Retirement and pals that may never get there (friends, years, salary)
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I retired in my late forties and did not get the question directly for the most part but did get comments like how they would love to be in a position to retire, etc.
I tell them that it was a combination of savvy investing, savings and luck and that the company I worked for was sold and I had stock options, a deferred compensation plan as well as a generous severance package. It sort of answers the question of how one is able to retire at a relatively young age but the last part of it is esoteric enough that unless one really understands how stock options work, etc it leaves an element of mystery to it.
Once in a while I get the more persistent person who will make some comment like you must be worth at least a million dollars and I tell them with a wink and a smile that I better not disclose any more detail in case people hit me up for a loan!
In fact, I got the question more often when we sold our house in Northern Virginia - the amount that we sold it for was public information but what they did not know was the amount that we realized after the mortgage was paid off - and I left that question unanswered by just saying "well, we did have to pay off the mortgage"!
Just retired here at age 60, and I've run into a few friends (in-laws and work acquaintances) who are a little insistent on information about how it's done. In general, these are well-meaning folks my age or older with a long history of bad financial decisions. Their first question is usually: "How much money do you HAVE?" I hate that question for a lot of reasons.
Just wondering if anyone has a good way of dealing with some of the post-retirement questions along these lines. I have no desire to offend anyone, but at the same time it seems prudent to avoid the more pointed questions.
Any interesting ways of handling this semi-delicate situation?
TIA.
It can also be a reflection that they see the success in you and want to know how you did it so they can learn. Much of what I learned of what I needed to do I got from those near or in retirement. Also regarding how much do you have, isn't that the big question many of us wanted to know? How much do we need? We can listen to financial advisors or investment house marketing etc. We can read articles written by 29 year olds or we can try to find out from someone at the finish line who we respect.
Knowledge is power and it just may be that some not all respect your knowledge and want to learn from it. As I have said I learned much from Money Magazine and their case stories about what people similar to us were doing to be successful. Also if you go into the Boglehead forum they are often very quick to share specifics so others can learn and benefit from the points they are trying to make.
One camp is far, far from being able to retire. They probably will not so much retire as eventually be laid off or just wait until SS kicks in to supplement what they may have saved and hope for the best. I know it irks some of them that we retired so early (51&56), but it took a lot of sacrifice, living below our means, and planning, and two incomes, and two pensions. So if they asked, which they don't because they are too busy grumbling about it behind my back, that's what I would say. I know about the grumbling because my closest buddy tells me what they say. One of these friends inherited a million dollars when she was in her 30's. She quit her good job and blew a lot of it on a pipedream of a business that made no sense, day to day living expenses, and buying ridiculously expensive cars and clothes. At least she did put away enough for her daughter's college costs. But now that she's in her 50's she had to go back to work. She say it was for the health insurance, but her hubby had a job with insurance so...I don't know about that. If she had invested even a fraction of her inheritance and left it for 20 years, they would be retired now. I try very hard not to mention money or how great retirement is around this crowd because I know it's a sore spot for many.
The other camp are good friends who are on the verge of making the plunge themselves but are scared of the what-ifs, and worried they won't have enough, and really want the numbers and the mechanics of how our retirement works so they will have the confidence to pick a date to retire. They hem and haw, and shuffle their feet a bit, and then beat about the bush a bit, before saying "I know this is really rude, but....am I going to be able to do this? How much do you guys live on?" Since these folks are close to me, I give them round figures or ranges and I don't mind them knowing. They never ask what's in our bank account.
DH retired at 52. He does do some temp and short term work just to keep his hand in.
We always told people to figure what it costs them to work and subtract that number. IIRC, most could live well on 80-85 % of their paycheck. We are way older now, so it takes less.
Scott Burns has a column in our local paper about retirement income. Refer them to him.
We currently live quite happily on about 60% of our previous gross. We were saving a lot of our pay before retirement. Somehow we still manage to save about half of what we were saving before.
Any interesting ways of handling this semi-delicate situation?
TIA.
The few times I've been asked about my retirement income, I've gently redirected the conversation to the matter of all those great online retirement planning websites that are available nowadays.
Just tell them you get a bazillion dollars a month from your generous public pension
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