When might you retire?

[Chad ochoseis]

I think I've posted my story before - no kids, fanatical saver, got laid off at 50 with a severance, moved to a low cost area to retire, have since gone back to work.

I wasn't bored, but I did feel unproductive. I'd spent 20 years honing one skill, and though it's not particularly zexy or exciting, it's something I'd gotten pretty good at and, weirdly enough, I ultimately found all the hiking, biking, volunteering, low-cost travel, and cooking I was doing less fulfilling in the long run than actuarial work.

And retirement forces you to come to terms with your mortality...you've got enough, but only if you make sure to die. Even if "enough" means "enough to make it to 100", it's still something I wasn't quite ready to grapple with.

So, three years after I called it quits, when a friend of mine called to tell me it was time to come back, I listened. Since then, my partner left her well-paying job teaching high school drama to try to make it in acting, so the extra money is coming in handy.

I could manage retirement if we cut back a bit. On a morning like this when I'm posting while eating the generic breakfast buffet at a Holiday Inn Express in Omaha and getting ready to review a client's files, it looks pretty sweet. But I'm not ready yet.

[Fman99]

I have no pension but now that I'm in my 50's I am hyper aware of my 401k balance, my Roth account balance, and my various investments.

I'm not quite where I would hope to be, mostly because I didn't spend more time in my younger days socking away more.

I expect to work until I'm 67 and reach the full Social Security benefits age. My current job pays me well and I enjoy doing it. I don't know about another 16 years and 10 months worth, but I'm pretty content most days.

Correction, now that I've just recently turned 51 it's actually 15 years 10 months. See, I just shaved a year off my clock by being less stupid!

College costs, for Fboy this year at SUNY Oneonta, were about $22k for the year for tuition, room, board, books and etc. We made too much money to even qualify for a loan (though they factored in that each kid had a $20k+ 529 account, presumably). We paid it in installments, Fboy paid for about 5% of his bill, and about a quarter of it from the 529, and the rest from the wife and I. It was a decent bill but didn't blow up our finances.

The real trick will be September 2025, when Fgirl heads off to college. She's already eye balling SUNY Oswego, wanting to stay closer to home. We will still be considered too wealthy for aid, even with two kids in school, I am guessing. We will see what kind of loan options we have at that point. That two year stretch when they're both full timers in college will be burdensome to us financially speaking.

[whippoorwill]

I don’t envy you guys.

College tuition has gone bananas since our kids were in.

Even PSU was affordable for us with our daughter back then
The first year was dicey because when Corning closed their State College plant, my husband lost his job but had 25 months full severance: salary and insurance.
When he got a new job we had that salary, the Corning salary, and the unemployment earnings to declare on our FAFSA. Quite an ordeal convincing them that that would not be our income going forward!

Our daughter did get grants and loans luckily, plus we had a little put away.

Our son went to the local college, LHU, and we actually got a lesser package but it was still very affordable.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Some of the schools Lunchpail got into we can't even consider-- Syracuse, American and Drexel are around 80k each. We are hoping to be able to swing the next level down.

[metirish]

Absolutely crazy ,and a shame

[whippoorwill]

It is.
Kids grow up with a dream and have to reconsider.
:(

[Benjamin Grimm]

Look how old we all are, talking about retirement and kids in college. I remember when we were kids, and the discussions in this forum were about cootie shots and whether or not it was advisable to pick your nose and eat it.

I'll have to search the archives!

[DocTee]

Private colleges are ridiculously expensive but the sticker price can be heavily (like more than half) reduced for qualified students. The best deal in higher ed continues to be the public institutions: SUNY and CUNY are incredible values with tremendous ROI.

[MFS62]

Both of my daughters went to state colleges. But they weren't in my state. So I had to pay out-of-state tuition costs, which were much higher than if they had gone to one of the colleges in Connecticut.

Later

[DocTee]

My girls did the exact same: state schools but not in CT: they wanted to "go away to school" and they did, to the Upper Midwest and the Deep South, respectively. They got/are getting fantastic educational experiences and even with OOS costs its way cheaper than privates. I'm the product of public higher ed, and have worked in them for 25+ years: they can be transformational.

(Sorry to hijack the post: I'm 52 and Ill retire in 15 years, because I love my job and because my divorce bankrupted me.)

[The Hot Corner]

I went with option #3 - I could retire now. I consider myself semi-retired. I work 3 days a week (T, W, Th) then putter around the house or do whatever I want the other 4 days. After my last bout (#4) with cancer in December, I decided it was time to get out while I am still healthy. I gave the company notice in January that I will retire after 39+ years at the end of the year.

I will need to go on the COBRA insurance through work for 7 months until I reach Medicare eligibility. Costly, but manageable.