What time of year did you retire at?

[albireo13]

I have been planning to retire in 2020 around June but, now am wondering what's the best time of year?

I am confident in our stash but, will rerun numbers.
My thought was retiring at June allows me to enjoy the Summer in retirement.
Also, I have a FA I talk to who discourages retiring at end of the year for reasons other than financial. He argues many are prone to depression after leaving work and facing a winter.

Not sure but ... was curious what other folks have done, and for what reasons?

Thx

 

[street]

My last day was April 30th just wanted to be gone before my spring time adventures started. If you are eligible for ACA it would be wise to leave in January for income purposes thou.

 

[MRG]

I had planned on retiring on my 30th anniversary. There was nothing in it for me except a convenient date. A year prior my new VP decided he'd show off his leadership skills. I "retired" a couple weeks later at the beginning of May. [emoji6]

I'd tend to avoid year end for the same reasons. I'm prone to seasonal affective disorder(SAD) and respect the short days. When is your birthday? Best present you'll ever give yourself.

 

[LRDave]

I also retired at the end of April - end of the FY. A clean break from incentive plans, for both me and the rest of the leadership team (especially those taking on my old group). We love Summer, Winter, Fall and Spring here, so seasonally I couldn't lose.

If of interest, you can look at the Class of 2019 thread where I documented all the retirement months for 56+ of us.

 

[braumeister]

I was lucky to quit near the end of the year. I had my BS bucket full and was just waiting for an opportunity, since the smallcorp had recently been bought by a megacorp. I concentrated on using up my allotted vacation time, and when the big layoff happened (just as the rumor mill had predicted), I was the happiest guy on the list. It was in October, a beautiful time of year, but I never even considered that factor.

 

[freedomatlast]

I retired in June and it was the perfect time of year for me.

I'll never forget how great it felt to be outside hiking and biking everyday in the warm summer air instead of inside under fluorescent lights in an over air conditioned environment in ridiculous meetings.

 

[SecondCor521]

I retired in February. But I went on a leave of absence starting in October or November of the prior year, and retired while I was on leave. I gave my two week notice two weeks prior to the date on which I was supposed to return to the office.

The February date was mainly because I had some stock options worth being employed for that vested on that date.

The leave of absence benefitted me a couple of ways:

1. It was a trial retirement. If it wasn't working out, I could just return to work.
2. I still got to keep several of my employee benefits during that time, so I kept my stock options, earned some vacation, kept my health insurance, and could use the employee gym.
3. I could retire from my leave of absence and avoid them having any sort of going away activities for me (which I would dislike), or, in the alternative, avoid them not having any sort of going away activities for me (which would make me sad).
4. I also could leisurely remove all my personal possessions from the office without anyone noticing.

 

[Chuckanut]

As a teacher my last day of work was about June 20. However, I remained under contract in terms of benefits, etc. until August 30. The district also withheld a chunk of my salary and sent me a paycheck check for July and August even though I had earned it all as of June 20.

So, officially I was retired and started receiving my [-]solid gold platinum plated[/-] brass and wood pension payments starting on September 1.

 

[UnrealizedPotential]

I retired in the middle of May. It just worked out that way. That was the time of year everything came together for me and so I went with it.

 

[pacergal]

In order to qualify for specific health benefits, I had to work until age 60. Retired on my birthday, just before the end of the year holiday season.

 

[Marc]

I retired in October; wanted to max out social security for the year. If you leave early in year you pay into social security but it won't count for any of your top 35 years so just throwing away money.

Marc

 

[frayne]

Officially retired on July 1st but took pretty much the whole month of June and half of May to chew up vacation time.

 

[Gumby]

Retired June 1st. It was great to go into summer with all my time to myself.

 

[scrabbler1]

I retired at the end of October (2008). I had become ineligible for any additional company stock shares given out at the end of December because I had reduced my weekly hours worked the year before. (With the market downturn, they ended up not giving out any new shares anyway.) It wasn't worthwhile to work another 5 months to get my annual bonus in April. And the thought of commuting through another crummy winter was a bad one.


I was already on COBRA since mid-2007 because I had reduced my weekly hours worked. The thought of still working but having to buy my own HI outside of work (and paying much more than on COBRA) was a bad one.


And, by coincidence, leaving on October 31st happened to match right down to the day of the week the same month and day the company had ended my telecommuting deal in 2003. That change, I knew, would be my ultimate undoing and push me harder toward my ER. I found the 5-year anniversary of that change a nice one worthy of celebration.

 

[toddm]

I retired at the end of February 2019. I did not want to retire in Winter, so I worked a couple of months into 2019. Had I worked any longer than that, I would have made too much money to make my ACA premiums affordable.

March was rainy and cold here last year, but it was a good time to start to unwind. I'm glad I had a full Spring, Summer and Fall to enjoy. After experiencing my first winter as a retiree, I'd agree with your FA -- try to avoid the end/beginning of the year if you can.

 

[Souschef]

I retired in mid January after my profit sharing was deposited in my 401k. Two days later we were on a plane for a 2 week tour of South America. It was summer down there.

 

[FLSUnFIRE]

If I'm not offered a PT option (in that case, I'll step into OMY land as the pay/work/life balance would be pretty darn good), I plan to make my move this summer... unless blocked, I'll burn leave so that I'm working 2 days a week with formal separation in early October. That will allow me to stretch my benefits a bit longer and pad my cash a bit more than a straight quit/pay out. My working goals this last year are to save enough cash to fund my expenses for the year and make the transition easy so I don't burn bridges... I'll hit the first goal in July.

 

[teejayevans]

About this time, I maxed out 401K contributions, also did a Roth and paid little taxes, so my Roth was funded with tax free $. For a couple of extra months of work you get a nice pop in retirement savings.

 

[davebarnes]

May 2, 2019. I fired my largest customer of 20 years.With zero notice.
My brother sent me my inheritance a week earlier which moved us from [very good] FI money to FU money.
We went on vacation to Puerto Vallarta, México the next day. I did not answer the phone.

 

[Moemg]

I retired in January the day before my 60Th birthday .It was just when the bullshit meter hit high.

 

[albireo13]

My birthday is in January.
We are on my wife's HC plan and she plans to work a few more years so I don't have to worry about the ACA. At that point I will be filing with Medicare.

We get an annual profit sharing, paying out the end of March so, sometime after that I will give notice. A few things have me thinking of delaying a few months:

1. I have both elder parents nearby who have expectations of me being over to take care of them. They are very needy and refuse assisted living. They keep asking me when I am going to retire!
2. Will still have one son in college after June. Would like to help it out a bit more but ...
3. Would be good to accrue a few more vacation days, which I will get paid for.

Small reasons to keep working but ... Actually, my work has gotten easier this past year. The stress level has dropped quite a bit. It's easy money going in every day.
It's just that I have lost interest in it and I have finite number of days on the planet.

 

[travelover]

End of February. Happy 13th anniversary coming up.

 

[W2R]

I retired on 11/9/2009. The reason why I picked that date is that is was the first day when I was eligible for retirement benefits (health insurance, mini-pension, and so on).

What a great time of year to retire! Well, I guess any day of the year would be a great time of year to retire for someone as eager as I was to make that transition.

 

[FargoI]

Marc indicated above "...I retired in October; wanted to max out social security for the year. If you leave early in year you pay into social security but it won't count for any of your top 35 years so just throwing away money.


If one retires mid CY, is it accutane that the six months of SS taxation credit towards the best 35 years? For example, if a very highly compensated person paid the max ss tax in January ( I recognize this illustration is unlikely), would that individual forfet that specific calendar year's recognition in regards to the SSA algorithm?

Thanks for clarifying.

 

[Ronstar]

April 2nd. I was supposed to retire April 1st, but I still needed 8 hours to fulfill my contract obligation. So I had to come in an extra day.