Hello, I'm OLYing in from the 2022 cohort. Target date: 9/10/21 or possibly early August if a re-planned family wedding actually happens. We've probably been potentially FI for a several years, but I wanted to wait until the kids were out of college to pull the plug on my job. My daughter is back on track to graduate in 2022, and I got a new, much worse boss at work, so it's time. I'll be 56 at retirement, not the 40 that I once dreamed of. Houses, kids, cars, private schools, vacations -- the hedonic treadmill required the high-paying job.
My wife realizes that I have massively sacrificed my life for her (stopped working for about 8 years, then went to school for a new career for another 3-4 years) and the family, so she is going to work for some more years to provide health insurance for us and earn her pension. Originally, she was thinking till age 65, but as we have gotten closer, she is wavering. We'll see how long she lasts. She has 1.5 years to go for 10 years. She has summers and school vacations off, though, so that may be enough for her, what with a stay-at-home spouse cooking and cleaning for her.
I'm really getting down into details of the drawdown plan now, and trying to mitigate sequence of return risk. The first n years, starting in 2022, will involve continuing to plow 26k into my wife's 403b, and 7k each into deductible IRAs. That will bring our taxable income to below 0, so I'll convert some pre-tax IRA money to Roth each year. I'm going to check today to see whether my company accepts rollover contributions into the 401k, so that I can then do a full conversion of our non-deductible IRAs into Roth without worrying about a tax hit from the aggregation requirement for conversions. I have to figure out how much to convert each year, and whether it can all be done in time to avoid RMDs and in a low-tax manner.
I've been seriously hunkered down in all of my accounts since April or so. My wife's accounts have participated in the stock runup, however, so all is not lost. I'll be going through the fine-grained details for asset allocation year-by year, as well as the expense plan.
A big part of the plan is selling our house, and downsizing into ... 2 houses :eyeroll:. We are currently living in a wealthy suburb, and will be moving to a city apartment when we are ready to sell. The apartment could be a rental or a purchase. Then we will purchase a country house with some land, which will be for gardening, skiing, chopping wood, and looking at trees. We may also add a tiny home or trailer for AirBnb purposes, or just rent out the house at times. Rents in the city are going down currently, as are prices, so I'm thinking that it's a good time to make that move.
The current house requires some work to make it marketable. It has been one thing after another, with current projects being: replace all of the very large windows on one side of the house, replace siding on that same side, stain the whole house, fix the giant hole in the floor near the fireplace, fix the corresponding giant hole in the basement ceiling, asbestos abatement/containment, basement bathroom remodel (demo already done, heh), and plenty of minor projects as well. We'll be able to some of the work, but mostly it's going to be contracted out. What we are able to do is landscaping. Since the spring, we've planted grass and perennials, built steps and a fire pit area, cleaned up a ton of branches and trees, and installed landscape lighting. My wife has really enjoyed participating for the first time in many years, so that part is very satisfying, and bodes well for the future country house.
I know none of this sounds super frugal, so I'm prepared for face punches. But I'm gleefully counting down the days till next September, and will roll with the punches.