Final approach flight corrections

[George the original one]

I'm on the final approach to retirement! At age 51, I'm ER rather than ERE and merely bridging the 5-year gap until a pension from local government job begins.

Reviewing the Roth IRA, it will reach its goal ($500/mo in dividends as a backup to the taxable accounts) with half the contributions going forward, so I'm reducing the Roth IRA contributions and shifting the other half of the contributions into the taxable accounts. It feels a little weird to do that.

The taxable accounts have been a little underfunded, so the funding boost going forward is welcome.

The state legislature has tampered with the pension, but still nothing as drastic as my worst-case scenario. Or even as bad as my mid-case scenario. Consequently, the future after the gap, once the pension is activated, is still looking rosy.

[Dragline]

Congratulations!

Make sure they don't turn off the landing lights on you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5QBuJla5do

And hopefully you didn't pick a bad week to stop sniffing pension glue.

[GandK]

Woohoo! Three cheers for long term planning and execution!

[George the original one]

I've still got a couple years to go before my gap years, but the landing lights have been marked out even if the lights go out. I won't work during the gap years unless the investments or inflation go crazy.

The mild course correction is mostly due to the ACA. Yeah, it means a little more taxes owed in trade for better health insurance than without ACA. Pretty much decided we would prefer to avoid Medicaid because once the pension begins, we'd be kicked off of it and I'd rather have as much continuity of healthcare providers as possible.

[sshawnn]

Great to hear George!

[George the original one]

Finally got around to estimating the taxes we'd be paying at minimum income level for ACA and our theoretical maximum income during the gap years:

Minimum taxes for ACA:
$ 250 Federal
$1163 Oregon

Maximum potential:
$1050 Federal
$1883 Oregon

Hmm, I suspect the Federal estimates are low since it looks like tax-rates.org is using the 2012 tables in 2013?

[George the original one]

5-year gap retirement budget (monthly) looks something like this:

$118 Income Tax @ $22k
$217 Property Tax
$ 66 Home ins
$110 Internet
$ 24 Cellphone 2x
$ 41 Garbage
$120 Electricity
$130 Car ins
$175 Fuel
$153 Bronze health ins
$800 Food, fun, etc.

$1,954 Total

The astute will notice that the total is more than the $22k annual income noted for taxes. Yup, deficit spending in action! There are about $300-400/mo in cushion due to high estimates and luxuries.

[George the original one]

Comparing that budget to pension (as annuity value) and available funds puts us well under the 3% SWR. Going to a worst case scenario, if I exclude the pension (except as cash value), the withdrawl rate is about 5%.

[Felix]

Congratulations, George!

[George the original one]

UPDATE:
Liquid assets passed another arbitrary $000,000 boundaries this week, so a little happy dance has ensued. And we're on track to have a second FI year... hopefully Mr. Market won't go bipolar this fall.

[Gilberto de Piento]

Nice job George!

Sorry about the pension. I'm expecting my legislature to eventually do the same thing and so am planning as if it didn't exist.

[George the original one]

2014 taxable investment income didn't meet FI (holding energy stocks hurt returns this fall), but total income (taxable + IRAs) significantly surpassed FI again. Also noteworthy is how total dividend income continues to climb and is now at 88% of FI. In other words, I'm feeling fairly confident that we'll survive the gap years until the pension begins.

Sticking point this year will be proceeds from selling the home... or whether it even sells.

[George the original one]

Over the runway now!

Provided boss with verbal notification of intent to leave in November. There's one thing I do monthly that I'm the only one who knows what to do and this notification allows the boss to pick someone to be trained with two periods. Fortunately I documented the process several months back, so at least there's a record. I'll give him formal written notification in October & the rest of the staff will be told.

Wife & I have taken care of all the medical appointments we deemed necessary. Some of them were deferred maintenance, some were taking care of "like to do sometime, but now is good".

Process of selling current residence was supposed to begin in spring, but home prices did not come up until summer time, so I wasn't properly motivated. Realized that getting the house ready for sale, however, is more than I can cope with while employed, so... exit employment and then sell.

We activated satellite internet at the retirement residence on Friday and got to use it through the weekend. Not the best experience, sometimes ok and sometimes frustrating depending on sites & shared satellite usage. I need to investigate reading forums with an RSS feed. Surprisingly, watching youtube videos was a good experience provided one keeps the resolution low (480p or less). Estimate that 30 hours of video at that resolution is about the maximum we would be able to watch before hitting data caps. Dang, data rate budgets are the pits, LOL!

[Tyler9000]

That's exciting. Congrats!

[GandK]

I bet that felt good!

[almostthere]

Congratulations!!

[J_]

I saw a lot of movements in the water..... Steelheads becoming nervous...
Wish you happy ER, and hope you keep going with advice to us.

[Gilberto de Piento]

Congratulations! To quote the A Team, I love it when a plan comes together.

[jennypenny]

*** drumroll, please ***

[George the original one]

There are some who say early retirement will happen when there's a cold day in hell... LOL, today is the first frost of the season and my last day of work! Actually only 2 hours of work, starting at 2:30p since I'm recovering from medical appointment this morning.