Hi Folks Thanks for all the responses! You can't imagine how curiously comforting it is to talk about retirement while preparing for a Monday morn.
Now Deepak, those were some great tips and links. Thanks so much. I guess I'm partially there in terms of a corpus, and I sometimes get anxious that I'm not further down the road, but I feel reassured with your explanation of how to steadily build it up over the years. I was wondering what you meant by buffers in your statement: >You don't want a precise plan - you need lots of buffers - but you need an idea that this takes me to age 90. Yes, I do need to factor in a child's expenses. As for travel, I'll try and do that while I'm still earning and shoestring it later. That was a sound portfolio plan you laid out. Rajesh: I'm guessing Deepak's company also does financial management. I've been working with Credence Family Office based on Bangalore. Shyam/Shobha: Lovely to meet you folks here. Will circle back and give an update at some point. Frankly, I really don't know if I have a good number in mind. Need to analyse that a bit more. To Dave and other's points on wondering what to do with time - I don't think I'll have that challenge at all. I have a number of things that I want to do. Or want to do more of. Like not ending a sentence with a preposition. Shame on me. :) Thanks Sandhya On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 6:49 PM, Shyam Sunder <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Sandhya: > > Human case study - fascinating idea. > > Getting back to the grind would be, I am sure, surprisingly reassuring and > satisfying in some areas. Meanwhile, it does look like you have the > building blocks of a good retirement plan in place. I hope you have a > number to work with as a target retirement corpus, which has been arrived > at reasonably conservatively. Once you are past that milestone, you will > once again be working because you love it, not because you need to. > > It would be great to get another update from you a year or two from now, > on how it all panned out, sent while on your travels with your daughter to > another exotic location. Good luck with everything! > > Warm regards > > Shyam > > -----Original Message----- > From: silklist [mailto:silklist-bounces+shyam.sunder=peakalpha.com@ > lists.hserus.net] On Behalf Of Sandhya aka Sandy > Sent: 15 September 2016 13:41 > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [silk] To retire or not - that is the Q. > > Hi Folks > > I had posted the original question about a couple of years ago and I > thought that I'd share my journey since then as a "human case study" on > this subject as it were :). So this may be a somewhat longish post. I got a > lot of valuable tips from the thread then (thanks!!) and here are the ones > I implemented: > > 1) Put together a *retirement corpus* (have to admit that I didn't exactly > have one at that point in time): took the payout from the company, > liquidated assets such as an old property, withdrew PFs, exited expensive > schemes and streamlined outflow of money - I found a surprising number of > recurring payments that I didn't really need to make. I also moved my home > loan to another bank with a lower interest rate. > > 2) Hired a* professional "family office" investment consultant* to invest > and maintain this corpus. I enjoy the financial planning aspect of wealth > management, but my weakness is I hate paperwork - and this from a person > whose career was built on documentation! So for my own sanity, I decided I > needed this service. > > 3) Took out a *personal health insurance* before I left the company. It > was helpful to ensure that I get some things done while still employed: > credit cards, visas etc. These get much harder to apply for if you have a > fledgling business. > > 4) Started a *consulting business* in training. I got a documentation and > a training gig working few days a week right from the get go, that provided > enough to cover monthly expenses. I also invested in some *skills-building*: > went through training to get coaching certification as I enjoy that. > > So far, so good. I had my expenses covered, got a little extra time to > spend with my daughter, went for training classes, could catch up with > friends, and even attended sketching classes to indulge a long-neglected > hobby. I spent any spare time writing, which is my first passion. > > Then, what? I had today covered, then I started wondering if I have the > tomorrows of my daughter (who was only 4 then) and myself covered. What > about inflation, rising educational and other life costs my daughter had > yet to incur. I realised my corpus just wasn't quite enough yet, and as a > single Mom, I had only my own resources that I could count on. > > If I sold my current *house*, moved into a smaller place, and downsized > our lives, we could still manage. That was what my head said. But when the > time came to do it, I found myself wavering. It's a lot harder to do, > especially if you're accustomed to a certain lifestyle that comes with > three decades of corporate life. > > All I got from my parents was a good* education* and I was determined to > give my daughter that. She was flourishing in her current school I couldn't > quite see her being as successful in another curriculum. So that meant > continuing her current expensive school and whatever that led to. She had > jsut started her education and had another 10-15 years to go. > > What I never heard growing up was a constant place to call "home" as I was > an Army brat. My house gave me that, and I wanted my daughter to have that > as long as possible. The real estate market in B'lore being what it is, > getting another place to stay may eat away a significant part of whatever > additional corpus I might get through a sale. Also, this was a safe, gated > community and a nice environment for her to grow up. > > I also enjoy globetrotting and there are so many countries in the world I > haven't been to yet! And I wanted to share that with my daughter too. > > What all that meant was that I wasn't really ready to downsize. At least > not just yet. I was sure my consulting service would build up, but that > would take time, I also figured that I had another decade worth of working > in me before retiring from corporate life. That would be the fastest way to > maintain all my above mentioned aspirations. I had just come to this > realisation when I got a job offer from a company nearby. In the meantime, > My family (parents, sis and family) had moved in with me to help with child > and home care. So taking care of the home became more of a shared > responsibility and that gave some relief. > > So I'm back to the grind, not exactly loving it, and come to terms with > what that gives to my life. However, with this whole exercise, I have a > clearer path to retirement, have things sorted in my head, and I try to > make more time for the things I want to do. > > Still planning for retirement... and more immediately, a trip to Vietnam! > Sandhya > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 10:59 PM, Dave Long <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Shyam (and others), would be interested in your thoughts on this > approach. > >> > >> http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-get-more-pleasure-out-of- > >> retirement-spending-1473645961 > >> > > > > > > Ideally, money is not the only scare resource one has to allocate in > > retirement: there's also time. > > > > There are many pursuits where willingness to be awful for a short > > while at first eventually pays back with an upward slope (granted, > > likely with several plateaus) of mastery. > > > > Some of these pursuits even allow one to apply that mastery to > > increase derived pleasure without increasing spending. > > > > -Dave > > > > Le Guin, "The Dispossessed": > > > >> And then there is challenge. Here you think that the incentive to > >> work is finances, need for money or desire for profit, but where > >> there’s no money the real motives are clearer, maybe. People like to > >> do things. They like to do them well. People take the dangerous, hard > >> jobs because they take pride in doing them, they can — egoize, we > >> call it — show off? — to the weaker ones. Hey, look, little boys, see > >> how strong I am! You know? A person likes to do what he is good at > >> doing… > >> > > > > > > > > >
