You must be a newlywed.
30th anniversary coming up next June.
PSU
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Will be 25 in April. You’re a bit ahead of us.
And of course, I’d be very careful in my choice of marriage partners. She’d be earning a similar salary and fully onboard with the early retirement deal.
…
I guess you don’t realize that the prospective “she” has a choice in the matter, too.
I often don’t agree with Intercst, but I did make sure DH was OK with early retirement on something like our second date. I didn’t want to be wasting time on someone I knew was not for me long term. I started to plan for retirement at around 19.
Fortunately we were both savers, not spenders. After our first kid, however, we realized one of us had to stay at home or we would be paying big bucks to have someone else as a live in to raise our kids. He brought home the money, I made it stretch, putting large amounts in the brokerage, and then invested it after teaching myself how to do it with all you great teachers right here at TMF. I used to describe it as DH bringing home the paycheck and I did just about everything else, from shopping to working on the yard/house renovations, to investing and retirement strategizing, in addition to all the more stereotypical Mom/Wife roles. Frankly, with taxes they way they are structured, it made more sense to do it this way and spend the 60 hours plus a week otherwise called “work” setting us up for an early retirement and paying for 2 college educations in full.
IP
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If you’re analyzing, you’re not in love.
Sorry, no. Life is not a Beatles song. Love is not all you need. Compatibility is critical for long term success.
IP
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I don’t disagree. I think most people “feel” as they go in a relationship. Few fill out questionnaires about likes/dislikes/plans. You just sorta learn it as you go, and often you have to hash-out compromises. It’s usually the last bit where things fail.
1poorlady and I don’t agree on several topics, but we either compromise, or we do our own thing (e.g. religion: she’s religious, I’m not…I don’t go to church, but I don’t try to stop her from attending).
It does sound corny, but a lot of the time all you do need is love. The rest can work itself out if you’re a little flexible. I think one of the few things that MUST be hammered-out early is kids. Even if one can change his/her mind later, incompatibility on having children will break most relationships. If the couple is adamantly in opposition, best to call it a day before it gets as far as wedding planning.
And what this has to do with retirement investing, I have no idea. 
To 1poorguy: My comment about college being owned by The Left just means that most who teach and who run the nation’s universities are a big part of the Democratic constituency.
This simply means that they are intelligent.
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Doesn’t “he” also reserve the right to change his mind about his job, kids, spending, etc. at any time for any reason?
Only if she gives him permission.
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I never understood the ego behind this. ( I guess it’s an ego thing…?) “The Mrs” making more money. If everybody’s cool with it what’s the problem? I had a GF who went to medical school. Not sure why she talked to me really, ha ha. I was an E-6 in the Air Force at the time. Even with a degree in chemistry she couldn’t cook and said so. What is cooking but applied chemistry? I’m Italian so the cooking part was covered. Her house wasn’t very well kept. It looked like a single guy’s house. I can’t keep house either so, no problem there.
Money differential was never on the radar. I was thrilled and a bit mystified to have even found her.
PSUEngineer aks,
Would it intimidate you if she made quite a bit more than you?
F-no. I’d retire and let her work.
intercst
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I never had kids and only recently got married (in my late 50s) but there is more to life than money. Also marriage w/o kids should actually save you money since having 2 incomes is a benefit. Most things are not sold with a single person in mind. I’ve probably thrown away 40%+ of the food I’ve bought in my life since it goes bad long before I can eat it.
And having family helps greatly with aging. Having just gone through that with my father and seeing lonely people in retirement centers, rehab facilities and hospices it is sad. Without my brother and I helping my father, I’m not sure what he would have done in his final months.
I’m saying all this as more of a loner type of person so I don’t need people around me (just ask my wife) but if you avoid a bad relationship/divorce I think it helps a person’s overall health and in some cases the finances.
The goal isn’t to die with the most money in the bank. I sure wouldn’t have gone on a number of vacations if it wasn’t for women I was dating and mostly with my long term GF and later wife.
You can save a lot of money just eating rice and some basic foods and living in a shack but it isn’t something I would want to do.
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Bob Jones University, Liberty and Oral Roberts are liberal…i can go on and on especially with
Division 2 and 3 schools…
Yeah, there are a few “Conservative/Far Right” type schools. But they are few and far between. Most colleges are dominated with people who understand that keeping the student loan or other government money flowing helps them maintain their jobs. To some degree this benefits society, but the purpose of the student loan was to help young people to move up the economic ladder. Instead it’s become a ball and chain. It’s a good example of a government program that worked well in the short run, but made the problem worse in the long run.
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Depends on the school.
A lot of universities rely much more heavily on research grants than student tuitions. When I was in grad school, the president of the university said that the school would run much better without students. (As you can imagine, the students didn’t like that.)
They would rather their professors get grants and do research. Teaching often doesn’t even factor into their ratings, or is a very minor factor. I knew one professor that refused to teach, and because he brought in so much grant money, he got away with it. Another actually wanted to teach extra classes, and was always being hounded by administration because he was bringing in the minimum grant money (even though he had tenure, they still hassled him). He was my favorite prof.
Also, because tuition support has eroded over the past 30 years, tuitions have gone up 10x**. Which then resulted in the burdensome student loans. Put those supports back in, or even make college free (to anyone who can pass an entrance exam), and that problem goes away.
To tie this back to retirement investing, it is much more difficult to invest for retirement without college (because of the substantially lower pay, on average), so many without college can never really retire. (Yeah, that’s a stretch to stay on-topic, but best I could come up with.)
1poorguy (was on track for academia, but bailed when I decided I didn’t want to chase grants for the rest of my life)
**I was in school 30 years ago, and tuitions today are 10x for in-state students compared to when I was there.
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The goal isn’t to die with the most money in the bank.
Absolutely. We wouldn’t have stopped working in our mid 50’s, at the height of our salary, if accumulating money was the primary goal. Of course during the working years we also spent 12 waking hours a day apart and DH worked another couple of hours from home. Early retirement is about spending time together, without the worries for accumulating more money.
I was fortunate enough to have seen how much happier my parents were in retirement, and I set the goal of retirement frankly before I even started a real job. DH had the example of a dad who was forced to retire at 70 and came to work the next day as a contractor. (Of course, had I been married to MIL I would have done the same!)
DH was working himself into an early grave. In retirement he eats better, plays more actively, has a social life both with me and with some old friends that he has reconnected with. Quality of life is much improved. That’s what staying the course on saving and growing money can get you.
IP,
who has gone to too many co-worker funerals
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Wow I’ll be at 30 years married in April. Congratulations PSU.
Also weighed getting married and having kids and both were well worth it. I was the unromantic practical one in the relationship, my husband the romantic. I never pushed for marriage- he did.
Despite huge “skim” in buying a house and paying for two kids college expenses we are doing fabulous. Go figure. Modest house and drive cars till they’re dust. Good planning and home cooking and an equal partnership goes a long way.
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StockGoddess writes,
Despite huge “skim” in buying a house and paying for two kids college expenses we are doing fabulous. Go figure
Sure. If you want to wait until age 55 or 60 to retire, you can afford to allocate more of your assets to a low return real estate investment. If you want to quit work before age 40, you need a higher savings rate and higher investment returns. It’s just arithmetic.
As someone else mentioned, “Your investment portfolio doesn’t know if you’re single, married, or have kids. It either provides enough income to maintain your lifestyle at the age you retire at, or it doesn’t”.
intercst
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Re: college costs.
Mark Cuban is an idiot. State and federal funding of colleges has been dropping for decades and costs rise anyway. See, kids have been told either get a degree or live in poverty so they borrow from private banks if need be. Then they graduate and it’s a lie. I know biology and engineering and genetics graduates making just above minimum wage.
Georgia Tech got into a very public spat with the governor of Georgia a few years back. Governor complained they were letting in fewer and fewer Georgia students. The college President responded with a chart showing that the state dropped aid to the college for 10 years straight and said “we have bills too”. So their solution was more foreign and out of state students who pay more.
I know a dozen recent college graduates. How many does Cuban know? I know students up to their eyeballs in debt with STEM degrees from state schools. My kids know students who got severe depression if they flunked a test because financial ruin and no future were real possibilities. Student hunger is a real thing. “Colleges are a libural party” isn’t true. This is survival for these kids.
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I know students up to their eyeballs in debt with STEM degrees from state schools.
What’s their lifestyle like in college?
I lived near the LSU campus in Baton Rouge the last 5 years before I retired. There were an awful lot of students driving new cars. And it wasn’t unusual to take out a student loan for “living expenses”.
intercst
drove a beat up VW in college.
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Sure. If you want to wait until age 55 or 60 to retire, you can afford to allocate more of your assets to a low return real estate investment. If you want to quit work before age 40, you need a higher savings rate and higher investment returns. It’s just arithmetic.
Some of us have no desire to live your life.
PSU
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PSU writes,
<<Sure. If you want to wait until age 55 or 60 to retire, you can afford to allocate more of your assets to a low return real estate investment. If you want to quit work before age 40, you need a higher savings rate and higher investment returns. It’s just arithmetic.>>
Some of us have no desire to live your life.
Of course. And I have no desire to live your life.
Just explaining the arithmetic of various financial decisions.
Many people think the equity in their home is an “investment”, just like the expensive German sports sedan that’s going to depreciate 30% in the first 2 year is a “fuel-injected investment”.
I suppose after a fashion it is, just a very poor one in comparison to the long-term investment returns available in the stock market.
At least a few people may make better decisions with more information.
intercst
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Just explaining the arithmetic of various financial decisions.
You treat us like we are idiots. We understand the arithmetic. If anyone does not, they should after you have spent years posting over and over about your superior skills at saving. Sometimes when I see this behavior, it is someone who is trying to convince themselves of the decisions they made. Maybe you are finding there is more to life than a big pile of money.
PSU
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