we shall!
I remain an optimizer although I am working on toning down my efforts. I would not use the term worry but it has definitely taken a while for some of the angst to diminish even though by all measures our plan is very sound and most future decisions will hardly move the needle much.
You and I will continue to discuss this more on the forum, this is a thoughtful endeavor as a goal to strive for. I appreciate your willingness to talk about the challenges that you have faced and the planning that you have implemented to overcome them. From an observer who is a few years behind you might even say that you have been crushing them!
Hey ScubaJay! Thank you for the kind words. I look forward to sharing with you and other on the Mentors forum for many years!
Great work! I especially like the increased net worth in such a short time. I’d be interested in reading your list of “ 25 resources”. Can you share?
I’m also interested. Perhaps share as a comment?
Much appreciated.
Here is my list. It is certainly not exhaustive and hardly sophisticated. But I have found these resources to be about time tested as any for those on their financial independence journey (I hope this formats into a readable fashion):
NAME AUTHOR / HOST FORMAT
Mr. Money Mustache Pete Adeney Blog
The Mad Fientist Brandon Ganch Blog / Podcast
The Simple Path to Wealth JL Collins Blog / Book
Your Money or Your Life J. Dominguez/V. Robin Book
The Psychology of Money Morgan Housel Book
How I Invest My Money J. Brown/B. Portnoy Book
The White Coat Investor Dr Jim Dahle Blog / Podcast
Humble Dollar Jonathan Clements Blog
Animal Spirits B. Carlson/M. Batnick Podcast / YouTube
Ask The Compound Ben Carlson Podcast / YouTube
Kitces and Carl M. Kitces/C. Richards Podcast
Nerds Eye View Michael Kitces Blog
Retirement and IRA Show J. Saulnier/C. Stein Podcast
Rob Berger Rob Berger YouTube
The Long View Christine Benz Podcast
Jill on Money Jill Schlesinger Blog / Podcast
Catching Up to FI B. Yount/J. Koski Podcast
Mark’s Money Mind Mark Trautman Podcast
The Retirement Manifesto Fritz Gilbert Blog
A Wealth of Commonsense Ben Carlson Blog
Go Curry Cracker Jeremy Jacobson Blog
Early Retirement Now Karsten Jeske Blog
Oblivious Investor Mike Piper Blog
Can I Retire Yet? Chris Mamula Blog
ESI Money John Nardini Blog
The Retirement Answer Man Roger Whitney Blog / Podcast
Hope this helps!
Congratulations. Your path is so very similar to mine, especially the date of April 1!! I went out on April 1, 2020 for many of the same reasons; fully fund 401k, healthcare for the month of April, etc.
You have done a great job and I wish you and your wife a long and very happy life! Thanks for sharing your story.
Thank you Chris!
Love April Fools Day more than ever now! 🙂
Very well presented! So incredibly similar to my story. I retired from full time Corp at 56 but now just manage my rental properties (3-7 hours a week sort of thing).
With working out 1.5-2hrs a day (as I do) you may want to find a sport that you can participate/compete in that would feed any Type A burning embers you have and allow for another social opportunity. I compete in cycling (specifically cross-country mountain bike) and its a great thing that has me as fit as I have ever been.
We have two boys — a 22 year old as well – and he is applying everywhere for a finance job, but wow it is a tough entry level job market right now… so seeing him launch will be one of our final hurdles.
Also, you may be doing a little better with a friends group…like you we are “people” … but given everything else in post-corporate life is great… the one thing I wish for is more guy friends. Most guys our age are still working or don’t socialize without their wives.
Congrats on great post-corp hell execution and I agree with EVERY word you shared! TIME is what we have least of!
But some people don’t see it that way… and want to die with the biggest pile of money as a measure of a successful life. Their choice… just not how I see it.
Hey MRC, thanks for sharing. Wow, we have taken similar paths. We are actually without rental real estate but I probably spend the same number of hours as you do with that in tweaking our investments and withdrawals. It is as much a fun hobby for me as anything else. I am almost certain that my tweaks are nothing but a rounding error on our net worth. 🙂
Thanks for the helpful share!
Dear Retirement Interview #56: I would like to congratulate you on an awesome retirement and at the age of 56! I also retired in the 2022 dip at the age of 56. Now three years into new awesome life. I’m really envious of your level of confidence in your financial plan and long-term spending plans. Maybe I’ll get there some day but worrying might be a personality quirk. Question: how did decide to take your cash balance retirement pension? versus using it as a pension or “annuity” at some point in the future? All the best to you and fine family
Hello Pete! Thank you so much for the kind words regarding our retirement path. It really has been awesome to date.
I think having some degree of spending angst, especially early in retirement is very normal. I find comfort with 4 to 5% of annual spending based on a few things:
I believe in the math behind the 4% rule;
A large slice of our current spending is truly discretionary so any adjustments when Mr Market is behaving very poorly are very doable;
We are firmly in our Go Go Years so in my mind our spending should be elevated now vs when we are firmly in our No Go Years;
Lastly, we have significant Social Security on the horizon 11 years from now so our spending rate will drop significantly at that time;
Pension – I really thought long and hard on taking my pension buyout. I loved the idea of keeping my pension. However, the lack of a COLA made its purchasing power diminish every year even as I waited to begin my pension and that would carry over forever. In terms of math, I calculated that I have to earn about 4.5% annually in investment returns on my pension lump sum to break even during a normal lifespan. I think I will greatly exceed that ROI over 30 years.
Thanks again!
Was selling the NJ house an easy thing? Do your kids still live local to NJ or are they dispersed as that is the hardest thing I have with trying to figure out future as we are contemplating a FL location on top of our mid atlantic based house.
Hello Ryan:
The mechanics of selling our NJ house were fairly easy in the summer of 2022. The housing market was still humming despite the back up in interest rates. Emotionally it was a bit challenging and much more so for my dear wife since we had lived in the same home for 30+ years and raise our family there.
Our oldest son moved to Florida right after college so he was in Florida before we arrived. As luck would have it our other two sons have since landed in Florida so in some sense we have been able to put the band back together! They all live within 2 hours of us which is very nice. Makes me happy and my wife thrilled.
You are absolutely correct about how little it matters to be unimportant. I am a very old woman, and actually revel in being invisible and unimportant. It is certainly freeing. Congratulations on your well-crafted planning that worked out so successfully.
Thank you Vicki! I agree and it was a bit of a surprise for me since I certainly enjoyed being important at work during my career.
Of course I do like to think that I am still sort of important to my family and close friends. 🙂
This interview has provided me with great detail as I am 57 and getting close to retirement. Thank You
MI 32
Awesome! You are very welcome MI32! I am glad that I could help in some small way!
Love the interview. Would you be willing to share this:
“I created a detailed Excel spreadsheet in which I logged about 60 tasks to be completed prior to our actual retirement dates. These “to do” tasks focused on healthcare, financial, professional, and personal needs.”
Hello MillionaireAunt: I am happy to share my excel spreadsheet and with anyone else. I do not think I can simply plop it here but I am happy to email it too anyone who could use it.
Send me an email if you would like it: [email protected]
🙂
Those are all really great books. Glad to see you enjoying retirement and bring so upbeat, while being close to your kids. You are blessed and have a good outlook on life and not taking it for granted. Best wishes!
Thank you Financial Fives! We are VERY fortunate indeed.
I’m surprised, that you were surprised when your old Company ignore you. HR is not your friend. Their main purpose is to prolonged the survival of the company at whatever cost. I should know. I own one.
Hey John – thanks for sharing. While I may not fully agree with you, I do understand that all of leadership at a company including Human Resources has a company-first focus.
In the end the joke (April Fools) is on them as I am happily retired and they are not. 🙂
Great interview and great job!
We also have a second home in the Disney area and have enjoyed it for the last 5 years. We currently have it on the market, as we purchased a new home on the west coast…”nature lovers paradise “. And finally we are selling our family home at the foothills of the Adirondack mountains. It is an emotional one to sell that family home, we spent so many decades enjoying, but the time is right.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy your 2 months in the Adirondacks. It is a beautiful place. It has been our playground for decades.
Best wishes and so happy for your success!!!