Retirement plans recommendations for truckers?

Happened to my older brother. Retired at 65, got 2 SSA checks and had a massive heart attack. His wife found him on the couch.

 

That was my idea 10 years ago.

10 years later, I'm getting back into trucking. I already own a houseboat, have a 40 acre farm that's paid for, house with 300k equity and 100k in the bank. It's not enough.

Another 10 years, bigger boat and anchor far enough away that I can't hear the whine of the truck tires. Maybe I won't miss it.

 

You'll miss trucking less and less as the days go by.
Focus on that bigger boat and start preparing for that new relaxed life.

 

I used my savings and Freddie/Fannie financing.
Good luck

 

I live well below my means.. and will continue that way, barring unforseen troubles. I like riding Bicycles, specifically recumbent trikes. And thats what i intend to do next year and maybe a few years more. I got into trucking to travel, and i still like to travel, but no longer like driving much.
I bought empty lots of land on hwy 60 in New Mexico over the years, and when i am ready to stop traveling. I will sell them to supplement income

 

Get on Reddit and subscribe to the r/Fire (Financial Independence Retire Early) subreddit.

It’s anonymous so people can be brutally honest about their financial situation. Just don’t get discouraged. If someone else retires early it has no bearing on you. Focus on *your* race.

What I like about the F.I.R.E. subreddit is that the conversations aren’t theoretical. People are actually doing what they say and the quality of advice is very, very good. Lots of lawyers and accountants in there.

 

Let's put some numbers to this.

If you invest $200 a month into the stock market (say, for example, Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund) starting at age 40, you will have, on average, about $330,000 in investments by age 67. If you only draw the interest, less inflation, that would leave you with about $25K per year. Add SS, and you're going to be ok if your house is also paid for and you have no other debts.

If you invest $200 a month into the same stock market fund starting at age 20, you will have, on average, about $2.5 MILLION in the account when you retire at age 67. If you only draw interest (less inflation), that's an annual income of about $180,000 per year. Again, without ever touching the principal. Not bad for a $200 a month investment -- and a bit better than Social Security, eh?

With investing, the rule is to invest early. Keep it simple, but pay yourself first, every month.

As far as stock markets "crashing"......... The stock market is like any other market. It goes up, down for a while, sideways for a long while, and then right back up past where it was before. There are periods of slow growth, periods where it goes down a bit, and then it goes zoom, zoom up again. Now, there might be a decade or so between "peaks", so this is a LONG TERM (long, long, LONG term!) business. You can't predict anything in the short term, but so far, in the long term, EVERYBODY that has invested in broad based index funds has made money. EVERYBODY. It might take a decade if you buy at the absolute peak, and then have to wait for things to go back past that peak again. But in the LONG run, the stock market always comes back. At age 40 and expect to live to 75, you can expect to experience at LEAST two 5-10 year periods of not making any significant money in the stock market...... and then you'll have a couple of years where your account almost doubles. It's a LONG TERM investment, and everybody makes money IN THE LONG TERM. On average, about 10%.

 

I started putting $250 a month into my Sep and Roth IRA each at 25 years old and then ramped it up to $500 each around 27 years old which I've continued into my 30s. Based on a 10% avg annual return I'll have about 5 million dollars split between the two by 65 years old although my retirement accounts only make up a bit less than 1/3 of my net worth. My retirement accounts are all in index funds,bonds and reits.

 

If you had invested $10,000 in bitcoin in 2011, by 2021 you would have had $600,000,000 bucks.

 

Save 15% of your gross paycheck. I'd put it into a low cost index fund, but a high yield savings account works. Inside 18 months you should have a down payment saved up.