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Call it crazy thinking. But if the op stays, he is in a sense, paying for that extra money.
Let's say his pension is 50%. That means he is only coming to work for theoretically 50% of his income.
Now factor in that the OP may not pay state tax or city tax on his pension, may not pay SS on his pension or healthcare. If that is the case his take home amount may be close to what he is already taking home now. Therefore he would only be working for a few extra dollars per week. If that is indeed the case, OP should lean on leaving sooner than later as you are working for peanuts.
That's sort of how my pension will work. I am planning on "popping smoke" at 20 years.
John retired at 56 with 30 years on the job. He wanted to leave after 25 years and now he's glad he waited for the 75%. So am I because I will be quitting my job next Friday without another one lined up. I don't have a pension or a 401k opting for passive income instead. If I would have had a pension I would have sucked it up and maxed it out. Less is not more in this case and you never know what twists and turns lie ahead. Some of them are quite pricy and the extra money will come in handy.
It seems everyone's case is different but, in mine, I have the option of "buying time" (up to five years) by diverting my paycheck to the retirement fund. Luckily, I have savings enough to live on in the meantime (it's taking about two years to pay off combined with rollover from other sources) but, of course, I'm also paying interest on it. Am too math-challenged to ever crunch the numbers and decide if this was truly fiscally wise or not, but it seemed like a good idea at the time, so I did it (inviolable contract now). At any rate, I'll be 57, full benefits. Single w/ no kids, I'll travel and move to the beach.
In your case or others, it depends on what you're retiring from, what you're retiring to (it's important to have a goal, which may or may not include working), and how long -- as well as where and how -- you plan to live...
I agree goals are very important
And one really needs a very good detailed plan if they are going to leave their job and take their pension
For some people or those who can't stand their job like myself I plan to leave in 20 years
Somehow life has a way of working itself out whether you have the money or not
And that's life
For myself I can't stand the New York City area, I long for desolate beaches farmlands and that's just me. I have four more years to figure it all out. I still plan on working but I would like to take my pension and run to another state. Dreams are very good things to have
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..
I started paying into Social Security at age 12... became self-employed after college to age 30 and then had an offer that was good enough for me to become an employee as Hospital Engineer and the reason was the benefits... profit sharing, sabbatical leave, generous 401k match, stock options, etc... I actually took a slight pay cut but the benefits more than made up for it.
Through mergers and acquisitions the above is all gone... not the way I planned it... in hindsight, being self employed would have proved much more lucrative...
Thankfully I did keep a small portfolio of investment real estate that has done very well the last 33 years.
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?
Several guys I worked with left at 55, which is the age we become eligible to "early retire" at a significant loss of retirement income. EVERY ONE of them went full time either as soon as they could or eventually to make ends meet or because they were bored.
One went to deliver auto parts, one is working hvac, one is working at a junk yard. ALL of them are working for less than $10hr and working harder than they did where they all worked with me. To top it off, these guys were all making $100k+ a year!
WHY would anyone in their right mind that knew they couldn't make it on retirement income/savings quit a 100k job for a menial job? I don't get it.
I would only retire if I knew I could afford to live on my income/savings without ever working another day. Makes no sense to me at all to retire and go back to work.
Just look at it this way since you're in education you can take a mini-retirement every summer for a little over 2 months then go back to work-just keep doing that a few more cycles and you'll be there
I'm right there with you in the same field and this line of thought helps me get through
It's nice to be in a field with a series of beginnings and endings-it's particularly hard now though to stick it out in education because those of us who are close to retirement have seen much better days at the beginning of our career/ now in most states (if not all) education has become more of a high stress, politically-charged field
Last edited by Blessed310; 07-27-2015 at 11:29 AM..
It makes sense if your job has changed so much over the years that your health and sanity come into play.
OP says he's in education. Education today is not what it was 20-30 years ago.
OP also says he's not going to claim his pension until he turns 60 which would be a 20% reduction.
OP wants to leave now and work somewhere else for the 8 years it takes before he claims his pension.
Teachers with lots of years are being pressured to leave, either verbally or given outrageous assignments in hopes that they will leave so they can hire new grads at much lower salaries.
I don't think the OP is alone in this. The various school districts around me still have lots of open positions and teachers go back in about 2.5 weeks to get read for the school year. Normally there's only a few openings left this close to starting the next school year.
Well in the corporate world 55 is early retirement as long as you have the years.
30 years is retirement eligible regardless of age.
The age of 60 means nothing. It's a combination of years + age that determine pension retirement eligibility.
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