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But you have alluded to non-financial aspects of the decision as well, and I would suggest that those are equally important. Retirement, and when to take it, is a major life style decision. If you try to imagine that things are a complete wash financially (not necessarily true, I realize), then how do you feel about retiring now versus retiring two or three years down the road?
ER,
You are right that the non-financial aspects of the decision are equally important to the financial ones.
Being a prudent and frugal 'number' person, I got the financial numbers down a while ago.
Since I have prided myself on being a logical and good planner, I have also mentally prepared myself for retirement. I have picked up many new hobbies and interests ever since the day we became empty nesters. I have no doubts that I will have plenty of things to do in my retirement.
What I have not prepared well (even though that I have tried) is my emotional state. Recently, a poster started a thread that changes are good. While I like changes, I don't think there are any changes which are stress free.
Although I am not at all worried about our financial future, I have been a saver all my life. I am not a miser or a greedy person but the accountant resides in my head keeps thinking of the fact that quitting my job means not taking in an income, not having all the work benefits, not building up my SS benefit AND spending down instead of building up my saving. It took a lot of persuasion from my husband to convince me that it was utterly silly for me to continue this way of thinking after we have reached a financial level more than enough to have a comfortable retirement life.
As I had expressed in the original post, I truly enjoy my work. There have been some ups and downs in my career path but there had been many wonderful up years. I have reached a kind of career plateau but am still quite respected for my expertise. Since I pride myself in my accomplishment, contribution and knowledge, I still enjoy my work. A week ago, I spent half a day and wrote a program to help a young engineer with some statistical projections. I shared it with several others and got a lot of compliments. So little things like that make my days.
To suddenly realize that all my years of scientific, engineering training experience and knowledge will no longer be utilized is quite a shock. I am thinking of cleaning out my office. I will chuck all the papers, awards, plaques, samplings of the work that I had done etc. to the dumpsters.
All things good or bad have to come to an end.
What would happen if I continue to work for few years instead of taking the buyout? Nobody has the power or the magic wand to maintain the 'status quo' especially when it comes to his or her own health and the health of the loved ones.
The early retirement consideration arose when my husband hurt himself first in 2010 when we came back home from building our plane. He simply banged his foot against a metal desk and reinjured his ankle which was partially fused from an accident more than 30 years ago. He was on crutches for 4-6 months. The incident was a mixed blessing because he found a very competent orthopedist who prescribed a molded ankle brace. This miracle device strengthened his ankle to the point that he no longer needed a cane on bad days (the kids at school used to shout: "House, House" when he used the cane at the end of the sub teaching days). My thought of early retirement faded away as his health improved.
We were reminded of my husband's health issues when he hurt himself again in 2013 falling on the ice when pulling the plane out of the hangar for our long flying trip to Puerto Rico. We managed to have a lot of fun and completed the 5,500nm and 55 hours of flying in 2 weeks. History repeats itself, at the end of the trip, he lugged a heavy divebag from the hangar to the car and aggravated the back injury. So he was on crutches and had to sleep on the living room floor upside down like a bat for 6 months.
I have been very lucky to be completely injury free and quite healthy. However anything can happen to both of us. We have been doing our best to stay healthy but at our ages, our physical conditions are on the decline and there are all kinds of potential illnesses lurking in the background (heart attack, strokes, cancer etc).
This has been a very long post. I think it is 'theurapetic' for me to write down what are in my mind. It is quite helpful. I will send HR my application for the voluntary layoff tomorrow.
I think I am ready for a new chapter in my life. Participating in this retirement forum in the last year or so has been a great help to prepare for this new chapter. Thank you all.
You are right that the non-financial aspects of the decision are equally important to the financial ones.
Being a prudent and frugal 'number' person, I got the financial numbers down a while ago.
Since I have prided myself on being a logical and good planner, I have also mentally prepared myself for retirement. I have picked up many new hobbies and interests ever since the day we became empty nesters. I have no doubts that I will have plenty of things to do in my retirement.
What I have not prepared well (even though that I have tried) is my emotional state. Recently, a poster started a thread that changes are good. While I like changes, I don't think there are any changes which are stress free.
Although I am not at all worried about our financial future, I have been a saver all my life. I am not a miser or a greedy person but the accountant resides in my head keeps thinking of the fact that quitting my job means not taking in an income, not having all the work benefits, not building up my SS benefit AND spending down instead of building up my saving. It took a lot of persuasion from my husband to convince me that it was utterly silly for me to continue this way of thinking after we have reached a financial level more than enough to have a comfortable retirement life.
As I had expressed in the original post, I truly enjoy my work. There have been some ups and downs in my career path but there had been many wonderful up years. I have reached a kind of career plateau but am still quite respected for my expertise. Since I pride myself in my accomplishment, contribution and knowledge, I still enjoy my work. A week ago, I spent half a day and wrote a program to help a young engineer with some statistical projections. I shared it with several others and got a lot of compliments. So little things like that make my days.
To suddenly realize that all my years of scientific, engineering training experience and knowledge will no longer be utilized is quite a shock. I am thinking of cleaning out my office. I will chuck all the papers, awards, plaques, samplings of the work that I had done etc. to the dumpsters.
All things good or bad have to come to an end.
What would happen if I continue to work for few years instead of taking the buyout? Nobody has the power or the magic wand to maintain the 'status quo' especially when it comes to his or her own health and the health of the loved ones.
The early retirement consideration arose when my husband hurt himself first in 2010 when we came back home from building our plane. He simply banged his foot against a metal desk and reinjured his ankle which was partially fused from an accident more than 30 years ago. He was on crutches for 4-6 months. The incident was a mixed blessing because he found a very competent orthopedist who prescribed a molded ankle brace. This miracle device strengthened his ankle to the point that he no longer needed a cane on bad days (the kids at school used to shout: "House, House" when he used the cane at the end of the sub teaching days). My thought of early retirement faded away as his health improved.
We were reminded of my husband's health issues when he hurt himself again in 2013 falling on the ice when pulling the plane out of the hangar for our long flying trip to Puerto Rico. We managed to have a lot of fun and completed the 5,500nm and 55 hours of flying in 2 weeks. History repeats itself, at the end of the trip, he lugged a heavy divebag from the hangar to the car and aggravated the back injury. So he was on crutches and had to sleep on the living room floor upside down like a bat for 6 months.
I have been very lucky to be completely injury free and quite healthy. However anything can happen to both of us. We have been doing our best to stay healthy but at our ages, our physical conditions are on the decline and there are all kinds of potential illnesses lurking in the background (heart attack, strokes, cancer etc).
This has been a very long post. I think it is 'theurapetic' for me to write down what are in my mind. It is quite helpful. I will send HR my application for the voluntary layoff tomorrow.
I think I am ready for a new chapter in my life. Participating in this retirement forum in the last year or so has been a great help to prepare for this new chapter. Thank you all.
That's wonderful Bella! Can't wait to hear about your next adventures.
I'm a retired software engineer. I dabble in Open Source projects which keeps me quite happy as it keeps me coding and active in the tech world.
Maybe there is another outlet for your engineering skills that you can dabble in on the side.
My husband had suggested that I may consider working as a consultant or an adjunct professor in my retirement. However, I have many interests and things which I want to learn and do first (travelling/flying to many places, making use of my newly earned US rowing coach level 2 certificate, trying to regain fluency in French, learning Spanish/Italian, and maybe getting a practical nursing degree and joining my physician brothers/sister in charitable healthcare missions etc.)
I still feel somewhat unsettled. I think I will be more at ease with my decision after turning in the application tomorrow and more so after it is approved before the end of this month.
Location: Finally escaped The People's Republic of California
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About getting a mortgage in retirement , last may we started looking for our retirement home. My plan was to buy our retirement property with a mortgage, then pay it off after we sold our house after my retirement. The first lender wouldn't give us a loan,once I told them I was planning on retiring in a few months, even though my house I intended to sell was worth more than I was asking to borrow, even though my portfolio was several times what I wanted to borrow. They said. I might get a loan, after several months of retirement if I could show a steady income....so We went to a different lender, didn't mention retirement and got the loan.
About getting a mortgage in retirement , last may we started looking for our retirement home. My plan was to buy our retirement property with a mortgage, then pay it off after we sold our house after my retirement. The first lender wouldn't give us a loan,once I told them I was planning on retiring in a few months, even though my house I intended to sell was worth more than I was asking to borrow, even though my portfolio was several times what I wanted to borrow. They said. I might get a loan, after several months of retirement if I could show a steady income....so We went to a different lender, didn't mention retirement and got the loan.
So a person who can show an adequate pension retirement income after a year of receiving it should have not trouble. At least that is how it was for some friends of ours.
The first lender wouldn't give us a loan,once I told them I was planning on retiring in a few months, even though my house I intended to sell was worth more than I was asking to borrow, even though my portfolio was several times what I wanted to borrow. They said. I might get a loan, after several months of retirement if I could show a steady income....so We went to a different lender, didn't mention retirement and got the loan.
It appears that many lenders want proof of a steady source of income. For us, since we are delaying collecting our SS, next year we will only have a modest amount of monthly income (my husband very small pension and some stock dividends). If we want to get a mortgage, we will have to look for a lender who is willing to consider our asset instead of just monthly income.
One big advantage of having low income in the next few years is the opportunity to convert good chunks of our IRAs to ROTH IRAs to minimize our RMDs when we turn 70 1/2.
Looking on the bright side of not being to buy another home right away, we will have the option of trying to live a month or two in several locations before committing to a place.
I will have a lot of free time soon to work on down sizing and fixing up the house. Once we whittle down our belongings to the bare essentials besides few major pieces of furniture which we love (such as the handcrafted mahogany and cherry pieces made by a friend), and the house get sold, we will just put our stuffs in storage and try out the bohemian life for a year or two. On the other hand, we may get lazy and contented and just sit in our backyard sipping tea or wine and watching the birds, turkeys, deer and coyotes in the wood ;-)
So a person who can show an adequate pension retirement income after a year of receiving it should have not trouble. At least that is how it was for some friends of ours.
Don't worry so much about getting a mortgage - I just did a refinance for a lovely woman who 2 years ago could not refinance with Wells. She refinanced based on her Social Security income plus FUTURE monthly distributions from an account just being set up for her. It had to be a with a financial institution and we had to verify there were enough funds to support an additional $750 per month for the next 3 years. (There was much more).
The fund was just established and we verified its existence. Her son just was killed in an auto accident 3 months ago and unfortunately, that is where the funds are from.
This is through a lender that is selling the loan to Fannie Mae.
1. I will have some extended health insurance coverage before having to take Cobra next year. I had already allocated extra heath insurance cost to the annual expense in the first few years of my retirement when running the numbers.
2. As I had replied to RTB, the mortgage question was likely raised in my mind by the 'surprise' or 'shock effect' and not really a true issue.
So the bottle line is my emotional reaction to the this surprise new news, and the fact that I appear to have a choice for now. I have to wonder whether it would have been easier if I was not given a choice.
I'm confused:
1. Who uses COBRA anymore when you can get a policy through the Health Care Marketplace? COBRA Is ridiculously expensive.
2. If you have equity in your current home, how much of a mortgage do you truly need? I hope you are planning to under buy/downsize.
3. If you pass on the voluntary because you don't want to retire so soon, you run the risk of "involuntary" but since you want to retire, will it really be involuntary? Will you get better benefits if you retire sooner? If so, sounds like you have mor enumber crunching to do rather than emotional evaluation.
4. If your work is valuable to you, have you considered other work you might do in retirement that will fulfil that role? Who says you can't work anymore? People who work longer stay healthier.
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From a mortgage broker in Florida
