Target Retirement Month

[SJhawkins]

Have a few years yet but current thinking is April for many reasons already posted, the most important one being the weather living in the snow belt with spring and fall my to two favorite seasons.

[Al18]

Keep in mind your month to retire may not align with your employer. If you are retiring early, I think it’s best not to leave any money on the table.

[srblanco7]

Quote:

Originally Posted by G-Man Please explain "accumulate another year of maxed SS".

Apologies for the shorthand. My 2024 earnings - given incentive comp payment in April - should be enough to hit the SS earnings limit for 2024. This will replace a lower earnings year as I have 35 years working, but my early years were low earnings years.

[1242Vintage]

My retirement month wasn’t planned at all. Had my annual performance review with my CEO and all was excellent. Performance targets met, good profit-margin, client feedback good, etc.

As the conversation was winding down these words came out of my mouth …. “How much lead time do you need before I retire?”

He asked for six months and we negotiated that down to six weeks. Done.

Truly I wasn’t planning the best month to go, it just happened and totally happy how it worked out. I was done, knew it, and flipped that switch for retirement.

Afterwards I called my wife to explain what I just did and booked a flight home!

[Alex The Great]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1242Vintage He asked for six months and we negotiated that down to six weeks.

Well my plan is to give two weeks notice for retirement date. I'm not sure what would be the reason to negotiate so much time assuming everything else is aligned. When they decide to layoff they do it right away.

[Gumby]

On May 31, I will complete 4 years of retirement. Our choice of timing (as far as the month goes) was primarily dictated by the young wife. She was a public high school teacher and never would have retired during a school year. So, in 2019, she retired at the end of the last day of school in June and I retired about two weeks before her, because for my former employer, you needed to begin your retirement on the first day of a month (yes, there is a pension and retiree healthcare involved). Two weeks was about the maximum amount of time that the young wife would have tolerated me being at home while she was still working.

[Koolau]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alex The Great Well my plan is to give two weeks notice for retirement date. I'm not sure what would be the reason to negotiate so much time assuming everything else is aligned. When they decide to layoff they do it right away.

I suppose it all depends upon your relationship with the company and especially with direct supervision. Though I left with essentially 3 day notice, I had lots of vacation to use and told the boss (whom I liked a lot) that he could call me any time until my final day (technically) still empl*yed. Even after that, I would have helped if I could. I just wasn't gonna do anything I didn't want to do. YMMV

[ncbill]

Quote:

Originally Posted by srblanco7 Apologies for the shorthand. My 2024 earnings - given incentive comp payment in April - should be enough to hit the SS earnings limit for 2024. This will replace a lower earnings year as I have 35 years working, but my early years were low earnings years.

Those early years get indexed.

One poster I read (either here or over on bogleheads forums) stated his high-school earnings had been indexed almost 6x!

[madatrub]

Here's salary indexing by year:

[Koolau]

^^^^^^^

Heh, heh, my friend in Africa didn't get indexing - though he needed it much more than we do. I think his equivalent of SS sends him about $2/month. If you ever need something to be thankful for, think on that for a couple of minutes - and then give thanks.

[Andre1969]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ncbill Those early years get indexed. One poster I read (either here or over on bogleheads forums) stated his high-school earnings had been indexed almost 6x!

I just looked it up out of curiosity. My first year of SS earnings was 1986, when I earned a whopping $1,637. But the multiplication factor is 3.497, so adjusted that's like $5,725.

The SS indexing is apparently more generous than inflation. I just put $1,637 into an inflation calculator, and it came up with $4,531, or a 2.768 factor. So, as much as SS gets criticized, I guess it has that going for it!

My Mom bought a new Monte Carlo in 1986, at the end of the model year. It was around $14-15K out the door. Adjusting for inflation, that's like $38-41.5K, out the door! Using SS indexing, it would be more like $49-52K!

It's funny how perspective changes, though. I was only 16 when she bought that car, and making $3.75/hr working evenings after school at a veterinary clinic. But still, for that type of car, $14-15K didn't seem like a lot of money to me. But then it blows my mind to think that, inflation-adjusted, that was like blowing $40K or more. For a car with hubcaps and crank windows.

[big-papa]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andre1969 I just looked it up out of curiosity. My first year of SS earnings was 1986, when I earned a whopping $1,637. But the multiplication factor is 3.497, so adjusted that's like $5,725. The SS indexing is apparently more generous than inflation. I just put $1,637 into an inflation calculator, and it came up with $4,531, or a 2.768 factor. So, as much as SS gets criticized, I guess it has that going for it! My Mom bought a new Monte Carlo in 1986, at the end of the model year. It was around $14-15K out the door. Adjusting for inflation, that's like $38-41.5K, out the door! Using SS indexing, it would be more like $49-52K! It's funny how perspective changes, though. I was only 16 when she bought that car, and making $3.75/hr working evenings after school at a veterinary clinic. But still, for that type of car, $14-15K didn't seem like a lot of money to me. But then it blows my mind to think that, inflation-adjusted, that was like blowing $40K or more. For a car with hubcaps and crank windows.

One thing that's different is that SS uses CPI-W for inflation adjustments which is different than CPI-U which most inflation calculators use.

[Surewhitey]

First time we took off traveling, leaving on Labor day, driving north to Mammoth lakes and Yellowstone & then across country ending with the drive to Mexico. We relocated to TX technically to start DW's deferred comp of 5 years for tax purposes. This also got 1 more year of bonus & profit sharing.

Next time it'll be likely based on RSU's, profit sharing & bonuses in April... Still waiting for the right year...