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DIYSteve
seeking hygge
Joined: 06 Mar 2007
Posts: 12655 | TRs | Pics
Location: here now |
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DIYSteve
seeking hygge
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 Fri Sep 30, 2016 11:09 am |
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| Chief Joseph wrote: | | I also worry a bit about the financial aspect, especially given that with all this free time, it's easy to spend more. |
Yeah, I too worry notwithstanding that my numbers pencil out. Because super safe debt instrument returns don't exist these days, if you've paid a good chunk into SS and have liquid assets current conventional wisdom is to draw from principle to get to 70 and then take late SS as the best hedge against running out of money if you grow older than life expectancy age.
Learning to like cheap red wine* and rarely eating out are key factors for stretching retirement savings.
*Cutting out beer with meals and replacing with red wine is key factor weight control.
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iron
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Joined: 10 Aug 2008
Posts: 6392 | TRs | Pics
Location: southeast kootenays |
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iron
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Fri Sep 30, 2016 12:03 pm |
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wolffie
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Joined: 14 Jul 2008
Posts: 2693 | TRs | Pics
Location: Seattle |
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wolffie
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Fri Sep 30, 2016 12:33 pm |
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Retirement is something I do when Firestone has a sale.
Some people have better things to do with their lives than walking the dog. Some don't.
Some people have better things to do with their lives than walking the dog. Some don't.
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treeswarper
Alleged Sockpuppet!
Joined: 25 Dec 2006
Posts: 11276 | TRs | Pics
Location: Don't move here |
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treeswarper
Alleged Sockpuppet!
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Fri Sep 30, 2016 12:35 pm |
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I think of myself as a business and try to "make a profit" each month. I do know that I will be in the red in February when I pay my property taxes, and I've been spending a bit now on traveling, but it is worth it. It helps that I've always been cheap and a bit of a saver.
What's especially fun about sock puppets is that you can make each one unique and individual, so that they each have special characters. And they don't have to be human––animals and aliens are great possibilities
What's especially fun about sock puppets is that you can make each one unique and individual, so that they each have special characters. And they don't have to be human––animals and aliens are great possibilities
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joker
seeker
Joined: 12 Aug 2006
Posts: 7953 | TRs | Pics
Location: state of confusion |
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joker
seeker
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Fri Sep 30, 2016 12:42 pm |
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| Teabag wrote: | | Was it difficult adjusting to the concept of not working? |
Finances aside, no.
It is not hard to keep busy. It can take some work to really think through what sort of busy really nourishes you after a long life structured by full time work, but that is a worthy challenge! We live in a golden era in terms of options for self-directed education (free, cheap, and otherwise), by the way. One good use of time is to invest in yourself in ways that will pay dividends for the rest of your life.
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boot up
Old Not Bold Hiker
Joined: 12 Dec 2006
Posts: 4745 | TRs | Pics
Location: Bend Oregon |
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boot up
Old Not Bold Hiker
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Fri Sep 30, 2016 12:49 pm |
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| iron wrote: | | boot up wrote: | | It is yet another nail in the coffin of the middle class. And unfortunately either choice coming up is loaded with more nails. |
sorry man. not to stir up a shitstorm here, but your particular generation has had the 2nd best, or best, opportunity to comfortably reach retirement of all generations that have existed on this planet. you lived in a time where if you didn't use your house as an ATM, it should've been quite easy to accrue a nest egg. stock market actually returned returns. house prices were low enough to begin with. there wasn't international competition and monster corporations slashing each others' throats. there was employee loyalty. you lived in america, clearly the top country in the world for wealth, stability, etc. you had your pick at all kinds of low hanging fruit.
i may be biased with the view of a genXer, but you cannot possibly think that a genX or millenial will have an easier path to retirement. not to mention most of the good places will have already been overcrowded and loved to death.
/end rant. |
So, you are agreeing with me? i.e. the middle class is screwed pretty much no matter what, and its only getting worse going forward.
Moderator....Since when is talking medical coverage and insurance costs, not pertinent to the discussion of considering early retirement? And maybe its a sad statement that discussing medical insurance cost is now considered "talking politics". I consider this non-partisan. I don't see it would be any different no matter which party of our system won.
You have me confused with the Baby Boomer Gen, which I just missed out on. I am basically in the generation caught between the arbitrarily bracketed categories.
I had to pay for the damage done by the Greatest Generation, which I call the Unsustainable Generation. Basically paying for my parents' college education, my own college education, and my kids' college education. And as a responsible parent, I saw the writing on the wall and helped out my kids to get started, knowing that the little we could afford would still leave them an uphill battle. My gen is expected to take care of the Unsustainable Gen parents, that were too busy partying hard to bother to plan for their future old age, while planning for my own old age because I know my kids are not going to be able to help, and I just hope they can take care of themselves. (many of the newer gen are tapping the resources of their parents and living at home until much later).
I notice a lot of early retirees don't mention the cost of raising their kids, and have spouses providing medical (my wife owns her own small business and has always been supported by me), or nice pensions (Pensions disappeared just before I could have gotten any).
I am not at all saying the upcoming gens aren't going to have a tough time. I am on your side. The current legally required health insurance (by whatever politically correct name you want to give it) is definitely not going to help do anything but make the insurance companies get richer.
If you are planning early retirement, do not underestimate the cost impact of this, is all I am saying!
And quit generalizing about me, since you obviously do not know me. 
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DIYSteve
seeking hygge
Joined: 06 Mar 2007
Posts: 12655 | TRs | Pics
Location: here now |
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DIYSteve
seeking hygge
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Fri Sep 30, 2016 4:48 pm |
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Those who are bellyaching about being shortchanged by [fill in the blank] generation should take a big step back and view things from a historical perspective. If you have a house with a furnace, hot water, indoor plumbing, dishwasher, washing machine & dryer, microwave, stove, oven and refrigerator, you're living a lifestyle that required 10 servants and a sizeable estate to sustain 150 years ago.
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Randito
Snarky Member
Joined: 27 Jul 2008
Posts: 9513 | TRs | Pics
Location: Bellevue at the moment. |
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Randito
Snarky Member
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Fri Sep 30, 2016 8:57 pm |
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Tell me again about the troubles you face here in the USA
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cartman
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Joined: 20 Feb 2007
Posts: 2800 | TRs | Pics
Location: Fremont |
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cartman
Member
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Fri Sep 30, 2016 10:24 pm |
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| boot up wrote: | | paying for my parents' college education, my own college education, and my kids' college education. |
You didn't have to have kids. You chose to.
You certainly didn't have to pay for their college--that's what financial aid and working during college are for. You chose to. My parents didn't pay a dime of my college education, nor did I ask or expect them to; I worked and received financial aid--for six years of college.
Bottom line, you live with the choices you make. Griping about them later and blaming others is simply an attempt to evade responsibility for the choices you've made.
I don't know when I'll be able to retire, largely due to the choices I have made. The only blame I'd put on others is the weak performance of the stock market due to various factors. For a certainty, the 401k and 403b "retirement" baby boomers and later gens receive are usually a pale shadow of earlier generation's pension plans, with their guaranteed payouts.
| boot up wrote: | | And maybe its a sad statement that discussing medical insurance cost is now considered "talking politics". I consider this non-partisan. |
It's non-partisan as long as you don't gratuitously blame the ACA for this and that, especially if you've never been on it. The knee-jerk opposition to the ACA usually is political, no matter how many people it has helped.
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cascadetraverser
Member
Joined: 16 Sep 2007
Posts: 1407 | TRs | Pics
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Well put Big Steve and RandyHiker!
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Backpacker Joe
Blind Hiker
Joined: 16 Dec 2001
Posts: 23956 | TRs | Pics
Location: Cle Elum |
As soon as I get my house paid off, Im going to retire. I have no other debt than that. I live pretty cheaply here in Cle Elum. 
"If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide."
— Abraham Lincoln
"If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide."
— Abraham Lincoln
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Bloated Chipmunk
Cock Rock Searcher
Joined: 29 Jan 2007
Posts: 2993 | TRs | Pics
Location: Margaritaville |
I still have a ways to go before retirement, so take my advice w/a grain of salt... 
If you can afford it, go for it. Wait too long & you'll be too sick/feeble to do any epic hiking trips.
Either that, or keep working for awhile but take advantage of your vacation time to do as much hiking/traveling as possible in between the daily grind. The key is to have fun adventures while you still can, because inevitably there will come a day when you can't.
My 2 cents. 
Home is where the hiking is.
"Peaks that have come and gone four times should halt a man in his steps." -- William O. Douglas
A balanced diet is a margarita in each hand.
Home is where the hiking is.
"Peaks that have come and gone four times should halt a man in his steps." -- William O. Douglas
A balanced diet is a margarita in each hand.
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drm
Member
Joined: 24 Feb 2007
Posts: 1376 | TRs | Pics
Location: The Dalles, OR |
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drm
Member
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Sat Oct 01, 2016 2:05 pm |
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My choice was to quit a decent paying job in my 30s, sell most of my stuff and travel the world, at an age when I could sit in buses in poor countries for a dozen hours, an impossibility for me now.
As a result of not working in those peak earning years I will not retire early, and I don't regret it one bit. Now I work as an independent contractor so can still get out a fair amount, probably as good as it gets for outdoor oriented person who still has to work. And I moved to a town with a low cost of living, like buying a 2200 sq ft house in excellent condition for $155K.
Some people do grow up in a situation where choices are made for them, so I don't want to generalize, but I made some unconventional ones and am okay with it, even though some of my hiking friends retired years ago.
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cartman
Member
Joined: 20 Feb 2007
Posts: 2800 | TRs | Pics
Location: Fremont |
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cartman
Member
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Sat Oct 01, 2016 5:47 pm |
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| Bloated Chipmunk wrote: | | keep working for awhile but take advantage of your vacation time to do as much hiking/traveling as possible in between the daily grind. The key is to have fun adventures while you still can |
That's exactly what I have done. Fortunately for nine summers I had a good job with 5 weeks paid vacation per year, carried over if I didn't use it all, and the best flexibility at my job to use it whenever I wanted on short notice.
drm, you made the right choice and it's cool you did it. You had your priorities lined up and figured out early.
I've always thought "working toward retirement" to be an absurd and ridiculous way to run a society. Work your ass off in the best health years of your life and then possibly not have the health or stamina you need to do all the things you put off? Not to mention it would be less expensive to do those things in your 20s and 30s than it would be to do them when you're older.
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Riverside Laker
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Joined: 12 Jan 2004
Posts: 2818 | TRs | Pics
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Historically, people worked until they couldn't any more, just to exist. We are lucky to be retired, or to even consider it. I wonder what it will be like in another hundred years, when machines do nearly everything? The trails will be packed.
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