Realistically, when do you think you can retire?

man..lots of different definitions of "retire".

my definition..not working anymore for pay, and living on the plan you put together.

quitting your federal gig, to head into the private sector and pulling your pension and your new paycheck doesnt count. it's awesome, but you are not retired.

 

As soon as I inherit, then color me gone.

 

x2!

For a second, i was thinking i was doing something way wrong when the first couple of people posted they were retiring at 40 lol

 

the day before Thanksgiving 2013 .. after 37 years with the same outfit I will be an official retiree. Travel time dead ahead. YeeeeHaw!
:O) :O)

 

I'm fortunate to have a defined benefit pension paying 2% of my 3 highest years salary for every year I work. I could leave with 60% of my income for life in 2 years at age 56. I think I'll go to 62 with a 70% income. The most important thing is to make sure you have your house paid for and are out of debt. I will be.

When I retire I'm done with work. Period. It will be time to do church service and volunteer work.

 

132 days.
I got an app on my phone to tell it to me down to the minute.

 

That's great, except the lifetime earnings potential of the average HS graduate is only 1.2 million.
A bachelor's degree takes that to 2.1 million, masters 2.5, and PhD 3.4 to 4.4

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/moneymatters/a/edandearnings.htm

So when your lifetime earnings potential is going to be somewhere in the range of 1.2 to 2.5 million, it's going to be kinda hard to save 10m.

 

I'll retire when I'm dead.

Being self employed afforded the choice of doing anything I wanted. So I love my work and will be of useful service to others until I can't any more.

Greg

 

College isn't the only solution to achieving your earnings potential. It sure wasn't for me. I'm only a dumb High School graduate who absolutely hated school, and I have the crappy grades to prove it, too!

So instead of spending years sitting like an inert lump in a government daycare center while piling up tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt just to get some useless degree, I spent my time learning a practical useful trade working on the job as an apprentice, and then went into business for myself.

Today, my wife doesn't work. We own two 2012 Toyotas outright. And live in an 850k home with no mortgage.


Greg

 

I agree... those are just averages.
I'm sitting on 43 credits, I'd need another 17-20 to complete an AA, and so far, my lifetime earnings have already exceeded 2m and I still have another 15-20 years to go.

I gave some serious thought to completing a BS, but it would be another 50k to finish, and would realistically do nothing more at work than provide "brownie points"
The Public Works director is big on education, but I have only one step left before I've capped out my career path in my vertical, and I'm already qualified for that position. The next position up would require an engineering degree and cert, which would mean that of my 43 credits, only the general ed and calculus would apply, so I'd be looking at a full 4-6 years to complete a BS, pushing 75,000 in tuition and books. So I'm 50 now, I would be 55-56 at the earliest I could complete a civil engineering BS, and then I'd have only about 10 years left to take advantage of the degree.

And that would all have to be done on student loans... so I'd be looking at spending my retirement repaying the 75k in student loans, while still paying off the last 10 years of my mortgage.

That's $50-$75k that would not be a wise investment at this point.
If I were 40 instead of 50? Ya... it might be worth it.

 

The decision is all yours to make, Rich. It's good that you're only choosing between good and better.

That's one I never had to make because there was no way I was going to sit in government school one second longer than I had to, when I could be out on my own in the private sector business world making money.

Greg

 

Nahh... not government.
I was seriously looking into LaVerne and Phoenix.
Phoenix was a bit cheaper, but not enough to make it workable.

 

I'm not as interested in retirement as much as being able to pick and chose which jobs to take and when / if I want to work

 

Ya... I's go crazy and wouldn't live 5 years stuck here 24/7 with my wife and no job.

 

Haha , I agree

I like my work and have so much more to try and accomplish

Realistically , I'm not too many years away from getting to start to be in that position legitimately

 

This is me also, way too irresponsible in my post high school years! didn't get serious about thinking of the future until I was nearly 30. So yeah, I'll most likely need to work till I die, or until I can't work anymore.

 

Meh , gotta do something and it's more for enriching my well being rather than trying to leave anything behind

 

That's a wise choice, Rich.
If I'm not mistaken, there are almost no colleges in the US which don't need to take government subsidy money to survive, not to mention the one trillion dollars in government student loans. Without government, the higher education system would collapse. And whatever the government funds, the government controls.


Greg