Greetings from the New Guy

[john135r]

Hello all. My goal is to retire as early as possible while being financially independent. A fairly typical goal around here. I do not want my kids to have to be financially responsible for me nor do I want to spend my “retirement” greeting shoppers to Wal-Mart or trying to up sell a large fri or apple pie to someone. And I definitely do not want to have to depend on the Government for anything and be subject to the budgetary whims of our Congress and Senate.

The specifics are to retire with a monthly income of $5000 after taxes. I was well on track for this until a few things happened…

First, in the late 90’s the senior executives of the company I work for used the employee pension fund (which was slightly overfunded at the time) to give themselves million dollar bonuses while the company was losing money hand over fist. The result is that we no longer have a pension. Add to that the fact that my company will also be taking 50% of my Social Security benefit by means of a “Social Security Offset” and I have next to no help from my employer in retirement.

Second, I got divorced in 2008. The ex-wife was “entitled” to half of my 401k. Since she never set up any type of pre-tax retirement account (and refused to do so after the divorce) I was forced to take a distribution from my 401k to give her what she was owed. Which cost me a lot in taxes, fees and penalties. In short, I lost two thirds of my 401k savings.

The up side to this is that through an aggressive 401k contribution and with some work on my fund selection I am getting back on track for a decent retirement date. At present I am looking at retiring when I’m 70 but I’m working on pulling that back to age 65 to 67. (I am currently 49)

My plan here is to go through this forum with a fine toothed comb and get as many ideas on retirement savings and retirement living that I can

 

[73ss454]

Welcome John and good luck with your plan. This is the early retirement forum ya know. Not too many of us plan on working till 70. Some hope to live that long. (heh)

 

[omni550]

Welcome, John.

There's a treasure trove of information here....some even refers to retirement.

omni

 

[bbbamI]

I applaud your enthusiasm for getting back on track to reach your goal of financial independence.

Welcome to the forum.

 

[CMH in CO]

Welcome to the forum, John.

You seem to have a positive attitude after suffering your misfortune. It is great that you are not letting it define you negatively.

Cass

 

[Lazarus]

I don't understand your Social Security Offset issue.

My pension has a Social Security Offset, meaning that my pension drops some when I reach 62.

Perhaps two different meanings.

 

[Walt34]

Welcome to the forum.

It is a good thing to face the gritty reality and you're doing what you can about it. And the result will matter when you do retire.

 

[john135r]

I don't understand your Social Security Offset issue.

My pension has a Social Security Offset, meaning that my pension drops some when I reach 62.

Perhaps two different meanings.

My company has a 50% social security offset. Thier attitude is: We paid half your social security tax, so we get half of your social security benefit.

 

[Lazarus]

Still don't understand. Can you elaborate?

 

[Bestwifeever]

Do you maybe have a frozen pension that's less that what you anticipated, that your company will then reduce by half of your anticipated SS amount?

 

[john135r]

Do you maybe have a frozen pension that's less that what you anticipated, that your company will then reduce by half of your anticipated SS amount?

There is a pension amount that I will recieve, about $1,200 a month. I have not researched it, but it is probable that this amount will be reduced by 50% of my SSI benefit.

 

[Lazarus]

So is this a government pension that is not covered by social security?

 

[john135r]

So is this a government pension that is not covered by social security?

This is a company pension. They have been trying to rebuild the pension fund for those of us who were covered by the original fund.

I do not believe that employees hired after about 1998 have any company pension benefits at all. They must rely solely on their 401k for retirement.

 

[obgyn65]

Welcome, John.