Critical Mass - Care and Feeding For Once Attained

Top 772. Jan 18, 2005 4:56 PM

» mitelo - Re: Re: Healthcare for Early Retiree

In response to Re: Healthcare for Early Retiree posted by retiredinprescot:

Good thoughts, retiredinprescott. I looked at a practice opportunity at Yavapai about ten years ago. You live in a beautiful place.

My son lives in Flag. I have always thought about a summer home in Prescott, Payson, or Flagstaff in retirement. We already have the winter "retreat" in Scottsdale.

AZ is a great place!

-- posted by mitelo

My Posts
http://www.suite101.com/discussion.cfm/i...
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Top 773. Jan 28, 2005 11:40 PM

» bob90245 - For Your Reference

.
Calculators

Monte Carlo Calculator
http://www.moneychimp.com/articles/volat...

FIREcalc
http://capn-bill.com/fire/

Articles

Retirement Savings: Choosing a Withdrawal Rate That Is Sustainable
http://www.aaii.com/promo/mstar/feature....

Scott Burns Trinity Study
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/...

What's the "safe" withdrawal rate in retirement?
http://www.retireearlyhomepage.com/safew...

The Retire Early study on safe withdrawal rates
http://www.retireearlyhomepage.com/restu...

Buckets of Money
http://www.raylucia.com/igsbase/igstempl...
Click on the ‘View Demo’ button.

Dynamic Asset Allocation
http://www.fpanet.org/journal/articles/2...

Portfolio Management for Retirees: Is the 'Safe' Initial Withdrawal Rate Too Safe?
http://www.fpanet.org/journal/articles/2...

A Case for Withdrawing Up to 6% a Year
By JONATHAN CLEMENTS
http://www.bylo.org/news/wsj17nov04jc.ht...

Peter Di Teresa Article on Managing Money During Retirement
http://news.morningstar.com/doc/article/...

Managing Money During Retirement
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/column...

Library of Articles

Retire Early Website
http://www.retireearlyhomepage.com/

ByLo.org
http://www.bylo.org/saferetr.html

MSN: Escape the Rat Race
http://moneycentral.msn.com/Content/Reti...

-- posted by bob90245

Top 774. Jan 29, 2005 9:42 AM

» AL_W - Re: For Your Reference

In response to For Your Reference posted by bob90245:

Thanks Bob. Saved the whole post to a Word file for my reference.

I turn 55 this year, have become very disillusioned about my company/job, and want to get out early. Stuff like this really interests me.

-- posted by AL_W

Top 775. Jan 29, 2005 10:14 AM

» bob90245 - Re: Re: For Your Reference

In response to Re: For Your Reference posted by AL_W:

You're welcome. Also check out my new message board Retire at the Coffeehouse for more ideas on investing during retirement.

-- posted by bob90245

Top 776. Jan 29, 2005 11:46 AM

» retiredinprescot - Re: Re: For Your Reference

In response to Re: For Your Reference posted by AL_W:

AL_W said..."turn 55 this year, have become very disillusioned about my company/job, and want to get out early. Stuff like this really interests me."
AL, I too became very disillusioned with my company/job but I was 52. I quit my job and searched the country for the ideal location to move to. Early Retirement, Financial planning sites /boards and financial discussion sites like this one were a big help. It's been 5 years now and I've never looked back. It's a major "quality of life" decision each person must make for themselves.
Best of luck to you.

-- posted by retiredinprescot

Top 777. Jan 29, 2005 2:16 PM

» Moonlight - Retirement early.

We did it 22 years ago I was 49, my husband 54. We traveled the first 12 years full time. Now Go for Summers and Winters. We will well, but below our means. We take cruises, just got back from a 10 day cruise we took a daughter with us to help me with her Dad, he has Parkinson's. We will rent a cabin on the Oregon coast for 3 months this summer. We have never regretted the decision. We are fortunate the State of Calif. pension fund takes care of our hospitalization insurance and it doesn't count as income for income tax purposes. We have always been careful with our meoney , mostly because in the early days we didn't have any.

-- posted by Moonlight

Top 778. Jan 29, 2005 2:30 PM

» allancoleman - Re: For Your Reference

In response to Re: For Your Reference posted by AL_W:

well AL_W , i would have to agree with retiredinprescot & Moonlight . i retired five years ago at age 55 and i can't believe how nice it is .

like Moonlight i am blessed with retiree healthcare and that is the best benefit i received from my career . and like Moonlight , we live under our means and the only problem we have is how to spend the extra money we've accumulated in our critical mass .

you're on the right web site to keep up with the decisions you'll be making soon as you transition from employment to retirement . good luck .

-- posted by allancoleman

Top 779. Feb 4, 2005 12:56 PM

» bob90245 - Re: For Your Reference

In response to For Your Reference posted by bob90245:

Another series of articles to add to the collection.

Keeping the Cash Flowing in Retirement
By JONATHAN CLEMENTS (2nd article of three)
http://www.bylo.org/wsjxxmay02jc.html

-- posted by bob90245

Top 780. Feb 7, 2005 12:22 PM

» pbradford6 - Never Retire?

I thought the following to be interesting and I find myself in agreement with many of its ideas. For me, I enjoy working a few days per week not because I need too but for the stimulation/satisfaction work brings. We are living longer and IMHO need to be engaged in meaningful activities that keep our minds and bodies intact. Of course that might mean body and wind surfing for Kirk and Allen. smile

Don't retire, but do change

By Marshall Loeb, MarketWatch
Last Update: 5:00 PM ET Feb. 4, 2005

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- One of the most successful retirees in America has this provocatively unusual but highly useful prescription for a satisfying retirement: Never retire.

That advice comes from William Safire, who, at a lively 75, has just stepped down from his job as a well-rewarded and highly regarded syndicated columnist of The New York Times.

But Safire, who has been in one spot for 32 years, has simply moved two blocks east on I Street from the newspaper's Washington offices and into his new perch as full-time Chairman and CEO of the Dana Foundation. It has a $300 million endowment and supports research into and education about brain science, as well as arts education. (Full disclosure: Safire has been a friend of mine since we both were getting started as American journalists in West Germany in the early 1950s.)

Yes, his belief is that you indeed should never retire. But what you should do is plan very carefully for many years. Then, at the moment you think is advantageous and appropriate, you should switch to a new career.

This is all the more important now that most of us are living significantly longer than our parents or grandparents. Safire notes that in the past century, life expectancy for Americans surged from 47 to 77.

Says he: "One thing I've learned from the brain scientists I've associated with is that you have got to exercise your brain as you do your body. I've always thought that James Watson, the co-discoverer of DNA, was right when he said that you should never retire. What he meant was never let yourself vegetate. Your brain needs exercise or it will atrophy. Extending the life of the body means nothing unless we also extend the life of the mind."

So, don't retire. But do change.

Safire says that you should start preparing fairly early for what you will do in your next career. Pick an activity that interests you, something that you may know something about, something that can use your skills and grows out of what you have been doing in your life, an avocation that can become your vocation.

But not your profession. Face it: at this age, you're not going to become a doctor or an engineer. "I'm not pretending to be a scientist," says Safire. "I'm a writer. And that means I can write the introductions to some annual reports, or write some speeches."

He became fascinated with Dana a dozen years ago, when he was in his early 60s. A friend of his, the late business executive David Mahoney, who was chairman of the foundation, recruited him for the board.

Safire employed his journalist's skills to launch a number of Dana Press free publications (which you can get at www.dana.org), including Brain in the News, BrainWork, Arts Education in the News and Immunology in the News -- and many books, among other things.

When Mahoney died unexpectedly in 2000, the board elected the Times columnist to be its chairman. It was a part-time volunteer job at first but grew into a full-time assignment.

If he had to do it all over again, Safire would have acted sooner. He figures that people should select a second career while they are in their late 30s or early 40s, spend the next 20 years or so learning about it from the outside, and move into it in full in their mid-60s. "It's good for you not to concentrate on just one job," he says. "I've seen too many of my friends burn out on their jobs or try to hang on too long. You want to leave while you're still hitting the long ball."

Now, faced with this fresh challenge, he is brimming with ideas. He sees Dana sponsoring forums and publications and research projects to examine issues of neuroethics. He lists some of them: Is it right to push beyond treatment for mental illness to enhance the normal brain? Should we level human height with growth hormones? Is cloning ever morally sound? Does a drug-induced sense of well-being undermine "real" happiness?

This is quite a leap from writing mostly about domestic and global politics, as he has for these past three-plus decades -- but you can grasp the connection.

In the next half century, more and more Americans will be becoming centenarians. With that in mind, people increasingly will be planning for the whole last quarter of life -- the years between 75 and 100.

Safire has one more piece of advice: "Keep your mind active and going. Discover new and exciting things to do later in life. Then you can live a long, full and exciting life."

Look at Safire. For him, life -- a new life -- begins at 75.

"We can quit a job," he says, "but we quit fresh involvement at our mental peril."

-- posted by pbradford6