Oh man, IL, I have to check my South Carolina teaching pension, which is miniscule--what if it is the same way??
Oh man, IL, I have to check my South Carolina teaching pension, which is miniscule--what if it is the same way??
I serve as cautionary tale, at least there is some benefit from my screwup.Originally Posted by Tybee
This is IPERS system, Iowa Public Employees Retirement System.
I recall that my vacation monies were around $6200 when I retired and rolled them over into a TIAA account. They have since doubled but I consider it an emergency fund so I don't check it but once a year.end-of-employement vacation days
yes, my payout for accumulated vacation was a lot, it was for something like 5+ weeks, a lot of money. But there was a strategy I could have employed to be “on vacation “ for those 5 weeks which would have allowed me to continue to accumulate vacation days. It vaguely occurred to me since others did it, but mainly I just wanted to be done.
We paid cash for the house 12 years ago. When I bought my condo interest rates were so low I took a 85k mortgage for 30 years and kept the money. Sorry IL you lost that money. Ouch!
I read YMOYL when I was ~36. ~22 years ago.
3 months after I read it, I "retired" and moved from Silicon Valley here to my island Brigadoon, with a ~2 year old child.
The male members in my family tend to live into their mid-to-late 90s.
So, I had to plan for my retirement resources to last 60+ years, and also ideally to leave something for my child.
I did a lot of research into modern portfolio theory, and post-modern portfolio theory, and came up with a scheme of my own. I have very strong mathematical skills, especially when it comes to modelling and statistical analysis. It was/is my main profession.
My goals/parameters were:
- survivability likelihood of the portfolio for the time period of concern
- the ability to rely upon it for modest living expenses of ~$60k/year or so
- a near-certainty that I'd always have a roof over my family's head
- a strong reduction in the variance of the returns, especially on the downside
- tolerance for reducing upside a bit, in exchange for larger reduction on the downside possibilities
- low day-to-day involvement in portfolio management opportunities
- flexibility to change if significant unforeseen circumstances should arise (deaths, divorce, civil unrest, economic collapse, pandemics, that sort of thing)
- simplicity - nothing tremendously complex that relies too much on governmental regulation, other entities performing, and so on.
The solution I came up with was basically a tripod:
- equities in fairly boring things that pay dividends, and/or a with a track record of boringly consistent dividend/profit growth
- real estate holdings in my local community, to generate income, potential capital gains upon sale, and to provide some measure of social good to the area I live in
- bonds and mortgages, again in my local community.
- and a wad of cash given to a Very Good Investment Management Firm to run, without my involvement, as an independent/control experiment.
I specifically ruled out any fancy-pants approaches(*) as "too complicated" and locking me into an uncertain future, when I still had so many decades of Life to intervene and change plans. So, no annuities or insurance things. (*)I did make use over the years of some charitable trust mechanisms to accomplish some purposes while retaining ultimate control over my capital.)
So far I have beaten my control-investment-group's results, even ignoring fees, almost every year over the past 20+. And I'm still afloat, and things are doing well, even in the face of some recent changes in my life.
The one thing that stands out for me (other than what others have posted) is that when I was about a year from what I thought would be my retirement date ... I contacted a fee-based financial planner otherS has recommended. I probably should have done that sooner. I gave him all info for all aspects of our financial life. The things I did wrong (or made more difficult perhaps) was to have too many places where I parked our money. The first thing was to consolidate all investments to one or two sources (if possible) for ease of computations and found that I was totally underinsured. Since I have always studied and invested our money I wanted a professional opinion that I was realistic in my retirement plan. It was a relief to have him say I understood and did not need him (or anyone) to handle our investments because I had a good plan and asset allocation and that I knew what I was doing. He also confirmed that we COULD retire satisfactorily. Truthfully, I was quite SHOCKED he did not think more should be changed or that he did not try to get me to have him invest our money. Having someone else look over our plan to verify that we were right in our assessment was very liberating. I kept wondering if we were doing the right thing. Having someone else confirm it put our minds at ease. YLMV
My previous mega Corp employer had a financial planning division and one of the perks of working there was that once a quarter or so one of the people in that division would be available for free meetings for employees for a day. I wish we had that at my current job. It’s a little early for me to be putting any plans in action but like frugal one it would be nice to have them as a confidence check or even just to have a conversation with an expert on the topic.
I don't know. I may be paranoid but would hesitate to hand over all my financial information to a company I work for. I would use them for a resource as to the best way to do things but wouldn't want them seeing my actual finances.
I'm curious to know how people select a good "fee-based planner"?
What qualifications do you look for? How do you examine their track record? Etc.
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