Retirement Age

What age do you plan to retire?

  • 55

    Votes: 21 25.3%

  • 60

    Votes: 11 13.3%

  • 62

    Votes: 8 9.6%

  • 65

    Votes: 19 22.9%

  • 70 or above

    Votes: 24 28.9%
  • Total voters
    83
Gerhardt

Gerhardt

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Gerhardt
There is no pressure or stress in my job. There's a lot to know, but I've been doing it long enough that I spend maybe 15-20 hours a week actually working. If I get here 15 minutes late no one notices, no one cares. If my lunch hour runs over an extra hour I have a couple of folks to cover for me. 4 1/2 weeks vacation a year, plus sick leave that I may take 2-3 days a year if I have a cold.

We have a pension plan (that will pay about as much as Social Security) and a 401(k) that matches 300%-500% of our contributions, depending on profits. I've been here 26 years and it's never been less than a 3x matching contribution.

So you can see why most people here retire around 60. Some as early as 55, almost no one beyond the age of 62. I'm 50 now, and you wouldn't believe the looks I get when I tell people it may change, but right now the plan is to work until I'm 72.

Dad finally retired 5 years ago when he turned 75. He was a self-employed construction contractor who out-worked anyone who ever worked for him. And the odd thing is, it's incredible how many people retire from here and drop dead within the first year or two. So no, I'm in no hurry.
 
I used to say 50 then 55, but I've passed those two ages so now I'm aiming for 60.

I have many retired friends and relatives and they all seem to be busy with travel and volunteer work. As far as dropping dead, my father and my stepfather claimed they would never retire, and they didn't.
 
5X matching contribution? Holy cowbells, sign me up Batman.
 
My goal was to be able to retire at age 50. I met that goal. It was nice going to work knowing that you could tell them to kiss off at anytime and not worry about food on the table.

...and then I built a house.

Gotta wait a couple more years.
 
Gerhardt said:
And the odd thing is, it's incredible how many people retire from here and drop dead within the first year or two. So no, I'm in no hurry.
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Same here, I know too many people who retired relatively early who dropped dead within a couple years of retirement. Retirement seems to work out best for people who really stay active/involved in other activities (i.e., volunteer work) that keeps them at least as busy as when they worked. If I had the gig you have, I wouldn't retire early either.
 
It's more important to have a plan to live than a budget to live on. One of the reasons I bought the plane was to use in retirement. I'm always taking the car on trips now because I have to be back. Not so next year. Travel and visiting friends and family will keep me going.
 
Anymouse said:
My goal was to be able to retire at age 50. I met that goal. It was nice going to work knowing that you could tell them to kiss off at anytime and not worry about food on the table.
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It was also nice when I had a medical adventure a few years ago that I had a viable plan B. I was happy to be able to go back but that plan B has been calling ever since.
 
Forced to retire at 65,would have liked to work to 72. Expensive hobbies,but I'm surviving. If you have your health that's all that matters.
 
Sac Arrow said:
5X matching contribution? Holy cowbells, sign me up Batman.
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No kidding!

We've just started talking about retirement. Now that the discussion has started, it's getting to look like it actually might happen someday.

I've known a few people who retired too late to enjoy it - they waited until they were in such poor health they couldn't work anymore. I've known a few people who retired too early - they are bored and are looking to go back to work.

And I've known a few people that died of heart attacks or accidents within weeks of retirement.

I used to work with a guy who was ready to retire, but also NOT ready. He always said that if the company made him mad 3 times in one day, he'd walk out. Whenever his boss did or said something to him, he'd reply, "That's ONE!"
 
I figure I'll never be able to retire, like the rest of my generation. We will still be paying off the SS to the baby boomers.

But who knows, the world will most likely be 180* different in 40 years.
 
Jeff Oslick said:
Same here, I know too many people who retired relatively early who dropped dead within a couple years of retirement. Retirement seems to work out best for people who really stay active/involved in other activities (i.e., volunteer work) that keeps them at least as busy as when they worked. If I had the gig you have, I wouldn't retire early either.
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My grandmother is rapidly going down hill after shutting down her business. She's only been full retired for a few years.

All she does is read books in her chair. Which is quickly killing her, but she doesn't seem to care.
 
frfly172 said:
If you have your health that's all that matters.
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Without your health, nothing matters.

I spend Thursday nights holding cards for a friend of mine who can no longer move anything but his eyes, and that seems to be a struggle for him. He can't talk, but grunts, and most of the time I know what he wants to bid (10-point pitch). His wife says the only time all week he ever gets excited is when I start to mis-bid for him. I was never any good at cards.
 
But that's an excellent question. At some point, stuff is going to quit working. Rebuilds are expensive. Replacement isn't an option. Once I can't throw a leg over a bike, make the $120 at the massage parlor well spent, or exit the AME's office without him torching my medical with a Bic lighter in a fit of laughter, then what's the point of continuing. I guess I could be one of those old people that hangs out at the bar at the local Elk's twelve hours a day, seven days a week, but what kind of life is that.
 
My goal was to be able to retire at 50. But when I got there, I didn't want to. So after the old lady and I split, I hurried up and sold the business, moved to the country, and semi-retired. I wanted to make sure it was a done deal so she wouldn't change her mind and come back. (She hates the country.)

Now I work a few hours a day and do whatever I want the rest of the time. Fly, fish, goof off, work in the garden, post on POA, or whatever. I think it's a pretty good situation.

Rich
 
ARFlyer said:
...... We will still be paying off the SS to the baby boomers.......
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This cracks me up. Perhaps you didn't mean it the way it sounds. But, I've been hearing exactly this for a few years now. There's a whole lot of younger folks out there that are resentful of the fact that people my age are going to be drawing down SSA trust fund that they're busy paying into, and the ratio of payee's to retirees is looking so lop-sided.

Here's something to think about: over the last 40 years, I've contributed more than $80,000 to the SSA trust fund. And most of those dollars were pretty dear back in the early days. Now, it'd be quite a task to put a present value figure to that investment. It could be done, and maybe I'll sit down and do it. But, even with fairly modest assumptions, it would be worth quite a chunk of change. So if you think I'm gonna give that away, you've got another think coming!

I'm gonna retire at age 62, and delay my SSA benefits until age 67. And I'm gonna spend every dollar of it doing fun stuff. Cause, I've already got plenty to take care of the essentials.
 
Unless I hit the lotto, I'm working until I can't find the spacebar on the keyboard anymore...lol.
 
I'm eligible at 49, but mandatory at 57. Goal is 50, but if I'm still liking the job, I may stick around.
 
Regardless of the age, I'd suggest that you have a plan for something to do AFTER retirement. As long as my health doesn't intervene, I'll never retire because I enjoy what I'm doing.
 
ARFlyer said:
I figure I'll never be able to retire, like the rest of my generation. We will still be paying off the SS to the baby boomers.

But who knows, the world will most likely be 180* different in 40 years.
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wilkersk said:
This cracks me up. Perhaps you didn't mean it the way it sounds. But, I've been hearing exactly this for a few years now. There's a whole lot of younger folks out there that are resentful of the fact that people my age are going to be drawing down SSA trust fund that they're busy paying into, and the ratio of payee's to retirees is looking so lop-sided.

Here's something to think about: over the last 40 years, I've contributed more than $80,000 to the SSA trust fund. And most of those dollars were pretty dear back in the early days. Now, it'd be quite a task to put a present value figure to that investment. It could be done, and maybe I'll sit down and do it. But, even with fairly modest assumptions, it would be worth quite a chunk of change. So if you think I'm gonna give that away, you've got another think coming!

I'm gonna retire at age 62, and delay my SSA benefits until age 67. And I'm gonna spend every dollar of it doing fun stuff. Cause, I've already got plenty to take care of the essentials.
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Personally, SS isn't a factor at all in my retirement plans. When I eventually sign up for it, I intend to simply consider it as a pay raise.
 
write-stuff said:
Regardless of the age, I'd suggest that you have a plan for something to do AFTER retirement. As long as my health doesn't intervene, I'll never retire because I enjoy what I'm doing.
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To me, "retirement" means never having to do something because I need the paycheck. It doesn't mean I stop doing anything. I've got lots of plans.

I watched my father-in-law work 60-70 hours a week at a job he never stopped complaining about. He finally had to quit because he was too sick to work. He died with an RV he was still paying on, an expensive set of golf clubs that had rarely been used and a great defined benefit pension that disappeared as soon as he died. I swear, I'll never be that guy!
 
Having never been there/done that when it comes to retirement --- my biggest unknown is health insurance. I don't have a plan that will cover me after I quit, so I'll have to buy something and the Affordable Care Act hasn't exactly made anything affordable.

What's the current strategy that work for most?
 
Matthew said:
Having never been there/done that when it comes to retirement --- my biggest unknown is health insurance. I don't have a plan that will cover me after I quit, so I'll have to buy something and the Affordable Care Act hasn't exactly made anything affordable.

What's the current strategy that work for most?
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Before Medicare? That's tough! I took care of it by doing 22 years in the military. Other than that, few choices, and they're all very expensive. Oblamer care proponents claim things will get better in the long-run. But, the fact is, trying solve every healthcare finance problem in one-swell-poop was just a public relations gimmick to win the popular vote.
 
Yeah - I'll need to fill the gap between end of employment, beginning of Medicare.
 
I'd say this: Do what you want to do. If sitting at a desk making 300%-500% matching funds is what you want to do, do that. If you have something else in mind, get out of there.

Matthew said:
Having never been there/done that when it comes to retirement --- my biggest unknown is health insurance. I don't have a plan that will cover me after I quit, so I'll have to buy something and the Affordable Care Act hasn't exactly made anything affordable.

What's the current strategy that work for most?
Click to expand...

Dad "retired" in his 50's the first time (it "didn't take"... ha) and he bought a somewhat expensive but not outrageous "catastrophic" medical plan. Basically it would cover a major sudden illness or hospitalization. Some of those plans are not considered PC enough for the current politicians and their supporters, so the prices have gone up, but they're still out there.

Rubber hit the road: His catastrophic plan paid out -- covered the massive medical bill of him having a massive stroke and dying on the same day, a month before he qualified for Medicare.

Use insurance as it was meant to be used, covering big unexpected things, it's way cheaper that way.
 
I think "at what age do you plan to retire?" is actually two questions: 1) when will you have enough $ that you can retire? and 2) when do you want to stop doing your job? For me, the answer to the first question is ASAP and the answer to the second is: I haven't set a date (never?)
 
Matthew said:
Having never been there/done that when it comes to retirement --- my biggest unknown is health insurance. I don't have a plan that will cover me after I quit, so I'll have to buy something and the Affordable Care Act hasn't exactly made anything affordable.

What's the current strategy that work for most?
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It depends on your health and what kind of plan you currently have access to...I work for a health insurance company and we are only offered a High Deductible Health Plan. Luckily my wife and rarely utilize any services outside of preventative which is covered at 100%, this has allowed me to stash a lot of money in my HSA (Health Savings Acct) it's triple tax free as long as withdrawals are made to pay for medical expenses. If we incur any expenses we simply pay out of pocket there are no guidelines when you have to reimburse yourself.

You can still get an Obamacare plan and depending on how you structure your income between retirement and Medicare kicking in you may be able to get a subsidy.
 
I retired at 57, almost made one year, missed by ten days. I just accepted a consulting job 45 minutes from our home and it will provide some fun vacation cash and my new autopilot. Best part, it only runs to October!

We are very fortunate, BCBS medical cost is only copay, no monthly cost. Social Security will kick in at 62, I'm not waiting. I have one more pension from another job that also starts at 62. Now if our health holds up we will enjoy the retirement years.
 
NHWannabe said:
If we incur any expenses we simply pay out of pocket there are no guidelines when you have to reimburse yourself.
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My brother does that too and has a little over $25K sitting in his HSA. This baffles me because I don't understand why someone would do that. He said that his company's forms are just cumbersome and it's not worth the effort. My HSA just has a debit card and I suck it out ASAP.

I'm curious, why are you leaving your money in an HSA and paying out of pocket?
 
We signed up for a "Retirement Planning" class at the county extension office. First of three classes starts tomorrow (3 nights, 3 hrs each). They have a section devoted to health insurance.

We both have a high deductible plan with HSAs (going on our 2nd year). We've been putting into the HSAs just enough to cover deductibles, then topping it off as needed - might not be the ideal situation, but we just started and didn't know what else to do with it.

If/when we retire, I suppose we can COBRA for a while, but that's not going to be a long term (5-10 yrs or so) option. There are a million decisions yet to be made, and we are on number 12.
 
If anybody wonders, here's how Medicare works:
(the video is choppy, but the sound is good)

 
wilkersk said:
Before Medicare? That's tough! I took care of it by doing 22 years in the military. Other than that, few choices, and they're all very expensive. Oblamer care proponents claim things will get better in the long-run. But, the fact is, trying solve every healthcare finance problem in one-swell-poop was just a public relations gimmick to win the popular vote.
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Most honest Obummer Care proponents will admit it's just a stepping stone to universal health care. Trump and other Republicans want to repeal obamacare. How they going to do that? They going to take away health care from people? They can't do that.
 
Always figured I'd retire at 66. My company changed my mind five years ago when I was 60. They wanted to scale back and offered up some very good early retirement packages. I took the deal, worked out a budget to get to 62 and started collecting SS. The biggest drawbacks have been paying for health insurance, currently health, dental and vision run me $700+ per month and not getting the mortgage paid off.

Next month I go on Medicare and a supplemental so my healthcare will drop by about $300 a month. I also get a small pension payment each month as does my wife, who is on SSI.

For the last two years I've been the President of my EAA Chapter and I spend a good deal of time working on that. I've done websites for the chapter, doubled its membership to over 300, started a youth program that offers free ground school for youth once a month and has them building an Ultra-Lite Pietenpol from scratch meeting once a week. The chapter also started building an RV-12 last month funded by member contributions. We're working on the empennage kit and just ordered the fuselage kit. I'm busy this year working on raising money to keep the youth program funded. The initial funding has been from a grant for $7500 from BBA, parent company of Signature, and donations made to the chapter in the name of a member we lost a year and a half ago. I also worked a deal with a long time chapter member and his wife, he has Alzheimers, to have them donate their hangar and all of its contents to the chapter. I guess I'm still working, it just doesn't pay well monetarily.
 
Gerhardt said:
My brother does that too and has a little over $25K sitting in his HSA. This baffles me because I don't understand why someone would do that. He said that his company's forms are just cumbersome and it's not worth the effort. My HSA just has a debit card and I suck it out ASAP.

I'm curious, why are you leaving your money in an HSA and paying out of pocket?
Click to expand...

I can take the reimbursement when I retire and it's a tax free. If I had a a significant out of pocket expense I would probably use the HSA Debit card but knock wood we haven't had to utilize a lot of services that required a large expense.
 
Matthew said:
We signed up for a "Retirement Planning" class at the county extension office. First of three classes starts tomorrow (3 nights, 3 hrs each). They have a section devoted to health insurance.

We both have a high deductible plan with HSAs (going on our 2nd year). We've been putting into the HSAs just enough to cover deductibles, then topping it off as needed - might not be the ideal situation, but we just started and didn't know what else to do with it.

If/when we retire, I suppose we can COBRA for a while, but that's not going to be a long term (5-10 yrs or so) option. There are a million decisions yet to be made, and we are on number 12.
Click to expand...

HSA's like 401K's have a catch up contribution if you're over 50, it's not much though I think it's an extra grand per year.
 
Gerhardt said:
My brother does that too and has a little over $25K sitting in his HSA.
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$25K won't even cover ONE DAY if admitted to an ICU. I can provide copies of a bill, if anyone's interested. All that HSA can cover is paying the deductible on a catastrophic plan. Quadruple it, and it'll cover three days in ICU plus the ambulance ride.
 
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