serious retirement question.

[XLexusTech]

If you were 50 single.. ... had 0 debt.. 0 assets 1 million in 401k and 1 million in cash.. what would you do?

Ps dont say keep working at the stressful job.. cause thats why I am asking

[Vegas69]

I'd seriously consider chasing a passion. What excites you? What are your strengths? Life is too short to just endure. If you stay in your current job and don't chase something else, will you regret it? You could always start part time.

I'm going through a transition now myself. I'm 44 and my real estate business is the strongest it's ever been with 20+ years invested, but it's not what I want to do for the rest of my life. I'm 9 months into a professional coaching certification and I'm putting that business together and I have my first paying client. I love it and I believe it's what I'm meant to do! When I coach it takes me to the highest levels of energy. It just doesn't feel like work. I've never felt that way about real estate.

However, wherever we go, there we are. We can't assume the grass will be greener if the stress is intrinsic and rooted in our beliefs. It's very possible for us to "show up" energetically the same way in a new adventure. If the stressors tend to be outer and out of your control, then moving on may be best.

Imagine a coach recommending a coach. HA Part of my certification has been coaching and being coached. After being coached by my peers for 50+ hours, it's been absolutely life changing for me. A professional coach can simply take you to a place you can't take yourself consciously. I've been trained to implement an attitudinal assessment. It's extremely accurate in regards to creating awareness in how we show up energetically under different circumstances. It roots out the beliefs that are holding us back. That awareness is the first step in changing how we approach circumstances and show up energetically. It's very possible to go from a response of stress to a anabolic or building up energy instead. It creates awareness around your strengths as well so you can tap into them more often.

You may want to consider a transitional coach or a business coach. Anyway, I hope this helps in some way.

[dontlifttoshift]

If your annual expense is 100k or less and you can generate a tick over 4% with your money you will be 90 before you run out.

If you can live on 80k a year, you would be fine to retire and do whatever you want and never have to worry about money at all.

[dhutton]

I retired, we moved out of the suburbs to a place in the country with a shop where I build nice driver quality cars for a few friends and friendly customers. I don’t make a whole lot of money but I don’t care because I am a hell of a lot happier than I was working as an engineer. No office politics and BS. Zero debt. The income has let me stay out of my IRA and let it continue to grow.

I will add that make sure you have a good plan for health insurance. It’s a minefield in my experience.

Don

[srode1]

Originally Posted by dhutton

I will add that make sure you have a good plan for health insurance. It’s a minefield in my experience.

Don

Yeah, I was going to say Healthcare is the thing to make sure you have covered well including nursing care when you get to that point.

My advice, is have a discussion with a company that manages investments for individuals like Morgan Stanley etc. They normally do a great job of giving you probability based financial plan for free based on the historical and projected investment returns, taxes, your spending plans etc in exchange for a shot at managing your investments for you. The outcome will be a good budget and strategy to meet your life goals through retirement.

My other advice beyond can you afford it is retire to something, not away from something, you probably have lots of years ahead of you so make sure you know how you plan to use all that time. After 2.5 years being retired, I have no idea how I ever had time to work and zero interest in it. I don't have enough time to do all the things I want to do now as it is (including work on my cars). In my last few years at work I found myself getting more frustrated with the lack of time to do things I enjoy outside of work, and getting bored with work. If I had just not liked my job, I would have probably moved on to do something else instead of retiring. When I retired i was approached by a number of people who were interested in hiring me for consulting work - but it would have taken time away from the things I am enjoying doing being retired. If I enjoyed working I wouldn't have retired, I had a job that wasn't bad and paid very well.

[raustinss]

id become a male stripper lol

[Flash68]

Originally Posted by Vegas69

I'd seriously consider chasing a passion. What excites you? What are your strengths? Life is too short to just endure. If you stay in your current job and don't chase something else, will you regret it? You could always start part time.

This. I’m hoping/planning to do just this in the near future.

[Vegas69]

Originally Posted by Flash68

This. I’m hoping/planning to do just this in the near future.

Atta boy! You may want to check out a book called “half time”.

[67-ls1]

In my case, my expenses have gone way up in retirement. Mostly due to traveling so 2020 wasn’t bad. But since I retired in 2014, it’s been more every year.
And while the stock market has had a banner year, the only thing you can truly count on is it will correct. IMO, pretty significantly.

[SSLance]

Regarding the health insurance question...this is something we've dealt with since semi retiring 5 years ago. Because I own my own Company and I'm able to control the income that it reports, we kept our Adjusted Gross income under $65,000 for the first few years and it saved us over $1,000 a month in health insurance premiums. Can't stand the idea behind Obamacare but what the hell, if it's there, I'm taking advantage of it.

We did run our "post-tax" cash down pretty low with upgrades to the new house etc, so this year we elected to not do Obamacare and are taking a much larger chunk of income out of the Company to build the post-tax kitty back up once again. Next year it'll be back to living off beans and weenies again to save that $15,000 in insurance premiums.

Sometimes it's hard looking at the balance in the Pre-tax accounts, knowing it's there...and knowing we can't touch it without paying considerably penalties and taxes...while scrimping by day to day, but it makes the most sense at least for the time being.