Did I save too much for retirement...?

Better to have too much than too little. I over-saved and the excess goes to travel (a passion of mine), charity and the grandkids' 529 accounts. I also know I need to plan for LTC (which I intend to self-fund) in case I need it. Don't forget that as a married couple, the scenario of one person in LTC and one at home can get scary-expensive although I think the VA provides some support for LTC.

And think ahead to grandchildren (if it happens)- I travel with the grandchildren and, most recently with my son, DIL and the whole family. When I visit them (3 hours from me), I take the 3 kids to a hotel for the night so they can explore the place and enjoy the pool. You can give those kids memories and experiences that most can't have. My oldest granddaughter puts on my headphones, brings up FlightAware and pretends she's an air traffic controller. She and her sister made up a game called "Airline Lounge". Spoiling grandchildren (and funding their educations) could be a future priority!
 
TheWizard said:
You're probably in good shape, as others have said, your desired income and spending in retirement is what matters, not necessarily your expenses while still working.

Perhaps browse the
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Thanks, can you resend what you recommended that I browse? It did not come through.
athena53 said:
Better to have too much than too little. I over-saved and the excess goes to travel (a passion of mine), charity and the grandkids' 529 accounts. I also know I need to plan for LTC (which I intend to self-fund) in case I need it. Don't forget that as a married couple, the scenario of one person in LTC and one at home can get scary-expensive although I think the VA provides some support for LTC.

And think ahead to grandchildren (if it happens)- I travel with the grandchildren and, most recently with my son, DIL and the whole family. When I visit them (3 hours from me), I take the 3 kids to a hotel for the night so they can explore the place and enjoy the pool. You can give those kids memories and experiences that most can't have. My oldest granddaughter puts on my headphones, brings up FlightAware and pretends she's an air traffic controller. She and her sister made up a game called "Airline Lounge". Spoiling grandchildren (and funding their educations) could be a future priority!
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Love it. Thanks for the advice.
 
You have done well, great job!!
 
retbjwsjfl said:
Great thought. Expected retirement expenses. My healthcare is provided by the VA, and my wife and kids have TRICARE at ~$700 per year premium. Granted, it is 'budget government healthcare' but we have never had any issues, and we get annual blood work and checks up's and if anything comes up they deal with it immediatley. Dental is a different story, my current employer covers that, so I will have to cover that cost when I depart my work. I have been leary about signing up for long term care insurance, so I'm not ready to jump on that grenade just yet, so I'm basically looking a $2K in rent, insurance, food, utilities ~$3K, and my monthly take home is $8K, so I think I will be ok. And that does not touch my savings. However, my goal is to spend $8K a month ( which will be hard for me), and then I need to figure out how much and at what frequency to widdle down my retirement. That is the best picture I can draw, 3 years out from retiring from this current and last job.
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You mentioned in your original post that you own your house. What is this 2K in rent? BTW I'm retired military with way less than you (but a bit more pension) and am easily retired. I still have a large mortgage. IF you have high expenses, I would imagine they are discretionary.
 
Gumby said:
The biggest question is "What is your expected spending in retirement?" All else flows from that.

I don't worry whether I saved too much. I currently have/do everything I need or want to have/do in retirement. I will probably leave a large estate, but that doesn't bother me.
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Heh, heh, I'll deal with having too much - some how.:cool:
 
The only thing that is annoying about saving too much money is the amount in tIRAs instead of Roth IRAs so that my taxes are higher now that we have to take RMDs. Fortunately the dividends and interest in other investments easily take care of taxes and continue to grow my NW. It has given us a chance to gift the maximum to my wife's 2 grown children each year and make charitable donations of our choice. The amount we might use for LTC should still leave something for inheritance.
 
As a collective whole, this site is a little bi-polar.

In a thread such as this, a poster has plenty of money, has done great planning and is told they haven't over saved. Focusing on future expenses that seem to be mostly discretionary.

Then in other threads most folks on this site talk about portfolio's being higher after numerous years of retirement.

One side of the forum saying you'll never have enough and another saying you are done, come on in the water is fine. I wish I would have done it sooner.

OP, Get out and enjoy the youngest years you'll ever be going forward! Nobody is promised tomorrow.

Cheers!
 
retbjwsjfl said:
I still have 3 more years working, I have to get my daughter out of the house and into college. So, I hope that $3M will grow a little more, plus our expenses are $4K per month, so I save the rest, my savings should be a little larger by then.
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Unless you plan to sell your $1MM house and invest all those funds into something like an S&P500 fund (or otherwise, according to your preferred asset allocation), you really don't have $3 million for the purposes of FIRE planning. Most of us here don't include the value of our home when using retirement calculators (like FIRECalc), since that money is tied up and generally can't be drawn upon to fund ongoing living expenses.

You say your expenses are $4k/month and that you're targeting spending $8k/month in retirement. Have you done a detailed, holistic analysis of your spending, including things like "lumpy" expenses such as putting a new roof on your house, replacing your HVAC, buying a new car every so often, etc.? If so, and that $8k/month will cover everything, on average, over many years, then I'd say you are probably good to go considering your COLA'd $96k pension.
 
Cassius King said:
As a collective whole, this site is a little bi-polar.

In a thread such as this, a poster has plenty of money, has done great planning and is told they haven't over saved. Focusing on future expenses that seem to be mostly discretionary.

Then in other threads most folks on this site talk about portfolio's being higher after numerous years of retirement.

One side of the forum saying you'll never have enough and another saying you are done, come on in the water is fine. I wish I would have done it sooner.

OP, Get out and enjoy the youngest years you'll ever be going forward! Nobody is promised tomorrow.

Cheers!
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Yup, think about any regret comments we get on the site; usually about how they wish they would have retired sooner.
Yet at the moment in time, some fear that they can't get this wrong as there are usually no 2nd chances.
 
My feeling is you can never have too much. Cash gives you great freedom but you need a lot of it to have total freedom. I have friends who have in excess of 100M assets and they still worry about catastrophic scenarios impacting their savings. 100M sounds like a lot but how many celebrities and professional athletes burned through that much in a short amount of time and ended up in bankruptcy. Ditto for lottery winners. The bigger your buffer the smoother things go when things get rough.
 
Dtail said:
Yup, think about any regret comments we get on the site; usually about how they wish they would have retired sooner.
Yet at the moment in time, some fear that they can't get this wrong as there are usually no 2nd chances.
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Yes, given the reality of age discrimination in the workplace, retiring is a binary one-time decision that it is important to get right. I'm pretty sure that there is no way I could have found a job that paid me what I was making when I retired, even very soon after... though I will conceded that I thought I was overpaid... don't tell them that though.
 
Dtail said:
Yup, think about any regret comments we get on the site; usually about how they wish they would have retired sooner.
Yet at the moment in time, some fear that they can't get this wrong as there are usually no 2nd chances.
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Well said. Plus nobody told me with 100% certainty what returns I'd be getting on my investments in retirement.

Likewise, when the OP saved for the college fund they couldn't have known the oldest would get a full ride.
 
You "have no bills", you say...how did you manage that (or do you mean you have no debt)?

Whether you saved too much depends on your spending. If you're living off $96K, then yes, you did! If you're spending all of the $96K, plus your and your wife's income, the answer is no!
 
pb4uski said:
Yes, given the reality of age discrimination in the workplace, retiring is a binary one-time decision that it is important to get right. I'm pretty sure that there is no way I could have found a job that paid me what I was making when I retired, even very soon after... though I will conceded that I thought I was overpaid... don't tell them that though.
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Well-stated. For me, I am (today) overpaid in the sense that I would find it difficult to get the same package somewhere else, although it could be done, just very difficult. The reason I am overpaid is because of my package, not my base salary which is pretty good but not outside of market norms. My package includes RSU and ESPP price lock which I worked very hard to achieve and justify in my role. I was not given this level of generosity when I hired on 8 years ago, I earned it through high performance reviews over a period of years and a track record of being a subject matter expert in a few areas of scarcity for my skills and experience.

I don't consider myself overpaid in the big picture but if I suddenly found myself unemployed tomorrow it would probably appear that way. But, I'm looking forward to retiring next year. Many thanks to this forum for providing guidance and encouragement to set a target date and decide to walk away and leave money on the table.

I work in a high-energy, fast-moving environment and there are a lot of highly compensated engineers here, working like banshees and running through brick walls to make deadlines and to ship products. I have a good team reporting to me now as a tech lead (technical manager responsible 90% for technical goals and 10% for the administrative/secretarial/clerical matters). This team is very well-compensated and works very well together with metrics-based goals and we have a high level or transparency in the management chain. I worked hard to build this team and it is also one of the reasons I find reluctance to retiring but all of them are well-taken care of and will do fine however things turn out.
 
8k monthly expense with easily 100k + annual income... Math seems to work out. My wife and I are dual military, so understand the benefits. Enjoy your life.
 
You are on par for the coarse of most of use FIRE folks. Stay healthy. You will have a great retirement. If getting bored is a concern, and making money is addicting then you might have a hard time, but I doubt it. Most people say "wish I would have done it sooner." And the one's that don't...may not be around.

100k passive income plus 3MM current assets, and health care covered...check. Have fun.
 
Gumby said:
The biggest question is "What is your expected spending in retirement?" All else flows from that.

I don't worry whether I saved too much. I currently have/do everything I need or want to have/do in retirement. I will probably leave a large estate, but that doesn't bother me.
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I would echo this 100%. We are in the same situation and if we wind up leaving a decent chunk of change to our daughter/SIL we'll be fine with that, since we are living a great life in the meantime.
 
I cannot imagine asking if you have saved enough for retirement or if you have saved too much.

From my perspective, if you have not worked that out to your satisfaction and are confident with the results then you are not really ready for retirement.

COL's, lifestyles, investment syles, retirement plans and goal vary so much. It is unclear how you can use the varied experiences of others to validate your numbers in any substantive way that is meaningful.

At some point you have to be confident in your numbers, pull the plug, and move forward with retirement.

At least, this was our experience. We went conservative, 13 years later we are reaping the benefits financially and lifestyle wise.
 
You have prepared well for retirement in the current and past economy and your expenses. I view things a little different depending on the future economy. I plan for the absolute worst case situation which could occur considering the world today and where it could go. Consider what we are being told about inflation the last 3 years. The definitions have changed which means that the numbers have different meanings. Watch which way the economy is going in the next few years then reassess your financial situation. With what you have done, you will currently be better off than the large majority of the population. But it may not be as much as you think should the the world furn sour sadly depending on the political situation. You have a few years to watch and will most likely be good to go.
 
retbjwsjfl said:
Well, I guess the answer is 'well, it depends.'

I started thinking about it a lot after I realized I saved too much for my oldest to go to college. I saved $90K in his 529 by putting in $200 bucks a month for 14 years (he is now 18), he ended up with a full tuition scholarship, also he joined the National Guard and gets those benefits to include the Reserve GI Bill, Army Tuition assistance and additional state funding. My daughter is three years younger than him and has $60K in her 529. I know, I will make the best use of the new rules on converting 529 funds into a beneficiaries IRA (the first $7K goes into his Fidelty IRA this year).

I retired from the military with 26 years active service and get a little in VA benefits, so my annual net from that is $96K. I also work at a sweet gig that pays me $115K annually (with zero stress), and my wife also works bringing in another $45K. We have no bills, no mortgage and have a net worth of $3M, half of which is in retirement savings (TSP, IRAs and 401K), $1M in our home, and the rest in CDs, bonds and S&P 500 index funds.

My intent is to stop working when my daughter graduates HS, sell our home, and travel once we know that she gets into the college routine.

With that being said, I'm sure that many in this forum are in the same boat. I would love to hear your thoughts and perspective on how you tackled your very first world problem of having too much. My wife and I are not into 'stuff', but rather experiences. We travel to Europe once or twice a year, and we love to take the kids skiing out to Tahoe where my sister lives in the winter, so it is not like we stay home and watch the paint dry.

I guess I should mention that I'm 53 and my better half is 50.

Thanks for your thoughts. V/r, BW in Florida.
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Thanks for sharing this--did not know about the 529 to IRA possibility. 2 of our kiddos have good chunks of their 529 left, particularly DS who went to state school--I think his 529 has more now than when he started college! (yes, after paying for 4 years!), so the ability to move some would be good. He simply intended to keep it for his potential own children, but that thing will likely continue to grow to be far too much for those needs!
I found an article, explained the situation & forwarded it to them.
 
Unless the wife is working towards a pension she obviously doesn't need to work any more. You don't even need to work anymore even if it is a 6 figure "no stress" job. With that pension I wouldn't even consider working another day but it's good to have options and if you want to work then that's fine, just know you definitely don't have to.
 
We've always been charity minded and now that we have also "saved too much" we are finding ways to make a difference with the excess. We find that path more rewarding than buying "stuff." YMMV
 
Koolau said:
We've always been charity minded and now that we have also "saved too much" we are finding ways to make a difference with the excess. We find that path more rewarding than buying "stuff." YMMV
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Yes, yes that is a great way to help if a person has way more than enough.
Thanks, Koolau.
 
It appears we saved too much, about 300% according to any calculator I've tried - but we very consciously lived LBYM our entire careers to avoid having to scrimp. So we spend a little more now, but odds are we'll have a residual far above our current NW. And I recently learned my life span probably isn't going to be quite what I expected, so that may increase the residual. We don't have kids so our estate will probably go nieces & nephews and charities unless her brother and/or my sister survive us. No regrets, that's all that matters to me...
 
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