Leonidas
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Before I do the intro I want to tell you all how grateful I am for finding this board and how much I am learning from your combined experience. I’ve been lurking here for a while and want to join in some of the discussions, so here is my story:
So…when I was 18 the only ideas I had for “careers” involved either the military or law enforcement. The idea of serving and protecting others had a lot of attraction, but the reality also was that I just never saw myself doing anything else because I saw it all as “boring”. And to my then childish mind, being bored was a fate worse than death. Don’t worry – I outgrew that – when I was 43.
The Marine Corps was fun, but without a war all of the training started to get – you guessed it – boring. A twenty-five year career in law enforcement provided me with all the non-boring entertainment I could stand and I found myself one night, after yet another particularly exciting series of events, thinking that I was too old for all of this fun.
A couple of promotions in as many years found me doing a job that I hated but the owner of a pretty darn good pension package and a family that I felt I had neglected.
In the early 1980’s I got a small windfall, some of which I wasted on stupid things and the rest I invested in what turned out to be the greatest bull market ever. As it grew larger I admit that I was scared to mess with it and was extremely conservative in my decisions. The result was that I took a hit when it fell, but not as bad as most others and it has grown back quite nicely since then.
At 45 I had over $3M in after tax investments, a pension that started at $53K a year, health care for life and tax-deferred accounts of almost $300K. Then they offered me a deal to stop working and still get paid for two years+ while they paid me back for a career’s worth of never used sick and vacation time.
I crunched numbers for a few months and everything said, “you can go now”. But it was only after the CEO decided that he wanted me to do the most-demanding (and most-hated) job my pay grade was eligible for that I called HR and had them cash in my chips. In 45 minutes I went from a vague idea of retiring in two years to looking for boxes to pack my junk in.
When I left I had a lot of ideas about what I wanted to do for myself, but the only real goal I had was being a bigger part of my two sons’ daily lives. My job had always offered flexibility to be there for all of the major events in their lives, but there had been too many times when I said good night over the phone while on surveillance in New York or Miami.
Sixty-hour weeks have been replaced by playing golf and doing homework with the kids. I’ve spent a lot of time learning all I can about investing and financially surviving retirement, but I have yet to figure out what I want to “do” for the rest of my life. I just turned 47, the oldest son is a Junior in HS and the youngest is in 7th grade and while family is still my top priority, there are some things I want to do before I'm too old. My wife seems open to anything, but we have yet to decide on any changes. If anything, picking something from the number of possibilities is the real challenge.
So…when I was 18 the only ideas I had for “careers” involved either the military or law enforcement. The idea of serving and protecting others had a lot of attraction, but the reality also was that I just never saw myself doing anything else because I saw it all as “boring”. And to my then childish mind, being bored was a fate worse than death. Don’t worry – I outgrew that – when I was 43.
The Marine Corps was fun, but without a war all of the training started to get – you guessed it – boring. A twenty-five year career in law enforcement provided me with all the non-boring entertainment I could stand and I found myself one night, after yet another particularly exciting series of events, thinking that I was too old for all of this fun.
A couple of promotions in as many years found me doing a job that I hated but the owner of a pretty darn good pension package and a family that I felt I had neglected.
In the early 1980’s I got a small windfall, some of which I wasted on stupid things and the rest I invested in what turned out to be the greatest bull market ever. As it grew larger I admit that I was scared to mess with it and was extremely conservative in my decisions. The result was that I took a hit when it fell, but not as bad as most others and it has grown back quite nicely since then.
At 45 I had over $3M in after tax investments, a pension that started at $53K a year, health care for life and tax-deferred accounts of almost $300K. Then they offered me a deal to stop working and still get paid for two years+ while they paid me back for a career’s worth of never used sick and vacation time.
I crunched numbers for a few months and everything said, “you can go now”. But it was only after the CEO decided that he wanted me to do the most-demanding (and most-hated) job my pay grade was eligible for that I called HR and had them cash in my chips. In 45 minutes I went from a vague idea of retiring in two years to looking for boxes to pack my junk in.
When I left I had a lot of ideas about what I wanted to do for myself, but the only real goal I had was being a bigger part of my two sons’ daily lives. My job had always offered flexibility to be there for all of the major events in their lives, but there had been too many times when I said good night over the phone while on surveillance in New York or Miami.
Sixty-hour weeks have been replaced by playing golf and doing homework with the kids. I’ve spent a lot of time learning all I can about investing and financially surviving retirement, but I have yet to figure out what I want to “do” for the rest of my life. I just turned 47, the oldest son is a Junior in HS and the youngest is in 7th grade and while family is still my top priority, there are some things I want to do before I'm too old. My wife seems open to anything, but we have yet to decide on any changes. If anything, picking something from the number of possibilities is the real challenge.
