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Did you retire on your 62nd birthday? The day after you turned 66 and ten months? January first of the year so that your previous year’s partial work income wouldn’t be deducted from social security? The end of a big work project or fiscal year? Or did you choose a completely random date?
I have a ways to go to my own retirement, but I enjoy reading the discussions here.
I’m not yet retired, but my planned date is based on my FRA. Luckily, that also happens to coincide with my pension full retirement date. I never thought about that - boy did I start this job at the right time.
Interesting question.
I am 70.5 years old and 87.3% retired.
I have been working from home since 1996. Slowly working less as I approached 70, but was in a one more day mode. Every day I worked was a day that I did not withdraw from our retirement funds. I did start collecting Social Security at 68.
On May 2, 2019, I fired my largest customer. Two events happened: 1) Retirement funds hit a magic number and 2) My 'fun meter" was pegged with this customer.
So, starting this month, I began to withdraw retirement fund money.
I'd long planned to retire on my 65th birthday, which conveniently falls in December. It gave me a finite date by which I'd have mortgages paid and have found a retirement home away from Midwest winters. Worked out perfectly.
There can be lots of things to consider when choosing a retirement date in both government and private sector jobs. I chose to retire at age 62, not because of Social Security, but because my pension multiplier went up 10% at age 62. And my pension was based on high three year salary. I got a large raise at age 59 and this helped increase my pension even more. Retired at end of federal government fiscal year (Sept 30) so that I could avoid the many end of the year administrative tasks that I disliked including the annual performance assessment and review. That meant I did not get a bonus for the year but our bonuses were so small that I did not care. And I wanted to enjoy the fall season and the Christmas holidays.
Other possible factors:
If you can cash out accumulated annual leave, retire at end of the year so that the extra money is counted against the next tax year when your income is less. Otherwise the extra money could push you into a higher tax bracket the year you retire.
Government jobs may have a lot of holidays from Veterans Day to New Years Eve. Work to January 2 or after MLK Day to take advantage of these. And you may be able to fully fund your 401k or IRA for that year if you just work a few months into the year (and be ready to enjoy the spring and summer months in retirement).
Time your retirement so that you get your last bonus. There may be important dates associated with company stock options, stock vesting, etc. Also some companies do not pro rate vacation time but give you a lump amount on a certain date.
If you are a couple of years from Medicare age, you could time retirement to use COBRA as a bridge. Not as important today with ACA but some prefer their company health insurance over ACA. Also you may have to work for a certain number of years or to a certain age to be eligible for company retiree health insurance. Or working the first day of the month may mean that your company will fund health insurance for the rest of the month.
I had planned on retiring in July of this year, it would have given me 40 years of Govt. service. But a lot of crazy stuff was going on and my supervisor was getting a little too demanding for me so I changed it to June. ONE MORE WEEK!
I will go on my 65th birthday at the latest. That's when Medicare kicks in. If things go very well over the next couple years, I could do it at 64 or 63, but have to pay the healthcare premiums, which I'd rather not do. If we had universal healthcare, I could go right now.
I had planned on retiring in July of this year, it would have given me 40 years of Govt. service. But a lot of crazy stuff was going on and my supervisor was getting a little too demanding for me so I changed it to June. ONE MORE WEEK!
Congrats....those 7 days will be the longest ones by far.
But day 8 will be glorious !!!
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