Would you keep grinding or retire early?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’ve got 3 kids to out through college. Are you only willing to pay for state school and only for undergrad? Are you paying all their living expenses? Fine if you are, just be sure you are completely settled with that decision so you don’t overextend your finances.

You’re only in your 40s. Look into how much elder care costs. My grandfather blew through $1M in a year after a fall, Alzheimer’s diagnosis, and the need for a full-time sitter at the nursing home. Either of you could have an accident, and illness, a parent with an accident or an illness.

I suggest you find a job that allows you to scale back, whether that means part time, lower responsibility, consulting on fixed term contracts with a break in between.

Lol, no, don’t plan your life around needing $1 million a year for elder care. That’s the type of nonsense that causes people to continue working when they should have long since retired. People like PP might as well have warned that you could lose everything in a cyber attack or to the government in a civil forfeiture, etc. At a certain point, you have to weigh the risks and benefits – and there are absolutely risks to working too long and never enjoying your life.

So true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I roll my eyes when women claim they need to stay at home for their teenage kids. If you need to stay at home and not work for two teens, you are doing something wrong.

Keep looking for another job but be a little picky if you want. Try to consult and do part time.

Do NOT leave the workforce entirely.

What about college? Is that fully funded in 529s?

or leave the workforce and never look back. She doesn't need to work. Enjoy the freedom of never answering to anybody.

She could work and DH can stay home too. Why is it always woman who gets to stay home??

Because in my experiences, it's the women who actually have the desire to work part time/give up their job completely in return for adding in more "work for the family". Have not met many men who actually want to stop working in their 40s/early 50s, especially if the trade off was they had to instead spend 5-6 hours a day doing housework/cooking/cleaning/errands/driving the kids to activities/sitting attentively at the kids activities/etc. Who does it is up to the family themselves.
In our house, the wife became the SAHP when first was born. We were both happy with that decision---it was mine to make---I could stay home or send the kid to daycare/hire a nanny. I chose staying home with my kids, with full support of my spouse. While they Joke about it, they never would have actually wanted to quit their job and stay home---would have driven them crazy---they wouldn't have wanted to do all the work associated with staying home with the kids and would have missed interaction with adults and doing their job. While I made over 100K at age 28 when I quit, they still made much more and had the drive/determination to make even more, so it made sense for them to work and me to stay home.

Giving up $250k income so you can stay home and clean during the day? Hire a house manager for $80k, but do make time to pickup and go to those kids games.

And what will she keep exactly after paying taxes on her 250K if she even can keep making this much, and then dealing with an employee and their drama, their sick days, their vacations, their maternity leaves, etc.? Or will you screen and hire only post-menopausal women? Then you don't get free time, have to deal with deadlines and work drama to save a whooping 50K a year? If you hire a domestic employee you pay them with your after-tax money unlike corporations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would take a year or two off and then get back into the job market. Once your kids are in college you may want to have a job so no need to close off that path. What does retiring even mean - do you actually get retirement benefits from somewhere? You can't take social security for many years anyway.

Fair point. I prob will have plenty of free time on my hands after kids are both in college. Ideally the hubs wants to quit also and we can spend next 10 years to travel, stay home to garden, help kids out with homework when needed, and basically enjoy life before we're too old to hike through Europe/Asia. His fear is that he'll be too weak/frail to do traveling and really enjoy life at the normal 65+ retirement age.

As stated before, we are not really expecting any pensions or SS to be available, other than medical coverage when we hit 65 which is why I want to plan to save enough and work as much as I can if it makes sense so we won't have to worry about expenses.

And if YOU (with 6 million ) don't have enough.. what will happen to the rest of the elderly? Euthanasia? Begging on the streets? There is a fear of being destitute and on the streets, and there is a fear you won't afford comfortable UMC lifestyle, frequent overseas travel and a vacation home, high end nursing home or paying a live-in caretaker, giving DP to your kids or paying for their school, etc. The latter are your problems, so you decide how much you hate or love working. There is no stability in this universe for anyone. It's a personal choice

[Anonymous]

it all reduces to how much you hate your job, you don't seem to be burnt out.. but this may change if you get remote gigs with deadlines, as some really want you to deliver and will push you. You may find working nights instead of chilling, depends on your luck and connections, and industry. Also, PT jobs are notoriously difficult to get. This is a general problem in our society that pushes out those like you aging out of high paced work environment and needing to focus on home/family.

[Anonymous]

I’d keep working but scale back. - SAHM who works part time but doesn’t “have to.”

[Anonymous]

Nobody retires until everyone can retire.

You would not be “retired early” you would be living off the dole and unemployed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I roll my eyes when women claim they need to stay at home for their teenage kids. If you need to stay at home and not work for two teens, you are doing something wrong.

Keep looking for another job but be a little picky if you want. Try to consult and do part time.

Do NOT leave the workforce entirely.

What about college? Is that fully funded in 529s?

or leave the workforce and never look back. She doesn't need to work. Enjoy the freedom of never answering to anybody.

She could work and DH can stay home too. Why is it always woman who gets to stay home??

Because in my experiences, it's the women who actually have the desire to work part time/give up their job completely in return for adding in more "work for the family". Have not met many men who actually want to stop working in their 40s/early 50s, especially if the trade off was they had to instead spend 5-6 hours a day doing housework/cooking/cleaning/errands/driving the kids to activities/sitting attentively at the kids activities/etc. Who does it is up to the family themselves.
In our house, the wife became the SAHP when first was born. We were both happy with that decision---it was mine to make---I could stay home or send the kid to daycare/hire a nanny. I chose staying home with my kids, with full support of my spouse. While they Joke about it, they never would have actually wanted to quit their job and stay home---would have driven them crazy---they wouldn't have wanted to do all the work associated with staying home with the kids and would have missed interaction with adults and doing their job. While I made over 100K at age 28 when I quit, they still made much more and had the drive/determination to make even more, so it made sense for them to work and me to stay home.

Giving up $250k income so you can stay home and clean during the day? Hire a house manager for $80k, but do make time to pickup and go to those kids games.

And what will she keep exactly after paying taxes on her 250K if she even can keep making this much, and then dealing with an employee and their drama, their sick days, their vacations, their maternity leaves, etc.? Or will you screen and hire only post-menopausal women? Then you don't get free time, have to deal with deadlines and work drama to save a whooping 50K a year? If you hire a domestic employee you pay them with your after-tax money unlike corporations.

Pro tip: hire good people with good references, be a good person, pay people market or more, take care of them = no drama. We’ve had an amazing nanny for four years. We have three kids. There is no drama. People who have drama with employees don’t hire well or are cheap and look for drama.

[Anonymous]

Work is "grinding" when DW is working, work is just "work" when DH is working... Weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nobody retires until everyone can retire.

You would not be “retired early” you would be living off the dole and unemployed.

I’m sure your spouse is crazy about you. Tit for tat, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody retires until everyone can retire.

You would not be “retired early” you would be living off the dole and unemployed.

I’m sure your spouse is crazy about you. Tit for tat, right?

Odd response. Not sure what you are trying to say.

- dp

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody retires until everyone can retire.

You would not be “retired early” you would be living off the dole and unemployed.

I’m sure your spouse is crazy about you. Tit for tat, right?

Odd response. Not sure what you are trying to say.

- dp

no you have a very weird view. If my wife quit her job voluntarily, she retired from her career. Her retirement has nothing to do with my employment. She worked hard and chose to stop working as she contributed substantially to our life/finances.

[Anonymous]

Never be dependent on someone else for income. Even if you are working part-time, you are still in the game and it makes it easier to find a full time job if you need to. No one wants to think about it, but things can change - divorce, illness, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Never be dependent on someone else for income. Even if you are working part-time, you are still in the game and it makes it easier to find a full time job if you need to. No one wants to think about it, but things can change - divorce, illness, etc.

At what point is someone allowed to relax? How many people do you know with a high net worth who have had something happen where they should not have retired with say, $6 million net worth and a paid off house? I do not know of anyone with a high net worth who got divorced and then struggled financially.

My own father retired with only $3 million and a paid for house. Nothing bad happened. He had $400k in elder care expenses and then died.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Never be dependent on someone else for income. Even if you are working part-time, you are still in the game and it makes it easier to find a full time job if you need to. No one wants to think about it, but things can change - divorce, illness, etc.

I’d assume OP has her own retirement account and in addition to that, would receive 50% of assets in a divorce. If illness is a reason to continue working then no one should ever retire. Ever.

Not everyone lives in fear. Plenty of people save and invest millions of dollars and retire successfully.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would take a year or two off and then get back into the job market. Once your kids are in college you may want to have a job so no need to close off that path. What does retiring even mean - do you actually get retirement benefits from somewhere? You can't take social security for many years anyway.

Fair point. I prob will have plenty of free time on my hands after kids are both in college. Ideally the hubs wants to quit also and we can spend next 10 years to travel, stay home to garden, help kids out with homework when needed, and basically enjoy life before we're too old to hike through Europe/Asia. His fear is that he'll be too weak/frail to do traveling and really enjoy life at the normal 65+ retirement age.

As stated before, we are not really expecting any pensions or SS to be available, other than medical coverage when we hit 65 which is why I want to plan to save enough and work as much as I can if it makes sense so we won't have to worry about expenses.

And if YOU (with 6 million ) don't have enough.. what will happen to the rest of the elderly? Euthanasia? Begging on the streets? There is a fear of being destitute and on the streets, and there is a fear you won't afford comfortable UMC lifestyle, frequent overseas travel and a vacation home, high end nursing home or paying a live-in caretaker, giving DP to your kids or paying for their school, etc. The latter are your problems, so you decide how much you hate or love working. There is no stability in this universe for anyone. It's a personal choice

This. OP, if you are willing to accept just a very high likelihood of an UMC retirement, go ahead and retire. If you want to increase your odds slightly, keep working. But regardless, whether you retire not or in 10 years your odds of being destitute in your final years are vanishingly small.