Anonymous wrote:Op, just suck it up and get a job with health insurance. Your husband want a break and then you can cover some living money + health insurance. Hasn’t he been carrying the weight for long enough?

It's not that easy to waltz into a job with health insurance in your 50's, especially if you've been out of the job market for many years.

Op, just suck it up and get a job with health insurance. Your husband want a break and then you can cover some living money + health insurance. Hasn’t he been carrying the weight for long enough?

PP again. And sorry, I meant 72t.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rule72t.asp

PP here. I mean ONE penny

Anonymous wrote:You can't withdraw money from an IRA until you are 59 1/2. I'm not sure if its the same for a 401K.
Health Insurance on your own can be very expensive - $15,000-$25,000 a year
Taking SS at age 62 significantly reduce what you can get at age 69, but you do get use of the money earlier.
I'd work a few more years to build savings plus keep health benefits going until I can go on Cobra prior to SS. If you like your jobs and are in good health a few more years will not be costly.

There actually IS a way to withdraw from an IRA before you're 59 1/2 without paying the penalty. Look up section 71t substantially equal periodic payment. i retired early and I've been doing that from one of my accounts, which has about $950k, and I can withdraw about $33k a year without penalty. The best part is that I'm in the zero percent tax bracket so the withdrawals are not taxed on penny.

It can be done if the situation is right for you.

$2,5 will give you a safe annual withdrawal of $$90-$120k. Add in social security income at age 70, which will likely be $20k+ per person, $2.5 mil is more than enough to retire on.

An annual budget should include savings for irregual expenses such as home repairs, car and college costs.

OP, you have more than enough with $3,8 mil to retire as you state you want to. You do seem very risk adverse, so this is something you may want to keep in mind when your mind goes to worrying about retirement (you allow financial anxiety get in the way of clear thinking). Perhaps think instead about why you want to retire and what you want to get out of it. Perhaps you are not ready to retire for some reason other than $ in the bank?

NP. For the PP who plans to retire with $2.5 million, can you break it down a bit for us? How are you thinking it's going to work? Thanks.

OP here: Thanks for all the suggestions, quite a variety of opinions, from "don't be so hesitant" to "get a job as a barista" to "wait a few years."

For the PP planning to retire on $2.5 million, with kids still to enter college: obviously I wouldn't have been brave enough to do so. In fact, even though I haven't been working for a long time, I didn't quit until college was pretty close to funded. Weddings too, but not crazy expensive ones. And although I didn't include this in my "spending," we also need to consider saving for big ticket items like new cars (especially as early retirees) and new appliances when the old ones konk out. These items are in my financial expenses worksheet for the financial planner, so it may be more conservative, but also realistic even to allow for contingencies. As I mentioned, the recession wasn't kind to the college funds and we've also had some non-elective large home repairs/maintenance (totalling about $50K in the aggregate) in recent years, so we are going into this with that perspective. Unfortunately, the numbers don't work out under the most pessimistic scenario.

One thing that I should probably consider: it is highly unlikely that DH or I will live until 94-95 as the model calls for. Certain chronic health issues argue against that. No harm in hoping, except for the inertia about retirement.

Since DH probably makes 5x - 10x annually what I would make in retail, I did ask him whether it's worth trying part-time. He is hesitant because if 70 hours are the expectation when you get paid for 40, part-time could end up being 40-50 hours. (i.e. the main thing that would change would be less money).

I did meet someone a little older than I am who used Medishare as a stopgap policy when her husband (who is a few year older than she is) went on Medicare and she was a year or so younger. I was surprised that they would allow that, but she did seem very healthy. Not sure if they have a health questionaire or anything. The kind of "insurance" we have now is mainly attractive because we pay no premiums at all, plus it reduces the cost of the services, which we pay out of pocket and then charge back to the HSA. (We have come to love the HSA, which has accumulated a modest balance of over $12,000 which we get to carry forward from year to year.)

Can you get a joby job (meaning a paycheck not career) that offers healthcare and work for the next few years?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can't withdraw money from an IRA until you are 59 1/2. I'm not sure if its the same for a 401K.
Health Insurance on your own can be very expensive - $15,000-$25,000 a year
Taking SS at age 62 significantly reduce what you can get at age 69, but you do get use of the money earlier.
I'd work a few more years to build savings plus keep health benefits going until I can go on Cobra prior to SS. If you like your jobs and are in good health a few more years will not be costly.

RE: social security. It depends. You have to do the math. If by taking ss early you are able to earn more in interest in your retirement account to more than cover the difference between taking ss at 62 vs 65, then it's better to take the ss.

OP, I'm thinking you might need a new financial planner.

You should definitely be able to retire in your late 50's with 3.5 million. Don't forget.. you can start withdrawing starting from 59 1/2. Your financial planner should be able to model the spend down up to when you are 100. Our financial planner did this for us.

You will also eventually qualify for medicare, which will reduce your healthcare costs. We have private care now, and it's about $1500 for 4, albeit a high deductible plan.

We are planning to retire with 2.5 million. Our current living expense is about the same as your's, and our kids won't leave for college for another 8 years or so.

NP. Wow. Congratulations! Wish we had the balls to do this. Our kids are closer to college than yours (6 years) and we have close to $4m.

Anonymous wrote:You can't withdraw money from an IRA until you are 59 1/2. I'm not sure if its the same for a 401K.
Health Insurance on your own can be very expensive - $15,000-$25,000 a year
Taking SS at age 62 significantly reduce what you can get at age 69, but you do get use of the money earlier.
I'd work a few more years to build savings plus keep health benefits going until I can go on Cobra prior to SS. If you like your jobs and are in good health a few more years will not be costly.

RE: social security. It depends. You have to do the math. If by taking ss early you are able to earn more in interest in your retirement account to more than cover the difference between taking ss at 62 vs 65, then it's better to take the ss.

OP, I'm thinking you might need a new financial planner.

You should definitely be able to retire in your late 50's with 3.5 million. Don't forget.. you can start withdrawing starting from 59 1/2. Your financial planner should be able to model the spend down up to when you are 100. Our financial planner did this for us.

You will also eventually qualify for medicare, which will reduce your healthcare costs. We have private care now, and it's about $1500 for 4, albeit a high deductible plan.

We are planning to retire with 2.5 million. Our current living expense is about the same as your's, and our kids won't leave for college for another 8 years or so.

You can't withdraw money from an IRA until you are 59 1/2. I'm not sure if its the same for a 401K.
Health Insurance on your own can be very expensive - $15,000-$25,000 a year
Taking SS at age 62 significantly reduce what you can get at age 69, but you do get use of the money earlier.
I'd work a few more years to build savings plus keep health benefits going until I can go on Cobra prior to SS. If you like your jobs and are in good health a few more years will not be costly.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The republicans want to weaken the preexisting conditions law so anyone who is self insured runs the risk of being put in a bare bones high risk pool type insurance policy if they have or develop any number of health conditions

In an ideal world the OP should have a catastrophic insurance policy supplemented by an HSA. (This is not self insurance and the OP is familiar with how these work.) This should cost much less than $30K. Of course, the Democrats view these policies as "junk" and they are not offered because of the ACA. Insurance policies have two purposes: actual insurance and access to the medical buying power of insurance companies. What the OP needs is minimal insurance but health care bought through an insurance company. Unfortunately, the ACA precludes this. OP might want to look at something like Medishare, which seems to be a way to get around the anti-market aspects of the ACA using the religious exception.

I am sorry if I did not use the correct language.
Hopefully this article will highlight what I was concerned by. As I understand it, people who buy insurance on the individual market have to apply for insurance every year. You might be healthy now but if say two years from now you get cancer, with this new Republican law an insurance company could exclude cancer treatment from your policy although they would still be required to offer you insurance.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-24/new-senate-gop-bill-eyes-damage-control-over-obamacare-lawsuit

See the last couple of paragraphs

OP, I just made the decision to retire at 55 with a $5.8 million net worth that includes virtually no cash. In my opinion, you're crazy to be sitting on such much cash regardless of the possibility of a recession. Had I followed your logic I wouldn't be able to retire early either -- all you're doing is letting your bank make money off of your money instead of you!

OP, will you both get SS? With SS, even if you take it at age 70, it seems like you should be in great shape. You just have to weather the years between now and medicare, and then SS (assuming you take it at 70, but if you have health problems, likely want to take at 66-67.

And take the COBRA, this will get you through 18 months.

Generally, costs decline as one ages, starting at about age 75. Except for health care in some cases.

I think you should be fine. Hubby has been working hard and seems like he needs to stop, or he will have heart attack. Have him develop some hobbies and then stop with the stressful work.