Anonymous wrote:OP here

I guess I just dont care that much about retirement. I cant fathom what I would do all day, especially without kids to take care of.

Just sitting in a chair staring at a blank wall would be better than my current job.

But I will trap rabbits, jerky the meat, and make hats out of the fur when I retire. I would sell the meat and hats in a farmers market, where I would emphasize their local origin.

Anonymous wrote:The age I am when I die

mmm, good thing my parents weren't counting on this. My mom is now pretty much disabled with mobility issues and some cognitive issues and a substance abuse problem-- she could not work if she wanted to be working.

my dad as well is physically mobile but his vision and hearing is going, and he had a whole bunch of physical ailments in the past year plus some medical scares. If he was trying to work it would be pretty much impossible for what he was doing before.

you are counting on working until you die but you may face many years of physical/mental problems that preclude you from working.

OP here

I guess I just dont care that much about retirement. I cant fathom what I would do all day, especially without kids to take care of.

I also dont know if I am going to live to 40, much less to 80, so while I am saving for retirement, I certainly wouldnt forgo things that are important to me and my children in the present (private school), so that I might be able to take some extra trips to Europe or wherever when I am 70.

I know there is always the possibility of needing full-time, live-in care, but that is so expensive, I dont know if I'd ever be able to save enough for that type of care anyway.

Plan to retire at 60, when my son will be 22 and completing college.
I would not work longer to finance grad school or a wedding.
I also don't think of retirement as completely leaving the workforce. I anticipate working part-time, hopefully as a consultant. But at age 60 I plan to no longer work for maximum pay, or with a thought to moving ahead, but with plans to scale down, and start living part 2 of my life.
As to what I will do for 20+ years after retiring: live.

Anonymous wrote:I'd quit working for money once I have enough saved. Looking like never right now.

I'm 47 and could afford to retire right now, but I don't work just or even primarily for the money.

You might cross post in the Money and Finances forum for more targeted replies.

Hoping to retire at around 70. The mortgage will be paid off right around that time, either on my current place or on a downsized place after my kid goes to college. My daughter will be out of college and grad school and maybe starting a family, so it'll be nice to spend time with her. I will probably still do something part-time, volunteer work or maybe teaching a class or something.

I don't expect to ever retire. Like 10:47, I expect to have to work until the day I drop dead and they have to cart me out of my cubicle.

I'd quit working for money once I have enough saved. Looking like never right now.

Anonymous wrote:People on this board are so obsessed with saving for retirement. I understand having a financial safety net for when you are older in case of health problems or simply being unable to work for other reasons, but these days people are living longer. What do you plan to do for 20+ years?

At what age would you like to retire?
How old will your kids be?
Would you voluntarily retire later to earn extra money to help your kids pay for college? Grad school? A wedding?
If your mortgage and childcare expenses are paid off by the time you retire, how much (or what percentage of your current income) will you need when you retire per year?

As soon as we can afford to, definitely by the time DH is 65 (I am younger and have my own business, so retirement is a fuzzier concept for me).
Our son will be 25.
We expect to pay for college. We will not pay for grad school. We plan to be able to afford a contribution to a wedding, but not the entire thing (thankfully we have a son so it is unlikely to be expected). So, no, we do not plan to work longer for these things.
Our approach is a bit different, in that we will plan to arrange our lives to afford to live on what we can retire on, rather than to work longer for more money.

We plan to move near the ocean, travel, read/write/garden, make art, engage in hiking/biking/swimming, get more involved in local politics, volunteer for charities, and spend time with our families and friends. Maybe consult in our fields in a very limited way. Basically, all the things we love to do now and don't have as much time for since we're working.

One consideration for us, particularly as older parents, is that people in DH's family have died younger than average, from stroke and cancer. We both have a lot of Alzheimer's in our family, which could appear as early as our late 60s. We want to plan to have quality time with our son and minimize our stress later in life as much as we possibly can. We have too many examples of the opposite in our lives and we are trying to be realistic but not negative about those possibilities.

Ha! I have colleagues that will probably work until they die because they have no where else to go to spend their days besides staying home or going to the park.

At what age would you like to retire?--------------Hopefully can scale back at 60; no real plans to retire unless health fails and/or I'm kicked out of the workforce.
How old will your kids be?--------------------------At 60 they'll be 45, 41, 38 & 32.
Would you voluntarily retire later to earn extra money to help your kids pay for college? Grad school? A wedding?---------------No, would not delay retiring for any of these reasons.
If your mortgage and childcare expenses are paid off by the time you retire, how much (or what percentage of your current income) will you need when you retire per year?-----Don't own; no plans to own. Can get by with combined HHI of $50-65k.

The age I am when I die

Anonymous wrote:I have a question related to this. We live in a much larger home than we will want at retirement. Let's say it's a 2M home today and will be paid off in 10 years, but we are 20 years away from retirement. We plan to sell in about 10 years and downsize. I assume house might be worth more in 10 years, so let's say 2.4M, and we would buy the about a 1M place. We can "count" that 1.4 m for retirement, correct? And do we get taxed (at 40% current rate) for what we would take out of the sale? How could we protect that money better?

Depends on what you paid for the house, what you invested in the house, and your one time CG deduction (and whether that still exists when you sell). Also keep in mind there will be transaction costs - I would assume 7-8% for taxes, realtor fees, etc. I would probably consult your tax advisor.

At what age would you like to retire? Between 65-70.
How old will your kids be? 32 and 34
Would you voluntarily retire later to earn extra money to help your kids pay for college? Grad school? A wedding? Yes (although college will be paid for by 529s and hopefully they'll graduate long before I retire) and I'd also like to help them with downpayments for their first house[/b
]If your mortgage and childcare expenses are paid off by the time you retire, how much (or what percentage of your current income) will you need when you retire per year? [b]25-35%. Our house will be paid for, we won't be paying private school tuition and won't be saving for college or retirement. These things eat up close to 75% of our monthly budget.