Fairly new to the blog/forum, but decided on FIRE officially in May. However, I've probably been an accidentally pursuing FIRE since working. So, here goes-can I really DO THIS???
My plan is to retire from my FT job at the end of next year. With no loss/appreciation of investments from now, but continued contributions, I'll have $1.3MM. $850k will be in non-retirement, $500k in retirement accounts. I expect my expenses to be $25,000 for the next 7 years after retiring, $44,000 for 3 years as I'm still contributing to child's college savings, and $39,000 after that. I'm 46, my wife is 38 (she doesn't want to work either lol), and our youngest is 8.
I'd like to potentially leave something substantial for the 3 kids when we go. Like $1MM.
IF I count on Social Security being there when I turn 67, this should be a no-brainer. If not, then maybe not so easy.
Maybe it's just fear, but I don't see the market always cooperating on a decent return. Since I started tracking my investments in 2000, the market was essentially 0 return through 2013. Yes, it's gone up quite a bit since then, but it's still only 5-6% return. Big concern is that the market is going to get much worse in the short term (1-5 years).
Am I just being paranoid? What is making me so fearful???
Any advice?