Was it possible for us to achieve Financial Independence in 2024? We believed in ourselves, but needed the reassurance that we would be able to make this date work financially.
In April of 2021 we decided to reach out to two individuals to see if our numbers would make sense, or if we would run out of money if we retired this early. We choose to speak to a Certified Financial Planner, Rob Engen who is based out of Alberta. However, we also spoke to Mark Seed and his partner, of Cashflows and Portfolios (Cashflows and portfolios is NOT a Certified Financial Planner) to run our numbers for us, and see if we were on our way…or we would be working for another 5 years!
We found both of these experiences to be very similar in how they gathered the information that was required from us in order to process our plan. We filled out detailed questionnaires about our investments, debts, account, interest rates, types of investments, and most importantly what we wanted to do with our retirement and what we believed our spending requirements were going to be in retirement.
The plans that we received back were very detailed, showing the progression of our Net Worth, as well as an individual and combined drawdown strategy for each of us. It broke down the most tax efficient way to withdraw funds from all of our investments during each year of retirement to ensure that we were paying the least amount of tax possible.
Though not completely identical, the end result for both plans was quite similar. In both plans we never ran out of money, in fact after 50 years we ended up with some money left over. All of this meant that our F.I.R.E. date of 2024 was a very real possibility!
We found Rob through the following link: https://www.valueofsimple.ca/links/directory-of-fee-only-planners/
And if you are looking to talk to Mark Seed at Cashflows and Portfolios, visit http://www.cashflowsandportfolios.com