How comfortable are you with your retirement accounts?

[Danzig in the Dark]

It’s free in most countries.

Take your Socialist shit elsewhere, you Commie pinky. This is 'Merica!

USA USA USA

[CanadianMetal]

Am doing well but have never been one to live extravagantly and never got into smoking (started and quit in grade 3) , and never bought drugs or dope and only drink socially. My main ‘vices’ , if you want to call it that , are concerts and travel .

I make decent money , but starting the past few years, my investment income is more than my work income lol . Especially this past year as is way more .

I did well in marriage, as after the first decade my wife started making more than me and substantially more as the years have gone on . That is the key , always better if your spouse makes more than you lol

We bought our first house in 2000 for a 1/4 million and then our second nice newer home in 2007 and have paid it off . At the time my current house was over half a million but is now worth many multiples of that , so we lucked out at buying at the right time as the greater Vancouver area is expensive as fuck now . Don’t know how the next generation is going to afford to buy a detached house with a nice private yard . With no mortgage, I put some funds into the theatre room and is my favourite room in the house, never heard anything as good as it sounds now.

So no mortgage or car payments , have two vehicles with one being a newer Tesla.

I love my job, am very good and efficient at it and enjoy that I can work from home most days and go into office to socialize a day or two as well. I an good at keeping a good balance at working /sludgeing / investing / socializing as I meet all my deadlines with indicate , mentor other colleagues and have my own office when I do go into work and no one is ever looking down my neck .
I probably could retire now if I wanted but I get about 6 to 7 weeks of vacation plus all stat holidays and enjoy my work so have not really thought of stopping.

When my twins were born , we started to put money away each year in a tax advantaged educational account , so will have a substantial amount by the time they graduate (in principle plus whatever the added returns end up being) so hopefully that is enough for their university and they can top up with student loans at the time , if more is needed.

One of the best things I did was learn in my 20’s that many of the financial planners talk like they know more than you , but have their own and their company’s interests way ahead of yours . I took control and stripped my retirement investments away from the idiot (who talked a big game) and put them into a self-directed account and did way better investing myself .

I can post more below on some of my saving & investment thoughts and tricks that would be helpful to others , especially if you are a bit younger .

[CanadianMetal]

No

Strange question to ask in a thread about retirement and investments.

However , some individuals can’t help always thinking about what they really really want , so I won’t hold it against you.

[MattleyCrue]

Very nice. Sounds like you did things the right way! Any advice to us would be greatly appreciated!

[Danzig in the Dark]

No

Strange question to ask in a thread about retirement and investments.

However , some individuals can’t help always thinking about what they really really want , so I won’t hold it against you.

I think he wants for you to hold it against him, though.

[CanadianMetal]

No

Strange question to ask in a thread about retirement and investments.

However , some individuals can’t help always thinking about what they really really want , so I won’t hold it against you.

I think he wants for you to hold it against him, though.

Haha damn you made me laugh , I think you are right , now that you mention it . However , he should start a new thread instead of trying to derail this one, perhaps someone else could help him out …

[CanadianMetal]

Very nice. Sounds like you did things the right way! Any advice to us would be greatly appreciated!

Well there are many topic we could discuss but one that really helped us in the beginning was how to pay off the mortgage as soon as possible. As the faster we paid off our house the more we could then pay every month towards our investments and retirement funds etc . In Canada we don’t get any tax breaks for having a mortgage on your principal residence, so is even more important.

The below will depend on your particular situation and country etc so check with your specialist.

What we did was that we set the nominal payment amount to be something we could easy afford and to have a 20 or 25 year mortgage.
Then we did the following to shorten the time .

1) change from monthly to bi-weekly ( NOT Bi - monthly ) this reduced the time by years . As you are basically making an extra month’s payment every year, without even realizing it .

2) increase your payment amount , EVERY time you get a raise at work and the same when your spouse gets a raise.

The first year of your mortgage, only a minuscule amount is going toward paying the principal , the vast majority (90% or more) is just the interest to the bank . Each year the portion going toward the principal gets slight more .

However any payment you make above your initial amount is going directly to paying down the principal, with zero going towards interest . So a small increase in your payment can decrease your amortization by years or even a decade of all your salary raises are put towards it .


3) most mortgages allow a ( in our case) 20% extra once a year payment towards the principal . So any surprise surplus like $1000 lottery , cash gifts , inheritance etc and can cut your time in half depending on situation.

My wife’s uncle left her a small inheritance. Her sister bought a car and we put it towards our mortgage and paid off our house using the above methods even before my parents paid off their mortgage. You will be shocked how fast time works for you , when most of your money is going towards the principle rather than interest to the bank!

[DonJuanDeMarco]

Not as comfortable as I was last week!

I made a small fortune last week (election week) but lost most of it this week! I think my 401k is a bi-polar, degenerate gambler!

[HueyRamone]

Not as comfortable as I was last week!

I made a small fortune last week (election week) but lost most of it this week! I think my 401k is a bi-polar, degenerate gambler!

SP500 is up 24% year to date. Went up 5% last week and then gave back 2.5%. It's a big swing for your average week, but just a blip when you look at the whole year.

But with demented arsonist wolverines on crack running the show next year, I wouldnt be surprised if there is a bunch of pain to come.

[HoldenSSV]

It’s free in most countries.

Quality of care and availability are important also.

[rftc]

Some nice stories here on retiring comfortably, congrats. I am 55, wife the same age, empty nesting now about to downsize from big house to a condo rental and pocket about $300k to CD's. we have north of a mill in different funds that we are gradually moving from 80% stocks to more bond/CD mix.

Going to look at moving to Thailand for a test retirement run in 2027. Plan is to bridge about 7 years to come back to the states for full SS and medicare eligibility. use that 7 years to travel a fuck-ton around 2/3 of the world and live way below USA pricing and mix it up between Chiang Mai, Bangkok, and the southern islands.

read the book, "die with zero" it has some great points for those approaching retirement years.

cheers...

[uwec95]

I have a healthy 401k on top of a teacher pension, so I feel pretty good about where I am at. If insurance wasn't a worry, I would retire at 55, but I plan on retiring in 5 years, at 58 1/2. I get 5 years of insurance after retirement, so that only leaves me with 1 1/2 years of insurance to cover before medicare.

[Olivia Sophia]

Went to graduate school early thirties.. . Had a breakdown of my will to hustle any more. Didn't finish.

Was virtually homeless for a couple years.

Found a way to basically be self employed in a few different ventures.

Have lived month to month, and about ten years ago gave up on materialism altogether.

I know nothing about investing.

[pieceofme]

Went to graduate school early thirties.. . Had a breakdown of my will to hustle any more. Didn't finish.

Was virtually homeless for a couple years.

Found a way to basically be self employed in a few different ventures.

Have lived month to month, and about ten years ago gave up on materialism altogether.

I know nothing about investing.

I can send you some links if you want

[eddie lee roth]

Went to graduate school early thirties.. . Had a breakdown of my will to hustle any more. Didn't finish.

Was virtually homeless for a couple years.

Found a way to basically be self employed in a few different ventures.

Have lived month to month, and about ten years ago gave up on materialism altogether.

I know nothing about investing.

I can send you some links if you want

Send some toenail clippers too.

[pieceofme]

Went to graduate school early thirties.. . Had a breakdown of my will to hustle any more. Didn't finish.

Was virtually homeless for a couple years.

Found a way to basically be self employed in a few different ventures.

Have lived month to month, and about ten years ago gave up on materialism altogether.

I know nothing about investing.

I can send you some links if you want

Send some toenail clippers too.

I certainly can!

[Son_of_Sam_I_Am]

I don't have fuck-you money, but I'd consider myself well-off. I retired at 50. I run a record store in my spare time these days. The wife still works. Live in a modest house, drive nice but not crazy cars, never had kids, not divorced. Didn't pay off my house because my IRA's/ROTHs earn 3 times the interest rate on my mortgage, but the mortgage is the only debt I have. I'm able to enjoy my hobies and travel where and when I want. In short, a couple inherited properties, IRA's and a few money market accounts as my investments and a brother-in-law who works as a financial advisor for Raymond-James means that as long as I have a little humility and don't try to live like King Turd of Shit Mountain, I'll be comfortable for the rest of my life.