Jupiter Sunsation

Glad life is treating you well!

Wildman_grafix

Guess I didn't word that well.

What I meant is most (not all) of the people that I know that are retired have pensions. I only have a few friends as well off as Bobthebuilder!
Funny they still work.

Lol

As for the Oldschool,,,,,, good to here you are doing well and enjoying it, that's what it is about.

PARADOX

Retirement? What the F' is that? While I'm sort of semi retired (forced) due the construction bus. and my co. is in the toilet. Not that I can ever afford to do so, but not looking forward to it. Waaaay too many things to do and toooo much time spent in the bilge for fun, (or necessity) lol. And actually I'm in Florida, not retired. Anybody needs a large building or a high rise built? A nice marina? Office or warehouse complex? So I CAN retire? My Dad retired, and he pretty much stopped doing things. Not following his footsteps in that.

OldSchool

Hey Michael,
It's 2015, not 2002....so I'm not willing to discuss my finances on the intertubes. LOL

As I said before, we planned for this over the past 30 years and knew what the Federal pension would be for us. We invested what little bit we could save while raising kids, paying for college for both of them and having as much boating related fun as we could afford! One simple rule that we always went by was that all toys got paid for with cash. That kept me working an extra job for most of my adult life and in older boats and classic cars....but also kept me from losing my azz with depreciation on newer, faster and better boats. The one thing that my wife and I had going for us is that we both grew up in lower-middle class families. Everything that I've ever had has been earned and saved for.....so that makes me take better care of it. Life here in Cape Coral, Florida is not Fort Lauderdale or Miami....it's much lower key and I love that part of it!!! If we want to let it rip for a weekend, Miami is a two hour drive. For instance, In Annapolis, MD where we used to live, it was common for the two of us to go out for dinner and have a few drinks and the tab would be north of $200. It's hard to spend $60 on the same thing down here. We have less that $400K in our on the water home here. In the Washington, DC area it would easily be over a million. I have a friend from Maryland that moved down here. He is a master electrician and was making $75/hour up north. He just moved back up there because he could only make $18/hour down here.

Sorry for being so long winded, but the main thing is that Florida is a great place to retire....if you are bringing your own money. We are living better down here that we did up north when we were working.

Cheers, Craig

PS= No State income tax either!!!!

PARADOX

Hmm.. I know what you mean Craig. I never bought any toys unless I had the cash for it. However, now I think I have to move back to Chicago, make a few $ and then move back to Florida to retire. lol

Interceptor

This is sorta funny now but.............

As I posted earlier my wife and I both retired in 2008, May exactly. I had a significant amount of retirement money that had been in company stock that I moved into other stuff on our financial planners advice. In Sept. that year we lost about .5 million suddenly ( remember the crash?). Well it took some smart planning but we did recover eventually and that allowed us to continue the dream.
Similar to OldSchool we both have pensions (hers gov't so I get her health care) along w/S.S. and now moving into RMD withdrawls we're not far off our income when we worked.

SummerObsession

This is a very tough question, one we have been discussing lately at my company.
How on earth would you plan how much you are going to need for JUST healthcare and taxes ten or even twenty years into retirement?
Even if you worked for the government and have healthcare through your retirement plan, what guarantee is there that our government will be able to afford it or it won't be cut significantly?
I set up a god 401k plan for my company years ago with high matching percentages, and I still wonder how everyone will be able to retire somewhat comfortably.

Wildman_grafix

Some good points. The moving target is a good one. ^^^^

The other is what part of the country you did live in, NE is expensive so when you sell your home and head here seems cheap.

Comming from the mid west NOT. I am of course working and the wages in Florida is without a doubt much lower then even the mid west which is cheaper to live.

But at least when I am home it's nice.

Dean Ferry

Saw something on the news the other day that stated that to live comfortably in retirement, a couple needs 1 Mil $$!! I found that really hard to believe.

44MTI

Hey Craig, glad to here things are going so good for you and that your enjoying your very early retirement, Congrats. I did't meant to put your or anyone else on the spot, and I know things can vary substantially from one person to another.
I just always wonder how much monthly income one needs to be able to enjoy themselves with out being to over the top if they are debt free.
Congrats again, hope to see you in Feb at the show
Michael