57 yr old - hesitant ????

[GraySpirit]

I think the greatest thing that bothered me prior to retirement was, did I have enough of a retirement income. Too much of my thinking was focused on the income side of the equation which resulted in thinking ... hmmm one more year ... wait for another pay raise to boost the pension ... put a little more in my 403 ... etc. etc. etc.

After my incident, I realized that at that rate I would never retire, because I was always setting the bar higher for myself. Now I focus on the expense side of the equation - trying to figure out how to actually improve my standard of living after retirement and cutting costs.

Of course moving overseas isn't for everyone, but in another month I'll be overseas and I expect to have more discretionary income in retirement than I ever had in my nice management job - and that includes paying off the balance of some remaining debt I hold. And with just a handful of tradeoffs, I pretty much expect to have a higher standard of living as well.

My only suggestion is to really look at both sides of the equation - managing your wealth and managing your cost of living.

 

[clifp]

I remember as a child, seeing my father flat broke and in the best of times we didn't have much. I vowed to myself that when I grew up I would never be in that situation. I went to college and got my present gov't. job 2 weeks after graduation. My wife tells me that I should be excited and to "go for it". I find myself thinking maybe I should work a little longer, but I can't think of a good reason why. Is retirement really as wonderful as my friends tell me?

You strike me as a cautious type so rather than leaping into to retirement as many urge, why not dip your toe. I would ask to take a long leave of absence. At least 6 months and preferably a 1 year. (If all else fails you can almost certainly qualify for Family Medical Leave of absence to take care of you or your wife's parents.) At the end of the time if you don't feel financially or emotionally ready to retire than go back to work. That is what I did and when my year was up, went back to the office and resigned.