One thing I'm not sure has been mentioned--if your DH passes first, what does your spousal annuity look like? What would a divorce do to this plan?

Is the $4000 inflation protected or are you plannning on $4000 per month for the next 40+ years? Plan on 4% inflation increases annually. Google cost of living 1975 vs 2015 to understand how much costs can change over 40 years.

What percent disabled vet is your dh? My dh is a 100% disabled vet. Our health insurance is free, we pay no property taxes as a result in our state. As the spouse of a disabled vet I receive $1000 a month to attend school. The VA has different programs, but a number of them pay college expenses for children up until the age of 26. Look into all of your family's benefits.

I would say go for half of the dream. Move to where you want to move and work part time. Or plan to go back to work in a few years. Who knows, you might enjoy working in a different setting. You might not last more than a few years with 700k if you use a large chunk for your dream house. Downgrade the size of the dream house.

Anonymous wrote:15 51 please explain do a financial dummy like me what an index fund is and how it throws off that kind of interest.

The individual stocks in the stock market go up and down. Some increase in price, some decrease. Betting on 1 stock or a group of stocks is usually a best guess or a gamble completely. The mutual fund that your local financial advisor raves about, is just a collection of stocks. The magic of the stock market though, is if you take ALL the stocks together at once, they are always increasing slowly. Since the stock market existed, the annual increase in the stock market has averaged around 7%, this is including wares, financial meltdowns, depression era, etc,. Some years are more, some are less.

So basically when you invest in an index fund, instead of picking a stock or a group of stocks, you're just investing in the ENTIRE market, which is a lot more stable. Even during a stock market drop, you come out on top, because while it drops you're buying a lot more shares for the same price, and when the market recovers (as it always does), those extra shares you bought at a low price are now increasing rapidly again.

I would highly recommend looking up index fund investing, as there are people out there that can explain it much better than I can, as well as outline who's best to invest with, why you want to keep your annual fees low (less than 1%), how to properly proportion your money, and how to lock it into either a Roth IRA or 401K.

15 51 please explain do a financial dummy like me what an index fund is and how it throws off that kind of interest.

I house is just a house. A big one or a small one are both going to have kitchens, beds, garages, bathrooms, everything you could want. That being said, do not use this forum for advice on retirement. People here are spending 4K on water heaters.... That's like saying a $10 cup of coffee is normal.

With 750K saved up, putting that into a properly proportioned index fund will give you over 80k a year in interest alone on average. IF you decided to mortgage, the interest alone from this would not only pay the payments, it would still give you an extra 40k a year just from the interest... and you can pay it off whenever you want.
90k a year....

I would still get a cheaper home. What's an extra $300k going to get you? A pool that you might swim in a couple weeks out of the year? If you bought a house outright for $450k, You could go to the local pool every day for the entire year, eat the restaurant food every day, and still not deplete the interest that 300k would make, and on top of that still spend a few weeks at tropical beach resort, all expenses paid, and still not deplete that same interest...
over 70k a year with a house paid off...

This is more than enough to retire on. If I was in your situation, with a small child, I would buy a nice small sized condo.... then never live in it and travel the world with my child, homeschooling him/her as we moved about. That would be an education more valuable than most of what the school system offers now.

If you want to lock yourself into that income and you feel comfortable that your financial needs will never change -- then go right ahead. Hope you sleep well at night. Uncertainty can really mess that up!

I'm not convinced that the OP's source of $750k isn't their retirement fund. After taxes they would have much less than $750k net.

Seems to me that if the OP buys a modest but still nice home for around 200 k or so, and then invests the rest, she'd be looking at another 3 to 5 k a month in income, plus her property tax would be much less, as would house costs monthly as it would be a smaller house. Of course this is assuming that the extra 500k would be in stocks and active investments which are volatile, but in terms of historical returns that would be realistic. This is very doable, but with a more middle class house choice.

Anonymous wrote:1954: nope. They stopped that years ago. Full retirement plus non taxable disability pay

No, you're wrong, I'm correct - my husband retired 6 years ago and has a high disability % so I have current knowledge.

Anonymous wrote:1954: nope. They stopped that years ago. Full retirement plus non taxable disability pay

This is not true. The disabilty pay is just a portion of the retirement pay that isn't taxed and comes from the VA.