Investing megathread extravaganza

[DaFace]

A place to talk about investing stuff.

[GloryDayz]

Originally Posted by Wallymo

That's the message I missed (or, to be honest with myself, ignored). I worked in NYC the first six years of my career ('97-'03) and only put a total of $12k in retirement. That $12k is now worth over $150k. Instead of saving, I lived the full NYC life above my means and racked up so much credit card debt that I only got clear about a decade ago. I kick myself daily for my foolishness, but have made a concerted effort to teach our three kids to emphasize retirement early.

If I'm going to retire at 65, I think I need to take the risk of no bonds. At least for the next 5-8 years. Hope isn't a great plan, but I see no other way to get where we need to be to take care of my wife after I'm gone.

Don't kick yourself, it's in the past, but by all means spread the word to the younger people who are early in their careers.

[GloryDayz]

Originally Posted by myselff77

For those retired, I'd be interested to hear how and when you came to the realization you could comfortably retire? I'm still about 20 years out, and always fearful I won't have enough money. That being said, the 401k is really starting to grow from the 20+ years of contributions and the online calculators make it appear I'm in good shape. I still don't know how much I trust them. Is the pessimism normal, or did you feel you were in good shape financially years before you actually retired?

For me it was a balance between how I could keep my "at retirement" income flowing in without Social Security (since I retired long before I could draw it), and how long the money would last (how long I expect to live). That's VERY rudimentary or "rough" can-retire/can't-retire number. While many of the monthly bills might go away at/around retirement age (mortgage, cars, boats, RVs, college tuition/professional dive schools for the kids, etc.), some costs will increase (TRAVEL!!!), so if you have solid plans, I'd recommend you take a look at what you bring home now, when you'll get to the point when that number can be had (with or without SS), how long you think you'll live, and what bills will go away and which will come on as living your best retirement life.

I certainly did exactly that didn't really allow myself to need "great gains" in the retirement account to keep my travel life going for a couple of decades. After that, when I can't dive, they can put me in a nice retirement community and let me eat pudding..

ANd last, be weary of the hordes of "retirement planners" who want to work with you, I found that most of them just want your nest-egg to invest. While that's not bad, I found it rather annoying that I could Google and learn about as much as any of them could offer in terms of ideas and concepts. Once you've studied-up on retirement concepts I suspect you'll find the meetings boring. Start with Googling the "4% rule, that might start some poop around here, and it should give you an idea to start with, then it can branch into a lot of other areas to learn.

But start with a number you'll need to be able to live, then a number for what you'll need to live well, doing the stuff you're passionate about.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by myselff77

For those retired, I'd be interested to hear how and when you came to the realization you could comfortably retire? I'm still about 20 years out, and always fearful I won't have enough money. That being said, the 401k is really starting to grow from the 20+ years of contributions and the online calculators make it appear I'm in good shape. I still don't know how much I trust them. Is the pessimism normal, or did you feel you were in good shape financially years before you actually retired?

I'm retiring in 19 days, so I'm close enough to answer this.

For my entire career, I put money into retirement accounts every year. I never did the math on whether it was enough. I just put in the minimum amounts to get benefits in my younger years (e.g., matching, tax breaks), and then one I got to a measure of financial security I started putting more in, again never calculating whether it was enough.

As I got older, I always had a little rule of thumb in my mind that I needed 25 times my (and my wife's) annual salary in savings to afford retirement. That was a really simple formula that I'd read in a few places, and it seemed kind of reasonable. But I always wondered how good an estimate it was.

The Covid shutdown was a pivotal point for me. My work slowed down dramatically and we weren't going out, so I suddenly had some free time. I was binge-watching King of Queens and suddenly thought, "Maybe I should do a little work to get a better retirement number."

I went out and looked at some retirement planning calculators, and I didn't like how they worked. They seemed too simplistic, and the results were all over the place. So I decided to build a custom calculator for myself.

I got into Excel and thought I'd take 15 minutes to come up with an estimate. I realized that there were a few key variables: my savings, how long I would work, my investment return rates, inflation, and my spending. Then I realized that another key factor was how long I was planning for - age 85, age 90, age 100? Social Security was also an issue.

I ended up building a pretty complex financial model where I could change these assumptions and play around with them and see how my savings would change over time. I learned a whole bunch of things in the process.

1. Savings is obviously important, but the more important thing is how long it'll last. Years of funding are the measure to keep in mind more than just money.

2. Some things are under my control (savings, career length, spending), and some aren't (inflation and rate of return).

3. Taxes make a big difference, and there are some things like Roth Conversions that really help.

4. I've got a lot of home equity. Initially, I concluded that I might be better off moving to a cheaper market, but since my house produces income (it has an attached apartment), I'm better off staying put. But for most people, it might make sense to move if you have a ton of home equity. You want your money to be producing income, not just non-liquid wealth accumulation.

After putting all of this together, I concluded that it was pretty safe for me to retire. There are some scenarios where I won't have enough money at some point, but those are mostly due to improbable events outside my control. While I'll always worry a bit about those scenarios, there's nothing I can do about them so they don't affect my thinking.

My wife and I talked it over and decided we could retire as soon as we could figure out an endgame for our company (which we ended up transferring to an employee group). But in the meantime the stock market tanked badly (was that 2022?). I kept updating the model regularly and saw that we could survive that, though it wasn't fun to worry about it. We worked another year, which saw the stock market skyrocket, and all of a sudden we'd overshot our needs by a large margin. I learned from this that I can't fret about stock market moves because we're in good shape in all probable scenarios. Therefore, we're retiring.