I Want to Retire, I Really do!

[MollysMom]

My husband and I own a 7+ acre home in the country. He is retired and I'm still working as a nurse. I commute 50 miles each way five days each week, with only Sat and Sunday, plus holidays off. In 3 1/2 years I will be 62 and I really want to at least semi-retire.

I would love to have some animals, especially several Nubian milkers, some chickens, and turkeys. Which isn't possible right now, because our house is in need to repair. My husband right now is remodeling the bathroom, becuse there was a major water leak and rotted wood.

I need some help brainstorming how retirement or at least semi retirement can be accomplished. I have had an Etsy shop before and I have also sold items on Ebay. But right now time is at a premimum. Any advice, ideas would be very welcome. My husband is all for it if it won't put us in the poor house. LOL!

[Terri]

I have to go in a minute.

I would say to figure out how much money you will have coming in.

Subtract the housing cost (taxes, insurance, payments, etc).

Do you owe on cars? Fix that. Look up your utilities and see how much you will need. Check your phone bill: can you reduce it? Basically, see how low you can get your monthly bills.

Once you have what you will be buying equal less that what you will have coming in, you are good to go.

Figure your food bill will drop. With more scratch cooking you should find it easy to eat for $75 a week.

[Kmac15]

You're a nurse, go with an agency. You can work 1-2 days a week, your choice, and still have the rest of the time to do what you want.

[raccoon breath]

I tried out mint.com, a free financial service that works a little like financial programs like Money or Quicken without the ledgers where you fill in your transactions. The website keeps track of all of your expenses and you double check to make sure fast food, gas, house payment, and all of your expenses for the month are categorized properly. You can set up the budget you want to be on. You'll have to leave some wiggle room for housing and transportation costs you have right now to keep your current life functional because certain expenses are unavoidable, but a lot of expenses are avoidable like eating out, going grocery shopping often, stuff like that. Make the budget what you want it to be and see if you can do it for a month. I'm already out in the boonies so I use the website when I want to see where I can trim the fat a little. The website will help give you an idea of where you are and when you tighten the belt up a little or a lot, what it will feel like. You could use Quicken, Money or any financial program that will let you set a budget but I like Mint a little better. It sends me nasty grams when I blow the budget.

[Patt]

Is your property paid off? Are you debt free? Those will be your 2 biggest obstacles to retiring. Once those are out of the way you just need to figure out what your minimum expenses are and how you want to meet them.

Start now on cutting expenses and becoming more self sufficient. How much of your food can you provide? How much can you cut your utility bills?

[CherieOH]

Originally Posted by raccoon breath

You could use Quicken, Money or any financial program that will let you set a budget but I like Mint a little better. It sends me nasty grams when I blow the budget.

Nastygrams?

[Pelenaka]

Take a lesson from homesteaders of 100 years ago make your homestead work for you -
once the bathroom is done take in a boarder (think quiet senior citizen). I have an elderly neighbor that is a foster parent to disabled adults. All 4 are up dressed & out the door on public transportation to jobs or day programs by 8 a.m. I see them return around 5 p.m. Bedtime is around 8 p.m.
Kennel dogs, horses (expirence there so these money making activities maybe a big time pit).
Produce a high end product like fancy gourmet greens in Winter with a green house.
You don't give a location but is there any natural wonders you can take advantage of? When I was emailing with a fellow HTer from Montana about a nursing postion in her town I became aware of how many locals rent rooms & or are guides to hunters.
Perhaps fishermen.

I quit my job over a year ago due to the commute twice in the ditch due to those famous Buffalo snowstorms, and my negitive personal affect toward my husband. I can't bring home the bacon & fry it up in the pan without a certain level of rage which became directed at him.
Currently I am making quiet money taking care of a neighbor. Besides ADLs I manage her meds, all appointments from PMD & Rhuematologist to the hairdresser, consult with pharmacy, PT & OT. This week I am meeting with a medical sales rep to discuss hospital beds. So far I have turned away 3 possible clients this past month again due to my lack of wanting to have it all snydrome a.k.a. career & family.

Keep us posted this is an issue soo many of us have,

~~ pelenaka ~~
http://thirtyfivebyninety.blogspot.com/

[Txrider]

Originally Posted by MollysMom

My husband and I own a 7+ acre home in the country. He is retired and I'm still working as a nurse. I commute 50 miles each way five days each week, with only Sat and Sunday, plus holidays off. In 3 1/2 years I will be 62 and I really want to at least semi-retire.

I would love to have some animals, especially several Nubian milkers, some chickens, and turkeys. Which isn't possible right now, because our house is in need to repair. My husband right now is remodeling the bathroom, becuse there was a major water leak and rotted wood.

I need some help brainstorming how retirement or at least semi retirement can be accomplished. I have had an Etsy shop before and I have also sold items on Ebay. But right now time is at a premimum. Any advice, ideas would be very welcome. My husband is all for it if it won't put us in the poor house. LOL!

Sacrifice and pay off -all- debt if you haven't. Debt free to me is #1.. No mortgage, no car payment, no credit card debt, debt free.

Reduce cost of living as far as is practical by growing as much of your own food as possible such as veggies and meat animals.

I'm aiming at under 10k cost of living for what I need to live comfortably, with any income over that amount being disposable income.

[Pelenaka]

I agree with what has been written about living as close to debt free as possible.
But you still needs a certain amount of cold hard cash to pay taxes or buy a part from the junkyard for your car. Heck even if you went really old school Amish you'd still need a few dead presidents a year to buy lamp oil.

~~ pelenaka ~~
who can't help but think that she has a link on how to make lamp oil from lard

[Helena]

Due to some health issues I stopped working as a nurse myself last summer. Unexpected...so wasn't planning on no 2nd pay check. But..I had worked per diem for a few years and loved it. Of course, you will have no coverage in health care..but I was able to pick my own days and hours and no holidays or weekend..Yes..sometimes it was feast or famine with the schedule working but I liked it. Now I will begin to get SS this month so that will "maybe" equal some of my missing pay checks but you know..we have done very well with husbands SS and his pension this year. Watch our money for sure..but don't really do without and still have an occ. night ou,t too. We have homesteaded for 30 years now and have our goats, horses, chickens and garden. So we can work that more so now. I would really, really..try to get off the tread mill now. Life is really too, too short to plan it down to the last penny before you do. Of course, it would be nice to be debt free if possible..but the "real" world doesn't often give you that opportunity or the time either. Enjoy today..I have found that out and glad that I learned that lesson at this time in my life. I have known too many nurses that continued to work until they could make that higher level of pension or SS and all it does is buy them a nicer "casket'...so to speak. I wish you well and please let us know what you decide. Talk it over with you husband and figure what you can do to make some of this dream come true now.

[sgl42]

carefully look into what life expectancy is. altho "average life expectancy" is about 75, that means that 50% will live longer than that. if you want only a 5% chance of outliving your money, you need to plan/budget as if you live to about age 85-90. and if you only want a 1% chance of outliving your money, you need to plan/budget as if you'd live to age 90-95.

so, retiring at age 62, you'd need to assume you'd live about 25 years if you want only a 5% risk of running out of money. how much do you think prices will go up in that time? how much do you think the SS COLAs will adjust? how long will your other savings and investment income last? most private pensions are not adjusted for inflation at all.

in addition, in my opinion, we've got about another decade of the stock market going nowhere (just like the stock market has gone nowhere for the last decade.) so be careful with any assumptions about investment returns on any investments you have.

many states and municipalities are under budget crunches. taxes will likely be going up, and services going down. how will that impact your assumptions?

and, i'll re-iterate what everyone else told you -- get out of debt, cut your expenses as low as possible.

--sgl

[Ramblin Wreck]

Originally Posted by raccoon breath

I tried out mint.com, a free financial service that works a little like financial programs like Money or Quicken without the ledgers where you fill in your transactions. The website keeps track of all of your expenses and you double check to make sure fast food, gas, house payment, and all of your expenses for the month are categorized properly.

Neat site.

[fordy]

Originally Posted by MollysMom

My husband and I own a 7+ acre home in the country. He is retired and I'm still working as a nurse. I commute 50 miles each way five days each week, with only Sat and Sunday, plus holidays off. In 3 1/2 years I will be 62 and I really want to at least semi-retire.

I would love to have some animals, especially several Nubian milkers, some chickens, and turkeys. Which isn't possible right now, because our house is in need to repair. My husband right now is remodeling the bathroom, becuse there was a major water leak and rotted wood.

I need some help brainstorming how retirement or at least semi retirement can be accomplished. I have had an Etsy shop before and I have also sold items on Ebay. But right now time is at a premimum. Any advice, ideas would be very welcome. My husband is all for it if it won't put us in the poor house. LOL!

...................Figureout the least number of hours you can work and still keep your Insurance coverage and your 'contrib' too your retirement account and then approach Mgt. and ask for a reduction . As close as you are maybe you can cut back too 30 hours a week which means you might get 3 days off instead of 2 ! , fordy

[Michael W. Smith]

As has been said, you want to be as debt free as possible BEFORE you retire. Is the house and property paid off, are your vehicles paid off?

You mention about remodeling the bathroom. Is the rest of the house "up to date"? The only reason why I ask is that most times once people are retired, the way their house looks when they retire, is the same way it looks when they die (or go to a nursing home). If you have worn carpet, peeling paint, broken/peeling tile, etc, you may want to get everything up to date BEFORE you retire.

You mention about getting animals. Do you currently have buildings that could be a chicken coop and goat pen? Do you have fencing? Just sayin' - to start up in animals and have to purchase everything can be some money - if you don't have it now, how will you have it when you retire and only have a SS check coming in?

What about health care? Having to pay your own can quickly add up - an expense you problably don't have now.

You will still have property taxes each year to pay - and they have a tendency to keep increasing. If they go up faster than what "raises" you get in SS, you could find yourself in 20 years having a hard time paying taxes for your property - if you don't already have a nest egg now.

There are many sites on the internet where you "plug in" your savings/investments versus your estimated income and expenses. Those can help let you figure out if you can retire in comfort now.

[edcopp]

Society would rather have you work a bit longer. Perhaps about 20 more years. The choice is probably the poorhouse. It is unfortunate that we have had so much of our financial control taken from us. But we have.

[Maura]

I'm finishing up a course in reflexology in a couple of weeks. I have found one place (hair and tanning salon) where I can rent a room for $20 a day that I use it. At $45 per session (40 minutes of foot massage, ten minutes of foot soak) and probably no tips, six per day, I can make $250 in a day. I'd have to figure out the cost of oils and a table or chair. With your nursing background you could do the same thing, possibly charge more depending on where you live. You could also teach classes on things you've noticed people need to know, or teach at a community college. Working two or three days a week will help to ease you into retirement.

[danielsumner]

I feel for you. I want to retire too. My situtuation is different though. I have an excellent penison and I'm only 54. My problem is the real estate market taking the dump it has. We have two homes, the townhouse here in Miami and our homestead home in Georgia. The only thing keeping me working is the Miami house. I can't find a buyer. There are 25 houses for sale in my complex. I would almost have to give it away. If we just let the Fla house sit, or we rent it out, we will lose our homestead exemption. The taxes would go up five times what we pay now. So I still work. One day my "buyer will come". Best of luck, and hope you get it figured out soon.

[MoonRiver]

For me, the biggest problem of retiring early is health care costs. Going from 62 to 65 could easily cost $20K (maybe less or maybe more) just for your health insurance. With a $5k deductible, I still pay about $7k a year plus all my medical expenses are out of pocket up to $5K.

So I agree with others that recommended working enough hours to keep your health insurance.

Something else to think about is your mileage. If you worked for an agency, would you either get reimbursed for mileage or be able to deduct it? I don't know the answer, but with the miles you are driving, it is costing a ton for gas and destroying the value of your car.

[Beeman]

Health Insurance, when you figure it out let the rest of us know.

[indypartridge]

About 2 threads above yours is a wealth of ideas. Contact Ken and order his ebook. It's free.
Free eBook: How to Earn Extra Money in the Country