Poll: Does a Pension factor into your FIRE Plans?

[JohnnyBGoode]

This is a follow up to a poll that was conducted 5 years ago.

Poll:What are your sources of retirement income?

Pensions (especially private sector ones) are becoming more and more rare - but they do seem to be mentioned fairly frequently on this forum. So the question for everyone is:

Do you have a pension that has any significant impact on your retirement budget?

Thanks to exnavynuke for the suggestion to re-run the poll.

Edit: This should not include Social Security. While that is likely an important factor in most people's retirement calculations, it is available to most (but not all). This is considering a specific defined benefit pension from a private or public entity

 

[2017ish]

"No." But, that excludes Social, which I'm still not comfortable counting on. (Currently 57 & 56).

If we consider social, would still be insignificant in our present planning and decision to retire.

 

[Dash man]

My non-cola pension is only $1385/mo. Every penny helps, but we're living comfortably off of our investments. Mostly individual stocks, a couple of index funds, CDs and savings accounts.

 

[RetiredGypsy]

It was a military disability pension, and luckily it's covering 100% of spending. I've spent so little though that I invest the rest; I'm not comfortable with the idea of thinking I'm safe under this particular umbrella.

 

[rodi]

I have two small pensions. (One from my former employer that was frozen when we were acquired by a bigger company... the other from the bigger employer, which was frozen a decade ago.) Together they add up to just about 7% of our total budget.

We also have rental income that makes up about 21% of our total budget (before expenses... but the expenses are part of our budget).

DH is on SS - that's another 21%

So about half our budget comes from savings/investments... the other half from these sources... the smallest of which is the pensions.

 

[kaudrey]

I am not yet retired, but have been a Fed for 26 years. I plan to retire at 57 with a FERS pension. It will cover about 60% of my projected spending.

 

[38Chevy454]

My modest pension will be about 15% of my budgeted income, so I would say it has a decent factor in ER.

 

[Alan]

By coincidence I received the first monthly check of my 4th private pension today. They are all non-COLA and I've been receiving the other 3 since retiring 7 years ago. They are enough to cover all our non-discretionary spending.

 

[surf n turf]

I have one small pension($1100/mo) and another smaller pension($300) that will both likely be insolvent by the time I am eligible to collect them. So not counting on either but it will be nice if they're there.

 

[braumeister]

I'm extremely lucky in that my military pension covers most of our "essential" expenses and DW's non-COLA pension covers the rest of them.

Just started taking SS last year and it will cover a good part of our discretionary expenses (mainly travel), so our WR is quite low and likely to stay that way.

 

[stepford]

My frozen Megacorp pension is enough to take care of my day to day expenses, but discretionary stuff like toys and major trips come out of my portfolio. The pension pays for more than 50% of my total expenses early in ER (I'm 56), but as it's non-COLA I expect that percentage to decline considerably over the years. Assuming SS is still around by the time I take it at 70 it will pay substantially more than the pension.

 

[Danmar]

Have a large non cola pension that represents a little less than half our income in retirement. Survivor benefit elected at 100%. Taxed as regular income. Divs keep growing, pension does not. Almost an afterthought when working but sure glad we have it now. I treat this as my FI component of my AA.

 

[W2R]

My itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny yellow polkadot [-]bikini[/-] FERS pension covers 10% of what FIRECalc says I can spend*.

So, I checked "Yes, I have a pension, but it doesn't have a significant impact on my retirement budget."

I make fun of it like that, as you all know, but I am so sincerely grateful and happy to have it! Any pension beats no pension at all and I love seeing it deposited in my checking account every month, like clockwork.


* (with 95% probability of not running out of money)

 

[exnavynuke]

I have a military disability pension that will cover almost all of my "essential" spending once I pay off the mortgage. That leaves a small amount of essential spending and all discretionary spending needing to be funded from my investments.

 

[supernova72]

Yes, mine does factor in. I'm a recent *retiree* (July 2016) and my former Megacorp had a defined benefit pension plan. As it stands now it's covering 80% ish of my expenses.

In a weird way it's covering day to day expenses (excluding fed taxes, prop/home taxes, vacations). I believe I'm from a similar company as Stepford.

 

[supernova72]

My frozen Megacorp pension is enough to take care of my day to day expenses, but discretionary stuff like toys and major trips come out of my portfolio. The pension pays for more than 50% of my total expenses early in ER (I'm 56), but as it's non-COLA I expect that percentage to decline considerably over the years. Assuming SS is still around by the time I take it at 70 it will pay substantially more than the pension.

Sounds familiar---see post above!

 

[kimcdougc]

We have a small non cola pension that represents about a 1/4 of our income retirement. Glad we have. Have survivor's benefits at 75%. Life is good.

 

[Amethyst]

We have Civil Service Retirement pensions, taxed the same as ordinary income, and we do not qualify for Social Security.

 

[Carpediem]

A cool $3600 non-cola(ed) annual pension here when we're both retired. Better than a sharp stick in the eye, I suppose.

 

[jollystomper]

My pension covers over half of our planned retirement budget. However, I've modeled retirement with and without using my pension figures, and the "100% success level" of spending is only 13% less than our budget. Without the pension gives us a comfortable retirement, with it we can be a bit more extravagant.

 

[Huston55]

Have two small pensions, one of which is COLAd; together they are ~20% of total annual expenses. Also have a rental property which we plan to convert to a CRT (annuity) which, when combined with the pensions, will cover slightly >25% of total annual expenses.

Although slightly off topic, the retirement benefit that's as valuable as either of the pensions is TriCare, which likely saves us ~$1k/mo; although it's tough to estimate the actual dollar value in today's environment. But, suffice to say, the value of TriCare is not going down.

 

[Teacher Terry]

We each have a pension. It covers most of our basic expenses. Traveling, eating out etc is not included. I had forgotten that we will get raises. We got paid today and I noticed the amount had increased and sure enough we hit the 4 year mark for a raise. We will get a raise from now on every year.

 

[scrabbler1]

I could answer the third or fourth choice in the poll. I won't be eligible for my old, frozen company pension until I turn 65, in 12 years from now, and 20 years after I first ERed 8 years ago. That pension is fairly small ($1,000 per month, non-COLA) and is one of my "reinforcements" I can add to my retirement income starting at age ~60. Hence, it's "No Pension" for now and the first 20 years of my retirement, and "No significant impact" after that.

 

[hankster]

I'm fortunate to have a pension (non COLA) that will cover our non-discretionary spending. DW will have a small pension at age 65.
401k, Roth IRAs and taxable for discretionary spending and inflation.
SS will be extra icing on the cake

 

[jabbahop]

No