Join Early Retirement Today
Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 03-04-2013, 03:42 PM   #41
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 11,401
Last weekend I met up with a friend who recently lost his (pensionable) job in the healthcare system because of some politics. He has 3 years to go until he is entitled to a full pension and the calculation places a lot of weight on the latter years of earnings. He is having difficulty finding employment. Looks like he will be left with a significantly lower pension than he had planned for, and a longer time to make it last.

Sometimes I think it is better to be responsible for your own financial future.....
Meadbh is offline   Reply With Quote
Join the #1 Early Retirement and Financial Independence Forum Today - It's Totally Free!

Are you planning to be financially independent as early as possible so you can live life on your own terms? Discuss successful investing strategies, asset allocation models, tax strategies and other related topics in our online forum community. Our members range from young folks just starting their journey to financial independence, military retirees and even multimillionaires. No matter where you fit in you'll find that Early-Retirement.org is a great community to join. Best of all it's totally FREE!

You are currently viewing our boards as a guest so you have limited access to our community. Please take the time to register and you will gain a lot of great new features including; the ability to participate in discussions, network with our members, see fewer ads, upload photographs, create a retirement blog, send private messages and so much, much more!

Old 03-04-2013, 03:46 PM   #42
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
REWahoo's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Texas: No Country for Old Men
Posts: 50,004
Quote:
Originally Posted by Meadbh View Post
Sometimes I think it is better to be responsible for your own financial future.....
+1

Including having the knowledge to manage your own investments - or to at least be able to verify your financial advisor isn't taking you to the cleaners...
__________________
Numbers is hard
REWahoo is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-04-2013, 05:01 PM   #43
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
 
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: North TX
Posts: 1,800
Quote:
Originally Posted by Meadbh View Post
Sometimes I think it is better to be responsible for your own financial future.....
Same here.

DW will get a small pension in addition to SS and 401k savings. I'll call the pension a cushion and not expect it to last forever...kind of like SS, ugh!
Surewhitey is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-04-2013, 05:05 PM   #44
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
youbet's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Chicago
Posts: 13,151
Quote:
Originally Posted by Meadbh View Post
Last weekend I met up with a friend who recently lost his (pensionable) job in the healthcare system because of some politics. He has 3 years to go until he is entitled to a full pension and the calculation places a lot of weight on the latter years of earnings. He is having difficulty finding employment. Looks like he will be left with a significantly lower pension than he had planned for, and a longer time to make it last.

Sometimes I think it is better to be responsible for your own financial future.....
In the rules of the plans I'm familar with, being entitled to a "full pension" is usually an age thing given that you have a specified number (usually fairly low) years of service. At MegaCorp, I would receive a full pension at 65 years of age, 50% at 55 yo and a sliding scale inbetween. I was canned long before I was 65, so I'm waiting to start my pension so that its a "full pension."

In terms of weight of latter years of earnings, ours used the average of the last five years.

Depending on the details, your friend may not have lost the farm, depending on the details of his/her plan, his/her age and yrs of service, etc. Been there, done that. I've had to wait 7 yrs to be old enough for a full pension and, yes, it's smaller because MegaCorp snipped off my accumulation of seniority years right when things were looking good. Still, way better than not having the DBP pension, which current employees don't have.

More than folks who got snipped off a few years early like your friend and I, the folks who got screwed in the DBP pension era were folks who spent a 30 or 35 year career divided between several different companies, never building up a significant pension at any one.

As you say, it's better to be responsible for your own financial future but having a DBP pension doesn't preclude that. Folks on their game leave gov't service or MegaCorp (when they had DBP pensions) with a DBP pension, SS, a well funded 401k/403b, well funded IRA's and, of course, money in your non-deferred FIRE portfolio.

Sadly.... I didn't quite get all the buckets filled..... Still, the RE fun goes on, as I'm sure it will for your friend.
__________________
"I wasn't born blue blood. I was born blue-collar." John Wort Hannam
youbet is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-05-2013, 05:32 AM   #45
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Brett_Cameron's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2011
Location: South Eastern USA
Posts: 1,068
The monthly statement for my pension from Megacorp states that the funds were paid from one or more of three annuities with three different insurance companies.
Brett_Cameron is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-05-2013, 06:26 AM   #46
gone traveling
 
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: DFW
Posts: 7,586
Quote:
Originally Posted by JOHNNIE36 View Post
Alan, thanks for your post on the GM pension "sale" to Prudential. It is a sale because GM purchased annuity for me and no longer has any ties to the pension program. I agree with other posters that I am better off under the Prudential plan than if GM was still funding the plan.
My former mega-corp did this last year. I would point out that the PBGC fall back went out the window by virtue of the offload to Prudential, so you will not have that to fall back on should Prudential run into difficulties, although there "may" be some other state mandated annuity protections to help you sleep a little better.

When I retired from mega-corp in 2003, I had the option to take lump sum, various annuity schemes, or to mix and match lump sum and annuity. As I didn't trust mega-corp and given my pension was above PBGC threshold, I decided to take the lump sum. That said, if I had envisioned being in the interest rate environment we have now, I might have decided on taking the pension up to the PBGC limit and the rest in a lump sum. Oh well, we just have to make peace with whatever path we chose and hope for the best.
eytonxav is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are Off
Refbacks are Off


» Quick Links

 
All times are GMT -6. The time now is 04:29 PM.
 
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8 Beta 1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.