Today, they have a growing stash, as well as a bold goal to amass $2 million in savings within the next 15 years.
Both Jeff and Leonora, 49 and 52, are registered nurses with advanced credentials.
Even the decision to enter the medical field was based on the couples' desire to secure high paying, dependable work. They went back to school for their nursing degrees (paying cash of course) and graduated in 1996.
I would like to hit the $1 million mark before I'm 50 (in 13 years) but I'm way behind as I was a SAHM for a couple of years and worked part-time while my kids were small. My husband will be no help in this regards so I'm on my own in my quest. But I think I can do it.
Our ET Nurse retired with 1.5M but our hospital is state-subsidized with huge retirement contribution. They stopped the program when I joined so I am not one of them!
I gave up bedside nursing 3 years ago and am now in business, still in healthcare. After my first year, my gross income was 1.3M and now with 3 companies running I hope to increase the figures. Business has a different kind of stress and pressures than bedside nursing, but as a near retiree, the physical demands are a lot less plus I am now working for my family, not for some corporate giants. It gives me a higher level of job satisfaction, I am still dealing with patients but in an indirect way.
I remember telling myself one day after a hard night shift, "I wil retire from nursing at 55 before I become disabled from lifting those heavy patients of post spine surgery!" I reached that goal earlier, I left nursing at 50 this year I will be 53 and working on retiring, meaning free from all financial responsibilities at 55. Wish me luck!
Specializes in L&D, Antepartum, ER obs. telemetry.
As I contemplate my massive debts and the 54 hours each week that I am working to try to get out of debt, I long for the day I can retire, but I doubt I will. I would bet that I will not leave here unless it is in a body bag. I hope I have my bills paid by then.
Our ET Nurse retired with 1.5M but our hospital is state-subsidized with huge retirement contribution. They stopped the program when I joined so I am not one of them!
I gave up bedside nursing 3 years ago and am now in business, still in healthcare. After my first year, my gross income was 1.3M and now with 3 companies running I hope to increase the figures. Business has a different kind of stress and pressures than bedside nursing, but as a near retiree, the physical demands are a lot less plus I am now working for my family, not for some corporate giants. It gives me a higher level of job satisfaction, I am still dealing with patients but in an indirect way.
I remember telling myself one day after a hard night shift, "I wil retire from nursing at 55 before I become disabled from lifting those heavy patients of post spine surgery!" I reached that goal earlier, I left nursing at 50 this year I will be 53 and working on retiring, meaning free from all financial responsibilities at 55. Wish me luck!
Oh wow, you are my hero! I would love to start my own business but I've been sidetracked by school for the past 3 or 4 years and am now thinking about getting into something else. You don't need luck you are already on the right track!
Healthcare is one of the fastest growing sectors of business in the country. As the shortage of qualified nurses becomes more pronounced, the need for Nursing Registries is growing faster then ever. Hospitals, Nursing Homes, Clinics, and doctors' offices are looking for alternatives to their staffing needs, and with the ever-increasing nursing shortage, you have the opportunity to start a successful business with limitless possibilities.
"How To Start Your Own Nursing Agency Start Up" will gain you vast insight to the nursing industry. You don't have to be a nurse to start your own Nurse Agency or Nurse Staffing Agency. All you need are packages and the desire to be self employed. This is the only industry where there will always be a shortage. There is never a fear for competition. You can be in business in less than a week. It is time for any ambitious person to tap into this multi billion dollar industry.
The time is now for entrepreneurs to start a nursing agency,nursing registry business, operate a homecare business, or as a medical recruiter or just become an independent healthcare contractor. By being an independent healthcare contractor, you are bypassing the agency and are self employed. Healthcare facilities are the clients. Homecare are regulated by all levels of goverment from local to fedeal level. Homecare levels of regulations depends on the category of service provided to clients. Homecare services ranges from providing just companions or the more medically needed clients such as terminally ill clients. Homecare services can be in the form of social service, non-medical, and medical services.
As for me, we started early. I come from a family with NO money--my mom raised 4 kids on $800 a month in child support and help from her family. Nothing. My goal in life was to have enough money for everything I need, and some of what I want. And I have that.
At 28, my husband and I already have over $20K in retirement accounts, both through a voluntary investment program through work and through 401k plans. We both work for the state, and have a pension plan waiting for us (we contribute around 1.2% of our salary to it, the state double-matches it, and based on years of service, we get a pension--since we both started working in the state system in our early 20's, that is a lot of years of service!).
We bought a condo 6 years ago, then sold it earlier this year for twice what we paid for it, and used the profit to buy a $400K house with lots of instant equity. We plan to pay this house off, or at the very least DOWN significantly in the next 10 years, then sell it and buy a better one. We have no debt other than our mortgage, pay off the credit cards in full each month (we have a card that earns us airline miles with every dollar we spend--we haven't paid for a plane ticket in quite a while) We own a timeshare, paid in full with cash, so vacations are somewhat set. We travel a lot, have a reliable car, season tickets to three professional sports here in town, etc. We have all that we need, and some of what we want. It really hasn't been hard to save money, to put it aside for later. My husband and I each take 10% of our paychecks to go directly into investments and retirement accounts, and send several hundred dollars each month into savings, where it is not to be touched. We don't feel like we skimp out on what we are doing--we are not missing out on fun, but we still have a ton saved for the future. No kids yet, but when they DO come, we will be ready for them both emotionally and financially.
Just decide to do it. Save money, plan ahead. You don't have to give up fun now, just be smart about it.
Like some of the other posters here, I learned about saving and "paying yourself first" while I was growing up. So, it has never been a been a big problem for me. My family was frugal and so am I. We had a few luxuries, but they were "special treats" and not taken for granted. We knew my parents worked very hard to provide those treats and that we would need to work hard to have similar treats for ourselves when we grew up.
I started saving for retirment when I was in my 20's. When I returned to grad school in my late 30's, I took a break from saving, but did not touch the retirement account to fund my schooling. Since finishing grad school about 10 years ago, I have been "playing catch-up" with my retirment savings. I started out deducting a generous amount from my paycheck for automatic depostit in the retirement program. With each raise, I increased the amount deducted until I reached the maximal allowable deduction after a couple of years. That system worked well for me as my deductions/savings increased steadily as my income rose. I never missed the money I never had.
I also opend a Roth IRA and contribute the maximum allowed to that. Often, I sell a little of my vacation time for cash to come up with that money, but because I have worked at the same hospital for 9 years now, I earn a lot of vacation time and can afford to cash in 2 weeks per year to get the cash.
I agree. It's all about choices. I'm happy with mine, but I look around and see a lot of people who are not. The new car, the expensive shoes, the expensive vacation, etc. that only made them happy for a brief time. My financial security keeps me feeling safe and secure all the time -- and will provide for me well in the future.
I admire you a lot for what you do. I cashed in 100 hours of vacation this year, and last year and have nothing to show for it. :)
My car was new when I bought it, but it's paid for now and I don't need another new one.
About vacations....my choice is that I'm not going to wait until I'm retired to do all my traveling. After a couple of years of no vacation, we're going to Asheville this summer and staying at a nice place and getting massages and splurging. I'm not staying in a Motel 6 and pinching pennies. Next year or the year after, we're going to Bangkok and will probably spend a minor fortune.
The times we've splurged like up in Cape Cod have been very happy times with memories that aren't temporary. Perhaps I'll regret my spendthrift vacations when I'm retired and won't be able to travel as much as I'd like, but there's a balance for me in living live today, with a cautious eye on the future. I'm a very late bloomer though and wish I'd kept a more cautious eye on the future when I was in my 20s like you did and I wouldn't be so concerned today.
How much will it cost you to eat during retirement?
3 x a day @ $5.00 per meal X 365 days
x 20 years = $163,000.00 just to eat!
Don't under estimate your retirement needs.
(Not to mention what it will cost to eat UNTIL you retire!)
My husband and I are learning to live on a budget, trying to pay off all our debt and start saving to retire--thankfully we have 35 years to go! We would like to be millionaires, but getting out of debt is step #1!
we don't really aspire to be millionaires, but we would like to live comfortably. We sold our first home 2 years ago (standared 3 bd/2bath 1300 sq ft ranch) and bought a nicer 4 bd 3 bath house in a great neighborhood and great schools. got it cheap because they were remodeling it while it was up for sale. We saw the potential! Anyway we have a honda and a suburban and have no plans to upgrade when i graduate. Assuming we don't move far away, we will stay in this house for a very long time. No plans to upgrade when I graduate. we have been living off of one income for 5 years so a lot of my salary will go into savings. if i bring home 2000 a month net we will be putting 1000 on to student loans per month to pay them off (will take 1-2 years if i finish my BSN) 500 into a retirement savings, 100 to a regular savings and 50 to my daughters savings. when the student loans are paid off then it will be 1000 into the retirement account, and will adjust the other accounts. (this will be on top of a 401k contribution)This is with a fairly low estimate of new grad RN earnings for this area.
Interesting thread. I had hoped to start a business, perhaps an agency. I am just in school right now, but did other things that made myself some extra money.
well i'm still young only 22 years old, and can you advice me guys regarding how to be financially intelligent? hehehe.. i know this sounds weird.. but really i wanna here from you guys how to save and also be financially intelligent. because in nursing were not taught how to be one... thank you and God Bless!!!
I just attended a seminar on retirement planning and this is what they said:
You need to plan on having at least 80 percent of your income for retirement. If you think you're going to be spending a lot of money on grandkids, travel, etc. then you should plan on 100-110 percent of your income.
Life expectancy is up to age 85 so, if you plan on retiring at age 65 then you should plan on having enough of that income in pension, savings, etc. to carry you through 20 years. The cost of living doubles roughly every 20 years so you should take that into consideration also.
If you have a defined benefit pension, that's the best for retirement because, unlike 401K's, etc. where the money can run out, they have to pay you that pension until you die. However, you need to check and make sure that pension is funded. If the funding drops below 65 percent of their total obligations then, you know that pension fund is in trouble and you can't count on that money.
Some defined benefit plans won't cost you anything but, then, the benefits are lower ... like 30 percent of your salary after 20 years. Others are better at 50 percent after 20 years, for example, but may you have to pay up to 6 percent of your salary to get them. Still, the way I've figured it in my case, it's a pretty good deal because I'll get that money back after the first two years of retirement, and then still collect the pension for the rest of my life.
You can now save up to $15K a year with tax defered retirement plans. If you employer has two of those plans, then you can save up to $30K. After a certain age in your '50s (I forget exactly the age) you can do "catch up" and save up to $45K in one year if you haven't paid anything in the last three years.
This is what my husband and I are doing for retirement. He works for the state and so will I because they have the best pension benefits and, we know that pension is going to be there in 20 years. He's already got a lot of time in so, by the time we'll retire we figure we'll have a combined pension of about $90K to live on. If one of us dies, the spouse gets half of the other's pension until death. We also could receive some social security benefits but, we're not counting on it for obvious reasons.
We're going to save about $20K a year with tax deferred plans so, we're planning on about $400K in savings by the time we retire. That doesn't include investment rates of return on that money over the next 20 years but, we're not counting huge returns from that because we pick very conservative investments. We don't want to lose that money in the stock market, which has happened to so many retirees.
Our house will be paid for by retirement so, at current market value, we can get another $150k with a reverse mortgage. If you want to leave your house to your kids then, you're not going to want to do a reverse mortgage because the bank will own it when you die.
These are some of the things to consider when planning for retirement.
wocnnurse
5 Posts
Our ET Nurse retired with 1.5M but our hospital is state-subsidized with huge retirement contribution. They stopped the program when I joined so I am not one of them!
I gave up bedside nursing 3 years ago and am now in business, still in healthcare. After my first year, my gross income was 1.3M and now with 3 companies running I hope to increase the figures. Business has a different kind of stress and pressures than bedside nursing, but as a near retiree, the physical demands are a lot less plus I am now working for my family, not for some corporate giants. It gives me a higher level of job satisfaction, I am still dealing with patients but in an indirect way.
I remember telling myself one day after a hard night shift, "I wil retire from nursing at 55 before I become disabled from lifting those heavy patients of post spine surgery!" I reached that goal earlier, I left nursing at 50 this year I will be 53 and working on retiring, meaning free from all financial responsibilities at 55. Wish me luck!