Not yet, but boy am I starting to think I better come up with one PDQ. Plan A was to continue working and maxing out my Roth and 457 plan for at least another three years, probably four just to be sure. Now my workload is down so much I am getting really worried. Nobody has said the "L" word--yet--in this department--but layoffs have been announced in another department and mine can't keep paying me full time indefinitely when my workload is down to perhaps a quarter of what it was last year (and the second half of last year it was drastically lower than the first half of the year or 2007), unless there is some other work I can do in addition to my regular assignment to get back to full time. I'm applying for some lateral transfer openings but if I don't get any of those....
On top of the job concerns, a big part of my ER plan was and is the equity in my house, but I have to wonder if the value of the house is dropping more each year than I am able to put away in my retirement fund? It sure wouldn't sell for what it was appraised for three years ago when I refi'd.(Where/how do get this info?) The other variable is how much pension I am eligible for. At least if I get laid off I could at least theoretically start drawing it right away, which makes me a
little less nervous than I would have been if this had happened two years ago when I could not have done so. I might be able to delay my actual retirement date for a year by taking a sabbatical but need to check if this would actually accomplish anything. I may be eligible for a higher pension at age 54 than age 53, even with the same base salary and years of service.
So far, Plan B consists of reading
Mortgage Free (by Rob Roy) to see how it might be possible to acquire a house for much less than what I was planning on spending (half the equity, give or take). (Well, that and wringing my hands a lot.
) If I can put all the money from selling my house into something that produces an income stream, and use that for pay-as-I-go construction, instead of buying a house with cash up front as I originally planned, maybe I would come out about as well as with Plan A. I've been planning to build the house myself anyway, that's a long-standing dream.
Maybe it won't be so awful, even if I do get laid off. I was un/deremployed for the better part of 3 years during the recession of the early 1980's and I find I have not gottten over it as much as I thought I had. This is making me mega-nervous. Maybe I have PTSD. I was traumatized, that's for sure!
, adopted balanced 50/50 AA, just in case. 
, etc. 
