I noticed money seems to be the main issue here. But my main issue is my elderly mother who lives at her home and wants to. She lives next door to us and we check in often. We are going on the road full time and can't wait. We have seen realpersonreminder.com advertised and wonder if any of you use the service? I believe something like this would make me feel more at ease with leaving my mom by herself.
THANKS
When I first started thinking about retiring (again - retired from the USAF 21 years ago) I thought I would work until 72 or 30 years with my current employer... well after talking to some close friends and thinking about my health issues (diabetic) and my wife now not working (health issues)... said, "self, you ain't working until you fall into the grave"... put the pencil to it (well actually a spreadsheet) and figured I could ditch the suit and tie at 65 (next year) comfortably.. my ex gets most of my USAF retirement, but between investments, SS, and my current retirement system, I can make do on about 55-60% of my current 6 figure salary... and maybe have a few years to enjoy not getting up at 6am everyday of the week.. I am debt free (or will be at retirement time) with enough money to pay cash for a new truck and 5er and enough income to afford fuel (well at least I hope so on that)...
Bill & Jennifer
SKP #98005
2003 Dodge Ram 2500 QC, LWB 4x2, HO CTD, 48RE, 3.73 LSD
4" MBRP SS Exhaust, S&B CAI
2005 Cedar Creek Silverback 28LRLFS
Carolyn&Keith wrote: Money wasn't the question (and we don't have much: SS & a pension each, period), it was did I want to spend the last few months, maybe a couple of years, of my husband's life (he has terminal cancer) working 50+ hours a week at a very high stress job, or did I want to enjoy some time with him, helping him to do the final things he wanted to do. As to money, we get by, even tho 27% of our income goes to medical expenses. Fulltime RVing does not have to be a high end lifestyle in order to be enjoyable. We have about 3/4 of the income we had before, no taxes, no new clothes, no eating out (he can't do it), no tv (don't miss it at all), actually drive less even tho we've been in 10 states in 18 months. If we think about buying anything, we first have to figure out what we're going to get rid of because there's no spare room. I don't think it's about money; it's about choices and re-examining what really is important to us.
I'm in a somewhat similar situation though not as urgent as your's. DW has emphyzema and her breathing is getting worse every year. It was a wakeup call for me, I'm somewhat of a workaholic, and made me realize that it was time to get out and smell the roses. So I restructured my business and set it up so I could spend a good part of the year away from the office and we're out here doing while we can. I still have to work, but it's early morning and evenings and I spend the day with DW riding or doing whatever else she wants to do. Income is down with the economy taking a nose dive, but we get by and like others have said, it's not really the money, it's the living that's important.
John Ewing
2007 Allegro Bus 42QRP ("TisIt")
2005 Sportster/HydraLift ("Dinky")
2002 Miata toad ("Mellow Yellow") www.jandse.com
FMCA 104106
What goes around comes around - always treat others the way you'd like them to treat you.
steveolds wrote: How did you retirees finally make the financial decision to retire? 80% of last year's income? 90%, 100%, 110%, or more?
I am getting ready to retire but I can't seem to find the answer to how much will I need. I own stock in the company which I work for, and it is going up at over 20% per year, but I can't figure out if I need to make 100% of what I have been making in the past or less or more. Anybody have some thoughts on this one?
Steve
Hi Steve & All,
We (Sasha and I) are not yet retired, but plan to soon; he keeps having people in his industry dying in their 50's (Sasha will be 52 this year) and from reading everyone else's posts, I think it would be better if we retire sooner rather than later.
We are already full-timers, I work at a private campground for the site and a little extra money while Sasha works full-time for a private company. He commutes ~ 55 miles one way (BUT he gets to do that on a motorcycle, which he enjoys), works long hours and really looks forward to the weekends.
I have been tracking our expenses since June 2006, when we still lived in a S&B home. In May 2007, we sold our house and everything in it and moved into our Truck Camper. We became full-timers at that time. Last year (2007) we had approximately $47K in expenses, of that $35K were in the first 5 months (when we had the house). That was approximately 50% of our salary.
NOW we are living on about 25-50% of take home pay. We have the maximum taken out for the 401K and health benefits, plus money taken out for FSA health savings plan.
We plan on working for 6 months and traveling to one place for 6 months, to really see an area.
Steve, only you can really figure out what will work for you. I would strongly recommend checking out the book, Your Money or Your Life by Vicky Robin and Joe Dominguez (you can go to our website at the bottom - the link to the book is on our home page) to fully understand that you are probably making a dying rather than a living. You calculate your "True" hourly wage by taking into account things like dry cleaning bills, taking vacations to reduce the stress, eating out, coffee breaks, commuting costs, Plus the time it takes you to get ready, commute, de-stress after work, etc.
When we did all of that using the book, we found Sasha's hourly rate (when we had the S&B home) was cut approximately in HALF. And although his hourly rate has gotten a little better since selling the house, I'd rather have less money than no husband.
Once you have figured out the hourly rate, then start tracking everything, every last penny. For us, it was a real eye opener. We saw where the money was going (pretty much on useless things to make us feel better about the S&B or our jobs) and stopped buying things (can't buy something without taking something out when you are in limited space!)
Once you have done that (I know it seems like a lot of work to get your answer) you can pretty much figure out your percentage. Continually strive to make the numbers (and percentages) lower than you thought, without having to deprive yourself.
Lets put this into dollar figures! I clear $2200 per month(indexed every year) on my pension, DW clears $1200 per month on her pension. CPP kicks in for me in 16 months to clear $452(indexed) per month.Everything is paid for. We do have a very small nest egg. I do value my health and quality of life more than my job. We're just going and if the income isn't enough, well DW is going to have to cut back. I won't give up my beer!!LOL (all figures in CDN$, pretty close to par)
I'm reading this thread with interest because we're trying to figure out when we might retire as well. Neither of us has a pension, so we'll be relying on 401(k)s and investments, and of course Social Security.
We thought we were making some good progress and could see the light at the end of the tunnel at the end of 2007 (granted, it was still a fairly long tunnel, with no immediate plans for retirement), but have watched as our net worth has declined by more than 8% just since the beginning of this year. And these losses despite the fact that we are very diversified, and our investments aren't risky. Since our retirement planning was depending on an 8% increase in our portfolio each year to bring us out to age 94, an 8% decrease puts us 16% behind already -- and we haven't even retired!
Emotionally we're moved by the stories people tell of illnesses, early death, all the reasons why people say they decided to retire early, and those stories motivate us to want to retire early, too. But the flip side of that is the possibility that we could live well into our 90s, and how awful it would be if we were to run out of money before we run out of living.
Our financial adviser tells us to stay the course, keep dollar cost averaging. That seems to make perfect sense when someone is 20 or 30 years away from retirement, but as we're coming into the home stretch it's a little more scary. It's like we're pouring money into a bucket with a giant hole in the bottom and it's going out as fast as, if not faster than, we're putting it in.
I guess for us the biggest question is how will we know when we have enough? How much will make us feel safe that we've planned well? For some people it seems to be a dollar value, for some people it seems to be a percentage of their working income. I don't know what it will be for us.
All I know is that if we'd retired at the end of 2007, we would be sitting here today watching our value decline, and we'd really be facing the fear that we really might run out of money before we run out of living. And that makes us wonder, how will we know the time is right at the end of 2008, or 2009, or 2010?
C and J, and Maine Coon cat Hinky
2002 Coachmen Catalina Sport 285QB
C&J, you will never be able to "know". Honest. I'm not trying to be annoying here...and I know you know you can't know, but sometimes, seeing it in print (or from someone else) helps.
If it doesn't feel right, at this time, then it isn't right at this time. If it scares you more than it makes you feel good, then don't do it.
Of course, there are other things that can help, but can't necessarily be counted on. Like workcamping. Like crafting and selling what you make. Little things really. Staying put longer to get month-long camping discounts. Changing residency to a less expensive state. Joining a camping discount club.
The spreadsheets are a wonderful way to figure it out, along with researching the least expensive way to manage, and ways to add cash to daily living needs.
But really, don't do something that is too scary - if it feels like a dream...do it...if it feels like a nightmare...don't. Only you can know and research your situation and crunch the numbers as you need them crunched.
That's really the bottom line for all of us. We can come for advice, but in the end, we must figure it out ourselves....with the help found herein.
Best of luck to you.
Why Full-Timing? Because at my age, I have maybe 40 more chances to see flowers bloom. CrusinSusan's Blog!! 2006 Winnebago View 23J
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