Title says it all. This is from Yahoo finance.
I actually did this, from a scratch start, many years ago . . . except in seven years, not ten. No regrets . . . none whatsoever.
2 Likes
This is an automatically-generated Wiki post for this new topic. Any member can edit this post and use it as a summary of the topic’s highlights.
I’m winging it cuz that’s how I roll. 
That’s a great “step by step” plan.
A. Add up your money
B. Pick the date you want to retire
C. Hire a financial advisor to magically get you from A to B
The only takeaway from this article is that financial advisors are underpants gnomes.
4 Likes
Was too much detail and information in that article for me to comprehend…Plus it seemed like a lot of work. Like keeping track of all my assets, thinking income streams and projected expenses. It’s like budget planning or something. How can anyone make sense of the depth of intricacies involved?
I think I could have used a few more steps between 1) Count your dough and 2) Figure how far that’ll take you; 3) Enjoy.
Agreed . . . as usual.
What I did instead was just to go on an insane savings binge, combined with an equally insane “work-your-ass-off” binge. That was my seven year “boost phase” . . . in rocketry terms. Once I had saved enough dough to “enter orbit” (i.e., retire), the task became one of “just don’t lose the money”.
Worked for me . . . . and no laborious calculations or recordkeeping.
For us our plan started with setting the goals first. We wanted to retire on about $100-150k/yr. Factoring in social security and a small company pension (sadly frozen 10 yrs ago), and based on a 3.5% withdrawal rate, that led us to aiming for a $3M retirement fund (which we are about to hit 6 years early).
Since our decision was to save first and make do with what was left, the strategy of randomly accumulating money and wake up one day saying well let’s retire in 10 years and figure out what we have to live on, seemed a bit backwards to us.
OK, sorry. That was just a little bit too glib. It was not laborious. But I did expend some effort way back, well over thirty years ago, writing a computer program able to project my financial circumstances out into the future. The program allowed me to input a variety of variables so I could play “what if” games and know how everything would turn out.
It has been quite a few years since I used that program. But I did use it for perhaps the first five or ten years of my retirement, just to get a feel for how I was doing. The program proved remarkably useful and accurate. It was a help, perhaps not essential but it was reassuring.
No it isn’t. Like many other “articles” on yahoo, it’s and advertisement from smartasset dot com disguised as an article.
3 Likes
I wonder if smartass dot com is taken. 
3 Likes
Dam you, made me look! 
2 Likes
Most of the “ten year plans” I have seen over on Bogleheads over the years, have almost exclusively been MDs making 300-1MM a year! I don’t know if it is reasonable to expect a salaryman to do something like this.
2 Likes
Depends on the salary, man . The trick to early retirement is to either (a) make much more than you spend or (b) spend much less than you make. The bigger the spread (savings rate), the sooner one can retire. Plenty of blogs and podcasts on the subject describing how some people changed their lifestyles to spend less than they thought possible and save up enough to no longer need income from a job.
2 Likes
A couple years of “lucky” large returns could also contribute. Of course the opposite can also happen with large setbacks.
Using SP500 long term (>7%+inflation), one needs to save only about 10 times their spending (not income). Of course I’m not saying that would be a “safe” amount since it’s an average growth rate… and assumes spending stays the same. Costs could potential rise with age (even though the data shows they usually decrease significantly).
Even with no returns assumed until after retiring, if 50% is saved, 10% is taxes, 40% is spent, it only would take 8 years to save up 10X spending. The rest would be just increasing the safety margin to something more reasonable.
Good thing Yahoo Finance reposted this or else I would have missed it
1 Like
To me the biggest problem is health care. I’m not sure what people are doing for health care but at the current rate, what would be the cost in 10 years? I don’t see us retiring entirely in 10 years as I think one of us would have to be a consultant or something to get or at least write off insurance.
Yeah healthcare is the big unknown variable in early retirement. Theres the unknown cost increases for one as you mention. But also the future status of Obamacare vs Medicare for all vs Obamacre repeal and return to pre ACA situation.
You guys are spot on. You are absolutely correct.
I have reflected in these more recent years how different my life would have been under circumstances now.
Back when I retired early it was still a free country. Just as you both have opined, health care was a major concern for me as well, even all those years ago. But I had the freedom to purchase the exact coverage I needed . . . which was quite inexpensive. I did not insure for health issues I never would confront, and I was able to purchase catastrophic coverage alone. The intent there was to protect my retirement nest egg
I never went without health insurance through all the years, and I paid out of my own pocket. But there was not a requirement for me, back then, to pay for health insurance for other people . . . . in other words it was not a form of tax or a wealth redistribution scheme. I paid, but only for myself, so I was able to afford the coverage even though I had retired.
1 Like
Oh, so you were like me and considered health insurance to be “insurance”, not “health care”…
1 Like
And how could you have possibly known? Or did you simply decide that if you got cancer or suddenly needed cardiovascular surgery you would not confront it?