[FONT="]It’s been a bit over one year, and I have regularly read this site, gaining knowledge and enjoying reading others stories. I am now 53 and dh will be 57 next month.[/FONT]
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[FONT="]My husband continues to work (not laid off, hurrah!). He does not believe that he will make it to 60 in his current job-he believes he will face a layoff somewhere between now and then. But who really knows?? At this point we’ve decided just to not worry about it and deal with the aftermath if and when it occurs. [/FONT]
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[FONT="]I made a big change this year in my job (I work in education) and traded a high stress, many hours job for a significantly easier job that offers me the opportunity to learn a new skill. I also always ended up putting a lot of extra hours in during the summer-some I was compensated for and some I was not. Pay wise it’s essentially the same….I receive the same base pay (as a teacher), but in my previous job I was able to work an extra 10 per diem days per year (basically 5 days before and after the end of the school year). In terms of hours, it’s so many less. I can basically plan my own schedule and almost develop the job. I’m super happy! It’s an extremely rare opportunity in any company, but in education it’s almost unheard of. [/FONT]
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[FONT="]In my state, for teachers, there is something called the [/FONT][FONT="]Reduced Workload Program. While there are some parameters to fill, if you meet the criteria, you can work part time at the end of your career, and you and the school district contribute to the pension as if full time. So, you get credit for a full year at full time towards retirement, but the pay is part time. I was so “done” with my job that I was counting the days until 55 when I could reduce my hours. With my new job, I know no longer feel that way. I figure every year I work full time (instead of part time) from 55 to 60 is pay I can use for extras during those years and into retirement (probably for travel).[/FONT]
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[FONT="]The other advantage is that my new skill will be highly desirable for many school districts, so in retirement, I could choose to freelance a bit, at least the first few years. That could provide some fun money as well as nice transition away from the workplace.[/FONT][FONT="] [/FONT]
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[FONT="]Our home value has gone up, from about 750K to around a million. [/FONT][FONT="]
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[FONT="]Our pensions haven’t changed much. If dh were laid off today, his pension would be about $4791 per month. Mine is still about $4624 (at age 60, at 55, it’s about $2600). If he isn’t laid off and works until 60, it’s $6225 per month. Dh will receive social security, but I will not and I won’t have a survivors pension if he predeceases me. [/FONT]
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[FONT="]Our current take home income is still about 13.5K per month.
Our retirement funds are almost 1.1 million (was higher until a couple of weeks ago!)[/FONT]
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[FONT="]Our retirement cash savings isn’t as high as I thought it was, actually only about $155,000. Dh bought a car with some of his mom’s money and I don’t count the wedding account (with currently about 12K) because its earmarked for a specific purpose. Same with cash in our credit union saving accounts. We save for things like taxes, current educational needs, Christmas fund, etc. At any one time in the year it’s about 30-40K.[/FONT]
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[FONT="]One child is out of college and this year we have two in college. (Senior and Freshman). We are helping to fund the entry level masters required for dd (the senior), so have two years after this school year left of double tuition and one year a single tuition. We currently have about 75 in our 529 plans. We expect to go through this year with paying cash, and will use the 529 as a backward chain. It really depends on if and where she is expected. She is applying to one program that would fund 70-80% of her tuition both years (first choice school), some hat would be about 20-30K per year and one that is an accelerated program and would be 67 K for the 15 months. If dh isn’t laid off, then I plan to divert the cash flow we use for college into three “piles” of money: more travel for us before we retire, into the wedding account and for travel after retirement.[/FONT]
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We also have long term care insurance and will continue that.[/FONT]
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[FONT="]We know the terms of my parents trust and dh and will not receive the percentage of the estate that I kind of assumed/expected (but not planned for). Not a huge issue for me and I am actually happy with how my parents configured it (to include grandchildren). I’m pretty confident they did this because of my sisters spouse, who tends to be a spender-I think they wanted to make sure her children would get something. I always assumed that dh might help our kids with a down payment for a house (as both our parents did for us), but now it can be the grandparents doing it! It essentially has no impact on our life. [/FONT]
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[FONT="]What remains our biggest unknown is dh’s job and we just have to accept that and not worry about it![/FONT]