Wanderingwheelz wrote: ↑Fri Jul 30, 2021 8:56 pm
HomerJ wrote: ↑Thu Jul 29, 2021 8:52 pm
Basically I can't convince my wife that we're really okay.
Before retiring I’d definitely consider investing some money in a flat fee financial planner in the situation you describe in this thread. Unless your wife is 100% confident in your current plan and your ability to navigate whatever financial markets throw at you after your earned income goes to $0, I’d want another person to point a finger at, personally. It doesn’t appear that she is.
I think this is good advice. Before I retired, I figured how much we'd need to be "comfortable" and how much I'd prefer to be able to spend. I was darn sure we could likely do the "preferred" amount, but could almost certainly do the "comfortable" amount. The key for us was to get Spouse to come up with an expected spending amount. Luckily that number was between my two numbers. Then we met with a financial planner who told us we had enough to retire. I think that second opinion was crucial in letting me pull the plug.
Small tweaks to your portfolio are probably not going to make much difference (although I did something similar to what you are doing, see below). The key step now is to retire! That only makes sense if you both agree it is time. This is one of the biggest decisions you'll make in your lives (second only to perhaps deciding to get married), having both agree it is a good decision is very important IMO.
A few years before I retired I started de-risking, or locking in gains, or whatever you want to call it. When the market went up, I sold the profits and put it in cash like things. I went from about 55/45 to about 30/70. It turns out this cost us money, but, it could have gone the other way. Now we have enough cash, assuming 3% inflation, and no returns, to cover our expenses until I claim SS at 70. At 70 SS and annuity will cover my "comfortable" number. By then I expect we'll be back to about 55/45. Either because stocks keep going up, or, we spend all the cash, or both. At 70 "comfortable" should be safe, and, RMD should be enough to bring us back up to "preferred"
You never know what is going to happen. We've been blessed with many years of strong growth, and low inflation. The tide could turn, or maybe not. Unlike tides, it is very hard to forecast economic conditions.
It may have been easier, and in retrospect more profitable, to just stick with 55/45 and not play these mental accounting games, and essentially using "buckets" instead of hose. But I do not regret my decision. If stocks had tanked I might have worked one or more years if I did not have that cash buffer. So for me, the money I lost by putting into buckets was money well spent.
Yes, inflation well above 3% for several years will kink my plan. So would a big drop in the stock market that was slow to recover. Both could happen. Who knows. I still think my "comfortable" is more or less bomb proof, OK maybe not that strong . . .
All that said, you think you have enough, now convince your wife. Unless you love your job, or can't imagine life without it, spend your time and money convincing her it is time to retire. Then do it.
That is my $.10 which I'm freely donating
Retired 2019. So far, so good. I want to wake up every morning. But I want to die in my sleep. Just another conundrum. I think the solution might be afternoon naps ;)