My wife convinced me a few weeks ago to go with her to a Financial Advisor, as she wanted to get her/our/my IRA, 401K and savings working smarter for us We were able to pay off the mortgage on our house last summer when we had the Savage Forum group ride at my house......Lancer/Verslagen/Oldfeller/MMRanch got to witness the burning or our mortgage at the catfish fry. We had to provide the advisors with a list of all our savings/investments/spending habits and income. My wife retired almost 2 years ago, and I was not sure when I as going to retire. I am currently 61 and decided I didn't want to work until I am 66yrs, 4 months to be fully vested in Social Security - and I thought maybe 62 was too soon.....maybe I could tolerate this working environment until I am 64. I normally get to the office at 6 AM, and the last 3 days I have not been home until after 9 PM as I had Council and Planning Commission meetings every night this week so far......12-16 hours days are not all that uncommon for me during the week, so I try not to stay late on my Friday "date night" with the wife.....or work on weekends.
The investment advisors used a retirement date of 1/1/2018 in their scenario.....and the bottom line is that I could retire and we could make it financially....Woo Hoo! We won't be living a lavish lifestyle and going on expensive vacations or buying a vacation condo anywhere - but we could survive in our current home and buy groceries and pay our bills. And as Oldfellor has discovered, health care costs are a big concern when you begin to look at retirement.
I have decided to work full time in my engineering job until July 1, 2018. At that time I will continue to work 20 hours a week for one of the local cities as their City Engineer/Zoning Administrator/Building Inspector...the part time work will help me to cover the cost of health care, cell phone service, and give me some fun money. The work will be hourly, and most likely my hours can be adjusted to fit the work load and be adaptive to my desires to take time off to travel. This will allow me to go on more rides, spend more time with my wife, and more time at home with my projects. The last 10 years has been pretty busy at work, and my wife and I have not been on a good vacation together in more than 11 years.......it will be good to be able to do that again.