Anonymous wrote:Currently 45, a fed, making $160K a year and saving about 10% of my salary in the Federal retiree system.

My goal is to retire at at 60. At that point, I expect to have college paid for and done for two kids, and have about $1 million in home equity. That will allow us plenty of options to stay in place, sell and move to smaller condo and buy vacation home, or sell and just put the equity into savings.

I will have earned a federal pension - which I will be able to collect at 60 - of about $75,000 per year.

Based on current retirement savings - about $400,000 - plus saving 10% more per year - I expect to have about $1.7 million saved. Figure using about 4% of that annually gives me an annual income from savings of about $70,000

Add in Social Security for me and DW and that gets us right to about $170,000 a year.

It's not the $10-25 million that other posters are talking about, but I think we can retire well and be happy with what I describe above.

PP, can you please explain how federal pensions work? Are they still being offered for new employees? How long does it take to earn one? How is it determined how much it will pay out and for how long? Thanks.

Currently 45, a fed, making $160K a year and saving about 10% of my salary in the Federal retiree system.

My goal is to retire at at 60. At that point, I expect to have college paid for and done for two kids, and have about $1 million in home equity. That will allow us plenty of options to stay in place, sell and move to smaller condo and buy vacation home, or sell and just put the equity into savings.

I will have earned a federal pension - which I will be able to collect at 60 - of about $75,000 per year.

Based on current retirement savings - about $400,000 - plus saving 10% more per year - I expect to have about $1.7 million saved. Figure using about 4% of that annually gives me an annual income from savings of about $70,000

Add in Social Security for me and DW and that gets us right to about $170,000 a year.

It's not the $10-25 million that other posters are talking about, but I think we can retire well and be happy with what I describe above.

Anonymous wrote:last summer I figured $4M. Now it seems more like $10M. That is to pay 2 college tuitions and have $200K/yr to live on (which sounds like a lot, but so did $100K 15 years ago)

Are you talking 200K/year in cash to live on? That's 16K+/month in cash with no mortgage/car payments/student loans/college. Seems like a lot to me.

Anonymous wrote:Some of these numbers seem very high. I think I'd like to hit 3m. I just wonder how many of the posters need 5 or 10 million. Most of the posts I read here are about how high income earners wear junky clothes and drive cheap cars, so really you needs 10s of millions for that??

We are currently worth $3.5 million, and are around 50 years old. No mortgage or other debt, but we still need to put the kids through college. Our number is about $5 million after the kids get done with college, in 10 years. The numbers might seem high to you if you make less than $400,000 like we do. I'm not interested in living on less in retirement; in fact, we don't have the time between work and kids' activities like I'd like.

last summer I figured $4M. Now it seems more like $10M. That is to pay 2 college tuitions and have $200K/yr to live on (which sounds like a lot, but so did $100K 15 years ago)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$22M in today's dollars. Figuring some funds are tax free that should give $1m per year post taxes, plus $2m house in dc and nyc and a place on the world cruise ship. That should cover a chef, housekeeper, home upkeep and spending money to travel and eAt very well.

Tell me about this world cruise ship. I'm not joking. I'm interested.

Not that poster but I've been following these condos on cruise ships for years.

http://aboardtheworld.com/reside

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323297504578579753126719938

I am the poster who first mentioned the world cruise ship. Check out the utopia cruise ship too.

The cruise ships are pretty lame honestly. I've been on one. The problem is there's very little incentive for staff to care or try. Most units stay empty. I would strongly suggest you try before you buy.

Some of these numbers seem very high. I think I'd like to hit 3m. I just wonder how many of the posters need 5 or 10 million. Most of the posts I read here are about how high income earners wear junky clothes and drive cheap cars, so really you needs 10s of millions for that??

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$22M in today's dollars. Figuring some funds are tax free that should give $1m per year post taxes, plus $2m house in dc and nyc and a place on the world cruise ship. That should cover a chef, housekeeper, home upkeep and spending money to travel and eAt very well.

Tell me about this world cruise ship. I'm not joking. I'm interested.

Not that poster but I've been following these condos on cruise ships for years.

http://aboardtheworld.com/reside

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323297504578579753126719938

I am the poster who first mentioned the world cruise ship. Check out the utopia cruise ship too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$22M in today's dollars. Figuring some funds are tax free that should give $1m per year post taxes, plus $2m house in dc and nyc and a place on the world cruise ship. That should cover a chef, housekeeper, home upkeep and spending money to travel and eAt very well.

Tell me about this world cruise ship. I'm not joking. I'm interested.

Not that poster but I've been following these condos on cruise ships for years.

http://aboardtheworld.com/reside

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323297504578579753126719938

Anonymous wrote:$22M in today's dollars. Figuring some funds are tax free that should give $1m per year post taxes, plus $2m house in dc and nyc and a place on the world cruise ship. That should cover a chef, housekeeper, home upkeep and spending money to travel and eAt very well.

Tell me about this world cruise ship. I'm not joking. I'm interested.

Around $5-6MM, after paying for kids' college tuitions and paying off our houses. We have a TH in Ballston, which we plan to keep indefinitely for rental income. Will probably sell our SFH to buy a beach house wherever we retire, as neither of us wants to retire in the DC area.

Currently 28yo and think we're on track with net worth around $600K, given the power of compounding over the next 30 years. Still have a lot of saving to do to fully fund the kids' 529s though.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our goal is to have $2 mil in retirement money. Our house will be paid off before that and our kids' college will have been paid for. Our HH income is $140K.

Me, too. By my calculations I should get there shortly after age 50, or in about 6 years. I may still keep working if I continue to enjoy my job, but it will be nice to have the option of leaving it behind.

I guess you have no kids?

I have one. His 529 is already fully funded. Other than that my needs are minimal and my wants simple, so I don't see the need to continue stockpiling cash.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our goal is to have $2 mil in retirement money. Our house will be paid off before that and our kids' college will have been paid for. Our HH income is $140K.

Me, too. By my calculations I should get there shortly after age 50, or in about 6 years. I may still keep working if I continue to enjoy my job, but it will be nice to have the option of leaving it behind.

I guess you have no kids?

I think about $3 million for us, but that's with no kids and a house with a huge amount of equity that we look at as our insurance policy in case the money starts to get tight. (i.e., sell the house and move somewhere cheap.)

But, with no kids, I sometimes think about all of this a different way. Since you can't take it with you, I have no desire to die at a very old age with some huge unspent stash of dough. (Though it might make my nieces and nephews be nice to me in my old age.)

Trying to figure out the approach to spending it down in a way that allows me/us to live an enjoyable life versus not cleaning it all out entirely well before I/we check out is an interesting conundrum to ponder.

Anonymous wrote:Our goal is to have $2 mil in retirement money. Our house will be paid off before that and our kids' college will have been paid for. Our HH income is $140K.

Me, too. By my calculations I should get there shortly after age 50, or in about 6 years. I may still keep working if I continue to enjoy my job, but it will be nice to have the option of leaving it behind.