Poll: OMY - how many?

[REWahoo]

W2R, I see what you mean. It is almost like I should wait for 20% drop then see if I still have enough.

+1

The best time to pull the plug is when the market has dropped significantly. Unfortunately that's whet it's the most difficult to work up the courage to give up a job.

Yesterday, DW and I went to our usual hiking spot and pondered our future risks that might affect our OMY plan:
1. die prematurely
2. get real sick (cancer, other major disease)
3. market drop 20%-50%
4. boomerang kids

You left out the asteroid strike...

 

[robnplunder]

I vote for two more years to increase traveling budget in RE. - or + one year depending on how the market does.

 

[My Dream]

I retired at age 49 which was 4 years earlier than planned. I wish I had waited a couple more years but didn't have much of a choice since my dw gave me an ultimatum, my family or my career. You see, I was self-employed and a workaholic and it was taking too much of a toll on our marriage. When I retired I gave myself a to do list that would last me about 10 years and I'm still working on it. In the meantime my wife started a part time job which lead to a full time, so I wouldn't worry so much about, "where is the money coming from".

In the end, it worked out great as my marriage is stronger than it has been while I was working. Now the kids…..have grown up, and become a handful.

 

[robnplunder]

You left out the asteroid strike...

Divorce ...

 

[robnplunder]

The problem with that is that sometimes people don't want to retire if the market is up ...

This reminds me. Perpetual OMYers are there b/c they keep finding reasons to do OMY.

 

[hakuna matata]

Nope--not even close, the whole mindset doesn't work for me. We are still working but still on track for this fall. I would be retired now but we had to wait for my wife to get her 20 years in so she can get her pension. It isn't a huge pension but provides a large enough base for our retirement that we would have been fools to pass it up by her quitting when she was so close to getting it. And if she worked, I worked But all is on target, even though these last 183 work days are tough (not that I am counting or anything).

 

[CaliforniaMan]

The problem with that is that sometimes people don't want to retire if the market is up because maybe that means a crash (or dip) is coming and it can be bad to retire at the top of the money and then have a huge crash soon after retirement.

So you get to a point where you can't retire if the market is up or if the market is down which can make it hard to retire at all.....

I added a 20 to 35% decline to my numbers to see if I should still do it. Adding in SS, it would still be a yes. It wouldn't be as much fun for sure, and I would cut back a bit, but I would still do it.

I am winding it up within a month or two of my plan, to finish up at the end of the quarter and clean up some loose ends.

I don't want to sound cute, but for me it was really more helpful to think of it as OLY rather than OMY. One less year I am healthy and able, and fired up to do the things I have planned. Based on all of the uncertainties of life, I decided OLY was not worth the gain of working OMY.

 

[John Galt III]

I had 2 years of OMY Syndrome going, and the 2 years might have become 8 years, but I got fired after 2 years of OMY.

 

[REWahoo]

With 50 voting so far the split is precisely even: 50% no, 50% yes. While I expected the OMY folks would be numerous I really didn't expect half.

 

[racy]

I voted No.

Last summer I came home from a stressful day at megacorp, grabbed a beer and joined my wife who was floating on a lounger in our lake. Half way through my Sam Adams it hit me: I don't have to put up with anymore stress, I could retire. And, so I did 7 months later.

 

[ziggy29]

Megacorp made that decision for me before I reached the point of pondering OMY. In retrospect, I'm really glad they did....

My original intention was to be out by 50. They whacked me at about 47 1/2. I had no say in the matter, but with the severance they gave me I would have taken it even if it were optional.

 

[rodi]

I've been saying age 55 or sooner if I'm offered a severance. I was planning on getting a severance last year when our division was sold to a new corporate overlord. So I was ready. That didn't happen.

I'm padding the nest egg in the meantime... and 2.5 years to go till absolutely drop dead date of my 55th.

If the market goes up a lot - I'll pull the plus sooner...
so I'm in the waffling OMY state.... It's not my drop dead date yet - but a year ago I thought I'd be retired now.

DH on the other hand just talked to his employers and meets with SocSec. on Friday - his birthday. He's not even waiting one extra day.

 

[REWahoo]

Divorce ...

Redundant - same as an asteroid strike...

 

[Live And Learn]

Our biggest concern is what happens if market drops 20%? Do we still go, or do another OMY?

My OMY disease is partially caused by my Fidelity RIP shortfall year dropping from age 92 to 81 if I only use 80% of my portfolio.

 

[Sirka]

No, I pulled the plug when I hit my goals:
when I turned 55 (2005) and earned enough to fund IRA for the year (March)
DW already pulled the cord (2004), so that mad it easy.

 

[TallTim]

Probably will succumb to OMY or perhaps 2.

For us, it's more a question of
(1) whether to work at all (part-time, consulting, etc) or not
(2) how much we really want to travel in RE
(3) whether to count on anything from SS in 20+ yrs
(4) whether to assume any lump sum windfall from my ILs later on.

The sooner we leave, the more these or some combination of them will come into play.

Interestingly enough, once DW got over the initial shock of me showing her the numbers and that it could actually work at a high confidence interval, I have been equivocating and she has been the one saying get out right now!.

 

[robnplunder]

Redundant - same as an asteroid strike...

(Recalling from another recent thread on who initiates divorce more, men or women)

For men, yes. For women, an asteroid strike (divorce) is heaven sent. My wife spells alimony as allthemoney.

 

[Alan]

I knew my date from a LONG way out, planning to ER at age 58 as soon as I got my "80" points to qualify for the pension and health insurance. At age 50 I went into HR to ask some question or other about retiring and the HR guy (a good friend) said, "Wow, you can exit at age 55, a year before me". This was a wrinkle in my favor that I hadn't realized I had when I made a permanent transfer from my UK company to the US subsidiary company. Although my US pension was based on the number of years worked, and I still will get a small UK pension based on the 7 years service I had there, they count all the years together when calculating the 80 points. (age + years of service).

 

[MichaelB]

My date was set in stone. I was assigned overseas for 2 years (to the US) and had a contract with an expiration date. They said at contract expiration I needed to become a US employee. I wanted to return to Venezuela. We couldn't agree, so we parted ways. Life is funny, because we never did more back to Venezuela, as other things happened.

 

[ocdokie]

I stayed three more years.

I originally planned to retire in 2007, at age 48, as I would then have 30 years' service with the state. Lo and behold, late in 2006 I got a $20K per year raise. My pension plan bases its retirement benefit on years of service x 2% x the average of the final 3 years' salary.

Waiting 3 more years to take advantage of using that raise amount increased my pension amount from $27K annually to $45.5K. Staying on also helped by raising my years of service to 35 (33 actual years worked, plus service credit for having gobs of accrued sick leave and the maximum allowed of annual leave).

So, I retired in 2010 at age 52 instead of 48. Looking back, I'm glad I did -- and I still consider it an early retirement.

 

[gerntz]

I had two projects I wanted to see completed. Once those reached the market, retiring was straightforward in less than a year.

 

[FIREd]

We are partly in OMY mode right now. We reached FI to fund our everyday living a few years ago. But, with DW being in no hurry to retire (we reached FI well before our planned retirement age), we use the additional savings to fund a number of accounts earmarked for fun stuff like remodeling our retirement home or paying for future travel.

 

[RunningBum]

I think a lot of people exit OMY mode because of some event rather than just deciding to finally leave. It might be a retirement/lay-off package, a required job change, new boss, health situation, increase tax rate (ok, let's not go there again!) or any number of things that trigger it. I had a great situation so I probably was in OMY mode for more than 2 years until I finally got the exit package to push me out the door.

 

[robnplunder]

I think a lot of people exit OMY mode because of some event rather than just deciding to finally leave. It might be a retirement/lay-off package, a required job change, new boss, health situation, increase tax rate (ok, let's not go there again!) or any number of things that trigger it. I had a great situation so I probably was in OMY mode for more than 2 years until I finally got the exit package to push me out the door.

I agree.

I have been waiting to no avail for severance package (layoff or voluntary). The other events that can stop my OMY syndrome is having it out with my evil boss that leads to my resignation or termination, my parents passing (no need to support them), and my winning a lottery (or some kind of financial windfall).

People tend to hang on to their job when they have health problem. The job is needed to ease finance hardship that comes with fixing one's health problem.

 

[RunningBum]

People tend to hang on to their job when they have health problem. The job is needed to ease finance hardship that comes with fixing one's health problem.

That can be true. I was thinking more of my dad's case where he had a heart attack a few years earlier and was still having some stress related health issues so he retired at 62. Or if they've got medical taken care of, some realize their days may be dwindling and want to make the most of them.