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I can't believe it's been almost a year since I retired! I have had zero regrets - don't miss the office at all. I'm still in touch with some folks from work and every time I talk to them, well, let's say I'm happy I am where I am! My financial activity was about what I anticipated. I put off...

Jackpot!! :clap: I practically begged to be put on the list, but it didn't work out that way. Congrats and ENJOY!!

Congrats to tmitchell and all of the rest of the newest retirees!! Enjoy :)

Congrats! It will be here before you know it. Start the celebrating now! :dance:

Totally get that. I worked in banking operations for 28 years. It wasn't proof of assets they were asking for - they had that with the statements I provided. It was proof that I was going to take a certain amount of income from those assets. And a confirmation of an automatic withdrawal wasn't...

I retired in April and juggled the same decision - lump sum or pension annuity. I took a couple of months to think about it, but just this week decided to take the lump sum. My concern about inflation eroding the purchasing power of the annuity over what could be a 40 year retirement outweighed...

The letter was very odd. Sidetrack here: They wanted a letter that said I intended to withdraw $6K/month from my brokerage account as a substitute for income. I didn't actually have to make the withdrawal, just say that I intended to (both my broker and I thought it was ridiculous, but worth a...

I'm so frustrated with Vanguard these days. Might be the end of the road for me. I opened my Vanguard accounts (brokerage and IRA) 10+ years ago. Transfer of assets into Vanguard was super easy. And I let them sit there relatively untouched ever since. All good. Fast forward to this year. I...

Nice! I've been out 5 months now and it's been pretty sweet.

Yes, I do them by myself and love it. Definitely possible, although I do delve into the hints now and again when I get stuck. I'm hoping to find other local folks who like this sort of thing, as I do think it might be fun with a small (2-4 ppl) group. Then again, I'm a little bit of a control...

Oh, and I've discovered a new hobby that I'm working on accommodating in my budget. My sister gave me a mystery game subscription for Christmas (deadboltmysterysociety.com, although I'm finding there are a ton of companies that so similar things) and I'm hooked! They're about $25/each, so if I...

Congrats! And as for that decision... good luck! I went back and forth so much that my decision ended up being to defer my decision :angel:

Congrats on making your decision!!

My budgeted travel is part of my regular expense/withdrawal plan. As a solo traveler, it's targeted at $20K/year. But since I just retired, it's actually hard for me to pull the trigger on spending it! (Don't worry ... I'll figure it out :) )

Like many here, I'm anticipating a changing WR. Just retired earlier this month. Plan is ~6% WR for the first 12 years (more travel, 7 years left on my mortgage), then down to about 3% after SS. A bad sequence of returns early on can shift that, as there is quite a lot of discretionary built...

I think everyone has their own "moment" when you just know. I had been talking about retiring for about 5 years, and financially could have done so, albeit with different levels of financial security. I had ideas of what I wanted to do in retirement. But I never pulled the plug. I was less and...

Love that quote! I'm only 2 weeks into retirement, so still don't have a "pattern." My thought about activity has been that most days, I'm aiming to do something physical, something intellectual, something productive and, at least a few times a week, something social. None of these need to be...

With all of the craziness of the past two weeks, I forgot to pop in here and make it official. As of last Friday, I am unemployed for the first time in a LOOOOONG time! It's been a great couple of days. It feels sort of like I'm on vacation, but with no extra email to check and no fretting about...

My boss at the time said she figured I was retiring when I emailed her to ask when she could talk. She was very happy for me, but then again, she had recently announced her retirement, too. We ended up leaving the same day (last Friday). Since my boss was retiring, there was going to be a...

Yes, today was my decision day. And my decision was to defer my decision :) I am really still torn between the options. Every one of the points people brought up here resonate in some measure or another. I did confirm during my conversation with the retirement specialist that I can defer a...

Please don't make your head hurt! I would feel awfully guilty ;)

So I sort of ignored this, since it didn't seem to help with the decision. But the relative value information provided was (in summary): The interest rate assumption is 0.50% for the first 5 years, 2.38% for years 5 through 19 and 3.17% for years 20 and later. Relative value percentages for...

Good question. Yes, there is the option of deferring until "at least Normal Retirement Date" (per the pension package). I can't use the internal tool to calculate amounts any more because my retirement is being processed. However, when I did a number of calculations prior to announcing, it did...

Well, so far you guys are articulating the exact debate I've been having with myself for the past many weeks! I will add the following: Per I-ORP, the break even point for me would be age 90. At that point, both options come up with the same spending level. Prior to that, the lump sum is...

I have to make a decision on Friday for my pension benefit. I have two choices: Lump sum: $852K Single life annuity: $3,797/month ($45.6K/annual) Immediateannuities.com estimates a $3,385/month payout for that lump sum, which indicates that the annuity is a better choice, financially. I'm...