Young Retirees Share Their Success Story of Living Their Dream
A: [Teresa] Not really. Russell was a high school math teacher, and I was an office manager for the same company I had done bookkeeping for since graduating from high school.Q: What about college—do both of you have
A: [Russell] No. With both of us working and raising a family, it was impossible for both of us to go to college, so Teresa and I decided that I would go to college and get a teaching degree, because Teresa's bookkeeping job paid a fair wage, and was secure. Back in those days, you could get government assistance for college financing if your family income was below a certain income range, and luckily we just fit into that range with me being in school. I only had to pay a fraction of the actual cost.
Q: Since both of you are too young to receive Social Security, how do you have enough money to live?
A: [Teresa] When we retired and quit our jobs 4 years ago, we put our savings into 20-year CDs that pay 8%, and they pay monthly, pretty much like a paycheck. We were so thankful we did this before the economy got bad. Plus, Russell is able to draw a partial retirement from his years of teaching.
Q: If I may ask, how much money did you put into 20-year CDs when you retired?
A: [Russell] About $400,000.
Q: How did you come across that much money working as a teacher and having to raise a family and pay for college?
A: [Teresa] When we were first married, we really stretched ourselves thin to put $300 a month into a savings fund that accumulated with monthly compounding interest. Each year, we increased our monthly payments by $50. So, by the second year we were putting away $350 a month, and so on. We did this for several years, then found we were able to increase the monthly payments by $100 instead of just $50. All-in-all, we did this from the time we were 18 until the year we retired when we were 46. We saved for 28 years, which is much longer than the 15 year plan in your article, but we made much smaller monthly payments to our savings plan.
[Russell] Also, after we sold our home and paid for the new property and cabin, we had some money left over that we added to our savings to come up with $400,000 for investing in CDs.
Q: How difficult is it to live on the interest you get from your CDs?
Published by Anne Copley
Retired computer programmer, researcher, writer, volunteer National Park Ranger, volunteer hospital worker, mountain hiker, grandmother of four. View profile
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