If partnered up, are you or will you be in retirement together?

[Fitzy]

http://nyti.ms/1ew12fr

[redbean]

Hello!

I decided to retire mid year, last year when my daughter was transferred by her organisation to work in the London office. It was tough for me especially when work would not grant leave without pay so I could visit my daughter. I decided to quit. Hubby on the other hand wanted to continue working. I was quite happy with his decision as it means that we can still continue saving for our retirement.

As we lead fairly independent life, hubby is ok about working, whilst I indulge in my passion, travelling. However, just as the article stated, I was shocked as to how guilty I felt spending whilst not working.

“When I stopped working but still spent, at times I felt guilty for doing so. That has been a tough one to get over.”

My priority now is to find a good financial adviser that can help us to invest our hard earned savings efficiently, to enable us to live comfortably without depending on aged pension. :)

[johnintaiwan]

I think I will retire before my wife. She still doesn't buy into the whole early retirement idea and I don't think she will trust even the lowest SWR ( despite  her being a finance major). She also enjoys the social aspect of her job and makes close friends out of coworkers. I will probably keep teaching some private lessons, but I think it will take a few years of FI and seeing the dividend payments coming in before she will give up working.

[Gray Matter]

This is an interesting article/question.  I used to think we would retire together, something like 67 (him) and 64 (me).  But now that I've got the early retirement bug, I cannot imagine working that long.  At this point, he's not interested in early retirement, but when I phrased it as "getting to do the work you want, when you want" he was much more on board.

The issue for us is I'd like to work less now, while the kids are still at home, but worry about being able to take time away from a career and then ramp it back up when I want/need.  Financially, it makes more sense for me to go full-bore for another eight years, but that would put me at retirement as the kids are heading off to college.  I don't really want to rattle around an empty house in retirement.

 

[hybrid]

Definitely not.  The missus should retire in 2016, and I will likely retire closer to 2026. There is an age gap between us, and the missus will be drawing a Federal pension when she officially retires, although she anticipates a side gig of some sort in retirement.

It's an interesting position to be in, because right now the dynamic is such that she works longer hours than me because of mandatory OT, so I do much more of the cooking and a little more of the housework to balance the load. When she retires I expect her to do the majority of the cooking and cleaning while I continue to work a full time job and occasional side gig.

We're in a pretty sweet place, but there are some potential land mines if we don't manage expectations properly.

[Gray Matter]

We're in a pretty sweet place, but there are some potential land mines if we don't manage expectations properly.

I think this is my new life motto!  :-)

It really is all about expectations, isn't it?  So important to have those conversations and adapt as you go.  One thing I've discovered about expectations is that I sometimes don't even know I have them until they are violated.  So I imagine some course correcting will be necessary.

[Workinghard]

We're still thinking through this. In essence I was retired for almost 10 years while we had foster children and because of our son's academic needs. Once he left home, we eased out of foster care. Those years were easier in that I was able to take care of all the day to day needs. Even though we had primarily lived off one income prior to me leaving the work force, financially it did add a lot of stress especially with our son's additional college expense.

After a 10 year gap, starting back to work was difficult and I took suboptimal jobs to get started. It was wonderful no longer having to shuffle bills around and to start saving again. (During the years I wasn't working, we did still max out my husbands 401k).

Now that my husband's retirement is looming in the future, I'm not sure what we will do. He will be eligible for Medicare in two years--a must for us with his health issues. I would like him to hang in there a year after that until he can get his social security at 66. We may compromise FT, and company match in his 401k, and go per diem. He's okay with working but the mandatory on-call which can include 24 hr shifts is getting more difficult. We will do the math when the time comes.

I'm 6 years younger and healthier. He would like me to retire with him, but I'll still need insurance coverage. Plus working another three years after he retires will make me vested. It's all about goals. I want to reach 1m by the time he retires and 1.25m by the time I retire. On the other hand, once our youngest child marries, and a grandchild is on the way, that may accelerate my retirement and us relocating. More than likely I'll try to get a per diem job, but not sure how marketable I'll be at that age.

[sleepyguy]

Partnered up, Common law.

We both have a general plan of taking reduced hrs within 5-7 yrs (both will be 40-42).  If that doesn't pan out either or both of us can probably quit outright.  I'm more likely to quit as she has said she wants to become a seasonal consultant (3-4 mths per year).  My issue is my job is very easy/low stress/decent pay, so it will be a bit hard to walk away.

[pachnik]

We have an age difference between us of a few years. 

My husband will most likely work until 65 (health permitting of course) at which point we'll both retire.  I will (again, health permitting) do something part-time until 65.

[Jon_Snow]

This is a big issue for us. I'm 42, leaving my job later this year. My wife loves her job and wants to work another ten years or so, even though I try to show that financially she doesn't need to.  In my mind I'm trying to picture what our life will look like over these ten years. My hobbies include sea kayak touring, filming orcas and recording their underwater sounds off the verdant coast of B.C. and Washington State. Is she really going to be okay sitting in her cubicle while I'm off paddling amongst orca pods? Will there be resentment? I hope that she would quit her job herself before that occurs. The more I think about it, I think the time apart will be the greatest challenge. We have pretty much been joined at the hip thus far in our marriage.

I feel much better about our financials than I do about possible emotional and relationship issues that may crop up in the next few years.

[DanielleS]

We're both in our mid-40's, we've been retired for a few years. We met in our late 30's and got married two years ago. We kind of sputtered into retirement, haha, because my husband didn't think we could do it although I knew we could. I was teaching yoga while he wasn't working, and then he got a good-paying job and I wasn't working... now we're both in retirement together.

It is so much better like this, because we can concentrated on maximizing our fun and minimizing (not out of necessity, but out of liking it) our costs. We live fulltime in our RV, so we are able to travel, and we store it while we go overseas. We get income from two rental properties, so we do have some landlord duties which is much easier to perform without having to schedule it around a person's job.

I say as long as you can do it financially, it's much better if both people can retire around the same time (not necessarily the same date, but I would assume that would be awesome to do such a thing!). Especially @ JON SNOW, I think it would breed resentment between you and your wife!!! Maybe make it your #1 campaign to spreadsheet, cajole, reassure, and otherwise convince her of the solidity of the financial plan to fund both of your retirements. It took a lot of work on my part to convince my husband, but it was worth it as we are much happier with both of us retired.

[Villanelle]

I have no idea what DH's second career, after the military will be, but if it is something that lends itself to consulting, I suspect he will likely work long after the big "retirement".  And he may postpone the major retirement well past the point where the job is necessarily financially.

For me, my career has been brutally put on hold while we live overseas, and I have no idea how long that will continue or how much I will be able to revive things when I finally start working again.  So I don't have the slightest idea what my working future looks like. 

Because I hate homemaking yet I feel obligated to do it when he's not working an I am, I'd like work, at least part time, while he's still working full time.  He'd be fine if I didn't, but then I'd feel like I needed to do nearly 100% of the cooking and cleaning, and I'd rather work, even at Walmart, than do that.

[Zaga]

We are 11 years apart, and I'd LOVE to be able to retire at the same time.  Right now we are shooting for the year DH turns 59.5 (I'll be 48), my projections show us reaching FI sometime from his age 56 and 60, so I think we're on track.  Of course I wouldn't complain if things worked out so we could retire earlier.

[Kepler]

I'm older than my partner, and our current plan is for us to retire at the equivalent chronological age - that gives us a "worst case scenario" early-ish retirement for both of us.  If our finances do better than that worst case, our priority is for me to retire as soon as possible (I have some medical issues that are exacerbated by work, but can't stop working now, because I make much more than my partner does, and we can't live off my partner's income alone).  My partner is currently a couple years away from finishing a degree in a field that's in shortage, which opens up the potential for a much higher salary - we're prepared in case this doesn't pan out, but if it does, I might be able to retire a bit sooner.

In spite of planning to save enough that the passive income will pay "my" way after retirement, and in spite of earning more than my partner now, I admit I'm very nervous about the period when I'll be retired while my partner is still working.  It's not about feeling guilty about spending money someone else has earned.  It's about the fact that I have specific projects I want to retire /to/, and worrying that the balance of household responsibilities will shift in ways that will make that impossible...  Everything is great now, because we're both very busy with 'objective' commitments to work and study, and so we both split things fairly evenly.  I'm worried that my retirement projects - research and writing that I am not able to do now - will get pushed aside because there'll be no outside deadline I 'have' to meet, and the work will in some sense be something easily deferred to another time, but emotionally it's very important for me to do it, and is a major motivation for tolerating an unpleasant job now.  We're dealing with it by trying to talk it through well before we get there - my partner recognises the risk as well, so hopefully it will all work out...

[YK-Phil]

I plan to leave the active work force in 2.5 years and move to one of the Gulf Islands off Nanaimo (British Columbia) and live with my wife in a tiny off-the-grid house which we are starting to design, doing some gardening, some sailing around the Gulf Islands in the summer, and a little bit of traveling to visit friends and family here, maybe doing some light consulting in the environment/Aboriginal field. In the winter, we hope to leave for 3-4 months at the time and stay in Spain and Mexico, and perhaps some time in East Asia to teach ESL. I am 56 and my wife is 39, so she still plans to work part time while we are in Canada, but probably not when we are overseas. 

[enigmaT120]

My wife's been retired since we got married over 20 years ago (no kids), so I'm looking forward to joining her.

[Psychstache]

My wife's been retired since we got married over 20 years ago (no kids), so I'm looking forward to joining her.

Legit curiosity: has she not worked at all in 20 years? If you have no kids, what does she do with her day?

[dude]

I also saw this article this past weekend -- and promptly sent it to my wife!  She is 7 years younger than me, and depending on market conditions, will likely have to work 5-7 years longer than me.  She's okay with that in theory, i.e., she doesn't mind work/likes her job.  But I suspect when I have all day to do fun things, she might get a little resentful if I don't prepare her totally to accept it.  Still got about 5.5 years to work on it . . .

[CommonCents]

I also saw this article this past weekend -- and promptly sent it to my wife!  She is 7 years younger than me, and depending on market conditions, will likely have to work 5-7 years longer than me.  She's okay with that in theory, i.e., she doesn't mind work/likes her job.  But I suspect when I have all day to do fun things, she might get a little resentful if I don't prepare her totally to accept it.  Still got about 5.5 years to work on it . . .

Do you not plan to shoulder the brunt of the household chores when you are retired and she is working?  e.g. cooking, cleaning, shopping, admin?

[dude]

I also saw this article this past weekend -- and promptly sent it to my wife!  She is 7 years younger than me, and depending on market conditions, will likely have to work 5-7 years longer than me.  She's okay with that in theory, i.e., she doesn't mind work/likes her job.  But I suspect when I have all day to do fun things, she might get a little resentful if I don't prepare her totally to accept it.  Still got about 5.5 years to work on it . . .

Do you not plan to shoulder the brunt of the household chores when you are retired and she is working?  e.g. cooking, cleaning, shopping, admin?

Well, I already do 100% of the cooking (she can't cook at all), 95% of the shopping, half or more of the cleaning, 100% of our trip planning for any vacations we go on (we go on 3-4/year), and 100% of the "admin" (i.e., taxes, financials, etc.).  So I guess my answer would be yes?

[soccerluvof4]

We owned our own biz that I started well before we were together and 2 years ago was burnt out so I went into ER. She still wants to go into the office and works 25-30hrs a week despite me pushing to start on the next chapter of our life. We still have 4 kids and it pays us more than if we both went out to get jobs so for now its a good thing and lets us keep building up our cushion. We also agreed though that in 3.5 years barring something unforseen she is done as well and we will cash out or try and sell to employees. Its not a business with assets so more basically selling the Company name and customers. The biz model has changed and isnt as lucrative as we want so were hoping it lasts and all our plans are based on that 3.5 years.

[RootofGood]

Almost; Mrs. Root of Good will follow me into retirement in another year or two.

Our original plan was to both work till around January or April of 2016 (another 2 years).  Life happened and I got let go from my job about 6 months ago.  At the time we had "enough" to feel comfortable in retirement, so I planted the ER flag in terra firma and declared myself retired.  Mrs. RoG had a 3 month sabbatical coming up, so it made sense for her to keep working to take advantage of the paid sabbatical.  We just found out they denied her request for 3 full months of leave, but gave her an extra five weeks off (fully paid) this summer to keep her from quitting with the agreement that she will get at least another 2 months of paid leave next year (her formal sabbatical). 

It's kind of a good news/bad news position to be in.  The plan was for her to retire after taking the sabbatical this summer, or maybe stick around till January 2015 to get the 2014 bonus.  Now she'll take the 3 month sabbatical in the spring or summer of 2015, and possibly call it quits immediately thereafter or perhaps stick around till January 2016 to get the 2015 bonus.  The bonuses aren't huge, but are big enough to pay for a month or two of modest vacations for us.

With all the extra paid time off plus the already generous vacation time and holidays, she'll end up working about 9 months this year and 7 months next year.  For full time pay.  Any extra money she earns will be "fun money" and will probably translate to more travel opportunities for us (on top of the travel budget we already have in our ER budget).  And if she really wants to quit tomorrow, that's okay too. 

In the mean time, I'm taking care of our 3 young kids and doing most of the housework (most cooking, almost all the shopping, handling all finances and admin stuff, trip planning for vacations, etc).  And especially during the week, she's basically able to come home from work, have a drink and chat with me while I finish up dinner, and then she can sit down and relax while I clean up after dinner.  Then we'll watch Jeopardy on TV.  Or we'll skip the tv and I'll take the kids out to the park so she can have some quiet time (to surf, nap, whatever). 

Seven months into this stay at home dad/early retirement gig, and I think it's working out pretty well, even though the timing didn't work out quite as planned.

[Cassie]

I am 5 years older then hubby and we did not plan to go at the same time. I went at age 58 and he was 53. He got laid-off shortly after I retired. The plan was for him to work 5 more years. However, it worked out that he did not need a job. He does p.t. consulting work now.   

[ShortInSeattle]

We plan to ER pretty much simultaneously, although I plan to continue to consult PT until I get sick of it. (It is fun and well-paid work)

So I will probably have a side gig for a while, and DH may pick one up if he gets bored.  We'll see!

I think for us what feels fair is that neither one of us "retires" until we both can, but anyone who wants to work beyond that can do so. We started our careers in the same year.

[MicroRN]

Probably not.  DH has said flat-out that he doesn't think he'd be happy without an impressive and well-paying job.  My goal is to get us financially secure enough that he CAN quit anytime he wants, and then it's up to him if he actually does.  He's putting in most of the money, I'm putting in the financial and household work to get us there.     

I'm not sure I'm going to fully quit.  I work one job 2 nights a week on 12 hour shifts, and another per diem on 8s.  I won't work more than 32 hours a week, but that alone would make over $45K per year.  My goal is to bank everything I make for us until we can afford to retire, and then hold one or two per diem jobs.  I want the flexibility to travel with the kids, but I enjoy working and having a financial backup is always a good idea.

[enigmaT120]

My wife's been retired since we got married over 20 years ago (no kids), so I'm looking forward to joining her.

Legit curiosity: has she not worked at all in 20 years? If you have no kids, what does she do with her day?

No outside job.  She cooks and keeps house.  The idea was that she would garden and harvest and process fruit and vegetables, but mostly she seems to grow gophers.  I don't care that much until she says she doesn't have time to do something like exercise.

[bikebum]

I plan to leave the active work force in 2.5 years and move to one of the Gulf Islands off Nanaimo (British Columbia) and live with my wife in a tiny off-the-grid house which we are starting to design, doing some gardening, some sailing around the Gulf Islands in the summer, and a little bit of traveling to visit friends and family here, maybe doing some light consulting in the environment/Aboriginal field. In the winter, we hope to leave for 3-4 months at the time and stay in Spain and Mexico, and perhaps some time in East Asia to teach ESL. I am 56 and my wife is 39, so she still plans to work part time while we are in Canada, but probably not when we are overseas.

That sounds awesome! What type of home will you build?

[Pex]

My wife is now retired as of 60 days ago.  I am still working - we're solid financially but looking at another 30-40 years together - and a lot can happen in that time frame.

I don't resent her retiring first, as she has taken on pretty much all of the chores.  It's rather nice, really.  I would resent her going on a nice vacation without me though - let's do that together please!

We're also viewing the money I make as bonus security money - every day we don't have to use investments to live is a gift to future us.

Honestly, I would be afraid to step away now that she isn't working.  I know we're secure financially, but I like he idea that if the market tanks, we're still ok.  After a year or two of watching our expenses, maybe I'll be ready.

We're both mid 40s.

[kkbmustang]

I am 41 and semi-retired, I guess. I suffered a spine injury two years ago and am still undergoing regular surgeries to put me back together, so to speak. Fortunately, I had long term disability insurance, which is paying out at 60% of my former wage. I am currently able to work a few hours a day, which I do. I'm self-employed, which I love more than words can say. I would not have chosen to have injured myself obviously, because it has sucked beyond imagination, but it helps that I'm not working 70-80 hours a week (which my former job demanded). I do like being able to help my kids with their homework, emotionally support them, and watch them in their activities, etc.

The Hubs is 43 and five years into his second career. He isn't interested in retiring any time soon, which is fine by me. He goes nuts and is difficult to live with when he isn't working. (Long story, but there was a layoff in his first career.)

I rather enjoy spending time reading, getting a handle on our finances, making more Mustachian changes in our finances and household, and building my freelance business. We've talked about slow traveling when he does ER. He plans on building a freelance business of his own, something he can do from anywhere, like I can.

Also on the table for consideration is him getting a job overseas or somewhere else domestically in the next few years, depending on circumstances. I don't really care where we go. I do care that our kids attend the same high school all four years. (I attended 4 different high schools in three different countries, so I'm a bit sensitive on that issue.)

And holy hell I've written a novel.

[Heywood57]

Planning on 40+ more years together.

My wife quit working 12 years ago.
We have been mortgage free for 5 years.
We have ~2 more years until the last 3 of 7 kids enter college.
We have ~6 more years until the earliest FI date.
We have 15 more years until we can claim Social Security benefits.

[bikebum]

I'm 28 and my SO is 24. My plan is to "downshift". She doesn't know if she wants a normal length career or not yet, as she is still in school. I'll probably be working part-time or fully retired before she is. I predict once she starts her career, she will decide she doesn't want to have to work for 30 years, and she'll turn into a mustachian!

[Dicey]

DH and married late in life. He is a widower (51) and it's my first marriage (54). I have always saved in order to buy my freedom, but was afraid to pull the trigger due to potential healthcare costs. I'm a cancer survivor, so this was a very real concern, not just paranoia. My job involved tons of hours, travel and high pressure. I most definitely did not love it. When my company issued ipads that could "see" us 24/7, DH encouraged me to retire and I finally pulled the trigger.

OTOH, DH loves his low-pressure job. His healthcare covers our family with no monthly premiums. He works clearly defined hours with every other Friday off, gets lots of vacation and every holiday you can think of plus "floaters". He can retire in eight years with a full pension and generous health benefits, so he plans to stay until then. We think the extra level of security this will provide is worth it.

It's been a little over a year since I retired and I love it! Now I get up early with DH, make breakfast and pack his lunch. We walk to work together every day. I can't wait for him to retire, but our current arrangement is working pretty well. We live comfortably on his paycheck and our retirement accounts continue to grow.

I guess the best thing I can think to add is this: after all the years of saving and planning, it is great to get to this point in life and really, truly feel like we have many choices. We are not trapped by our circumstances. Our current arrangement works for us now, but we can change it up if we decide to. It's an unexpectedly amazing feeling and we are grateful every day.

[twbird18]

We are not sure what we are going to do. In all likelihood, I will stop working before DH does. The original plan was for me to stop working in ~10years, but DH works for the government and is 3 years younger than me. He needs to work about 14 more years to get a decent pension later in life & while he is fine with me staying home while he works, I'm not so what will probably happen is that I switch to some kind of part time or non-profit work for the last few years. This all still puts us retired before 50, just not quite as soon as I want but potentially in an even more solid financial position since we should not need the last few years of salary.

[Jon_Snow]

My wife and I have talked about us both working until around 46 and retiring together. But she knows very well the toll my job is having on my body and mind and WANTS me to quit at 42. She thinks she wants to work into her 50's, though I hope she doesn't.  Technically, we can both retire now at 42  as our dividend income is comfortably above our expenses, which as a result of being completely debt and child free, are insanely low.

I would say that my wife isn't quite the Mustachian that I am, and she says that she is okay with working longer in order to increase the stache another 500k so that we can live a little higher on the hog, if the mood strikes us in the future. She says she is fine with living the Mustachian life, but doesn't want to be FORCED to live it, because we haven't saved enough.

I am fortunate to have found this woman. ;)

[ketchup]

My girlfriend (21) and I (23) are still a bit up in the air about how it will all shake out.  She currently makes less than I do, but her photography business is rapidly growing this year and very soon she will probably be making more than me, possibly double by next year.  We've discussed how we want to move forward with our lives.  We really like MMM's retire-then-have-a-kid-at-30 tactic, but we may have the flexibility to do something similar sooner, pre-FI.  Her work is such that she may only have a few gigs a month, with the supporting work done at home.  She also loves what she does, and will probably never fully retire from it.

We're both interested in the real estate path towards wealth and FI, but I'm a lot more interested in the hands-on nuts-and-bolts-and-numbers of it all.

So what we're thinking, and of course this is all way early and everything may very well play out differently, is that as her business grows, we'll both keep working (with me potentially looking at other sources of income too), and get started with real estate investment accumulation (our foot already being in that door with my one small rental house).  Then, when we become parents, I would quit the day job and just stay active with real estate investments part-time, and she would scale down her business some, giving us maybe a stay-at-home-parent-and-a-half among the two of us.  Then at some point in there FI will happen, we won't accumulate any more property, and she'll be able to get picky about what she shoots, really making it her perfect hobby-job. 

All of the timing and numbers are too hazy at this point to even begin to plan for, but that's our vague outline of the next ten years of our lives.  When I type it all out like this, it really is quite exciting.  We are lucky to be even at the beginning of this path at our ages.

[ysette9]

I have only just started talking about early financial independence with my husband, but he was really on board with the overall philosophy of having the freedom to do whatever we want with our time, whether that be continuing to work or doing something else. Personally, my very favorite activity in the world is hanging out with him, so I would have a hard time imagining retiring without him. There are a lot of really awesome things to do in the world, but most of them are better shared with someone you really like. :)

[rescuedog]

Interesting!  I think we are aiming for the same year of retirement, but my husband may cave a little earlier as his job has more pressures than my does. Basically he might not make it until 48 (which is in 13 years).

[Exflyboy]

I retired on Jan 10th.. My Wife has decided to work 3 more years.

We get about $15k in rent, plus her salary of $30k gross.. this all adds up to about $34k net... This should cover our coast plus about $10k or so for fun.

in 7.5 years I get a small pension, in 9 years she gets her PERs pension, in 10 years I get SS, hers in 12 years... All of this should add up to about $69K if you believe the numbers that are promissed, without touching the savings.

we have $1.3M stashed plus the paid for house.

According to Firecalc I can spend an outragous amount of money and we'll be just fine.

But I am still terrified of actually spending any of our savings..... This is just totally screwed up.. Its not an easy transition to retirement for sure.

Frank

[Cassie]

It is a definite adjustment.  Not quite as easy as you think. You may decide like me to work p.t. for yourself.  You will figure it out.

[Exflyboy]

Oh yeah its an adjustment for sure.. I have no real concerns.. The nightmares about having no job are subsiding..:)

Frank

[Cassie]

You think that it will feel wonderful but actually it feels weird for awhile.