South Platte said:

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Has anyone actually answered OP's question? I'm thinking by 60 you should be able to retire comfortably if you want to. If you want to keep working, by all means go for it. But planning for early retirement prior to 60 is a good idea in the event you get aged out of employment.

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planning on leaving the corporate world by age 55

and that is with 2 years living overseas not working

Cyp0111 said:

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I see a lot of people get aged out of employment in my industry by 50. I'm doing everything in my power to be in a position if that day comes.

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"Aged" out of employment?

I've worked with a lot of great older employees, guys who keep working into their 60s just because they become bored otherwise.

I just don't think I could afford to retire when I'm 50 because of expenses. If I retired that young I imagine my yearly expenses would increase tenfold.

Best ways to reduce your health care costs if you retire early are:
-Open a business, hire someone outside your family and go get a business rate. Business could suck, who cares. It just needs to show a profit enough years to keep you from being designated a hobby by the IRS.
-Take college courses and get healthcare through the college.
-Go on a medishare program through a church.
-take advantage of extended cobra benefits if you just left a job.

-Other option is to take care of yourself and anticipate paying cash for things.

one MEEN Ag said:

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Best ways to reduce your health care costs if you retire early are:
-Open a business, hire someone outside your family and go get a business rate. Business could suck, who cares. It just needs to show a profit enough years to keep you from being designated a hobby by the IRS.
-Take college courses and get healthcare through the college.
-Go on a medishare program through a church.
-take advantage of extended cobra benefits if you just left a job.

-Other option is to take care of yourself and anticipate paying cash for things.

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In my experience, the "business rate" isn't exactly a bargain. The only reason to go this route is to have access to PPO plans, but you're still going to pay through the nose.

As far as college classes go, I think most schools require you to be "degree seeking" to qualify for their insurance.

I think being a part time barista at Starbucks might trump most of your ideas

Cyp0111 said:

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I see a lot of people get aged out of employment in my industry by 50. I'm doing everything in my power to be in a position if that day comes.

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What industry?

Diggity said:

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one MEEN Ag said:

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Best ways to reduce your health care costs if you retire early are:
-Open a business, hire someone outside your family and go get a business rate. Business could suck, who cares. It just needs to show a profit enough years to keep you from being designated a hobby by the IRS.
-Take college courses and get healthcare through the college.
-Go on a medishare program through a church.
-take advantage of extended cobra benefits if you just left a job.

-Other option is to take care of yourself and anticipate paying cash for things.

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In my experience, the "business rate" isn't exactly a bargain. The only reason to go this route is to have access to PPO plans, but you're still going to pay through the nose.

As far as college classes go, I think most schools require you to be "degree seeking" to qualify for their insurance.

I think being a part time barista at Starbucks might trump most of your ideas

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One thing about the business rate is if you need access to MDAnderson. Which will not see you if you don't have insurance. My parents had to fight this when they were trying to get on medicare, had a lapse in insurance coverage and needed to get some tests done.

Degree seeking is mostly an easy designation with the proliferation of colleges and degree plans. They'll take your money. Its even easier if you've got a degree already and want to do a masters or just research hours under a professor, or are willing to be a TA.

The biggest issue is getting health insurance while being less than full time. I didn't think part time baristas got access to health insurance.

48 now and tracking to call it a day at 55 and do it comfortably. I've built out a detailed model of income, detailed expenses, inflation, and also factors in tax assumptions until I'm 100. I basically just walk everything forward year by year. Rules of thumb like 4% withdrawal rates can be helpful, but depending on your situation, some can have fatal flaws. I'm the type that needs to see it all laid out in detail, isolate which assumptions are more predictable vs less, and then run sensitivities.

The wild card we all have to be mindful of is inflation. Not that it's a surprise, but it is pretty crazy to do a sensitivity analysis with my model and visualize how massive an impact it can have. Even just relatively small variations. What the "new normal" is in 1, 5, 10, 20+ years is going to massively impact people and retirement assumptions

We all talk about what age to retire but the sad truth is for many American families retirement is just a dream.

The average Household income is $65k. I live in El Paso, a fairly affordable town, and can't imagine trying to raise a family of 4 on $65k. Factor in housing, food, a used car note and just life - doesn't leave much if any for savings / retirement. What's that family to do? Work a 2nd job 20 plus hours a week? Plan on working til they die? Buy lotto tickets and pray?

I doubt many of us find ourselves in this position but I would guess retirement is a fairly new concept that only recently has come about to the masses due to increased life spans and a middle class.

I'm sure the millionaire next door talks about a firefighter and a teacher who retire with a million dollars but even those 2 jobs together earn around 6 figures, maybe a bit higher. Big difference between that and $65k.

With all that said, I imagine the average retirement age will continue to grow. Even when I leave my industry I still might want to work a flexible part time job just because often I enjoy work. Will that make me truly retired if I'm only working when I want as a contract employee?

Ultimately, retire when you can. And live your life the way you want. Just please don't come beg society for a hand out later in life due to poor planning and life choices.

YouBet said:

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Thus, they are aged out. It's indirect but most people have a shelf life and a window to hit that next level.

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I have seen this happen to several of my clients.

20 hours a week is the minimum apparently

I work in the commodity side/trading. People either get burned up by mid 40's or they move into one of the few manager spots or take over an operational team to stick around. Very few stick in a front office role at that point, just my experience though.

I think Youbet hit the nail on the head. I do think companies have gotten better on the advisor tag to keep older/individual contributors around but once your past 45 you better be really really good to stick on one of those roles.

Man.. I'm close to 45 but I feel highly valued at my job. There is only one other person that does what I do, and he's a partner and turning 60 next year. It's pretty clear to me now that I'll be in his spot in 5-10 years. But until then, I feel I'm paid really well, my bonus is approaching my wife's salary, and I have pretty cush hours.

I work for a private, small general contractor in commercial construction. Im an estimator.

End of the day, I don't feel I'll be 'aged out'.

Okay, what are professional workers aged 45-60 doing then? A lot of people this age have kids in high school and college and are definitely working.

I'm 48 with 7 year old twins and hoping to be able to crank out some decent income and savings/investments for the next 12 years or so until the kids are out of the house. Hoping to really be able to downshift at work soon after that. I work for myself and have no plans to officially retire - health insurance beng one huge reason. I also generally like going to the office everyday (even if I don't do a damn thing very productive).

Cyp0111 said:

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I see a lot of people get aged out of employment in my industry by 50. I'm doing everything in my power to be in a position if that day comes.

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I think you need to have other skills as the US economy is DESPERATE for employees.

last month I believe there were around 11 million job openings left unfilled.

for intelligent people, this economy is fantastic because there are not enough employees who want to work or are qualified to work.

bmks270 said:

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Okay, what are professional workers aged 45-60 doing then? A lot of people this age have kids in high school and college and are definitely working.

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the answer is getting a second career.

I know in the corporate world where I have spent 23 years, there are few people in their 60s. even the senior executives were in their 50s. This was when I was at Lockheed, UTC, Booz Allen, CSRA.

my plan is to be financially independent by 56, then spend my time writing books, volunteering, visiting family and friends, living in cheaper locations around the world (Budapest/Kiev/Cartagena/Nahariya/Prague)

investing now and planning that my crypto and stock accounts will get to a million by age 56- the home I own now I will rent out for passive income along with social security starting at 62.

I'm 51 now.

That is a fair statement to an extent but also one of someone that may not have too much experience.

Yes- the economy is in need of workers.

However, the focused skillset that is needed to generate significant earnings at a corporate is usually a narrow, highly specialized skillset which is not overly transferable to the overall worker shortage.

bmks270 said:

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Okay, what are professional workers aged 45-60 doing then? A lot of people this age have kids in high school and college and are definitely working.

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Well, they certainly are; they are just topped out in my example. IOW, my example was from F500 and more specific to career progression. Point being that in most cases if you aren't on the path to VP (executive) by early 40s you are probably never getting there and have topped out.

Wife has an Uncle that has a net worth of 15mm at present. Retired in late 2020 at age 63 ... and is worried about healthcare costs. Legitimately concerned - he is very transparent about it!


We all laugh at him and wonder how a complete fool ever made the level of 15mm. No debt and his hobby is cleaning his house and pool.

Number one thing people lie about is money

There is more than one way to skin a cat

evestor1 said:

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Wife has an Uncle that has a net worth of 15mm at present. Retired in late 2020 at age 63 ... and is worried about healthcare costs. Legitimately concerned - he is very transparent about it!


We all laugh at him and wonder how a complete fool ever made the level of 15mm. No debt and his hobby is cleaning his house and pool.

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I don't know. If he doesn't have any coverage, he could be.

We had a family friend who retired early (this was pre-obamacare) and was wealthy. He had a heart condition, needed a heart transplant, and insurance wasn't going to cover it for some reason or another.

Dude wrote a million dollar check to pay for all of his heart related issues and surgeries that year. He was happy he could write that check, but dang...a million dollars in early 2000s cash.

YouBet said:

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bmks270 said:

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Okay, what are professional workers aged 45-60 doing then? A lot of people this age have kids in high school and college and are definitely working.

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Well, they certainly are; they are just topped out in my example. IOW, my example was from F500 and more specific to career progression. Point being that in most cases if you aren't on the path to VP (executive) by early 40s you are probably never getting there and have topped out.

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That may be true, but at least in stem fields guys with 20-30 years of experience still get paid well without needing to be a director executive track. Usually these guys have options when it comes
to picking their employer and will go where they have a good work life balance and so overall are pretty satisfied, or a place they really love their work.

one MEEN Ag said:

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Anyone else read these threads and just get depressed? Heavily incentivized to stick to a corporate route just for the benefits. The only people making enough money to overcome the health insurance burdens of early retirement are executives. If you're not already set up by 40 you'll never make it to executive level. Better use your thirties to work hard and find a way to not be male, pale and eventually stale.

I just plan to staple my TPS cover sheets to the reports at 70% work ethic hoping my stocks will outperform and save my ass from this continued corporate existence into my 60s.

Sidenote: I used to work a christian summer camp. The kids whose parents were workaholics, early career executives/doctors/lawyers couldn't give two ****s about all the stuff their parents bought. They just wanted their dad to be there.

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Cynical, snide take on healthcare: we will be in a UHC situation within next 10 years so staying at corporate for the sole reason to not lose healthcare will be rendered moot.

Then you can leave corporate without any worries. You can then spend all that free time sitting around waiting for several months just to see a doctor under government healthcare.

We know a couple that recently 'retired' in their late forties to the central texas area.

Husband was retired from a first career, has a second career with the local school district. Wife had downshifted her career and was working remote part time for a hospital on the admin side. The husband was adamant about not getting sucked into the extracurricular bonuses like being a coach. Would do his job from bell to bell, but was out the door once his obligations ended. Don't ask him to be a team lead or coach basketball. They were happy with the long breaks the school district gave compared to previous industry's vacation policy.

Just doing the math in my head. Teacher salary plus part time hospital admin salary they were probably bringing home 80k-100k a year for 60-70% work load compared to if they had stuck with their original careers. Had health care coverage through the ISD and were happy with the easier pace of life. Said they were planning to do this until they hit Medicare retirement.

I wouldn't be surprised if there is a big jump in the 'semi' retired segment of society that leverages their home equity to go live somewhere more 'fun' while still being able to work some job there.

bmks270 said:

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YouBet said:

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bmks270 said:

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Okay, what are professional workers aged 45-60 doing then? A lot of people this age have kids in high school and college and are definitely working.

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Well, they certainly are; they are just topped out in my example. IOW, my example was from F500 and more specific to career progression. Point being that in most cases if you aren't on the path to VP (executive) by early 40s you are probably never getting there and have topped out.

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That may be true, but at least in stem fields guys with 20-30 years of experience still get paid well without needing to be a director executive track. Usually these guys have options when it comes
to picking their employer and will go where they have a good work life balance and so overall are pretty satisfied, or a place they really love their work.

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This.

My dad and two of my uncles are engineers that were never executives, and they all 3 made a lot of money. Dad in oil/gas, uncles in defense/satellites. salary ranges for these 3 were $200s-$300s, 15 years ago and up until more recently.

So long as lifestyle creep doesn't take over, you should be able to invest/save plenty to retire comfortably at a decent age making high income.

That sounds kind of appealing.

One of the biggest unkowns for me is what our cost of living will look like after the kids our gone. I thought our cost of living was relatively low...until we had kids. We spend what I consider to be a lot of money now (mostly kid related in some way) - and I'm assuming that's going to increase as they get older. I'm hoping we'll really be able to dial that back once the kids are out of the house (assuming collge is properly funded, which is the plan)...but I'm having a hard time figuring out what that's going to look like. I'm sure hoping we'll be spending WAY less in 12 - 15 years...