madsquopper
Recycles dryer sheets
Just let my manager know that I'm retiring on March 15 (Ides of March; might wear a toga that day). Not really early, as I just turned 65, but I was enjoying work (at 3 days/week for the last few years so it was kind of like a well paid hobby), but enough's enough. Time to move on to better things.
I've never defined myself by my job and have always had lots of hobbies and interests. Now I'll have time to add a few more, including taking up golf again after a 40 year hiatus.
Financially we're in good shape. No kids, debts, or mortgage, and health care via spouse's retiree benefits. Back in our 50's spouse really wanted us to sign up for LTC so we did; premiums have gone up a bit but not excessively.
Have tracked expenses for the past five years so have a good handle on that. Spouse's half is covered (with a bit of an extra cushion) by her COLA'd pension/SS combo plus she has outside savings of about 8 years of expenses. My half is via retirement/taxable savings plus eventual SS; initial WR is 2.75% but that will drop to between 1.4 and 1.7% depending on when I take SS. I've tortured the various calculators with worst case "what if" scenarios and they all give us essentially a 100% success rate. My main worry is the usual "no more paycheck coming in" but everyone seems to go through that phase for 6 months or so.
Looking forward to no longer being on someone else's schedule.
Larry
I've never defined myself by my job and have always had lots of hobbies and interests. Now I'll have time to add a few more, including taking up golf again after a 40 year hiatus.
Financially we're in good shape. No kids, debts, or mortgage, and health care via spouse's retiree benefits. Back in our 50's spouse really wanted us to sign up for LTC so we did; premiums have gone up a bit but not excessively.
Have tracked expenses for the past five years so have a good handle on that. Spouse's half is covered (with a bit of an extra cushion) by her COLA'd pension/SS combo plus she has outside savings of about 8 years of expenses. My half is via retirement/taxable savings plus eventual SS; initial WR is 2.75% but that will drop to between 1.4 and 1.7% depending on when I take SS. I've tortured the various calculators with worst case "what if" scenarios and they all give us essentially a 100% success rate. My main worry is the usual "no more paycheck coming in" but everyone seems to go through that phase for 6 months or so.
Looking forward to no longer being on someone else's schedule.
Larry