Taking Early Retirement - I Retired Early

May 8, 2010
by Jeremiah
1 Comment

You Can Retire in 10 Years

You can retire in ten years. That’s not a misprint. But to be honest, retiring in fifteen years would be better. If you are 40 now, you could retire at age 50 but if you wait until you are age 55, you’ll be a lot better off. Starting with zero money in a retirement account, consider these numbers for a minute:

Save $1,000 a month for ten years at 10% and you’ll have $258,986
Save $1,000 a month for fifteen years at 10% and you’ll have $503,549
—–
Save $1,000 a month for ten years at 15% and you’ll have $364,021
Save $1,000 a month for fifteen years at 15% and you’ll have $855,633

At the 10% rate you will have almost double in fifteen years than you would have in ten. At the 15% rate you would have well over twice if you waited fifteen years to retire.

I can see that there might be three questions you would be asking. Continue Reading →

May 6, 2010
by Jeremiah
4 Comments

AARP Dental Insurance

I’m going to look into the AARP Dental Insurance plan. If you saw my article where I just joined the AARP, you know that I saved ½ on my car insurance just by joining AARP. When I retired on October 1st, 2009, I took the whole medical/ dental package, since I didn’t know how my expenses and my medical/dental coverage was going to all work out. So I got the whole package combined.

My dental premiums are banded and based on age. Band or banded is a term that means people are grouped into a rate category by age. Think of the band like a group. The band I am in is for the 51 to 60 years old. The next band goes from 61 to 65. Then from 66 to 70.

My dental premiums are the same as they were when I worked full time. That’s because the company was not paying half for the dental insurance – they were only paying for ½ of the medical. My medical is twice what I used to pay since the company is not paying half like they used to. But I knew that was going to happen. Continue Reading →

May 4, 2010
by Jeremiah
3 Comments

I Just Joined the AARP

Please don’t laugh. I’m over 50 and for the past two years, the only people that know this is the AARP. I’ll bet I get a letter from them, about joining the AARP, about every three months. I’m not sure I like their political leanings, but I have to admire the benefits of membership.

I joined because the price of my car insurance is going to be ½ of what I was paying before. I don’t know if I made that clear enough – I’m paying ½ of what I was paying before. I signed up for a 10 year membership, so my AARP renewal will come due shortly after I am eligible to start collecting Social Security – if it is still around in ten years.

I have always been careful with my car and how I drive. I don’t get tickets and don’t get into accidents, and every year the cars get one year older and my premium goes up and I pay more money for what amounts to be less insurance. Continue Reading →

May 2, 2010
by Jeremiah
1 Comment

My Life Story – Page 2

When you read My life story – Page 1, you already know that I was a senior manager at the company where I worked for the past two decades. I worked for a director, who was nice enough. But I really felt that the job she had, really should have been mine. She had only been with the firm ten years and did not have the breadth of experience I had. I do not know how she got the job. It really doesn’t matter. She was one of the few old company workers who was not getting a package, since she was not over fifty. She worked for one of the new Vice Presidents at the new firm.

At the time I retired, looking at what I was going to do in retirement, I knew certain things about me. I am not a person who can sit in a lawn chair and watch the grass grow. Even though I was retired, I wanted to do something; to be an active participant in life. I’ve done lots of volunteer work and although it was interesting at the time, it was not fulfilling to me. There are some people who are good at it and then there are folks like me. I’ve done the Habitat for Humanity, volunteered for the Red Cross, donated over 10 gallons of whole blood for the local blood bank, was the company chairperson for the Race for the Cure, and lots of other things. But none of them really lit a fire under me.

When I left the 9 to 5 life and retired, I decided I was going to go down a different road. I wanted to try my hand at different things, I wanted to do different things, I wanted to meet different people. Maybe I would get into sales. I wasn’t really comfortable with sales, but since I was exploring and had a good retirement income behind me, I put that on my list of possibilities.

I had invested in a start-up Internet Service Provider (ISP) in the middle nineties, and have given some thought to doing something internet based, like marketing or something. That went on my list of possibilities. Continue Reading →

April 29, 2010
by Jeremiah
1 Comment

Reverse Mortgage Overview

It’s only natural to have a change of priorities during different times in your life and according to how old you are. In the case of financial needs, for instance, young children have minor monetary concerns. Teenagers, on the other hand, have increased yet manageable needs. Young professionals have complicated and often unnecessary financial issues – better car, better clothes, better vacations. Yuppies, or people who are “upwardly mobile” and career climbers as they are referred to, have a higher propensity to buy because of the initial excitement of real-world adulthood.

Middle-aged people have even more complicated yet defined financial necessities – house payments, college, home repairs. The senior bracket or those nearing retirement have more defined financial requirements. Since most people nearing their retirement age have a unified idea of their needs, they are the ones who are usually targeted by bank and financial institutions to take out loans or reverse mortgages.

A person at the point of retirement age would most likely more concerned about available funds and savings more than anything else. And this is perfectly understandable because leaving the labor force entirely would mean ceasing to receive a paycheck on a regular basis. Some people, after assessing and calculating their bank assets and savings would feel that their money might not be enough to last them through their retirement period. That is precisely why mortgages and loans would be of interest and might benefit this demographic slice of the population. Continue Reading →