Retire or hold out a few months?

[dave65]

Due to changes at work I may be assigned to a project I don't want to work on. Also I have travel planned that I might need to cancel. I was originally thinking of my last day being February 28, 2024 but going early would mean last day this October 31.

Advantages of waiting until February -
$220 per month increase in non-COLA pension starting March 2024. It appears it would cost ~$38,000 to purchase this as an annuity.
Possibly get paid for a good chunk of unused vacation assuming I can work remote while traveling without using vacation days.
Possibly adding 5 to 10K savings to IRA.

Advantages of leaving in October -
Free from work
Will get paid for entire accrued vacation which otherwise may be used at least in part to make it to February
Medical isn't an issue I will have "free" coverage at retirement

But I might need to pull ~7k from IRA to finance December - February travel if I retire early

My overall financial picture based on expected spending in retirement is good. However I was hoping to get as far as possible into the "blow the dough" category of savings for increased travel. Waiting might also help me avoid at least some SORR based on how things appear to be going now with the market.

Thoughts? Thanks.

 

[Aerides]

So you'd go earlier to avoid the project?

Stay:
A challenging extra 4 months
Less ability to use vacation
Cancelled trips
About $2880 in extra pension each year
4 months extra pay (also bonus/HSA/401k contributions may apply?)

Go:
Take that travel
Enjoy the holidays without the "going back" thing

In your shoes, I'd map out the entire financial difference and go from there. It's different for everyone. For me, Oct vs. Feb would have meant April 1 because our main comp loaded in 1Q, but that also meant close to $100 difference all in.

Map it out completely both pros and cons and then decide (and rope in your spouse/partner and their thoughts too).

 

[ivinsfan]

You have an advantage, have you thought of telling whoever is in charge of this project that you don't want the assignment? Adding if you are assigned the project you will just leave earlier, as in next month....the end result for them is you don't do the project, they might well find someone else to do it while you stay until next year.

 

[street]

I would stay if it were me. The value in staying that short of time would be worth it to me.

Knowing that you only have those few months to go, and you're out, would make it easier for me to stay.

 

[brett]

I would stay.

I made a similar decision for a slightly longer period of time for DB pension reasons and because it was the difference between a golden handshake that I was tipped off was coming or someone saying goodbye and thank you.

Perhaps you will get lucky and there will be an early retirement package or a downsizing!

 

[c998877]

If you get assigned to the project, put in your resignation paper at that time for the date in February. You will probably then be given less responsibility in the project and may not be included in meetings about it (this is my experience). You might even say "since I'll be retiring in February, it may be best to keep me at my current project until then."

 

[Midpack]

I would stay too, especially for "a project" you don't want to work on. How many projects/assignments that we didn't like did we all have during our careers - all forgotten shortly after retirement? With each distasteful task I did in my last few months, I distinctly remember telling myself 'this is the last time I have to do this' with a smirk on my face. Even rubbed that in some co-workers faces a couple times...made it easier. My last monthly report was hilarious.

I don't know what your planned spending is but $2640/year isn't trivial, nor is $10K more in your IRA (evidently a $17K swing).

You will be retired for a very long time, 4 months is trivial over the duration of your retirement. You will have plenty of time to do whatever your heart desires, and more money to do it with.

And sorry but pulling from an IRA for travel before retiring is a red flag to me...

 

[mystang52]

From my perspective, toughing it out for 4 moths is a no-brainer. Far too many upsides, most especially the significant difference in pension. However distasteful that new project might be, I guarantee that knowing you are only doing it for 4 months will make it much easier to cope.

 

[pacergal]

Why would you need to cancel your travel plans if you remain at work? Will they not approve vacation requests off?
If 4 months extra work will give you a significant boost in retirement savings/income, I certainly would do it. Knowing that you are headed out the door will give you mental boost.
If it would not be a detriment, you could let them know you were retiring and possibly that would get you out of the project you dread.
However, some members here have reported being escorted out same day as giving notice, so there is that risk I guess.

 

[Jimonlimon]

I'm looking at a similar situation of retiring before a vacation vs. taking the vacation and coming back for a couple months. I can never fully relax on vacation knowing there's a troublesome project back at the office. My inclination is to retire before one of the trips- which are scheduled in February, May, and July.

At first I thought it would cost a lot to retire before the end of next year (around $12k per month earlier). I ran some "present value calculators" for my pension; considered an apples-to-apples comparison between salary and pension; considered taxes; etc. It turns out that my pension is at a sweet spot right now where my gross present value increase is less than my take-home for every month I work. If I "burn" more than a few weeks of accrued leave in a month it actually costs me more to work than to retire.

Now instead of looking at sometime between next August and December, the decision is this Christmas or next May. I think May will probably work. We're going to the Caribbean in March but if I only have 6 weeks left at that point I'll be ok!

 

[badatmath]

I'd stay. Good profit for 4 months.

 

[MC Rider]

Otoh.

Right now, hey
It's your tomorrow
Right now
Come on, it's everything
Right now
Catch that magic moment
And do it right here and now
It means everything

 

[brett]

We put those few months that I decided to stay to good use.

We made some decisions re retirement. We started to get our home ready to sell. We got rid of years of things and furniture that we did not need.

We planned an eight month retirement travel schedule, researching our top respective bucket list locations. We made some decisions as to what our next home would look like and where it would be.

So...although retirement was extended slightly the financial rewards were good and our short term retirement plans were complete and well on their way by day 1 of retirement.

It was a win win. Much better than starting day 1 of retirement with 'what should we do next'.

My advice....use those months to your financial advantage and to your personal retirement planning advantage. Launch off the starting block as soon as you hear the starter gun!

 

[dave65]

Thanks everyone. Consensus seems to be stay and that's likely what I will do.

 

[dave65]

I would stay too, especially for "a project" you don't want to work on. How many projects/assignments that we didn't like did we all have during our careers - all forgotten shortly after retirement? With each distasteful task I did in my last few months, I distinctly remember telling myself 'this is the last time I have to do this' with a smirk on my face. Even rubbed that in some co-workers faces a couple times...made it easier. My last monthly report was hilarious.

I don't know what your planned spending is but $2640/year isn't trivial, nor is $10K more in your IRA (evidently a $17K swing).

You will be retired for a very long time, 4 months is trivial over the duration of your retirement. You will have plenty of time to do whatever your heart desires, and more money to do it with.

And sorry but pulling from an IRA for travel before retiring is a red flag to me...

I may not have communicated that well. I would take money from the IRA only after retiring early. I would not need to take it if I continued working into 2024.

 

[dave65]

Why would you need to cancel your travel plans if you remain at work? Will they not approve vacation requests off?
If 4 months extra work will give you a significant boost in retirement savings/income, I certainly would do it. Knowing that you are headed out the door will give you mental boost.
If it would not be a detriment, you could let them know you were retiring and possibly that would get you out of the project you dread.
However, some members here have reported being escorted out same day as giving notice, so there is that risk I guess.

I was allowed to work remote after I initially said I wanted to retire over a year ago but the CIO that agreed to that recently departed. Hence I'd been all over the globe monthly for over a year without using a day of vacation. So that's part of the financial calculation - leave now and get paid all the vacation time or stay and start eating into it. After thinking it through and reading everyone's responses I will likely stay.

 

[rodi]

I'll be the voice of the other side.

There's a cartoon posted here quite often about Time < Money. I believe that.

I was ready to retire, but was going to hold out till RIFs came (which were threatened and happened pretty much annually.) I'd been holding out for the RIF package for 4 years... I guess my work kept me above the deep cuts (20% the previous two years). I'd let my former manager know I was ready (he was a level above my then manager... who would torture those who wanted the rif). They put me on a project that was not well thought out (not really feasible in the real world), then told me they were going to send me to the customer site every 3rd week. I had teenage kids - this would have been a burden on my husband with school/activity driving, etc. Plus I would have been less productive solving technical problems at the customer site, vs in our development lab. They told me on a Thursday about the mandatory travel... I gave notice that Monday.

Was it the optimum financial move? No. Was it the right move for me? Absolutely.

If I'd stayed another year I would have likely gotten a 1 year severance... (They laid off about 70% of our site.) If I'd stayed 9 years, I had close to 100% chance of getting a lesser RIF package... I think there's about 10 people left at my old work site since they just did another layoff.

Only you can know how badly you want out. If you're financially ready and the new project is going to suck, it might be time.

If you do decide to stay I like the idea of giving notice for Feb... that should avoid some of the ickiness of the new project.

 

[pacergal]

I was allowed to work remote after I initially said I wanted to retire over a year ago but the CIO that agreed to that recently departed. Hence I'd been all over the globe monthly for over a year without using a day of vacation. So that's part of the financial calculation - leave now and get paid all the vacation time or stay and start eating into it. After thinking it through and reading everyone's responses I will likely stay.

I used all of my accrued vacation during my last year at work. I took off one full week plus a four day weekend every single month! Left work with about 2 hours left to get paid out. It was worth it, gave me some nice time off and made the year go by much more peaceful--lol.

 

[WhenIsItTime]

I would stay if it were me. The value in staying that short of time would be worth it to me.

Knowing that you only have those few months to go, and you're out, would make it easier for me to stay.

I would stay.

I made a similar decision for a slightly longer period of time for DB pension reasons and because it was the difference between a golden handshake that I was tipped off was coming or someone saying goodbye and thank you.

Perhaps you will get lucky and there will be an early retirement package or a downsizing!

If you get assigned to the project, put in your resignation paper at that time for the date in February. You will probably then be given less responsibility in the project and may not be included in meetings about it (this is my experience). You might even say "since I'll be retiring in February, it may be best to keep me at my current project until then."

I would stay too, especially for "a project" you don't want to work on. How many projects/assignments that we didn't like did we all have during our careers - all forgotten shortly after retirement? With each distasteful task I did in my last few months, I distinctly remember telling myself 'this is the last time I have to do this' with a smirk on my face. Even rubbed that in some co-workers faces a couple times...made it easier. My last monthly report was hilarious.

I don't know what your planned spending is but $2640/year isn't trivial, nor is $10K more in your IRA (evidently a $17K swing).

You will be retired for a very long time, 4 months is trivial over the duration of your retirement. You will have plenty of time to do whatever your heart desires, and more money to do it with.

And sorry but pulling from an IRA for travel before retiring is a red flag to me...

From my perspective, toughing it out for 4 moths is a no-brainer. Far too many upsides, most especially the significant difference in pension. However distasteful that new project might be, I guarantee that knowing you are only doing it for 4 months will make it much easier to cope.

I'd stay. Good profit for 4 months.

We put those few months that I decided to stay to good use.

We made some decisions re retirement. We started to get our home ready to sell. We got rid of years of things and furniture that we did not need.

We planned an eight month retirement travel schedule, researching our top respective bucket list locations. We made some decisions as to what our next home would look like and where it would be.

So...although retirement was extended slightly the financial rewards were good and our short term retirement plans were complete and well on their way by day 1 of retirement.

It was a win win. Much better than starting day 1 of retirement with 'what should we do next'.

My advice....use those months to your financial advantage and to your personal retirement planning advantage. Launch off the starting block as soon as you hear the starter gun!

Thanks everyone. Consensus seems to be stay and that's likely what I will do.

Reading this thread and the advice, I almost forgot this is an "early retirement" forum.

There always a reason financial benefit to work 4 more months? You can't get the time back.

When you have enough and have had enough the forgone income will not matter. Most of us left in our highest paying years. So be it.

 

[ivinsfan]

Reading this thread and the advice, I almost forgot this is an "early retirement" forum.

There always a reason financial benefit to work 4 more months? You can't get the time back.

When you have enough and have had enough the forgone income will not matter. Most of us left in our highest paying years. So be it.

Come on, you are talking about 4 months here, not 4 years or 40 years.

 

[skyking1]

Reading this thread and the advice, I almost forgot this is an "early retirement" forum.

There always a reason financial benefit to work 4 more months? You can't get the time back.

When you have enough and have had enough the forgone income will not matter. Most of us left in our highest paying years. So be it.

It is funny, that.
The 220 a month is significant in my opinion, but where does that stop?
If you need to move the daylight at the end of the tunnel closer, then do that.

 

[jollystomper]

I had a similar situation. I told my management I would retire on April 30th, but when asked to help rescue a project I extended it 2 months. It is documented in my "Glide Path" thread from 2018: https://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f28/omy-glide-path-plans-81406-3.html#post2036330

I chose to extend, though 2 months is not as bad as 4 months. The biggest benefit I did not realize at the time was that the additional salary, severance, and an unexpected bonus for staying 2 more months gave me 35 years of maximum SS earnings, so I will be getting the maximum SS payment when I start.

In my view it depends on the project. In my case I controlled the and enjoyed the project so even with a deadline I had very little "stress". If you can manage that it may be worth it for the financial benefit.

 

[DrRoy]

If you can easily rebook the travel then seems worth it.

 

[Badger]

The increase in pension, the extra paid vacation time, and the additional IRA contributions vs 4 months on a project seems to be a no-brainer. I don't know what the problem is about the project but 4 months is not that long considering the benefits of staying. If they know the project is distasteful and there are others that are able to take it over then I may not be concerned with stressing over it.

Cheers!

 

[Surewhitey]

I'm in the 4 month camp, with a perma-smile all the way.