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Just talked with our financial planner today about our plans and he gives a confident, full blessing to an Oct 1st retirement! The spouse is the major bread winner and just today (barely) received funding as a Navy contractor until end of fiscal year Sept. 30, so we feel it is certainly possible that that might be it for him in his current department. But to know we are totally good with the finances for a full retirement then is a huge relief and exciting to start planning.
We will both be 60, and (knock on wood) in great health so hope to be at an emerging world again ready for travel and just hanging out in our city that we love and partake in all kinds of activities from baseball to ballet! I’ll still be taking on design jobs that I want to and he may do some consulting but man, it’s crazy to think that we won’t have to work ever again. Since we’ve survived a whole year being locked up together every, single, day, and while it hasn’t been easy we haven’t killed each other so I guess this was a practice year haha.
I’ve been mostly a lurker here with an occasional post but it has been very informative and even thought provoking reading through other’s situations, challenges and lifestyle choices in retirement and want to thank those frequent posters who seem to know so much more that I ever could and are generous in sharing what they know and have experienced.
As of now we aren’t even thinking about Social Security as it is not figured into our income and our “only” big first challenge will be self-funding insurance for a few years but our financial planner will help us look at all the options and with a new administration it seems changes may be afoot there to take into account. But hey, we’ve lived a balanced but frugal lifestyle for 35 years together, have a beautiful paid-off home in a neighborhood and city we love, zero debt and a very healthy investment account so at least for now things are gonna work out or we will have the fortitude to meet the challenges as they come our way.
Just wanted to dive in here with our exciting news and hope the queries and comments I make aren’t met with too much derision lol.
Congratulations! Start researching solutions to that insurance question. And get comfortable with what ever plan will provide your sole income until SS starts. Sometimes it is all mental.
Last Jan, our guy told us we could bother afford to retire. I wasn’t ready and set the end of this March as my retirement date. Yeah, I’d be about 29 days from retirement today!
Then, Covid hit. Our little operation was told to go from a staff of 5 to 3. Rather than compete for a scarce position, I took the layoff package and retired. I got the soft notice in June, the hard (legal) notice in July and my last day was Sept. 11.
I actually made more by retiring then than if I had worked until March 31. He shoots...he scores!
Long and short: life comes at you fast. Things can change in a heartbeat. Be ready....just in case. Best wishes to you guys!
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
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Congrats.... Lots of HC options, you should be able to get an ACA subsidy for 2022, (staying below $68,000 MAGI HC cliff) so only 3 months of 2021 will be expensive. If healthy / low no risk... you can do a HC cost sharing plan for $300/ month and use Nov 2021 open enrollment to find an exchange bronze program.
Congrats.... Lots of HC options, you should be able to get an ACA subsidy for 2022, (staying below $68,000 MAGI HC cliff) so only 3 months of 2021 will be expensive. If healthy / low no risk... you can do a HC cost sharing plan for $300/ month and use Nov 2021 open enrollment to find an exchange bronze program.
I would go to some of the on line brokers and mutual fund co's and play with their retirement software just to double check.
The key is having something to do and being able to afford it.
By the way taxes - income, real estate, sales tax etc - could be your biggest retirement expense. Are these in your plan?
Major purchases and repairs - new roof - in the plan?
We have a 94 y.o. home in excellent shape that is worth a seriously stupid amount of money - house up the street just sold for $1.6M and ours is comparable - low property taxes ~$3000, new roof plus 100% offset solar, (minimal utility bills) 4% off our funds is $80k+ today, we never spend that much money a year. We’ll buy a new car in 6 mos, we’ve got a 20 and 16 y.o. Subaru’s. Definitely put some money into our house - I’m an architectural designer and it’s where we love to be but it won’t be crazy, thinking about a polycarbonate clad design studio at the bottom terrace and buff up the garage/laundry (no cars) which won’t be cheap but I can design it all and know contractors who can build it out.
We definitely live in an expensive region but it’s not crazy expensive for us.
Blessings as you near end of this leg of your journey; continued blessings in the next part your journey !
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