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I detest my job and will retire at 55. I could double my monthly pension if I worked until 62, but that's 7 more years of hell. I have invested well, have mutual funds and will live pretty frugally in retirement.
Life gets more and more precious as you age. One year of hell in a job is not worth more in pension. Just spend less in retirement, that's my feeling!
I retired at 53. I could have doubled my pension if I worked until 60. The last few years the 12 hour days were killing me. Back pain, chronic migraine syndrome that I worked with, never called in sick, the place was a sweat shop. I always got "outstanding" reviews but it was ruining my health. Constant pressure, impossible deadlines, endless drama. Even lasting to 55 would have provided another $10k per year. My "ah ha" moment was eight months before I retired when I told my husband "If I have to work there two more years, I would rather kill myself." I had never talked like that ever. I retired. We sold our house by the ocean and bought one 50 miles away, far cheaper and paid cash for it. I have always been a good saver 15% into retirement funds and since my husband became disabled 8 years before I retired we were used to a modest lifestyle. Debt free and we can live off of my greatly reduced pension and use the retirement savings to pay for healthcare. Spending 20 hours a week doing volunteer work and have never been happier. If you don't hate your job stay for the higher pension if you are in my situation, no money is worth the suffering.
[quote=Ultrarunner;40571807]I'm still amazed there are people with pensions...
You must take into consideration that those of us that retired with a pension STARTED work 30+ yrs ago...what now is not normal was very much the norm back then..
For a lot of people the medical insurance is still the elephant in the room...
I know the affordable health care act was to make insurance available to all and at a lower cost...
We still have people working part time for medical.
It certainly was for my sister who died of cancer.....the Obamacare plan offered her NOTHING in the way of assistance when she became too ill to work and had to leave her job. There was NOTHING "affordable" about it, and lower cost is a joke. When they want to charge YOU 5K of an 11K procedure, guess what, that 5K is a VERY unaffordable amount if you are now unemployed because you are dying.
I retired at 53. I could have doubled my pension if I worked until 60. The last few years the 12 hour days were killing me. Back pain, chronic migraine syndrome that I worked with, never called in sick, the place was a sweat shop. I always got "outstanding" reviews but it was ruining my health. Constant pressure, impossible deadlines, endless drama. Even lasting to 55 would have provided another $10k per year. My "ah ha" moment was eight months before I retired when I told my husband "If I have to work there two more years, I would rather kill myself." I had never talked like that ever. I retired. We sold our house by the ocean and bought one 50 miles away, far cheaper and paid cash for it. I have always been a good saver 15% into retirement funds and since my husband became disabled 8 years before I retired we were used to a modest lifestyle. Debt free and we can live off of my greatly reduced pension and use the retirement savings to pay for healthcare. Spending 20 hours a week doing volunteer work and have never been happier. If you don't hate your job stay for the higher pension if you are in my situation, no money is worth the suffering.
YOU GUYS are a TRUE success story! Not only did you do what is BEST for you, but you made it all possible by planning and saving! Hats off to you two!!!! Unfortunately, OPTIONS are not something that everyone "worked and planned" for, and not everyone was as smart as you were to prepare for the future. Those are the folks that NEED to work longer than those of us that made plans for the "down the road" scenarios.
How many people have opted to take early retirement at 55 and forgo a more beneficial pension? I am contemplating retiring at 55 and have saved well and have a part-time job that I plan to make full-time when I retire from my current job. However, almost everyone I know thinks that it would be unwise and that I should play it safe and stick it out for another 5 years since my pension will be almost double. For those of you who have voluntarily taken the leap, would you do it again if you were given a do-over?
Only you can answer this question, we don't know your lifestyle, spending habits, health, debt, etc. My advice to you is to find a good financial advisor and take an objective look at your financial picture now and in the future (inflation). If it looks good then do what's best for you. My brother was laid off at 54 years old a couple of years ago, he was having a bad time finding a job, it was really affecting him mentally, but he's always been good with money. So, he opted to take his pension early, he took a lower paying job because he could afford to, he's happy, and confident financially and plans to fully retire at 62.
In the 1990s the Navy went through many phases of down-sizing. I knew guys who took a $30k [pre-tax] bonus check and left with a greatly reduced pension. I think all of them had to find new careers. The down sizing was so severe, some of us were concerned we would be booted out without any benefits. In a later phase of the down-sizing, I did have friends who were booted out with no benefits.
I was able to stay in, until they forced my onto pension through their High-Year-Tenure policy [basically your too old so go away]. My pension works out to about 1/3 of what my salary had been.
My Dw is a Federal employee. She just learned that next month she will be eligible for their early retirement. Her agency has been on the proposed chopping block many times, and they have been re-structured each time. There has been a lingering threat each time congress debates the budget, that this entire federal agency might vanish. In five years she becomes eligible for their full pension. Her early pension is 20% less then the full pension. But either way, the numbers are small, it is like $360/month compared to $450/month.
The 'retire early, retire often' phrase is one I have heard many times. I have known many men who served in the military for 20 years and when they were forced onto pension, they went right into Federal agencies for a second pension. Hoping to get two pensions before SS.
My 20 year military pension provides just a bit over Minimum-Wage income.
Far more important then the income is the healthcare package. I could live near a military base and receive 'free' healthcare on-base [provided by corpsmen]. I did that for 20 years, my Dw and children were all treated on-base. It was free, you get what you pay for. Or I can live remote away from military bases, I have to pay enrollment fees and co-pays but I am treated by doctors who have been through college. I find it well worth the fees for an entirely different level of medical care.
I did it, retiring at 51 and taking my pension immediately. I left a lot of pension money that I could've have had on the table. At that point it was necessary as I had reached a point in my career where I was so stressed out that many nights I would toss and turn for hours. Some days I thought that I would lose my mind. I was treating everyone around me as a dumping ground for my frustration and anger. I couldn't have done it if it weren't for the fact that we both had pensions and healthcare and dental coverage through our retiree plans. It just wouldn't have been feasible. DH had reached the point that he would make almost as much retired as working, so for him it was a no-brainer. For me it took a lot, knowing how much I was giving up (about $2k a month more if I had stayed to 60), but we both decided it was time for a total change. Moving to a lower COL state was a huge relief to our budget. It has made us a lot closer to know that we made a huge life change and that we are in this together.
I didn't make this decision lightly, and I advise you to consider it carefully. I worked out our retirement income streams and expenses on the computer. Week after week, month after month, I dutifully researched where all our money was going and where we could make cuts if we changed states. I made charts and diagrams to illustrate, to myself as much as to my DH, that this would work. Eventually it came down to trusting that we could make it work out somehow.
Today I have not a single regret. We live a nice life and we love our new state. We have everything we need and most of what we want. I'm so glad that DH trusted me enough to know that I would not make a decision that would hurt us as a team, and that he was willing to give up everything he'd ever known in order to live without either of us working ever again.
Could you perhaps restructure your current working situation to make the next 5-years more pleasant (ie; 4-day work week, remote (home) work, shift in undesirable areas (call it 'training a successor')) - 5-years is not that long and double a guaranteed pension IS a big deal; as are 10-years of health benefits. (I retired at 60 and we are financially in good shape ... largely because my wife worked a final 5-years towards a good pension, rather than retire earlier).
One thing that one who is miserable in their work situation needs to seriously confront is how much of their misery is self-induced. Is this the only time you have really been unhappy in your career? ... Do you face some of the same issues outside of the work environment? --- Once you take the leap into retirement at 55, you will find going back very difficult .... if retirement doesn't resolve your issues. --
Another very important question is, "Do you have a challenging, exciting, involved retirement planned?" ... or are you simply imagining that retirement will 'take care of itself.' I ask, because if you are enough of a 'driver' to realistically be financially able to retire at 55, you may find that having nothing to 'drive' in retirement, is not what you were hoping for.
I could have wrote this post myself as I am facing the exact situation. I decided to stick it out until 2020 for about a 40% increase on my retirement. In fact I also thought of going at 55 and working PT but I don't want to be in a position where I might need to work more than 3 days a week unless I want to.
May 23rd 2020 and I am DONE!
If you can hang in there it will be worth it!
It's important that when making the decision to retire later, consider the added risk of the pension rules changing or being eliminated. I retired at 47 with 30 years service with a full pension. The day after I retired the company changed the retirement rules and started to decrease the pension amounts. 2 Years later the company bought-out the pension with a lump sum of 2 years pay. Not even close enough for retirement.
Even government municipalities, and states are looking at (or forced to) make changes to their retirement programs.
Social Security is also being mentioned in house discussions about changing the minimum age to 65 or 66. This may happen with a new administration.
By retiring now, the retirement amounts will be locked and more likely to sustain any future changes. The future has no guarantee to maintaining any current rules or amounts and could drastically change.
How many people have opted to take early retirement at 55 and forgo a more beneficial pension? I am contemplating retiring at 55 and have saved well and have a part-time job that I plan to make full-time when I retire from my current job. However, almost everyone I know thinks that it would be unwise and that I should play it safe and stick it out for another 5 years since my pension will be almost double. For those of you who have voluntarily taken the leap, would you do it again if you were given a do-over?
60 is early retirement. 55 is called quitting.
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