Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Have You Saved Money For Retirement?

Dem gimmie dats doint pay nuffin

My first pharmacy job with a small chain, I saved in a 401K for 10 years.
Then, they sold out and closed.

I was entering seminary as it was closing at an extension center and my
wife was staying home with 2 kids. I was working for an independent pharmacy with no benefits.
For the next 5 years I saved nothing at all.
Started a Missions ministry after school, but got a small Roth going.
During that 12 years I worked there, I only had the Roth.

When he retired, I went to work for a large chain and immediately maxed out my contributions and their match.
Have been with them about 10 years.

I am 54. If I stay with this job, I should be OK.
I am a fulltime pharmacist and a bi-vocational pastor.

We had planned many things for after she retires at 60, but Due toher health issues, MS and bone/joint/arthritis issues we are doing all the vacations/traveling/hunts that
we can do now while she has fair health. If not for that, I'd be saving even more.
My Dad died about 6 months before retirement date. We decided life is short. Save everything we can from my pharmacy job and play and do mission trips with my church check.
It's all good.

I retired on April 30th of this year at 57 and I'm wondering why I waited this long. My savings and company pension make for a very comfortable retirement. I guess I'll start my SS when I reach 66 or so. I strongly recommend retiring as soon as you can.

I am the same way. We are DINKS and I have 4.5 yrs until I am 62 and that is when I plan to retire. I can't wait. I am going to play golf,hunt and dive the year round. I have other coworkers who don't even talk about retirement. I can't imagine living a life where your job is your life. I work to live not live to work. So many folks believe that their company will shrivel up and die if they don't show up. I have news for you,,, people die everyday and world just keeps on spinning. We are not as important as we want to believe. Come on 2022

What scares me about the future is $4.00 gas, and other prices.

Lots of people think they are going to do all these things when they retire, but they find they can’t physically. We wasted money we could have saved to go snow skiing, trips to Europe, Mexico etc while we were young. We are having to work a little longer, because of that. I think it was worth it.

Guys there are two ways to make it out there. One is to make it yourself and the other is to marry it. Sweetness ran in some good circles and just hanging out with her widowed or divorced women friends, I had no idea that there is such a large well healed, professional group of women out there very hungry for male companionship.

Yup, my Parents did a great job of parenting, they not only taught us kids to save, but to invest. Dec 31 I will start enjoying the fruits of my labor. And, I did enjoy the years before that with more ski miles logged than most will ever get and more adventure. Why not do both?

Didn't really start saving until I was almost 40 . . . just plain didn't have the means to save until my bride went back to work after the kids were both in school full time. Then we hit it fairly hard. Both of us put in at least as much as the max our employers would match for 401k, usually 3 to 5% more. Bride had a decent paying job with promotion options I didn't have. Not complaining, just the nature of the beast. She passed me in income in about 1998. My IRA has increased about 11% in the last year (I am a relatively low risk investor, by nature) and her 401k's have returned about 15% in the same time period (she is a bit more aggressive than I am).

Anyhow, chatted with our accountant yesterday and he presented a plan where we can actually fully retire and actually INCREASE our standard of living by fully retiring. He didn't have to convince me, I had to convince myself it was doable. I have a project I'm working on that should be wrapped up by the end of December. THEN, I am pulling the plug and retiring from actively working. Been looking forward to this since about 1970 when I got out of high school. That day of reckoning will come December 31, 2017 at 3:00 PM . . . ONE day after I turn 66.

Same here. Small 75YO family business has cost ME more in the last 5-6 years than it generated.
Things seem to be slightly on the uptake of late.
Luckily[I guess] right now I am wealthy in real estate owned but cash strapped.
We don't really require tons of money to live the life we currently live which helps.

Have a 20-yr military retirement under the old final pay system, couple of 401Ks with 10% matching contributions from post-Army employers, an old IRA from the 80s, some money market accounts, and social security - so, excepting a total economic collapse, I should be fine.

I actually retired earlier than I had originally planned (at 55), but thats not a bad thing. Been doing fine on my military retirement pay and the money market account. Turning 60 this month so can start getting into the tax deferred 401Ks and IRA as needed, and will look at starting SS after I draw down the 401Ks some. Will use some of the 401Ks money to pay off my mortgage this winter.

I can't even relate to this. I haven't really "worked" in 15 years. I enjoy every single day, and making great money doing it is a nice bonus. Every day there's something interesting to do, something to discover, something to do better, some employee to give a compliment to, a customer who is ecstatic with our service..... Wouldn't trade it for anything.

The thought of having to drag myself to a job I hate, everyday..... Lord, that is depressing to contemplate. I'd want to retire, too......

Remember that old bumper sticker... He who dies with thee most toys ...wins ...I'm set !

I'm working on it. Got a long way to go. Wife is 7 years younger than me, so part of our planning is to set her up so that she can retire when I do. Her parents have had a weird staggered retirement that I don't think I'd want to do. They primarily have their pensions, but just a little bit of savings, so her mom retired in her early 40s from a state school pension system, and dad continued to work until about 60. She then went back to work and is still working at age 58 or so, which is sort of delaying their move down from Alaska to Colorado to help raise grandbabies.
My parents also retired on different schedules (dad twice), and it seemed one was always waiting on the other to have more time available to do something like travel.
Anyway, I hope to hit my goals in my lower to mid 60s, which will put her in her mid 50s. I won't have a pension or social security, so it will be entirely investments, though with a generous match. Wife is presently in a pension system, but I'm tempted to pull her out of it to get my "defined contribution" plan (same employer). If she stays in the pension plan, she won't be getting very much if she retires in her mid 50s, so we are looking at other options for her to be able to access money earlier. Starting to get to a position to add IRAs now too, but considering 457 plan instead to allow easier access to the money at a younger age.
Should also still have some farm income unless her parents sell her grandpas place. A little over 1,000 acres in Kansas and grandpa is 96 now and eating around $9k a month in a retirement facility memory unit. Hard to count on things like that though when you never know how things will shake out. Just two cousins and a brother to share any profits from that with.
The brother though.... that will also be our burden when her parents go. He's slightly retarded, adopted Russian with fetal alcohol syndrome and about 7 years younger than her. Is somewhat independent, but has frequent failings in jobs due to temper and short sightedness or other poor decisions. He will eventually be ours to take care of, but I think her parents are working on setting him up financially, but he won't have any control of it.
As important as a comfortable retirement is to us, I still want to be able to set our children up for success and we are working towards those goals too. I fully intend to be able to leave an inheritance, so that's another reason I'm trying to move away from pension style plans for us.

Paid everything off at 40. Wife has a 401k. I have a small 401k and will receive a pension in 5 years. At that time, I'll also be able to keep my insurance. We also have IRAs, Roth IRAs, land, and mutual funds, all of which we add to monthly. We live off my wife's income. I haven't spent any of mine in years. That's about as prepared as I know how to be, except I'm contemplating building a rental house of two for an additional income stream.

Yup. I retired 6 years ago at 55. My wife retired 5 years ago at 56 - - - meaning I had one good year of retirement :-). A lifetime of living below our means and investing paid off.

Retirement saving for me started at age 23. That's when I realized how much I hated my good pay and benefits job. It took about six months. On the bright side 50 and out is a very realistic option for me. Come on 2019!

Im done in 4.5 years. My concern is not the money. My concern is where I should move to. I have planned wisely and made very good choices. As somebody else mentioned Dave Ramsey, Well my mom and dad could have had his radio show too. That is how I was raised and maintained my core beliefs to this day. Also as somebody else has mentioned they have a son with Fetal Alcohol problems. I to have one of those boys. His biological mother killed herself so the responsibility fell entirely on me. Not sure what to expect with him as an independent adult, or if that will be possible?

I want to live near the gulf coast where I can fish and dive all the time. My two strongest passions in life. That's my struggle.... where to move to when I retire!

Wife works managing a big daycare (used my ed benefits while I was in the army and parts of my GI Bill after I retired to get her degree) even though she doesn't have too anymore, she has empty nest syndrome All 3 daughters out of the house and succesful.
I made way more than enough to pay off a chit load of bills before getting laid off Dec 4 2014 from working offshore in GOM and black sea. Concurrent receipt military retired pay and VA disability (earned both....)
Banking around $750 a month after bills and whatever either one of us wants to get within reason . Checking account getting up their again. I'm done working, do what I want, when I want. 54 now , been this way since I was 51. Collect that social security chit at 62 if it still exist and add 4 or 500 of that to each months savings I geuss. Kids can sell the home and split it among them and I will start giving them large sums of cash off the record eventually and set up something for any grandkids that come about. Learning to stop having to keep up with the jones,s and having to maintain a working persons income till death is the biggest thing to overcome to be able to retire at an early age and being very comfortable..JMO...

My numbers are pretty close to yours, within months actually. We are now in our 70's and feel good about the decisions we made many years ago.