Yes you mentioned that up earlier. That’s why I wonder if that’s the reason your pension is so high. Your pension takes that into account. My coworker who worked here over 50 years didn’t get over 70% of his salary.
I’ve used Mark Cuban’s several times for a medication that is not in my insurance formulary. It took a few calls to get the doctor’s office to understand what I wanted them to do and how to do it, but it has worked fine. Since I first used them, I have found the medication equally cheap through GoodRx so not sure I will use them again. But worth price checking with them.
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Unless you want to leave it all behind, depleting is the proper word. (I think the industry uses ‘decumulation’.). Yes, it’s all about spending, but also spending down assets. (unless you have so much that you can live off the interest & dividends and/or pension and/or SS)
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I’m voting for the trip! A big bucket list trip!
We hired a kitchen and bath designer and an interior decorator because we can’t agree at all.
I feel my husband’s taste is very old fashioned and he thinks mine is too modern. Hoping the professionals can see a way for us to agree.
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Massachusetts teacher pensions max out at 80% of the average of your last 3 years. You reach 80% via a combination of age and years of service. Many MA teachers are able to reach the 80% level, as long as you joined the system at a young-enough age. My pension level is not unusual. I accept about a 4% reduction to produce a survivor benefit for my wife should I predecease her.
I did pay 11.5% of my income into the pension fund, and the fund is in good financial shape.
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If you want to travel, sooner is better than later (go-go/slow-go/no-go concept). We have a pretty big line item in our expected expenses each year for travel. It does seem to eat into funds we’d spend on our home, but we don’t pull up our iPads and look at home photos like we do our trip photos :).
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That’s what I’m telling my husband. It took us 10 years to relocate - five years to convince him it was the right thing to do, and five years to decide where and make it happen. Mind you, I always knew we’d end up in San Diego! I asked him if he still wanted to be climbing ladders from the balcony to clear snow and ice off our flat roof when he was in his 70’s. Also noted that if we kept waiting, we wouldn’t be able to leave our doctors.
As it is, the Oz/NZ trip would likely not be until next year in the winter. He needs to understand this is not something we can plan a month or two ahead! He thinks he is slowly reviewing the choices but soooooo many other things (like tennis/news/yard care) take priority on his time. I’m going back through all the options I first developed and thinning them down. He wants to do it analytically but hasn’t really looked at it subjectively. Both approaches are needed!
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Sometimes the spontaneous trip was better than the big planned trip. Less time to ponder and dither. Decide and go.
My husband is not great at either traveling or making decisions on travel. Since he is ambivalent about traveling. So I made an executive decision and he didn’t protest.
These things are hard when both aren’t on the same page. But if I waited for him to come to a conclusion, it would be a long wait. I waited years for him to retire so we can travel. He goes as long as I plan. And don’t go too often.
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That’s an interesting perspective and I am finding it helpful! I have just recovered from a very scary medical situation and can retire at 79 percent salary. Am strongly considering doing that.
But…I have also been out on disability for five months now and …am getting a bit bored. So not certain what I should do!
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We’ve done a few Decide and Go trips, taking advantage of good offers on frequent flier miles. It works especially well if you are retired/flexible, but worrying over long term health of elderly relatives.
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We had a hard time wrapping our heads around this, but we kept hearing people who had retired from our company saying that after all the taxes and deductions are taken out of your salary, the difference is not near as much as you think. So I wrote the numbers out, which always helps me.
I figured out what our annual average pay was, minus all taxes and deductions, union dues, social security, Medicare, disability insurance, additional costs of commuting 2K miles to work (maintaining an extra car, hotels, airline tickets), and what we were contributing to our 401K’s(since obviously we wouldn’t do that after retirement). Then I compared that to what we’d get for our pensions, minus federal taxes. I came up with a number so small, that our youngest son, who was working a crummy low paid contracting job, started laughing hysterically. “So you guys are working full time to get paid less than I am? What are you thinking?” It really made more sense, when I realized that we were working for very little take home money, so we retired at age 58, and we don’t regret it. I totally get people continuing to work if they love their jobs and feel a sense of purpose, but we were tired. Living out of a suitcase, sometimes working nights and our lives just flying by. All for an extraordinarily low salary.
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If you are ‘getting a bit bored’ you have not gotten to setting a good routine for retirement and enjoyable retirement. Perhaps with being out on disability, you were just thinking about getting well and getting back to work.
If you have health care covered and have enough saved along with pension at 79% salary, it would be worth exploring how you can enjoy retirement. Retirement is something to enjoy.
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Thanks! I am fortunate to have great health care as part of my retirement plan and I also hav great spousal coverage for both health care and pension stipends.
Great point about not yet having a routine established. It’s true that the last few months have been focused on recovery and lots and lots of paperwork related t that. Now that things are getting smoother, excellent point about figuring out a long term routine that works for meX
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When my husband retired, his company offered retiree health care. It was probably the biggest reason he was able to retire when he did.
They’ve decided to not offer to cover retirees and their spouses on their health plan. But to have us go on the exchange and they will offer us a stipend.
Ugh! I hate the unknown. I have no idea what will happen next year when my husband transitions to Medicare but I will not until 2027. The mailings have been vague and confusing. I guess we will see what the future holds.
We do have savings and fortunately we are close to Medicare age. This is the part that stinks. You retire with one benefit but the company can change that. Union retirees, their healthcare will not change but it does for salaried employees.
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Yup. My dad’s retirement was drastically changed after the fact. The salaried retirees from his company sued, but they lost their lawsuit. Companies are allowed to change the benefits that they offered when they were trying to get rid of their older workers … which is just one of the many reasons I am staunchly pro union. I know from my dad’s experience & from my H’s experience that companies will take as much as they can from employees. My brother was union at the same company, and although he lost some things, he lost much less than the salaried folks - who were not protected by a union -lost.
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That’s terrible. I’m glad that you at least get a stipend. If you need help sorting through the exchange options, consider starting a thread… it’s a topic of more and more interest as time goes by.
NOTE: You may want to minimize taxable income (ie defer selling assets with lots of gains) for a few years to perhaps qualify for lower rates on the exchange.
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Yea, it sort of stinks that we weren’t told this until August. After we had committed and sold investments. We are minimizing our spending for the rest of the year but it would have been nice to have advanced warning. So we could have planned.
There was a very confusing, no information letter in June. Big word salad of nothing. Only that our healthcare was maybe changing. Then another letter in August saying that there had been many questions! Saying that we will be assigned someone to help us through this process. In September. They did tell us how much they will be giving as a stipend. No information if that will be enough to actually buy healthcare.
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Good luck, deb922! That to me is the biggest factor in retirement (if before 65 and even after) - the healthcare piece.
Like you I am wary of the unknown (especially having had amazing healthcare for many years which will not continue into retirement unless I pay abt $28k a year).
I’d be really interested in experiences people have had with the ACA - is it a paperwork challenge, do they cover all sorts of unusual health situations? etc.
My fear is going on ACA and getting some unusual illness that’s not covered or needing a social treatment that is not approved.
Fingers crossed for you!
ACA PPO is California covered the same stuff my employer’s plan covered, so from that perspective, it was fine. Only had to pay full price for 6+ months, to bridge to Medicare.
The downside was that CA’s plan is a stickler for their computer system requirements.
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Hop over to the Bogleheads forums. There are numerous people with lots of knowledge about bridging retirement healthcare using the exchange.
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