Fun with FIRECalc

[Dr.V. Investor]

StarTrekDoc wrote:

Yes, dual SS will go a long ways,  BUT  We cannot and do not rely on SS (irony, isn’t it?).

It needs major reform.

It’s bleeding 130B+ a year and its $2.7 trillion IOU from the government is fully paid in 2034.

Congress will probably get sick of paying this yearly until 2034 and going to reform (ie restructure their debt to SS unilaterally).  Ironically I’ll be just 62 then and it’ll factor in the timing we’ll be pulling our SS.

We’ll be lucky to see 50% of current with our income levels.

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I completely agree. We considered it when applying for disability insurance.  I am decades away from retirement.  I am unlikely to benefit from social security unless they reform it.  Wealthydoc also had an exercise to check your total life earnings (from social security website) and compare it to your net worth, you can compare what you saved to what you made. http://wealthydoc.com/blog/what-do-you-have-to-show-for-all-you-earned

 

[StarTrekDoc]

Yes, dual SS will go a long ways,  BUT  We cannot and do not rely on SS (irony, isn't it?).

It needs major reform.

It's bleeding 130B+ a year and its $2.7 trillion IOU from the government is fully paid in 2034.

Congress will probably get sick of paying this yearly until 2034 and going to reform (ie restructure their debt to SS unilaterally).  Ironically I'll be just 62 then and it'll factor in the timing we'll be pulling our SS.

We'll be lucky to see 50% of current with our income levels.

[adventure]

Our retirement projections and assumptions do not have any SS funds, at any time.

[Hatton]

When I last looked at it my SS at 70 should be around $41k.  If you think about a 4% withdrawal rate it is like having an extra million.  I am no firecalc expert.  I will run it later.

[q-school]

if it still exists and is in its present form it will pay us a substantial amount when we retire.

we are a considerable distance from 70 however.

 

[CM]

I have been planning to work until I'm within COBRA distance of Medicare, and then re-evaluate. However, I didn't have a firm estimate of our social security benefits or how that might affect our portfolio safe-withdrawal-rate.

Recently, I purchased Maximize My Social Security to determine the SS benefits, and then took the numbers to FIRECalc. What a difference.

If I complete my current contract in 2019 (and save at the usual rate while assuming no investment gains), then take my SS benefit at 70 and my wife's benefit 8 years later at her full retirement age (FRA), then our gross withdrawals can be much higher than the number I was using (with a 100% success rate using historical numbers). Depending on the outcome of the current healthcare legislation, I might feel comfortable enough to stop well short of Medicare.

More interesting still, if I can earn enough between 2019 and Medicare age to just avoid drawing on the portfolio, then the annual withdrawal at Medicare age can be 30% higher than if I start at the end of 2019. That's with no more savings and no real return on the portfolio between 2019 and Medicare. Given this new information, I'm wondering if I should propose a part-time contract for 2020 and beyond, then simply walk away if the hospital doesn't like that arrangement.

If I work full-time according to my previous plan, we'll have much more than we need. That's probably a sub-optimal life plan.

Have you calculated your social security benefits and run your numbers in FIRECalc? The difference with and without SS may not be so great for early retirees like PoF, but I wonder if it moves the needle.

I have one question for FIRECalc pros: If I choose "retire in 2019," does FIRECalc assume that is 1/1/19, 12/31/19, today's date in 2019, or something else?