Poll: Do you have a pension?

[1242Vintage]

CalPERS retirement and I'm embarrassed to say just how much it is, almost criminal. I also get 100% medical and dental for life for both myself and wife.

I never talk about my retirement benefits in front of family or friends. Most of my fellow retirees do the same simply because most people get angry over it.

I’m CalPERs too. And on my lane I have a retired CHP officer and a couple from State Tax Board. We all wave and smile when we see each other at the mail box. No words exchanged but we all know we have comfortable pensions.

 

[euro]

Nope, no pension. Megacorp turned it into a cash balance plan about halfway in...... well, I suppose I could have taken an annuitized payout instead of lump sum - does that count as pension?

 

[Dean56]

I'll be getting a corporate pension when I retire.
Megacorp froze our pensions in 2008.

 

[JohnnyBGoode]

I think it is quite telling that (according to this poll at least) almost 2/3 of the participants on this board have a corp or govt pension. This is a far higher percentage than the typical American. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/17/her...e-really-getting-their-retirement-income.html

Just goes to show that FI is remarkably difficult without a pension.

 

[Mountain skier]

what does SIRE stand for?

 

[MRG]

No pensions here. When I started Megacorp in 84 they said no pension but we have profit sharing. They contributed 10% of our wages into a private fund. A year later a coworker did a presentation on how compounding with past returns projected out. Numbers said we'd have a million in 20 years. Didn't quite work out but there was changes due to a 401k addition, we still could get the 10% but you had to contribute some too.

DW gets 1400, SS today, I'm planning waiting till 70 as I'll get close to the maximum amount.

 

[Midpack]

what does SIRE stand for?

SIRE - Secure Income, Retired Early

SI generally applied to pensions, FI depends on personal assets for income.

https://www.early-retirement.org/fo...slang-frequently-used-on-the-forum-34884.html

 

[powerplay]

I have a federal pension.

 

[Mountain skier]

SIRE - Secure Income, Retired Early

SI generally applied to pensions, FI depends on personal assets for income.

https://www.early-retirement.org/fo...slang-frequently-used-on-the-forum-34884.html

Thank you

 

[Deej]

DH has two corporate (non-cola) pensions, fully funded by the company, and totals about $46K/yr. Forty years in with four more months to go until ER!

 

[martyp]

I have a University of California COLA’d pension plus Social Security now. I forget what % of my salary it is. I want to say 75% but that was 10 years ago and the cost of living increases have increased that now. I have some savings on top of that. I lost 20% of those savings in the 2009 crash but that wasn’t enough to deter my ER decision. I am now living in Thailand so my pension provides a comfortable lifestyle and I can still save some.

 

[brett]

Pensions pay approx 75 percent of our pre covid spending expenses. They cover our entire living expenses during covid with excess monies sent to saving.

Savings this year will pay for our new roof! Given the choice, we would rather have travelled and pulled the rood money from investments.

 

[teej1985]

I will have a federal pension in my 60's, but if I FIRE it will not be much.

 

[Mook1e]

I retired from the military almost 3 years ago after 26 years w/ pension and va disability. Combined equal more than my active base pay by a good bit. Both have historically been sufficiently cola'd.

 

[oiseux]

I'm thinking the poll results were skewed by the title. I have no pension but DH has not not only a private pension from the current job, but recently got a mailing that outlined another micro-pension (private). That jogged the memory about a third, private micro-pension. I thought that was unusual until I saw Alan's response.

 

[Perryinva]

Corp pension w/severe diet COLA, (almost 26 years), no contribution, 35% of final years gross salary, but better than 50% of take home after FICA, MED, health, life, 401k etc. ER @61, with subsidized HC until 65 of $300/mo. DW gets 2 small teachers pensions, diet COLAs, and started SS @62, for total of about $2k/m. If I start SS at 68 in less than 5 years, SI will be about $9500/mo. If we can’t live comfortably on that, then we have a spending problem.

I, too, am surprised at both the percentage of pensions and some of the amounts. $200k/yr in pensions? Yowsa. Some high salary people here!

 

[Brianjone5]

My DW and I have defined contribution pensions totaling about $1.1m, all yet to be started, 6 years into my retirement.

Next year I become eligible for a social security pension, but I am undecided whether to take it at 62 or to wait, as it increases 8% a year.

 

[Out of Steam]

I think it is quite telling that (according to this poll at least) almost 2/3 of the participants on this board have a corp or govt pension. This is a far higher percentage than the typical American. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/17/her...e-really-getting-their-retirement-income.html

Just goes to show that FI is remarkably difficult without a pension.

Agree, we could have retired at 62-63 without a pension using ACA and early Social Security, but our living standard would have been very modest.

 

[jollystomper]

I think it is quite telling that (according to this poll at least) almost 2/3 of the participants on this board have a corp or govt pension. This is a far higher percentage than the typical American. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/17/her...e-really-getting-their-retirement-income.html

Just goes to show that FI is remarkably difficult without a pension.

Many in this self-selected group tended to have jobs with skill requirements that are not easy to find. Thus those tended to offer (at least in the past) pensions to compete in the labor market. Also many here also worked with an employer long enough to qualify for a pension.

But given the size of most of the pensions that have been mentioned, I do not know if I would say "remarkably" different. It would be harder, but still possible, though one might need to spend at a "comfortable/survival" level instead of a "Blow That Dough" level. Other factors such as one's debt level and having to care for parents or children would also come into play.

Though my pension is over $6k a month, without it I could still be FI on just our investments and SS. One reason I delayed my retirement to that level of pension was to ensure that as long as I had 2 out of 3 income sources (pension, investments, SS) we would be comfortable and only have to cut back on "extravagant" expenditures.

 

[stepford]

Though my pension is over $6k a month, without it I could still be FI on just our investments and SS. One reason I delayed my retirement to that level of pension was to ensure that as long as I had 2 out of 3 income sources (pension, investments, SS) we would be comfortable and only have to cut back on "extravagant" expenditures.

Though my pension is a fraction of that, my logic was the same. I am cautious enough that I waited to ER until my savings would be enough to support my family without pension or SS. This means the pension serves as a comfortable buffer rather than primary support.

An interesting element that few have mentioned in this thread is that those of us with non-COLA'd pensions basically need two strategies: one for early ER when the pension is significant and one for later retirement when inflation has rendered the pension less so. This is why I am particularly cautious about large expenditures from savings during the first 10-15 years of retirement. During this phase, growth of savings is still an important aspect of my ER strategy. After that point, savings (hopefully with an assist from SS) will be by far the largest contributor to available spending and the pension won't matter much at all. That will more truly be the decumulation phase of my retirement and I'll worry less about growth and more about capital preservation.

 

[brett]

One difference between pensions is the amount the employee contributes.

I did not have to fund my DB pension. My sister had to fund hers at 8 percent. There is a huge difference between these DB pension benefits and percentage payouts. Combined with the SS like Government pension her total pension contributions were 12 percent of salary.

The average person will have something like five to seven employers in their working life. For many, DB pensions are not ideal because they lack the longevity with an employer to build up the credits.

Since retiring nine years ago inflation has been very low. This may change over the next few years. I assumed early on that we would need to supplement my DB pension because of higher living expenses and the effects of inflation over time.

 

[FANOFJESUS]

Dh has a 75k per year, non Cola pension from a company that does a lot of government contracts (aerospace)

I am either retiring in June 2022 or June 2023 from public education. I work in a district that has good funding so salaries are good. My pension will either be about 86K or 96k depending on which year I retire. No cola, but a 2% increase each year but it’s based on your original pension amount, not cumulative.

I always find pension amounts like this amazing.

 

[Koolau]

I always find pension amounts like this amazing.

It really does show the variability of incomes on a forum like this. Still, MOST here would be considered "solidly" middle class and not "rich" - and I don't mean to start another discussion of what is "rich."

I'm just pointing out that our spread of incomes can be quite significant. I do think a lot of times, "total compensation" may be weighted toward "now vs later." IOW some folks accepted somewhat lower salaries at the time because they were promised very good pensions later on.

In my case, I had a more modest pension but a relatively generous participation by Megacorp in our DB plan AND a salary that typically was in the top 10% for the industry. My Megacorp WANTED us to stay for an entire c*reer so sweetened the pension the longer we stayed. So "early retirement" was "relatively" costly to my Megacorp's empl*yees.

Our empl*yee compensation package also included a very generous health insurance program during empl*yment. It also included on-sight clinic with 24 hour nurse and access to a Doctor by appointment. Megacorp encouraged us to have our "own" doc, but I knew many folks who ONLY used the clinic - saving quite a bit of money on personal health insurance costs.

Finally, we received very good supplementation of health insurance after retirement. I will say, THAT part was not guaranteed and Megacorp reneged (somewhat) after I retired. They still supplemented our health insurance but not nearly as favorably. As far as I was concerned, before MC the mere PROMISE of health insurance - even if relatively more expensive - was an excellent benefit before ACA became a reality.

Very much a YMMV situation within our members here.

 

[Green Papaya]

A very small pension, about 5% of planned budget, when we turn 65.

 

[jollystomper]

An interesting element that few have mentioned in this thread is that those of us with non-COLA'd pensions basically need two strategies: one for early ER when the pension is significant and one for later retirement when inflation has rendered the pension less so.

This is a very good point. The best I could come up with for my "early" plan was to accumulate enough in cash savings, adjusted for expected inflation, to cover the difference between my pension and our planned "extravagant" spending level before I take SS. I am fortunate to have hit the 35 year maximum SS tax payments to get the maximum SS benefit, and that will help as inflation more impacts the pension.