5 months to go...

[PageTwo]

Hey there!

Very glad to have found this forum. I've been lurking around for a couple of months already, learning a lot and enjoying the various discussions and viewpoints on retirement, both on finances and also about retired life in general. I have to say, I really like this community and the overall tone of all the discussions. This is a very civil and cordial corner of the internet, compared to other forums and communities I'm part of!

I'm turning 55 this year and will retire from Megacorp 2 months after my birthday - my target date is Sept 30th. I'll probably break it to my boss sometime in July so I can give him plenty of time to figure things out, and help him train other(s) to take over my role.

I've been saving aggressively for many years and semi-thinking of early retirement, however what I didn't do sooner was to seriously explore scenarios and feasibility. I only recently learned about Firecalc and other similar tools which, at this point, show me with a 100% rate of success. Part of me wishes I'd done it sooner, but I'm also proud of my career and I've certainly enjoyed it, so no regrets, really.

My savings, across taxable, pre-tax 401K and Roth 401K, are about 2.6 million. My house is not completely paid off yet but I recently refinanced taking advantage of the ridiculous early-pandemic interest rates, and lowered my payment to about $750 a month which fits very comfortably within my budget. The interest rate on my mortgage is 2.85%! No other debt.

Single, no kids. This certainly makes it a lot easier…. My heirs will be nieces/nephews and if the simulation tools have have it right and the markets cooperate, even in a conservative scenario they are bound to get a nice surprise when Uncle Scrooge finally kicks it!

Feel free to ask any questions. Looking forward to some good conversations with this community!

 

[travelover]

Welcome and congratulations. I would consider minimizing the time from my announcement until your last day. Once you are leaving, you quickly become invisible. It can be an agonizing period.

 

[Love This Community]

Congratulations on your FIRE journey. Agree with Travelover especially since you enjoyed you career thus far, you don’t want the last 2 months to be insignificant ( unless you have great rapport with your boss and colleagues over a period of time. Four weeks is a good compromise. Welcome aboard!

 

[Bamaman]

Congratulations on your success at executing a good plan of action.

You're retiring very young. What interests and hobbies do you have to spend your retirement years on?

I'm into camping and boating. We also travel internationally.

 

[38Chevy454]

Congratulations on your pending retirement. Small suggestion, consider last workday as 1-2 days into October if your employer policy gives an extra month of insurance if you at least work a day in that month. Unless you have other insurance, might make those couple days worth it.

 

[PageTwo]

Welcome and congratulations. I would consider minimizing the time from my announcement until your last day. Once you are leaving, you quickly become invisible. It can be an agonizing period.

Congratulations on your FIRE journey. Agree with Travelover especially since you enjoyed you career thus far, you don’t want the last 2 months to be insignificant ( unless you have great rapport with your boss and colleagues over a period of time. Four weeks is a good compromise. Welcome aboard!

I see your points. I do have great rapport with my boss and team so I trust that after the initial shock, things should go well. You definitely gave me food for thought, though. The opposite is also a consideration - I don't want him feeling that I gave him too little notice to ensure a smooth transition. We are not a big team and there's a lot on my plate - it will all need to find a new owner.

My boss is a just few years older than me, and I'm sure he's doing quite well financially. I wonder if I'll plant any seeds in his brain

 

[PageTwo]

Congratulations on your pending retirement. Small suggestion, consider last workday as 1-2 days into October if your employer policy gives an extra month of insurance if you at least work a day in that month. Unless you have other insurance, might make those couple days worth it.

Good suggestion! I'll look into this.

 

[PageTwo]

Congratulations on your success at executing a good plan of action.

You're retiring very young. What interests and hobbies do you have to spend your retirement years on?

I'm into camping and boating. We also travel internationally.

The picture is still getting into focus for me, haha. There are a few big components - one is music, another one is fitness, and a third one is volunteering. All things that I've been doing for many years but that were necessarily pushed out to the fringes. It'll be interesting to see how each of them can develop and compete with each other for all that newly-available free time.

The above all sprinkled with some good traveling of course. Work has taken me around the US and to Western Europe often, but there are big parts of the world I definitely want to explore like Eastern Europe, SE Asia, Australia/New Zealand...

 

[skyking1]

I see your points. I do have great rapport with my boss and team so I trust that after the initial shock, things should go well. You definitely gave me food for thought, though. The opposite is also a consideration - I don't want him feeling that I gave him too little notice to ensure a smooth transition. We are not a big team and there's a lot on my plate - it will all need to find a new owner.

My boss is a just few years older than me, and I'm sure he's doing quite well financially. I wonder if I'll plant any seeds in his brain

congratulations!
Oh wouldn't you be surprised if your boss beat you to it

 

[Love This Community]

I recently read a post here when one of our ER members submitted his resignation, boss asked him to hold on to it for one more day. Next day, looks like boss turned in his resignation along with our ER members resignation letter. Thought that was one heck of a story. OP, you have a chance to repeat that. Just need to give your boss a little more inspiration / nudge...[emoji12]

 

[jgman]

Hey there!

Very glad to have found this forum. I've been lurking around for a couple of months already, learning a lot and enjoying the various discussions and viewpoints on retirement, both on finances and also about retired life in general. I have to say, I really like this community and the overall tone of all the discussions. This is a very civil and cordial corner of the internet, compared to other forums and communities I'm part of!

I'm turning 55 this year and will retire from Megacorp 2 months after my birthday - my target date is Sept 30th. I'll probably break it to my boss sometime in July so I can give him plenty of time to figure things out, and help him train other(s) to take over my role.

I've been saving aggressively for many years and semi-thinking of early retirement, however what I didn't do sooner was to seriously explore scenarios and feasibility. I only recently learned about Firecalc and other similar tools which, at this point, show me with a 100% rate of success. Part of me wishes I'd done it sooner, but I'm also proud of my career and I've certainly enjoyed it, so no regrets, really.

My savings, across taxable, pre-tax 401K and Roth 401K, are about 2.6 million. My house is not completely paid off yet but I recently refinanced taking advantage of the ridiculous early-pandemic interest rates, and lowered my payment to about $750 a month which fits very comfortably within my budget. The interest rate on my mortgage is 2.85%! No other debt.

Single, no kids. This certainly makes it a lot easier…. My heirs will be nieces/nephews and if the simulation tools have have it right and the markets cooperate, even in a conservative scenario they are bound to get a nice surprise when Uncle Scrooge finally kicks it!

Feel free to ask any questions. Looking forward to some good conversations with this community!

Congrats. I'm 56, single, and just filed my retirement papers yesterday. My retirement date is September 30 also. 30 years with the federal govt. Planning my dream trip to Europe in summer 2022.

 

[1242Vintage]

Congratulations!!! Retirement is truly awesome.

I retired last May when I turned 56. Everything is truly better post-retirement. And enjoy the process of ramping down from a career of work into the retirement lifestyle.

 

[PageTwo]

With less than 3 months to go, I figured I'd post an update here.

I talked to my boss with the news 2 weeks ago. He took it very well after a few seconds of quiet initial shock (it was an internet call without cameras on, so I had little to go by to assess his reaction!). He even said that he was a "bit jealous".

He was grateful that I gave him a full 3 months of visibility, and also, quite receptive to my suggestions regarding how & to whom transition my different projects. Minutes after our call, he followed up with a VERY nice email offering congratulations and stating how he appreciates me and how my leaving will be a loss for MC. I especially appreciated that he never once tried to bargain for additional time or push back on my decision.

Next step is to talk to HR to see if they would allow me to take all my unused vacation at the tail end. I'm planning a week off later this month and then I intend to work August and September without interruptions to hand over my stuff to whomever by boss determines. In that scenario I'll end up with over 5 weeks of vacation to burn which I'd rather use versus cash out.

More soon... this is getting very real, and very exciting!

 

[Born2Fish]

All good, congrats!!

 

[SmallCityDave]

With less than 3 months to go, I figured I'd post an update here.

I talked to my boss with the news 2 weeks ago. He took it very well after a few seconds of quiet initial shock (it was an internet call without cameras on, so I had little to go by to assess his reaction!). He even said that he was a "bit jealous".

He was grateful that I gave him a full 3 months of visibility, and also, quite receptive to my suggestions regarding how & to whom transition my different projects. Minutes after our call, he followed up with a VERY nice email offering congratulations and stating how he appreciates me and how my leaving will be a loss for MC. I especially appreciated that he never once tried to bargain for additional time or push back on my decision.

Next step is to talk to HR to see if they would allow me to take all my unused vacation at the tail end. I'm planning a week off later this month and then I intend to work August and September without interruptions to hand over my stuff to whomever by boss determines. In that scenario I'll end up with over 5 weeks of vacation to burn which I'd rather use versus cash out.

More soon... this is getting very real, and very exciting!

Sounds like you did it the right way!! Congratulations.

 

[old medic]

With less than 3 months to go, I figured I'd post an update here.
More soon... this is getting very real, and very exciting!

Congratulations..... My 5 Months to Go was Friday....
Yes the Excitement (and some apprehension) is building.

 

[pacergal]

Congratulations, the next few months will go faster than you think!

 

[Dtail]

Congrats. Sounds like everything is working out just fine.
Now welcome to the upcoming best part of your life.

 

[38Chevy454]

Seems that your plan is working out. Is the reason for preference to use vacation at the end in order to get a couple months of insurance? It is nice that your boss is receptive to your suggestions and seems to appreciate your advanced notice.

 

[Dean56]

September will be here before you know it. Got any travel plans for after retirement? You'll have plenty of free time.

 

[PageTwo]

It's time to make another change to my signature line... The light at the end of the tunnel is getting bigger and brighter, and it's not a car coming towards me!

Apologies as it seems I missed a couple of your comments after last month's update - will need to look at my subscription settings.

Seems that your plan is working out. Is the reason for preference to use vacation at the end in order to get a couple months of insurance?

That's the main reason, yes. I plan to leverage COBRA for a while so I figured it was better to stay on the payroll and retain my benefits through mid-November. There are some other benefits worth retaining too, like a free consultation with a financial planner, some legal help for wills, etc. Figured I can work on that as first order of business after stopping work and will have about 6 weeks to do so.
​

September will be here before you know it. Got any travel plans for after retirement? You'll have plenty of free time.

As it turns out, Covid-permitting, there *could* be a work-funded trip to Barcelona in late September. It sounds like the stars may align to have MC pay for the airfare and first part of the trip, and then I could extend my stay in Spain on my own dime. I'll have to research how the pandemic is faring in Spain. Other than that, no immediate travel plans, however it's funny how the Universe could be pushing travel my way if the above were to happen.​

In other updates - this is the week when, according to the exit plan we agreed to with my boss, we will tell the rest of my team that I'm leaving. This will open the door to transition work as portions of my workload will be passed on to different co-workers, including possibly a new hire. Things are unfolding generally according to the timeline we agreed to, except the hiring process for my backfill. Given the fact that our team's charter/scope is growing, I can see a scenario in which my workload is divided among other existing team members/contractors and my boss takes his time to backfill my position and give the new person a different focus.

I'm getting very excited as the time nears. My list of projects for retirement continues to grow and more and more I'm wondering how the heck I'll be able to get to it all It's the best kind of anxiety one could possibly want!

 

[citrine]

Congratulations! I am glad it is all working out smoothly Hopefully, you will get that trip to Barcelona and get to extend your stay/start your retirement with a bang!

 

[Clover5]

Congratulations! On the healthcare front you might find that a similar plan on the ACA marketplace is significantly cheaper than Cobra. In my case I save 1k a month going with ACA.

 

[PageTwo]

Congratulations! On the healthcare front you might find that a similar plan on the ACA marketplace is significantly cheaper than Cobra. In my case I save 1k a month going with ACA.

Thanks for the tip! I'll definitely look into ACA alternatives.

 

[Bee4]

Page 2, My target is 13 months from now. How did you get through the 8 months up until your announced "5 months left"? I am finding it harder and harder, even I went to 30 hrs/week inJune.