43M in the US, single, no kids and no plans to have kids. I have no debt and am currently investing ~$4,000 a month between retirement, taxable brokerage and cash accounts.
I might be losing my job soon and have been working in tech for about 10 years and got a late start on saving (around 33 or so when I started). I've been a digital nomad for 4 years and even if I don't get fired, I'll likely have to go into an office which sounds terrible to me. I know I almost certainly don't have enough to never go back to the workforce again but thought I'd give this a shot. Below is a breakdown of my finances:
Retirement – $447k across different accounts
ETF – $81k
Mutual Fund – $6k
ESPP – $9k
HSA – $4,500
If I do get fired, I'll receive a payout of about $28k which is why my cash is so low at $6k in the mutual fund, I'm essentially treating it as my emergency fund and keeping everything else invested. My plan would be go to Thailand, Vietnam, Bali or South America, I'd prefer to be there right now but I can't currently leave because of this nonsense with my job.
My cash investments are increasing on an average of around ~$1,000 – $1,500 a month without my contributions. Some months more, some months less. I don't own any property or have any other income. I am planning to start something online regardless because I will get bored very quickly and I can only play so many video games but I'm going off the assumption that the income from that will be $0.
Edit – Expected Expenses are $24k a year, I also can live for free in the US and if I live for free here, I won't be spending $2k a month
Do I have enough to call it a day and ride off into the sunset?
Wondering if I Have Enough to Never go back into the Work Force Again
byu/Puzzleheaded-Cat-979 inpersonalfinance
Posted by Puzzleheaded-Cat-979
30 Comments
Plug all your numbers into cfiresim.com or any other early retirement calculator and see. You need to know what your expenses will be otherwise you’re just guessing. My bet is no, too little, too young
What are your annual expenses or what would they be?
No.
How will you pay for healthcare?
You don’t qualify for Medicare for 22 more years.
You need to list your expenses. Not enough info
Without doing any math… no. $500k is not gonna last you 30+ years and you’d pay penalties for withdrawing from the retirement accounts early.
I would say no just looking at these numbers. Retirement accounts can’t be touched without taxes and penalties.
I spoke to a lot of money managers when I was in my 40s and retirement planning. The fact is that there’s no way to predict that long of a future.
What will the political climate be in 2060? What happens if there is a medical emergency? What happens if your (present or future) partner needs something? What if you need to fly somewhere to see a relative who needs you? etc etc etc.
So can you be an ex-pat and live forever on ~500K? Maybe. But most investors would tell you to wait until you have more than you think you’ll need, to account for the unknown in the next 40-50 years.
I’m 39 and have a LOt more than you. I only felt comfortable retiring because my wife wanted to still work so I got on her insurance
You can retire as long as you never want to travel, get sick, or keep up with any rising costs in the world
You should head over to r/leanfire to ask, this is their specialty.
Why retire in your early 40s?
You need to make a plan for the rest of your life and figure out roughly how much it’ll cost. If you live frugally enough, sure, you have enough, but it will not be glamorous, probably not even in a low-cost-of-living country.
Why not freelance? Then you can work remotely on projects you choose yourself, and it’s up to you how much money you want to make/hours you want to put in.
You are nowhere near retirement money unless you plan on living in poverty for the rest of your life. Sure it may be possible, but definitely not advisable
Going into an office sounds so terrible you’re going to try to live on $24k/year? Ok….
If you want this money to last the rest of your life you’re going to need to withdraw no more than 3% per year which doesn’t seem like these numbers are lining up in your favor
The 4% rule is typically used to evaluate what you can safely withdraw to support a 30 year retirement. You’re looking for longer than that which would typically merit lowering that to 3-3.5%, but we’ll keep it at 4.
You have 528k invested between your ETF and your retirement.
4% of 528k is $21,120.
Note that this is probably slightly higher of a withdrawal rate than you can safely count on.
It looks like the short answer is no, though you aren’t that far off once you can access retirement.
The concern would be what happens if anything goes wrong – a 5 year slump in the market, a broken leg, etc all could sink you entirely. You’d be operating super lean,
If we’re talking just non-retirement accounts…no. not even close.
If you invested the 81k etf and 28k severance you’d be at 109k, which would support less than 5k of spending per year.
You are 43 now so it will be 16 years before you can touch those retirement accounts without penalties. That leaves you 100k to live on 16 years. I’m thinking no, you can’t quit entirely. You could probably just work a job that would cover your basic needs wherever you are if you aren’t trying to make extra to save up. Keep the 100k in your back pocket for a rainy day.
Did you ever end up getting a Life Couch OP?
>My plan would be go to Thailand, Vietnam
To this point specifically, $1500/month would let you live comfortably and adventurously, never working, buying all your meals and snacks, and happily exploring whichever country you were in.
$1000/month is good enough for settling down in a city. Even less if you just wanna stay in and game for the rest of your life.
The hardest part, in my experience, is networking and starting all over socially.
Can you live on $15-20k/year pre-tax? It doesn’t sound like it if your expenses are $24k/year.
Can’t imagine it being enough to maintain especially if you plan on doing trips, and with the added time on your hands inevitable would want to do more trips etc.
24K a year, do you hunt your own food? I’ve been budgeting for 135K expenses per year in retirement (15K for travel).
Only 4 more months to go (turning 55 next year). I’m getting too old for this back to the office garbage.
Hmm maybe not never. However, on the optimistic side, how about a happy medium? you can probably release the fear of losing your job. You do have enough to live off a couple of years without touching retirement. Then since you get bored, you can find something at your leisure. There’s no rush or pressure to find something immediately. You may also be able to pick up health ins or maybe health care is just cheaper outside of the US.
Sorry brother, the answer is no. Keep going
No way in hell are you ready. Roughly 550K. Can you live off 22-30K a year?
No way, get back in the workforce and put away some more bank. You are still young. Make hay when the sun shines!
General rule is if you have 25x annual expenses saved, you are at the tipping point. But I would hate to get right to that point, retire, and have a major market correction. That is what is called SORR, and is critical in the first 3-5 years. If the market blossoms in those early years, you stockpile the earnings and create a great retirement over 30+ years.
Some carry 2-4 years expenses in cash as a hedge against market gyrations.
> Expected Expenses are $24k a year, I also can live for free in the US and if I live for free here, I won’t be spending $2k a month
What does this mean? If you can live for free in the US indefinitely, and your $2k/month predicted expenses are reduced by $2k/month (from $24k/year to $0/year), then you can absolutely retire now. But something tells me that isnt the case.
You don’t have enough.. I retired at 50 only when I could take out 5000 per month for the next 30 plus years.
Not sure what your total number is but according to the 4% rule you would only be able to take our 20000 per year(woth a total amount of 500,000)…imho that’s not enough to survive in the US. My advice keep plugging away…I know it’s hard. ….atleast your headed in the right durection.
I think you’d be totally fine at 65 but not at 43. You have the “problem” of having a lot of years ahead of you, barring some unusual medical issue. It’s a good problem to have.
If you play your cards right maybe you can get out at 50 something
Maybe you could do some freelance work or consulting part time?