2 million dollars????

[Bluewing]

Hello Everyone,

I'm a couple of years from retiring (or so I hoped) and have been considering full time RV living. When I consider my meager pension and read the advice of the pension planners it looks bad. The retirement planning industry wants you to have 2 million dollars in savings in order to retire :huh:. That would require me to work a few decades after death .
I have found this website very encouraging, and many of the people here have grate ideas for saving money and living free.

Thanks

 

[kyonu]

Yeah, "retirement" is a ridiculous concept created by the government to keep people working their entire lives. I think its horse hockey, and retirement should be defined based on what YOU can live on after you quit working, or an age YOU see fit.

Jump right in man. You can get a travel trailer for pretty cheap compared to a motorhome, but motorhomes are great if you wanna travel the country. You can even get a cargo van and convert it into a camper if you feel like it'll be enough space for you.

Good luck out there!

 

[rvwandering]

Welcome to the CRVL forums Bluewing! You've come to the right place! I doubt that anyone here has 2 million saved but they're still enjoying life to the fullest. Probably enjoying it more than the ones who have saved that much.

To help you learn the ins and outs of these forums, this "Tips & Tricks" post lists some helpful information to get you started. We look forward to hearing more from you.

 

[Bluewing]

Travel trailer is the plan. Back of the pickup with a canopy for storage or perhaps no canopy and bring a motorcycle. I would like to have a more economical way to get around and explore new areas than taking the full size truck everywhere. We have a lot of stuff to get rid of and a lot of decisions to make over the next two years.

 

[wagoneer]

don't expect "living free" Welcome aboard. No one gets a free ride BUT
you can sure live and travel on 500-700 dollars per month.

 

[Lucky mike]

for the longest time I survived out here fulltime for 721 a month including food & fuel and managed to stash a good sum of it every month into a piggy bank.......like it has been said there is no free ride but it only gets as expensive as you make it.

a nest egg is nice or the sudden windfall if your smart enough to leave it alone and let it work for you!!
find a little micro business to operate as you go along and life is good!!

We've all had the good times out here and mostly the lean times are few but they do come......

 

[Seraphim]

That $2M target is for people who have no other source of retirement income and want to maintain a median income lifestyle after retirement, based on a 4% withdrawal rate over 25 years. Not everyone participates in Social Security. But it's not necessary for those who want to live a more frugal lifestyle. Financial planners want to invest your money for you so they can take a percentage of the portfolio, and want you to invest a s much as possible. The more you invest, the more they make.

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www.firecalc.com is a historical calculator designed to estimate the chances you'll outlive your savings. You'll need a realistic budget in mind.

 

[VanLifeCrisis]

I swore this was gonna be an offroad posted thread before i looked inside (he always posts financial threads with fervor)
I think they are basing that on higher standard of living than necessary. Even w/o living mobile you can live rural and probably set that number lower

 

[caseyc]

All those so called retirement calculators always give an absured number. I plan on winning the lottery so I won't need to save up. Hah!

 

[Seraphim]

Each person needs to determine their own desired standard of living, and work towards it. If that standard of living is a frugal one, that's great IMO. Yes, one can survive on a lot less than $2M in the bank lol. But some people don't wish to. Each makes their own choice in life, and one is as valid as the other.

Caseyc - the calculator I posted merely helps determine a historical success rate of your withdrawal plan. It doesn't offer advice on what you need or what you should do. It's got a simple mode, but also lets you get very complex, and is easy to use. You tell it how much you have saved, what your income(s) are, what you want spend (your expenses), and how long you expect that money to last, and it runs an algorithm starting every year since the beginning of last century to determine how your plan would have fared, then presents you with an average success rate.

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It helps in the decision making process...

 

[Seraphim]

Ionfu

I don't think we have sufficient information on the OPs finances to offer advice. He mentioned a 'meager pension'. Unless I missed it, he said nothing about an IRA or SS. I don't even recall he mentioned his age. There's an awful lot of factors involved, and no one game plan works for everyone.

 

[caseyc]

I once saw a funny newspaper cartoon showing a husband and wife, an older couple, whereby the husband says to the wife: "Honey, I think I finally figured out a solution to our retirement. We both need to work longer and die earlier". That cracked me up. I wished I clipped out that cartoon.

 

[Bluewing]

Each person needs to determine their own desired standard of living, and work towards it. If that standard of living is a frugal one, that's great IMO. Yes, one can survive on a lot less than $2M in the bank lol. But some people don't wish to. Each makes their own choice in life, and one is as valid as the other.

Caseyc - the calculator I posted merely helps determine a historical success rate of your withdrawal plan. It doesn't offer advice on what you need or what you should do. It's got a simple mode, but also lets you get very complex, and is easy to use. You tell it how much you have saved, what your income(s) are, what you want spend (your expenses), and how long you expect that money to last, and it runs an algorithm starting every year since the beginning of last century to determine how your plan would have fared, then presents you with an average success rate.

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It helps in the decision making process...

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Thanks Seraphim!

I found the calculator very useful. It shows that if you keep your expenses low enough you can make money last a long time.

 

[sushidog]

Travel trailer is the plan. Back of the pickup with a canopy for storage or perhaps no canopy and bring a motorcycle. I would like to have a more economical way to get around and explore new areas than taking the full size truck everywhere. We have a lot of stuff to get rid of and a lot of decisions to make over the next two years.

We have similar plans. I purchased a used F-250 diesel long bed and have a couple small motorbikes to throw in the bed. I plan on building a custom tall truck topper to break the wind for the TT and provide a little additional storage for garage type items. I plan on buying a 2-3 yr. old 30 ft.+ TT, but am still looking at different makes and models as I am having a hard time finding one with enough carrying capacity for my DW and my needs (about 4,000 lbs. if we didn't plan on adding a heavy solar system, 3,000 lbs. would suffice).

You can FT on virtually any budget. More money just gives you more options. We plan to mostly live off of social security and a tiny pension my DW has, retiring at 62 (4 yrs. and counting). We plan on staying in inexpensive RV parks, moving monthly to enjoy their lower monthly rates and boondocking often between monthly park stays to save resources and enjoy the wilderness - your mileage may vary.

Listen to Lucky Mike. He's been doing this for a long time on a limited budget and has some great advice born of experience.

Chip

 

[jeanontheroad]

Wow! We don't have anywhere near $1 mill, much less $2 mil. All this time we've been poor and we did not know it.

 

[PeterG]

Sometimes the 2 million is so you can live off the money your money is making, while leaving the principle alone. Your age at retirement also makes a difference, since if you have to account for inflation as well as growth from interest. The other consideration is healthcare, because as you get older your chance of having a major-ish healthcare need increases, and something like that can take a big bite out of a nest egg, or crack and scramble it.

The figure I have heard is a guideline of 8 times your annual income to allow you to live off the dividends from the investments after you retire, but I am by no means an expert, and I am at about 1 year of annual income...from 8 years ago.

 

[caseyc]

I already know I won't be able to afford living in the U.S when I reach retirement age. That's why I'm already considering living overseas.

 

[jeanontheroad]

If one has been living on a six figure income lifestyle and one is still paying for that lifestyle in mortgages and car loans and credit card balances and one is still expecting to live that lifestyle after one retires, $50 a year can seem pretty thin. Those articles are not for the normal person. They are for the financial advisor's dream clients.

 

[jeanontheroad]

Well, I enjoyed our lifestyle when we were making six figures and I am enjoying our lifestyle, now. Sure is less stress. Not sure where the cutoff would be that I would start feeling deprived, altho having 2 teenaged grandson with us for 3 weeks felt cramped. Maybe we could have gotten them their own rooms (vans) if we had them for keeps.

Part of being content now is that we have already done the nice house and sports cars and the boats and the international travel and the designer clothes. We can live without it, now. It's not all it's cracked up to be. Part is that we have enough saved to have some choices about where we want to go now and what we want to do. We aren't trapped in a place we don't like by a job we can't afford to lose anymore. But we spent 50 years in just.that condition to get the freedom we now have.

You make your choices and you take what you get, I guess.

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PS: I think if we offered one of the boys his own camper and agreed to stay in one place while he finished high school, he'd start badgering his parents to let him do it. He'd head straight to the west and the mountains in the summer, with or without us.

 

[gcal]

Can't make much of a living these days without some kind of training.