Surprise call from DW

[Willers]

So...I was driving home yesterday and got a call from DW. She informed me that she told her boss that she would be retiring on July 4th. She neglected to mention anything about it at breakfast...

A little background: we'd talked about retirement and the fact that she'd probably go first since I have some unfinished business at work. I could that she was really nervous about it and might chicken out so I did what I do at work. I built a PowerPoint (those of you still in MegaCorp are probably cringing now). It was titled "The Plan and the Plan if the Plan Doesn't Work". It walked through our financial situation, the results from my spreadsheets, firecalc, *****, etc., explained what to do if I croaked the next day and had a Q&A at the end. I got the idea from a friend who put together a PP for his wife titled "Why it is a Good Idea that I Buy a New Corvette."

She laughed at first, but I could tell that, in the end, it made her more comfortable about the situation and gave her the courage to decide on the way to work that yesterday was the day she would tell him.

What I've learned here was a big part of what went into these slides so that you all!

Has anyone else gone this far for a nervous spouse?

 

[2B]

My DW stopped work (retired?) when she decided she couldn't keep going to work and do what she thought she needed to do with her parents' health issues. There wasn't any "plan" but she didn't make a high percentage of the family income.

DW took additional convincing when it came to be my turn. I had gone OMY so many times that in my mind it was becoming almost comical. I walked her through FireCalc and tried to show her iORP. Mostly, she just glazed over and figured if I was comfortable it would be all right.

You seem to have also been very effective at convincing your wife she didn't need to get up early anymore.

 

[PhrugalPhan]

Can't say I have done that, but I can see the need to do it down the road a few years. My GF will be eligible for a pension in 3 years yet talks like she will work longer because she'll need the money. Her pension will be about 40% of her current earnings, she can stop putting into the TSP (savings of 20%), can move in with me and save another 20% on rent (we currently live apart due to job locations).

The remaining 20%? Taking that out of her TSP will give her about a 2.5% W.R. And this isn't counting SS kicking in 15 years down the road (approx. 20%). And btw, she lives on maybe 50% of her take home now as it is.

Explaining this to her hasn't convinced her, so I suspect I will be doing the powerpoint presentation in a couple of years. It wouldn't be too bad if she loved her job, but she complains about her boss often. Oh well, I guess there are worse problems to have .

 

[Sarah in SC]

I've been okay with a job at breakfast and quit by noon, more than once.

Good for your wife!
And I hope that the friend got the Corvette after all that!

 

[Bestwifeever]

I LOVE that she neglected to mention it at breakfast. So funny.

She is going to present the same presentation to you on July 5.

Congrats to her!

 

[SumDay]

Good for you on offering her reassurance. Good for her for taking it to heart. Sounds glorious to me. I'm 1,147 days away, unless they keep p*ssing me off on a regular basis.

 

[Koolau]

I'm the "big picture" guy in our marriage. I constructed the ER "plan" and did virtually all the execution. DW was comfortable with that and needed very little reassurance upon our separate retirements. She was (and is) the day-to-day penny-pincher that helped make the big picture work.

Both of our retirements happened due to outside circumstances more than our own planning (the timing, that is.) We were financially ready and then things conspired to show us "the light" and get us going. From change in circumstance to ER decision was very short for both of us. Had we not had "the plan" in place and had we not agreed on the plan ahead of time, a PP might well have been needed - for both of us! So YMMV.

 

[marko]

Friend of mine many years ago was a 30+ year employee of Mega-Mega corp. They were offering a huge incentive to RE.

He had no intention to take it until his co-worker told him that he'd be working the next 7 years for nothing AND....he had just 45 minutes left to get in on it! He ran down to HR and with less than 30 minutes to the deadline, RE'd!

Came home and said "honey, guess what?!"

 

[Willers]

And I hope that the friend got the Corvette after all that!

He did and was so excited about it that he drove it all winter through the snow. A couple of days it was pretty comical. Not exactly a 4WD SUV.

 

[Looking4Ward]

I emailed DW thirty minutes before I handed over my notice with a very simple "Today's the day".

We went out to dinner to celebrate when I got home.

 

[Spanky]

I emailed DW thirty minutes before I handed over my notice with a very simple "Today's the day".

We went out to dinner to celebrate when I got home.

Did she received the email before the notice? Anyway, it's cool and spontaneous.

 

[rodi]

I gave my husband slightly more notice. Told him on a Friday that I'd be giving notice on Monday. Granted we had discussed ER, and he'd already "flunked" his own retirement. (He quit, but got called back part time a few months later.). DH was a bit nervous about my retirement since I was the bigger paycheck. 6 months after that we saw a good point for him to really retire - and I pushed hard and talked him into it. No power points though.

 

[Independent]

Has anyone else gone this far for a nervous spouse?

No.

Unfortunately, my wife didn't want to think about anything that complicated. "Just tell me we've got enough, no matter what".

Of course, in my case, I was working and she wasn't. That made it easier for her to go with OMY.

 

[Beldar]

I built a PowerPoint (those of you still in MegaCorp are probably cringing now)

I'm more than cringing . I should change my user name to Sam.... Sam KINISON

Congrats to both of you, what a pleasent surprise that must have been! 2 more months to go for me.

 

[Willers]

We went out to dinner to celebrate when I got home.

We did the same. She was excited to have that part over with.

Since I'm working at least into 2016 I couldn't resist teasing her about being a kept woman. I got a massive eye roll.

 

[athena53]

Sometimes, you just know when the hour has come!


I called DH on a Friday afternoon and told him, "I think I'm going to quit my job on Monday". As we discussed it over the weekend, things sort of fell into place, and I did quit that Monday. My last day was the Friday at the end of that week.


I told my 80-something parents the weekend after I left, and our financial advisor the following Monday. They all thought it was a good idea.

 

[Badger]

One day my wife came home and finally had it with school administration that kept telling her how she should teach and with what methods - none of which worked worth a damn. Canned programs that superintendent and a few members of the school board wanted used. It was a crowded bed they were in with the canned program creator.

She had been the most successful math teacher in all the schools in which she taught. Even her "special" students were always ahead of where the county required. She told me she gave them her notice and she was going to retire. It was a little bit of a surprise since it was only a few weeks into the start of the school year but I knew it was time for her and they finally pissed her off sufficiently. She had a long enough record of work even before we met. I bought her a high quality tennis racquet she wanted as a retirement present and knew it would get regular use.

Cheers!

 

[ohyes]

True story I heard about a year ago from two teachers in my district. I ran into them at a local pizza joint.


She: I retired.


Me: Wow, that is great! Congratulations!


She: Yep, DH texted me and asked what I was doing. Told him I was on the couch, watching TV. DH was, expletive, expletive, expletive. WHAT? Yep, I just turned in my retirement notice and am home. (This happened one day she was working after school term was over).


I have thought of that story so often.


The husband is retiring this year. (Both amazing educators for decades, btw)

 

[donheff]

Yeah, she needs to save the ppt to show you later. I had to prepare an analysis to convince DW that she could pull the plug. She tapered off over a few years after I ERd and finally went all in when she was fully convinced we were financially set.

 

[Willers]

Yeah, she probably will need to show it to me later. I've been stuck in OMY for the last two years. My current target is 2/1/16, but that's #5 or 6 so far.

Then again she may delete it if she's happy enough being home without me.

 

[chris2008]

It might be helpful to publish the ppt in the OMY threads.
Waiting partners might use it with their own data to speed up the decision process of the OMY infected partners ;-)

 

[Which Roger]

I'm doing something similar. It's not just for DW; it also forces me to think about all of the issues that go into retirement planning and sort out and understand all the options, trade-offs, and risks.

Two slides are central to the presentation: First, a table that shows our sources of income over time and what year each of us can start drawing on them (e.g., tax-deferred accounts at age 59 1/2) or will definitely start drawing on them (e.g., social security at 70 and RMDs at 70 1/2). Second, our goals. The primary goal is to not go broke before we die, as opposed to something else like maximizing our net worth or leaving a bunch of money to heirs. You can't really go any further without having a clearly-stated goal, because without it, you can't really address any of the trade-offs, such as when to take SS.

After this, the slides get more specific, and cover things like withdrawal strategies, trade-offs, risks, taxes, whether or not to do Roth conversions, when to take SS, etc.

Finally, the specifics or our finances and some scenarios that test the various strategies outlined earlier, including things like FireCalc results. It is a work in progress, and will likely always be a work in progress, and very useful to educate ourselves and get us to think about all of the factors and trade-offs that go into retirement planning.