This is my first time posting, after years of reading, enjoying, and learning from others that post. My husband and I never made big money, but we were frugal, lived below our means, always with the goal of bailing on our ho-hum jobs and retiring early to 'do our own thing'. So when early retirement (on a greatly reduced pension) was offered to my husband, I ran the numbers and thought we could manage it. The important factors for us were no debt and a continuation of health coverage. So we jumped; I had some nervous, sleepless nights, wondering if I had overlooked some aspect, but it has been grand! The one thing you can't buy, at any price, is more time, so trading less $$$'s for more time has given us decades to enjoy things and each other. At first, we volunteered for lots of worthy things: Free Clinic, Museum of Fine Arts, tutoring at the adult learning center, volunteering at the senior center, Literacy Program, AARP Safe Driving Course, AARP Tax preparation, etc. Now that we are older (78 and 82) we do less of that, and a lot less travel now that we are part-time in Maine and remain residents of FL, so back and forth is about all the travel I'm interested in. We have the garden there, and plenty of the arts in both locations, museums, concerts, plays, the movies, lovely libraries, and friends. And best of all, we can walk to almost everything in both places! I think it must be harder now to retire, especially with the high cost of housing, whether owning or renting, and medical and dental costs keep going up, as well as the price of groceries. We are entering worrisome times: our portfolio already has taken a hit with the current uncertainties that the markets hate, with more promised. We'll just hang tight and hope for better days. Over the decades we have seen lots of market ups and downs and if you do nothing, eventually it all comes back. Details, if anyone is interested: we converted our IRA's to Roth, some each year before we retired, so not to be thrown in a higher tax bracket, and we bought Long-Term Care over 20 years ago, which has had steep increase in premiums over the years, but we will bite the bullet and keep them as we near the time that we may need them. We have not cashed in any of our Roth yet, but if the time comes we need money, we won't have to take out extra to pay tax on the withdrawal, nor do we need to worry about taking minimum distributions every year.
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This is my first time posting, after years of reading, enjoying, and learning from others that post. My husband and I never made big money, but we were frugal, lived below our means, always with the goal of bailing on our ho-hum jobs and retiring early to 'do our own thing'. So when early retirement (on a greatly reduced pension) was offered to my husband, I ran the numbers and thought we could manage it. The important factors for us were no debt and a continuation of health coverage. So we jumped; I had some nervous, sleepless nights, wondering if I had overlooked some aspect, but it has been grand! The one thing you can't buy, at any price, is more time, so trading less $$$'s for more time has given us decades to enjoy things and each other. At first, we volunteered for lots of worthy things: Free Clinic, Museum of Fine Arts, tutoring at the adult learning center, volunteering at the senior center, Literacy Program, AARP Safe Driving Course, AARP Tax preparation, etc. Now that we are older (78 and 82) we do less of that, and a lot less travel now that we are part-time in Maine and remain residents of FL, so back and forth is about all the travel I'm interested in. We have the garden there, and plenty of the arts in both locations, museums, concerts, plays, the movies, lovely libraries, and friends. And best of all, we can walk to almost everything in both places! I think it must be harder now to retire, especially with the high cost of housing, whether owning or renting, and medical and dental costs keep going up, as well as the price of groceries. We are entering worrisome times: our portfolio already has taken a hit with the current uncertainties that the markets hate, with more promised. We'll just hang tight and hope for better days. Over the decades we have seen lots of market ups and downs and if you do nothing, eventually it all comes back. Details, if anyone is interested: we converted our IRA's to Roth, some each year before we retired, so not to be thrown in a higher tax bracket, and we bought Long-Term Care over 20 years ago, which has had steep increase in premiums over the years, but we will bite the bullet and keep them as we near the time that we may need them. We have not cashed in any of our Roth yet, but if the time comes we need money, we won't have to take out extra to pay tax on the withdrawal, nor do we need to worry about taking minimum distributions every year.
Post: Meeting Expectations?
Link to comment from March 8, 2025