My Mom Retired 10 Years Ago At 55: A Q&A

Today I want to celebrate my Mom. This month is her 10 year retirement anniversary and I thought this would be a great time to reflect on her journey, and her decade of retirement. As I’ve mentioned a few times on the blog, my Mom was my main inspiration in starting my journey to financial independence.

She actually retired the same month I started writing this blog and she did so without investing in stocks until she was 40. And she still retired at 55 with 3 kids. In case you missed it, she has written two guest posts on this blog where she’s answered a lot of your questions: 

• How My Mom Retired At 55
• Mama Purple Answers Your Questions: Ask Her Anything

Feel free to check out those posts to see my Mom’s full story and the questions she’s already answered. Today we’re going to jump into new questions y’all submitted when I put out a Q&A request on my Instagram. Take it away Mama Purple!

MONEY

How did she invest when she started investing?

It wasn’t until I was 40 that I started paying attention to my companies’ 401Ks and investing in general. Prior to that, I didn’t even invest in my company’s 401ks because I didn’t like the fact that I could not access my own money until I was 59 ½. Instead, I wanted to just save it myself in a savings account, which in retrospect was not a great idea.

But when I was 40 and working at a utility company, there was a huge push (aka bonuses attached for the executive leadership) to get everyone signed up for a 401K. So I had more and more people talking about it and the company offered a meeting with a “free” financial advisor. There was one woman on my team who felt comfortable talking to me about her own 401k and showing me its value (she was about 5 years younger than I was), she had already accumulated over $300K – that woke me up!

I became interested and started investing in the company 401k, but I still relied too much on the advisors offering suggestions on that investment “strategy.” Regardless, just continuing to put money into the 401k got me off to a good start and then my husband and I decided to invest more money outside of the 401k. That’s where we really got burned by so many financial advisors but yet still continued to save and invest (even in bad investments with high fees, but they still weren’t as bad as bank savings account rates).

I let a financial advisor choose a million funds that I didn’t really understand. I also didn’t know that they seemed to choose those funds because of their high expense ratios and commissions until my daughter pointed it out to me many years later. Once she showed me we were losing so much money to unnecessary fees, we moved everything to Vanguard like she had, and never looked back. 

Did you go all in for stocks or did you include some bonds?

I’ve always had 50/50 stocks and bonds. We have never been risk takers when it comes to our money and 100% stocks seemed risky for us.

What index funds are you primarily invested in?

VTSAX just like Purple taught me 🙂 . 

How much has her net worth grown in retirement?

It hasn’t. Because I have 50% bonds and have been withdrawing for expenses in retirement, it hasn’t really grown overall. Any growth has been eaten up by withdrawals.

When she was 40, did she invest a lump sum at the beginning or DCA over time?

I didn’t have a lump sum saved to invest when I started, so I used DCA (dollar cost averaging) as a default every time I got a paycheck. However, I believe in investing ASAP so if I got a bonus or something like that from work I put it into the market as soon as it hit my bank account.

JOBS

Does she ever miss having a corporate title? Does your Mom miss the feeling of making money?

No to both. Purple and I both hated Corporate America, never linked our self-worth to our work titles and also hated the feeling of our lives slipping away while we made money for other people and dealt with dumb office politics.

Did you have side jobs while working full-time? 

I’ve had lots. In addition to my full time job, I was an online teacher at two different schools at night. I also tried starting a few businesses, but they never made any money. 

Do either of you have a pension?

Purple’s Answer: *laughs hysterically* Absolutely not. The ad agencies I worked for don’t even offer sick days, they definitely don’t offer pensions.

Two of my companies offered pensions. One I took as a (small) lump sum and invested in Vanguard. The other sends me a few hundred dollars a month so it’s not exactly life-changing money 🙂 .

Do you both wish you had a little side gig to keep sharp & bring in a little more money?

Purple’s Answer: Lol – no. My Mom is where my love of laziness came from🥰. We stay plenty sharp without the unnecessary stress of a job in retirement and once we both saved enough money, we didn’t see the need to try and get more especially by trading the only thing we can’t get back: our time on this Earth. 

What Purple said 🙂 .

• Why I’m An Unproductivity Advocate

RETIREMENT

Did you wait at all to retire or were you perfectly on time?

I waited a year after hitting my savings goals because my husband had just retired and I was worried about us both retiring at the same time. So 10 years ago I retired. I had drafted my quit letter beforehand and planned to send it the day after Christmas.

During the days leading up to Christmas I started emptying my desk little by little so no one would notice 😉 . Hilariously I shouldn’t have worried about that because my boss didn’t even reply to my resignation letter for a week. By that time I had one week left on my two weeks notice and the company was only just starting to rev up after the holidays. But by that time I was ready to hand off all my work and when my notice period was up I walked out the door…and it felt amazing 🙂 .

What are her favorite hobbies in retirement? How does she like to spend her time?

I love to travel, plan travel 🙂 and do word and picture puzzles.

I also love having new experiences with my daughter. I’m always looking for some type of unique excursion for us to do. We have already done hot air ballooning, dirt bike lessons, zip-lining, walking a half marathon, rock climbing, aerial yoga, Spanish immersion classes in México and lots of snorkeling at some of the most beautiful reefs around the world. I also love doing absolutely nothing while lounging in my pjs and watching dumb reality shows 🙂 .

What has been her favorite part about retirement? Does she feel like she is in her go-go years?

Traveling with my daughter while she’s also retired and finally not stressed about work has been my favorite part about retirement. In addition to that, I really enjoy random, spontaneous outings we do like me reading about a cool place, calling Purple and saying “Let’s go!”

As for go-go years, I feel like I’m actually in my slow-slow years because traveling has gotten harder on my body as I’ve aged. So we’re trying to take full advantage and do any strenuous travel as soon as we can.

A Purple Conclusion

And that’s Mama Purple everyone! I hope this gave you some insights into a 10 year early retiree who started later in life and (I believe) provides a solid example of how it’s never too late to improve your financial situation 🙂 .

If want more Mama Purple in your life, here are her other appearances:

1. Bigger Pockets Money Podcast
2. Latestarter FIRE post