Wednesday, February 09, 2011

12 months to go - maybe

There is now 12 months to go to the earliest date in my retirement window (Feb 2012 - Feb 2014). The reason for the February dates is that is when my employer pays out year end bonuses which are usually worth waiting for.

From a financial perspective, I am firmly on track to hit my number by Feb 2012. It will take a meaningfully bad return on investments this year to change that. Having analysed the numbers to the point of obsession, the two biggest risks (outside of an armageddon scenario) to the financial side are (i) not having the discipline to hold enough cash to ride out a meaningful downturn in equity prices and (ii) higher than expected inflation.

On the non-financial side, things are starting to fall into place. I have my bucket list and have actually started working on it. Mrs traineeinvestor is on board, although predicting that I will become bored and go back to work. I have life insurance in place which will carry on after I retire (although by definition I will not need it). I will not know whether I can carry on with medical cover post-retirement until sometime after I hand in my notice - this remains an uncertainty, although not one that is sufficiently large to derail my plans.

I will do a full medical and dental check up in Q4 2011.

I will take advantage of the office shredder and do a shredding binge in December.

One issue that will need to be addressed is explaining to my children why Daddy is not working and making sure that they are not left with the impression that not working is acceptable.

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