athena53
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- May 11, 2014
- Messages
- 7,383
But, old habits die hard, I guess. The other day I needed a paper towel, and noticed the roll was one of those older types that doesn't have perforations for half-sheets. I didn't need a full sheet, so I just ripped off half of one.
Sometimes what looks like being cheap is really being green.
I was making about $150K/year at age 61 when the politics got toxic 10 years ago and I quit. DH was already retired and getting SS and I had a $900/month non-COLA pension from GE that had started the year before at age 60 (no choice to delay it). And, as others have noted, no more saving, no more FICA, no work expenses. I'd also been paying enough on our refinanced 15-year mortgage to pay it off at the original date (we'd refinanced 7 years out) and cut it back to what we actually had to pay, till we downsized a year later.
We started withdrawing from after-tax and all is well. DH died when I was 63 and the SS income didn't change since I wasn't collecting on my own record- I started that at 69. In addition to the test of (Assets/#years remaining life expectancy) test, I look at the change in the invested assets since retirement. After withdrawals they're still up 2.6%/year on average.