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Age 19 is when i started and i am retiring in a year or so with all goals met.
If you mean when did i switch gears in planning and investment style for retirement that was in 2007 . I tried to leave a 5 year period for a glide path into retirement.
When I got my first pension statement followed by my next SS. Wasn't much but it was a clue
I guess i'm not strictly talking monetarily but where you want to live or move to (if applicable) paring down possessions, etc. I've got the $$ thing down pat, just the other stuff i am curious about.
Started working full-time at age 20 and saving for retirement at age 22. Saw too many relatives that did not plan well and I did not want to follow that path. The "live for today and then retire broke" plan did not make much sense to me.
Hit the library and brought home every book they had on investing. Started with the "Investment Company of America". This was back in 1982. Now I don't have "load" mutual funds but this was pre-internet and back then I think that was all I could find, or at least that was what I trusted.
I hope to retire in two years when I turn 55. I have pretty much stuck to the original plan but the market has been wilder than I had ever dreamed it would be. The "Tech Wreck" was brutal, but I did recover, it took at least five years and it felt like forever.
I would say I think about it every day, more so since I hit 50.
I started working on the "where" about four years before my retirement. That gave me plenty of time to visit all of my possible retirement locales during vacation time. Glad to hear you've got the financial planning taken care of. Not only will that serve you well when you retire, but it will help you decide what you can afford to do as you think about the "where".
And I started getting rid of things I didn't want to move about three years before I retired. It seemed I was taking a trip to Goodwill about every other week! And I found that I stopped shopping for new stuff -- clothes, towels, dishes etc. -- at about the same time. After retirement and the move to a new state I enjoyed shopping for my new home, but interestingly enough, now that that is done, I find myself much less inclined to add clutter to my life and my much smaller home. It feels good.
I guess i'm not strictly talking monetarily but where you want to live or move to (if applicable) paring down possessions, etc. I've got the $$ thing down pat, just the other stuff i am curious about.
Southern California will be too expensive to retire in, we have been working on that part the past three years. We spend vacations checking out places. Have not made a final decision yet, but have narrowed it down to a few places in Arizona and Nevada, and can visit CA on a regular basis without paying the high taxes. CA is really great to visit but living here is just too expensive especially by the coast which is where we live.
I started working on the "where" about four years before my retirement. That gave me plenty of time to visit all of my possible retirement locales during vacation time. Glad to hear you've got the financial planning taken care of. Not only will that serve you well when you retire, but it will help you decide what you can afford to do as you think about the "where".
And I started getting rid of things I didn't want to move about three years before I retired. It seemed I was taking a trip to Goodwill about every other week! And I found that I stopped shopping for new stuff -- clothes, towels, dishes etc. -- at about the same time. After retirement and the move to a new state I enjoyed shopping for my new home, but interestingly enough, now that that is done, I find myself much less inclined to add clutter to my life and my much smaller home. It feels good.
Thanks for your thoughts! I see you're in Henderson , that's where my brother lives and my wife would love to retire out there. Too far from the ocean for me though!
Started working full-time at age 20 and saving for retirement at age 22. Saw too many relatives that did not plan well and I did not want to follow that path. The "live for today and then retire broke" plan did not make much sense to me.
Hit the library and brought home every book they had on investing. Started with the "Investment Company of America". This was back in 1982. Now I don't have "load" mutual funds but this was pre-internet and back then I think that was all I could find, or at least that was what I trusted.
I hope to retire in two years when I turn 55. I have pretty much stuck to the original plan but the market has been wilder than I had ever dreamed it would be. The "Tech Wreck" was brutal, but I did recover, it took at least five years and it felt like forever.
I would say I think about it every day, more so since I hit 50.
Do you even for a moment think you're checking out too early? 55 is pretty young and healthcare is expensive if you get sick...
Saving for retirement started in earnest - (we had to shovel money to catch up) when we were in our mid-40's - over the baby chase (we couldn't have them) and so we turned our efforts to ourselves.
But preparing for it - thinking about our future - started much earlier - leaving California to live in a place where not every cent went to living expenses and housing - probably 10 years earlier - when we were married in our mid-30's.
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