At what age do you want/hope to "retire"

[feh]

Hoping for 52; currently 47.

[shaggy]

I hope to never retire. I work less than 30 hours a week and make quite a bit of money. I'd like to start scaling back and hiring more folks to do my job, but I don't see myself stepping away from the business altogether.

[ShawnaC123]

I'm 30 and haven't gotten started in a good career, so I am hoping by 65.

[GREENBACK]

In about 5-8 yrs. at age 53 to 56. Finances look good for it. Hopefully nothing unforeseen derails me but that's the current plan.

[cardtrick]

I have to say I hate the title of this thread. People need to "plan" for retirement, not want/hope for it. I think that is the biggest problem with most Americans

True, but dreaming never hurt anyone. There's only so much crap that people can take. I deal with way too much BS and drama at work. A lot of people in my industry are way too selfish and will do anything to get ahead. I'm in Financial Services. And I've heard that we are one of the better companies out there when it comes to that. I love what I do but the people are just unbearable. If I had the money, I'd give up the work that I love so much just so I don't have to deal with these people anymore. That's why i play the lottery once in a while!

[sherylgray]

Personal Finance

I think, it entirely depends upon the individual that at what age, he/she wants to retire. So far I am concerned, I prefer to retire at 45 or 48, and then opt for a better retirement plan.

[JoeP]

Some time before 60, but I will likely contract consult for a couple years.

[kork13]

I'm planning, saving, and hoping to retire by age 60. If circumstances allow that to happen earlier, all the better. I'm almost 27 y/o, so there's alot that can happen between now & then, however.... If I stay in the military long enough to earn a pension, if I receive some sort of family inheritance, if I win the lottery (fat chance, don't waste my money on it), and many other various options exist which could accelerate those plans. So I'm keeping an open mind, and until then banking what I can.

[DGMarioB]

29 thats next year >.<

[Bob B.]

At 62, I'll be eligible to retire with health insurance. I'd hope to work part time for a. few years after that

[bUU]

Without pensions or employer-provided health insurance in retirement we haven't really been planning to retire on a specific date, because we really don't think it's going to be our choice to stop working - that that choice will be foisted on us by the labor marketplace. So we plan to work as long as we can work with dignity, and as long as working adds more to the assurance that our retirement savings will afford us a comfortable retirement. Retirement, therefore, would be the back-fall position once the offers of work fail to meet those reasonable thresholds. We're both at the points in our careers where we're seeing a marked lack of such offers. There is increasingly little interest in our industry for people with our specific skills and maturity. We look at our current jobs as perhaps the last (real) jobs we'll ever hold, and we'll be very grateful if, in case something happens to detach us from our current jobs, we are offered a reasonably decent job after.

Even the process of obtaining employment, itself, is becoming increasingly faulty. It is remarkable how often my spouse, specifically, has been called in for interviews, only to find that the interviewers are looking for radically different skill-sets than were outlined in the resume or otherwise represented to the prospective employer by my spouse through other means. I remember, back when I worked for a company that regularly sought and hired new workers, that we interviewers were generally skeptical of what the resume claimed - that our assumption was that the candidate was overstating their qualifications, including skills that they didn't have adequate mastery over, etc. Our job, effectively, was to probe the candidate to establish the veracity of the claims made, and the extent to which there is therefore a good fit in the organization. In other words: If you were a decent person and your resume was accurate, then you were unequivocally qualified for the position, because (and here's the crux of the issue) the reviewing of resumes before calling candidates in for interviews weeded out the people who didn't even claim to be qualified. However, it seems that the prospective employers my spouse encounters, as a general rule, are assuming that candidates are deliberately and grievously underselling themselves. I'm shocked to see such stupidity from companies seeking workers.

Anyway, we probably have enough money to scrape by, even if we were forced to retire now. (Heck, there are people who live just on Social Security, eh?) We'd have to radically change our lifestyle (which is something they tell you not to plan on), but we don't really feel like, if that actually happens, that it would actually be our choice. By the same token, if everything remains hunky-dory, i.e., we retain gainful employment until my spouse reaches FRA and I work another five years after that, we still wouldn't really achieve true financial independence, given the broadest criteria (i.e., income covering 100% of current expenses adjusted for inflation, that will almost surely last until I'm 100). So no matter what we do, we'll never have that unequivocal green light to retire from the financial side of things.

So assuming that the very unlikely happens, i.e., that we are the ones choosing when we retire, instead of it being rather imposed on us by the labor marketplace, then it'll be a reflection of compromising on the parameters of true financial independence. Without a doubt, we're only planning for longevity of 88 and 86, respectively. We're also equivocating with regard to what is "current expenses" in the calculation, i.e., eliminating the mortgage payment in 2023 (when the mortgage is paid off), ignoring current income taxes and adding income taxes in based on a direct calculation using TurboTax using "actual" withdrawal and SS distribution amounts, and replacing current health insurance expenses with "actual" numbers coming from the health exchange website. We're also ignoring the possibility of needing long-term care, because we see no way to factor that into our planning in a manner such that the plan could possibly succeed.

We use Fidelity's Retirement Income Planner to figure when that modified definition of financial independence will happen. However, we know that our current plan (spouse works to FRA; I work five years beyond that) doesn't work: We run out of money when I am 85. I suppose we could hope I could make it through that year accumulating debt, and then die just in time for my estate to declare bankruptcy. (I'm kidding.) The What If? feature indicates that I could make it work, within their parameters of acceptance, if I work just one more year. So unless the market treats us well over the next ten years, I think it'll be late in 2024 when I retire.

Of course, I could have just said - 2024 - instead of typing in this missive eh? But then what the heck else were you going to do with the last five minutes of your Sunday morning?

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Same as bUU. My DH thinks until he's laid off. Lol. Forced retirement plan. That being said we are saving a lot and have a nice chunk saved. We probably could retire earlier, but he doesn't want to because he also is worried about being bored.

We'll see. Ask me again in 5 years when our savings have more time to grow and we are done having kids. That will likely give me a better frame of reference.

[Vriska]

I don't really want to retire until my body gives out, though I suppose my mindset will change as I grow older.