Retired at age 52

[rockfan4]

Originally Posted by McLovin

I could put together a detailed exposition of what I did, if anyone is interested.

But, in a nutshell, no, I didn't do S&P Index, or 401Ks. I did 401K when I started in my career almost 30 years ago, but it didn't take me long to see that would not get me where I wanted to go, and in fact, would PREVENT me from getting there. So I quit putting money into retirement accounts fairly early on (I do still have some there from the early days, which of course I can't take out yet).

What I did is in many ways contrarian to what most people do, and what most "advisors" would tell you to do. It's a combination of a bunch of little things that add up over time (some of which I'm sure many would find quite humorous), and then some well-calculated big things.

Sign me up if you do share your knowledge.
I think I'm at the point where I have "enough" to retire, but I'm not sure. I'm on my wife's insurance, so I don't have to worry about that until she retires and that's at least 12 years away. I do have quite a bit in my employer's 401k, it has been performing pretty well, but I do worry if it tanks again. I'm not sure I want to actively manage my assets, but rather put it someplace "safe" where I could live off the gains / interest / dividends.

Congratulations on your retirement.

[Gretch]

I retired at 45, 50 and 58. last time was 10 years ago and it actually stuck for a couple years........

next time I retire, maybe it will stick. bills are paid, I just cannot stay away from the game.

[tabs]

I retired at 36.

I put that on the license plate frame of my RR.

[JacobS911]

Originally Posted by Gretch

I retired at 45, 50 and 58. last time was 10 years ago and it actually stuck for a couple years........

next time I retire, maybe it will stick. bills are paid, I just cannot stay away from the game.

The option to retire is appealing to me mostly! I don't want to sit around starring at the wall.. gotta keep busy regardless.

[tabs]

Originally Posted by JacobS911

The option to retire is appealing to me mostly! I don't want to sit around starring at the wall.. gotta keep busy regardless.

What is wrong sitting around staring at the walls?

You can accomplish a lot of things by having savvy and using finesse. I couldn't say you can accomplish anything you want..because that would not be completely true. So to stay with the truth and be accurate...I had to say you can accomplish a lot. Now every time you see me write something that is the parameters that I use. I ask the question as a matter of habit. In other words I weight everything out. It is called be judicious.

[1990C4S]

Originally Posted by tabs

I retired at 36.

Age or IQ?

[JacobS911]

Originally Posted by tabs

What is wrong sitting around staring at the walls?

hahaha guess it depends on what your wall looks like Glass wall overlooking the ocean or mountains.. I can get in on that!

[McLovin]

The craziest thing, I have a friend who is in the same business as me, we've been friends for over 20 years, but have NEVER worked on a project together. I haven't spoken with him in well over a year, and he doesn't know about my retirement.

So, literally within 2 hours of my posting here, he calls me out of the blue and asks if I'd be interested in helping him on a project.

So yea, like some of you, I'm not sure what my "retirement" is really going to look like!

[tabs]

Originally Posted by 1990C4S

Age or IQ?

Could turn out not to be the smartest thing I ever did...so yeah it could have been my retiring IQ...

[tabs]

Originally Posted by JacobS911

hahaha guess it depends on what your wall looks like Glass wall overlooking the ocean or mountains.. I can get in on that!

I mostly have had the freedom not to have to punch the clock of having to show up for my daily bread.

[McLovin]

Anyways, here's the details. Some of it is standard stuff, but some of my details and habits are a bit unusual, I've done some odd things I'm sure most haven't. And there's some "luck," although that was guided I think by a lot of discipline and planning, and of course, some risk-taking. It's hard to make it without taking some risks at some point.

1. My plan since I started working was to retire by 55. Not because I don't like work, but mostly because, to be honest, I'm not always a huge people person. Esp. in the workplace. I'm not much of a salesman and even less of a self-promoter, and when you think about it, almost all jobs or careers at their core require salesmanship and self-promotion to be successful.

2. The first thing I did when I started working was get married and buy a house. I got married a few months after graduation (a little under 30 years ago). I worked for a year, we lived off Ramen, and we saved every penny we could for a downpayment, and bought our house a year later. (Granted, I was making very good money at that time for being just out of graduate school).

3. I bought one of the smaller, lower priced model houses in an expensive area that was close to my office (and city business center) and great schools. My thought was to eventually move to a bigger house, but as it turned out, we never did move. Mainly because there was no practical reason to. That saved us a lot of money. Moving costs money, big houses cost money (everything associated with it costs more). The house was big enough to raise a family, and is certainly big enough now that we're empty nesters.

4. We paid the house off in around 10 years, and from the time we bought it to now, it has quadrupled in value.

5. I've never had a car payment. When I was starting out and only had $3,000 for a car, I bought a $3,000 car. I've never paid a penny in credit card interest. I've never taken a loan or paid interest for anything except real estate, and those I pay off as quickly as possible. Other than investments, if I can't easily pay cash for it, I simply don't buy it.

6. We've always lived below our means. I think that's pretty standard for people who accumulate wealth. But we've done so mostly by avoiding spending money on "junk," which IMO most "stuff" is. On things that have value, I spend freely. For example, I probably spent $15,000 on resources getting our kids' ACT/SAT scores from the 90th percentile to the 99th. To me, money well spent, no problem. My son was a college recruited athlete and his sport involved national and even international travel for events. One trip would routinely cost $2,000. One cost $10,000. But in the end, it got him where he wanted to go and has turned out to be an unbelievable experience for him, so it was worth it. I give those examples to disabuse the notion that I have had to live as a miser and am afraid to spend money. Money is there to be spent. Just not wasted or squandered on things of little or no value.

7. Here's a contrarian one. I put very little money into 401Ks/Roth. I did early on in my career, but mostly because "everyone did it." However, I soon came to the conclusion that I wanted my money to *really* work for me, more than index funds or other 401K type investments, and I wanted to keep my money fully liquid for when I was ready to deploy it. That ended up turning out to be big for me.

8. I never got divorced, and raised great kids who never caused any problems and are hardworking, responsible adults. Divorce and family drama are huge asset drains.

9. My wife worked, took time off to raise kids, but immediately went back to work once they were in late high school/college. This has been very helpful, even though she doesn't make a huge amount. But, it's pretty good income. Second it has great benefits (health care, etc), which I don't get as I'm self employed. Third, everything she made was "extra" and could all go to savings. Fourth, and this is bigger than most realize, it saves money by preventing spending. 9 hours a day at work is 9 hours that aren't spent spending money! As I (semi) joke, when she's not working, every time her car leaves the garage it's at least $100.

10. Cars. Cars are a huge money drain for a lot of people. Most people don't realize how much their leased cars are really costing them over time. I've only bought one new car in my lifetime. That was almost 20 years ago, after I had received a nice bonus from my then employer (it was actually a bonus plus payment for unused vacation and sick time). I used it to buy a new mercedes, outfitted exactly how I wanted it (including a special order manual transmission). It worked out well financially, it's still my daily driver and has required very little money to run. It still looks and drives like new. For my wife's cars, I'd buy a good quality used car (like a BMW) that was 3 or so years old and depreciated quite a bit, then keep it for a long, long time.

11. I'm pretty handy, around the house and esp. with cars. I've done all the maintenance on all my cars since I was 16. I do almost all the work around the house (it doesn't require much). If I can do it myself, I generally do, both to save money and to save time, and I enjoy the learning experience. I find solving problems and fixing things very satisfying. Here's a odd one: I've never in my life paid to have my car washed. It takes me 15 minutes and I'd do it even if the carwash was free, just to save time. I've cut my own hair for the past 15 years. Saves some money, but I'd do it just to save the time, and avoid having to small talk a barber, haha.

12. By 2008, my house was paid off, and I'd saved a decent amount of money. I'd done some investing, but not a lot and was pretty much sitting on cash when the economy hit the fan around 2008. That's when I really started focusing on opportunities. Starting off slow, in 2009 I bought another 911, as people were giving things like that away. I also started looking into buying an investment property. I spent a year chasing a big property that was in foreclosure. I essentially took everything I had, and also took a large private loan. It's a difficult and risky process, because at a foreclosure sale you have to show up with 100% CASH (in cashier's checks, which is the same as cash), yet, 95% of the time, the sale gets postponed for months. But, after going through many postponements, one day I showed up on the courthouse steps and it actually sold to me, as the high bidder. This was a 7 figure deal.

13. Foreclosures are risky for a lot of reasons, but because of my background I was able to navigate it and minimize the risk and get it done. As the economy began to improve, and "forever" quantitative easing was put in place, and fed fund rates went to near zero, rents and property values skyrocketed. By running the property carefully, I was able to pay it off in only 4 years. Because I bought at the bottom, and because of a lot of hard and smart work repositioning it, clearing out bad tenants, fixing it, etc., and because of some good luck, it has almost quadrupled over what I've paid for it in less than 7 years (not that that matters because I'm never selling it). Because of the connections that I made and the things I had learned, I was able to buy another good income property later down the road. I now have a significant commercial and apartment portfolio, with relatively little debt against it.

14. Had I had most of my money tied up in a 401K, I wouldn't have been able to do any of it. Had I not had disciplined living and savings for 20 years, I wouldn't have been able to do it. It required a lot of my own cash, plus an existing low debt load which made getting a medium term loan sensible and possible. Had I not developed the necessary knowledge, judgment and technical skills, I wouldn't have been able to do it.

15. I have done things with the bit that I have in a Roth/SEP IRA. Those that have been following the multi-year "How High Will Apple Stock Go?"thread know about that. I also sold the 911 that I bought in 2009, for a $40K profit, which isn't life changing, but when you add that to the Apple gains, gains from Amazon, etc. it certainly doesn't hurt. My retirement income is not dependent on the stock market at all, though.

16. Interestingly, my wife was not always on board with my program. She'd see our friends constantly redoing their houses, buying new cars, going to expensive dinners all the time, etc. (in other works, living well above their means) and wonder why we didn't do that. But now that we're all much older, she completely gets it. Being 55, 60 years old, with no assets, no ability to pay for your kids' college, stressing about losing your job (that you need to live on) and having to work until you drop dead isn't much fun. She sees that now.

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Originally Posted by McLovin

The craziest thing, I have a friend who is in the same business as me, we've been friends for over 20 years, but have NEVER worked on a project together. I haven't spoken with him in well over a year, and he doesn't know about my retirement.

So, literally within 2 hours of my posting here, he calls me out of the blue and asks if I'd be interested in helping him on a project.

So yea, like some of you, I'm not sure what my "retirement" is really going to look like!

Congratulations, a lot of people don't stay alive long enough to reach retirement.

I'm not anywhere close to being able to or wanting to retire so I'm doing the next best thing by having a career break

Or in other words I just said 'bollox to it all, time for one of my projects to take top priority over my clients top priority work so I'm taking time off to build my house.

I'll find work once I have the roof on or sooner if my money runs out

[Noah930]

Congratulations.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Honestly that all sounds like good old common sense conservative money management. Live below your means, save all that you can, invest wisely. Of course as the saying goes, common sense isn’t so common....

Again, well done! It’s not easy to swim upstream and ignore what “everyone” else is doing. As Dave Ramsey says, “live like no one else so you can live like no one else”.

[rwest]

you might have been able to retire earlier if you weren’t doing all those free exams!

Congratulations on retirement, I hoping to join the team in less than five years.

[tabs]

Originally Posted by McLovin

Anyways, here's the details. Some of it is standard stuff, but some of my details and habits are a bit unusual, I've done some odd things I'm sure most haven't. And there's some "luck," although that was guided I think by a lot of discipline and planning, and of course, some risk-taking. It's hard to make it without taking some risks at some point.

1. My plan since I started working was to retire by 55. Not because I don't like work, but mostly because, to be honest, I'm not always a huge people person. Esp. in the workplace. I'm not much of a salesman and even less of a self-promoter, and when you think about it, almost all jobs or careers at their core require salesmanship and self-promotion to be successful.

2. The first thing I did when I started working was get married and buy a house. I got married a few months after graduation (a little under 30 years ago). I worked for a year, we lived off Ramen, and we saved every penny we could for a downpayment, and bought our house a year later. (Granted, I was making very good money at that time for being just out of graduate school).

3. I bought one of the smaller, lower priced model houses in an expensive area that was close to my office (and city business center) and great schools. My thought was to eventually move to a bigger house, but as it turned out, we never did move. Mainly because there was no practical reason to. That saved us a lot of money. Moving costs money, big houses cost money (everything associated with it costs more). The house was big enough to raise a family, and is certainly big enough now that we're empty nesters.

4. We paid the house off in around 10 years, and from the time we bought it to now, it has quadrupled in value.

5. I've never had a car payment. When I was starting out and only had $3,000 for a car, I bought a $3,000 car. I've never paid a penny in credit card interest. I've never taken a loan or paid interest for anything except real estate, and those I pay off as quickly as possible. Other than investments, if I can't easily pay cash for it, I simply don't buy it.

6. We've always lived below our means. I think that's pretty standard for people who accumulate wealth. But we've done so mostly by avoiding spending money on "junk," which IMO most "stuff" is. On things that have value, I spend freely. For example, I probably spent $15,000 on resources getting our kids' ACT/SAT scores from the 90th percentile to the 99th. To me, money well spent, no problem. My son was a college recruited athlete and his sport involved national and even international travel for events. One trip would routinely cost $2,000. One cost $10,000. But in the end, it got him where he wanted to go and has turned out to be an unbelievable experience for him, so it was worth it. I give those examples to disabuse the notion that I have had to live as a miser and am afraid to spend money. Money is there to be spent. Just not wasted or squandered on things of little or no value.

7. Here's a contrarian one. I put very little money into 401Ks/Roth. I did early on in my career, but mostly because "everyone did it." However, I soon came to the conclusion that I wanted my money to *really* work for me, more than index funds or other 401K type investments, and I wanted to keep my money fully liquid for when I was ready to deploy it. That ended up turning out to be big for me.

8. I never got divorced, and raised great kids who never caused any problems and are hardworking, responsible adults. Divorce and family drama are huge asset drains.

9. My wife worked, took time off to raise kids, but immediately went back to work once they were in late high school/college. This has been very helpful, even though she doesn't make a huge amount. But, it's pretty good income. Second it has great benefits (health care, etc), which I don't get as I'm self employed. Third, everything she made was "extra" and could all go to savings. Fourth, and this is bigger than most realize, it saves money by preventing spending. 9 hours a day at work is 9 hours that aren't spent spending money! As I (semi) joke, when she's not working, every time her car leaves the garage it's at least $100.

10. Cars. Cars are a huge money drain for a lot of people. Most people don't realize how much their leased cars are really costing them over time. I've only bought one new car in my lifetime. That was almost 20 years ago, after I had received a nice bonus from my then employer (it was actually a bonus plus payment for unused vacation and sick time). I used it to buy a new mercedes, outfitted exactly how I wanted it (including a special order manual transmission). It worked out well financially, it's still my daily driver and has required very little money to run. It still looks and drives like new. For my wife's cars, I'd buy a good quality used car (like a BMW) that was 3 or so years old and depreciated quite a bit, then keep it for a long, long time.

11. I'm pretty handy, around the house and esp. with cars. I've done all the maintenance on all my cars since I was 16. I do almost all the work around the house (it doesn't require much). If I can do it myself, I generally do, both to save money and to save time, and I enjoy the learning experience. I find solving problems and fixing things very satisfying. Here's a odd one: I've never in my life paid to have my car washed. It takes me 15 minutes and I'd do it even if the carwash was free, just to save time. I've cut my own hair for the past 15 years. Saves some money, but I'd do it just to save the time, and avoid having to small talk a barber, haha.

12. By 2008, my house was paid off, and I'd saved a decent amount of money.

13. Foreclosures are risky for a lot of reasons, but because of my background I was able to navigate it and minimize the risk and get it done. As the economy began to improve, and "forever" quantitative easing was put in place, and fed fund rates went to near zero, rents and property values skyrocketed. By running the property carefully, I was able to pay it off in only 4 years.

14. Had I had most of my money tied up in a 401K, I wouldn't have been able to do any of it. Had I not had disciplined living and savings for 20 years,

15. I have done things with the bit that I have in a Roth/SEP IRA. market at all, though.

16. Interestingly, my wife was not always on board with my program. She'd see our friends constantly redoing their houses, buying new cars, going to expensive dinners all the time, etc. and wonder why we didn't do that. But now that we're all much older, she completely gets it. Being 55, 60 years old, with no assets, no ability to pay for your kids' college, stressing about losing your job (that you need to live on) and having to work until you drop dead isn't much fun. She sees that now.

It sounds like you done all the right things..and have been rewarded for your sweat and tears. When I hear your story...I get kinda mad that you are the guy that the ubiquitous "They" are fking over..and from your liturgy of what you have done you have an element of self satisfaction of accomplishment...but surprise surprise surprise you don't really seem to be on top of the fact that you financially are living in a fking house of cards... It all could go away tomorrow... Where is your fear of God?

Which seems so hard to believe...you and I have nothing to compare it to...it seems a fantasy......but it is true it has happened so many times before.

Part of the reason why I talk endlessly about this is that my family worked hard and diligently saved so that is part and parcel of who I am..it is honoring my parents and grand parents memory...I know my Dad would be pissed that they are screwing him...interest rates below 2% on a 10 year bond now about 3%? Are you kidding me???? They are robbing those who have saved...to fund the govt...and whatever it does with the money? You have everything to lose...and those who don't don't care. They want 15 an hour as a living wage...ha ha ha go choke o that one....you dum fks...

Part of Trumps plan with Mexico involves higher wages in Mexico....Hmmmm wonder why...when a Mexican will work for 3 or 4 an hour assembling cars and how much in the fking USA? See the fking message about your incomes... American labour ain't nothin special in the world anymore. Get use to progress.


I just wind up shaking my head that Americans are such dum azz sheep that have been led to the slaughter...but they have been well fed along the way as our Op so eloquently articulates...

[McLovin]

Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy

Honestly that all sounds like good old common sense conservative money management. Live below your means, save all that you can, invest wisely. Of course as the saying goes, common sense isn’t so common....

Again, well done! It’s not easy to swim upstream and ignore what “everyone” else is doing. As Dave Ramsey says, “live like no one else so you can live like no one else”.

True. Although I have to admit it was made much easier for me, in that I basically followed the pattern that my parents, and their parents, did. Been natured and nutured into me (although oddly enough, not so much with my siblings).

[Craig T]

Originally Posted by McLovin

The craziest thing, I have a friend who is in the same business as me, we've been friends for over 20 years, but have NEVER worked on a project together. I haven't spoken with him in well over a year, and he doesn't know about my retirement.

So, literally within 2 hours of my posting here, he calls me out of the blue and asks if I'd be interested in helping him on a project.

So yea, like some of you, I'm not sure what my "retirement" is really going to look like!

Same thing happened to me. I retired last year at 57, with no pension. Just years of saving and living below our means. For the first several months a volunteered 20 hours a week to The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and golfed or surfed a couple days a week. Three months ago a past client (now a friend) called and asked if I'd package his business for a private equity play. In said no at first, but agreed to help him in a consulting capacity, but NOT as his investment banker. Now I'm giving 20 hours a week to him and looking forward to a paycheck. I kind of like this balance.

BTW...Volunteering for charity is a great feeling...But be careful! They will suck you in and bleed you dry if you let them. I'll go back to it when this deal is done, but keep the management at arms length.

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by tabs

It sounds like you done all the right things..and have been rewarded for your sweat and tears.....



I just wind up shaking my head that Americans are such dum azz sheep that have been led to the slaughter...but they have been well fed along the way as our Op so eloquently articulates...

Thanks for sharing McL! I bet a lot of us here share the same fiscally conservative principles..but lots of ways to get there!

Tabs, if it all goes "poof" tomorrow, and it could ....then I've had a blast for nearly six decades...baaah

[McLovin]

Originally Posted by tabs

It sounds like you done all the right things..and have been rewarded for your sweat and tears. When I hear your story...I get kinda mad that you are the guy that the ubiquitous "They" are fking over..and from your liturgy of what you have done you have an element of self satisfaction of accomplishment...but surprise surprise surprise you don't really seem to be on top of the fact that you financially are living in a fking house of cards... It all could go away tomorrow... Where is your fear of God?

Which seems so hard to believe...you and I have nothing to compare it to...it seems a fantasy......but it is true it has happened so many times before.

Part of the reason why I talk endlessly about this is that my family worked hard and diligently saved so that is part and parcel of who I am..it is honoring my parents and grand parents memory...I know my Dad would be pissed that they are screwing him...interest rates below 2% on a 10 year bond now about 3%? Are you kidding me???? They are robbing those who have saved...to fund the govt...and whatever it does with the money? You have everything to lose...and those who don't don't care. They want 15 an hour as a living wage...ha ha ha go choke o that one....you dum fks...

Part of Trumps plan with Mexico involves higher wages in Mexico....Hmmmm wonder why...when a Mexican will work for 3 or 4 an hour assembling cars and how much in the fking USA? See the fking message about your incomes... American labour ain't nothin special in the world anymore. Get use to progress.


I just wind up shaking my head that Americans are such dum azz sheep that have been led to the slaughter...but they have been well fed along the way as our Op so eloquently articulates...

As usual, I agree with you.

But as to our political, economic and societal house of cards, while I am concerned and it saddens me (there's no reason why it needs to be the way it is) there's nothing I can do about fixing that.

IMO, no debt income real estate is about as safe as one can get. With no debt, the property obviously can't be lost (like to foreclosure). With no debt, it's always going to be significantly cash flow positive. If if ever isn't, i.e., if there's some scenario where there aren't people who need to rent places to live, I suppose we'd be living in a world where nothing would matter anymore.