What do you consider life changing money

Terry M - 3CK (Chicago) said:
Curious @hindsight2020 and others . . . What is your next career? What are folks retiring to?
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The short answer is I don't have the first clue what I want to do when I grow up lol. As I'm also grappling with right now, catastrophic uninsured mx costs on this hobby have become rather prohibitive for non-revenue owners, so I need to create a long-term dedicated hobby fund to cover airplane ownership in retirement, separate from the regular cost of living stuff. That's gonna require some full time employment beyond the .mil days.

The long answer is that the DoD shorts me a lot on the pension front. They exclude a significant portion of my total monthly pay from the calculation of benefit. For an aviation bonus-qualifying aviator like myself, it's effectively an exclusion of 41% of my pay from that calculation. It's a non-starter. It's advertised as a 50 pct pension, it's not. It's effectively a 29% pension for me on the take home front (at 20 years).

What a good chunk of my peers do to get around that discount... is they malign to the VA for the difference and then some. But, as I and @Velocity173 have stated on here ad nauseam, we ain't about to dishonor our 20 years of Service by being part of that grift. I have to look at myself in the mirror and you people are funding my retirement, so I'll go do something else productive to tide me over to 57-60. Digressing.

As to what employment options? Well, there's a few, none which I particularly like. So I'll keep ignoring the question like a good procastrinator, and keep pretending my 8 year younger working wife will be sufficient Deus ex machina to make the question moot for me. :rofl:
 
Bell206 said:
True. But as you mentioned your case is more the exception than the norm. Have several friends with similar plans. Out of curiosity, at want age did you retire from Lockheed, and if you care to share what was premium you paid?
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I retired at 59. Used COBRA for the first 18 months, then picked up the premiums. I timed it so that COBRA ran out when my wife went on Medicare, so I’m only paying for my own coverage. PRO TIP - If you have an HSA, it can be used to pay COBRA premiums, which saves on taxes.

I don’t recall my premium and don’t want to go look it up just now. IIRC, when I was trading options in early 2022, it was a bit less than an ACA highest tier plan but with better coverage, and when I factored in my wife’s supplement plan + subsidy it was clearly the way to go.
 
hindsight2020 said:
The short answer is I don't have the first clue what I want to do when I grow up lol. As I'm also grappling with right now, catastrophic uninsured mx costs on this hobby have become rather prohibitive for non-revenue owners, so I need to create a long-term dedicated hobby fund to cover airplane ownership in retirement, separate from the regular cost of living stuff. That's gonna require some full time employment beyond the .mil days.

The long answer is that the DoD shorts me a lot on the pension front. They exclude a significant portion of my total monthly pay from the calculation of benefit. For an aviation bonus-qualifying aviator like myself, it's effectively an exclusion of 41% of my pay from that calculation. It's a non-starter. It's advertised as a 50 pct pension, it's not. It's effectively a 29% pension for me on the take home front (at 20 years).

What a good chunk of my peers do to get around that discount... is they malign to the VA for the difference and then some. But, as I and @Velocity173 have stated on here ad nauseam, we ain't about to dishonor our 20 years of Service by being part of that grift. I have to look at myself in the mirror and you people are funding my retirement, so I'll go do something else productive to tide me over to 57-60. Digressing.

As to what employment options? Well, there's a few, none which I particularly like. So I'll keep ignoring the question like a good procastrinator, and keep pretending my 8 year younger working wife will be sufficient Deus ex machina to make the question moot for me. :rofl:
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What post-mil careers are you qualified for, besides flying? Is your background in finance, engineering, marketing, Hindu poetry,...?
 
hindsight2020 said:
…They exclude a significant portion of my total monthly pay from the calculation of benefit. For an aviation bonus-qualifying aviator like myself, it's effectively an exclusion of 41% of my pay from that calculation…
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Keep in min mind BAH is tax free as well, so that’s kind of a double hit.

I started at my current employer with a little over a month of terminal leave to go. Manage your tax contributions wisely if multiple employers plus retirement pay all hits in the same year, otherwise the tax bill can be surprising.

In the severn years since, my private sector pay has increased about 30% excluding bonuses. With bonus, I’ just above par with basic pay + ACIP + BAH. The .mil retirement literally pays the mortgage and accelerates the amortization. If I had to participate in my employers health plan instead of Tricare, that’d axe my flying budget even with mi esposa promoting up to GS-12.

As soon as we pay off the house, we’ll likely divest in the big partnership we’re in and move up to a more travel-oriented plane with a smaller owner group. Even if I hammered together an RV-10, I doubt I could do that as a sole owner without stacks of Benjamins set aside for a catastrophic event and wandering the aisles at the local Home Depot to pay for gas. That beats the street corner alternative, but it’s worse than I’d like.
 
Half Fast said:
What post-mil careers are you qualified for, besides flying? Is your background in finance, engineering, marketing, Hindu poetry,...?
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My formal education is engineering (2 x those). But that was pursued on my part for the wrong reasons, and I have no heart/interest in pivoting to that work in middle age.

I'm not without options to be clear. I could teach math/science to maladjusted kids for fast food money, lick the console at the sim building for GS-12 money, peddle motivational speech potato with the youboober military influencer grifters, provide native/fluent Spanish translator services at the county court/jail for a daily retainer, and get gassed for free.

This is all tongue-in-cheek banter, I'm gonna be alright, working wife or not. This thread's conversation is more about retiring and doing what one would want to. I have found it refreshing, it has made me think more actively about some of the assumptions I had for non-working finances. Lots of good anecdotes on here from folks already in that stage. I will say I am encouraged by some of the anecdotes which support my original intuition regarding the amount of liquid I need to get me over the hump without diminishing my status quo lifestyle level. To wit, it's a much lower number, as I suspected.
 
Half Fast said:
I don’t recall my premium and don’t want to go look it up just now. IIRC, when I was trading options in early 2022, it was a bit less than an ACA highest tier plan
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Interesting. But as I mentioned above and in other threads ACA plan costs are heavily determined by income type. So if your only income was from qualified funds or other taxable funds not much comparision in your situation.

However, if your income was from a mix of sources, some taxable and some not, you can reduce your premium costs for the same or better coverage.

For example, my current ACA Silver plan (2nd tier) retails for $1250 per month but I only pay $60.76 per month. And the highest I've paid was around $150 per month in the 7 years I've be in it. So definitely need to check all options from all angles if under 65.
 
Military retirement at 20 years is not nearly enough to live on. If you stick around for 26-30 years and make O-6, different story.

TriCare is a hugely valuable benefit if you have a family, though.

My retirement pay 15 years ago as an O-5 at 20 was only about $4K. But that plus my wife going back to work part time gave me a safety net to start a government contracting business. That was a long hard slog with very stressful moments and many sleepless nights, but last few years have been good. Another 2 years on same trajectory and I'll have what I consider life changing money to start living the dream at 62. The dream in this case is skiing all winter and flying all summer.
 
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Half Fast said:
Sounds bass-ackwards for Florida. Fly in the winter, waterski all summer.
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Agreed on the flying for sure. More like ski in Colorado in winter, fly in FL in spring and fall, and summer TBD. Want to spend at least one summer flying west from CO. Maybe I'll enjoy that so much it will become part of the rotation.
 
on the ACA health plan thing
Only a sample size of one, so not very meaningful....but my only experience/exposure is my sister and BIL, both retired early and went on an ACA plan. Sounds like it's not a good experience... very few docs in their town even take the plan (metro population pushing something over 300,000 I think).... BIL went through some serious issues with melanoma, and had a bad time finding specialists. Some other issues too, as I recall. Not a great plan and not a great experience...and not all that cheap as I understand it....​

I unfortunately don't have a pension in the pipe, and my wife has her own small business so nothing there. With recent diet changes, I've pretty much eliminated most all of my minor preexisting conditions, kids are healthy... but my wife still has some preexisting conditions....so there's a little cloud hanging over the prospects of winging it for a few years. Still, my gut says we could make it work comfortably with either a medishare plan or some other ACA type catastrophic only type health plan.

My oldest is out of the house in college now so not gone but heading that way, middle kid has two more years in HS...and my youngest has 5 more years till college after this one.... so not heading for the door but we can see the light! That's a weird analogy to use because I'm really sad to see them go, so it's not really "the light" I see at the end of a tunnel....but I know its inevitable...so you I hope know what I mean. Anyway, won't be long and we can downsize out of our almost paid for home. Since my wife enjoys her work I can certainly imagine her continuing over the next handful of years as she slowly steps away....It's the kind of thing she can to a degree take off a week or three now an then as we slowly ease into more travel and fun. My job has always been the more time restricted issue in our lives, with limited vacation. I used to dream of semi retirement taking on a part time something for a few years just to keep a little pocket money coming in and at the same time allowing more time flexibility to spend time with the kids and travelling.... now days I'm ready to pull the handle and start building an EAB kit for a year or two while she continues to enjoy her job.... But if I'm really honest what I'd really like to do is work towards selling it all by the time my youngest goes to college, and trading the equity in the house for a nice live aboard trawler...then spending the next 5 years or so while I'm still young and strong enough travelling the world without the anchor of a house to hold us back. She's not on board with the idea though, so my next best daydream is the kitplane to get an affordable(?) and nice bird that we can take shorter time duration cross countries in, from the home base that she wants to maintain. It would give us an extended reach over something like the car or a motorhome...and would get me back in the air again!

I feel like we could probably make it work well, but the biggest hangup is that she's not convinced and it's mostly about the group health insurance.... which has been the primary reason I've maintained a job working for a company for the last decade or so....
 
Ed Haywood said:
Agreed on the flying for sure. More like ski in Colorado in winter, fly in FL in spring and fall, and summer TBD. Want to spend at least one summer flying west from CO. Maybe I'll enjoy that so much it will become part of the rotation.
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You meant that silly form of "skiing" that those nutjobs do on snow?! If you don't die by slamming into a tree at 50mph, you'll die from freezing instead. They say snow skiing is the thrill that comes once in a lifetime; at the very end.
 
Bell206 said:
....and if you care to share what was premium you paid?
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Okay, I checked this morning. My premium on the LM plan is $746/month. IIRC, the ACA plan would have been a little over $800, and the coverage and the available physicians was not nearly as good. Add in the benefits my wife receives and it was an easy choice.
 
Brad W said:
...but the biggest hangup is that she's not convinced...
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So you haven't lined up a retirement wife yet? :)

For years the phrase "retirement wife" was a running joke at LM. I watched more guys divorce their wives once the kids were grown and out, marry some lady 20+ years younger (usually a coworker they'd been fooling around with), then retire a year or two later. Pretty sad, really.
 
ha ha...yeah....nope that aint happening. I will admit though that I feel like a part of me is suffocating being lashed to the desk in the office as I watch the calendar pages turn, and her shooting down my daydreams to retire NOW does feel like a push in that direction sometimes. Still nope. I swore an oath to her and to God. So that just leaves figuring out the compromise that works.....
 
Brad W said:
both retired early and went on an ACA plan. Sounds like it's not a good experience... very few docs in their town even take the plan
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In general terms, the ACA is merely a payment option for the existing plans provided by the local providers. The ACA does not write policies. If they picked a plan that was not accepted by local doctors then that was not an ACA issue. Unfortunately, in some states not all providers participate in the ACA and associated market place. In my state, I can choose from up to 8 or 9 different plans from 3 providers with varying networks at 4 different ACA payment level options. To see your options you can go on the ACA website and check them out right now.
Brad W said:
some other ACA type catastrophic only type health plan.
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FYI: If you'll be over 30 when you retire a catastrophic plan won't be an option. That was my initial plan in 2014 but obamacare nixed that and put an age limit of 30 on those plans.
 
When I quit my job my ACA options were no less than $2500/mo for a family of 4 and a huge deductible. I took cobra instead. Will have to figure out what happens at the end of next year when cobra goes away.
 
Fidelity manages my former employer's pension plan. They emailed me this morning to say that my pension payments may start in early November, but that is subject to change, so it may not happen in November.

November will be 6 months after I retired, 7 months after I started the process to claim my pension. They have f*#k up every step of the way. I can't count how many hours I've spent on the phone with those idiots. The charitable interpretation is that Fidelity has never processed a pension payment before in the history of the corporation, so they don't know how to do it...but more likely, they are making a lot of money on the float and delay of initial payments is an important part of their corporate strategy.
 
Half Fast said:
You meant that silly form of "skiing" that those nutjobs do on snow?! If you don't die by slamming into a tree at 50mph, you'll die from freezing instead. They say snow skiing is the thrill that comes once in a lifetime; at the very end.
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Yes, the two great loves in my life are aerobatic flying and backcountry skiing. Rock climbing was also a favorite when my shoulders were younger. I suppose that says something about me. What can I say, I get bored without a war.
 
Ed Haywood said:
Yes, the two great loves in my life are aerobatic flying and backcountry skiing. Rock climbing was also a favorite when my shoulders were younger. I suppose that says something about me. What can I say, I get bored without a war.
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A bit of bouldering in my college days was the closest I ever got to climbing. Living here in FL, I’m surprised you haven’t tried cave diving.
 
GaryM said:
Fidelity manages my former employer's pension plan. They emailed me this morning to say that my pension payments may start in early November, but that is subject to change, so it may not happen in November.

November will be 6 months after I retired, 7 months after I started the process to claim my pension. They have f*#k up every step of the way. I can't count how many hours I've spent on the phone with those idiots. The charitable interpretation is that Fidelity has never processed a pension payment before in the history of the corporation, so they don't know how to do it...but more likely, they are making a lot of money on the float and delay of initial payments is an important part of their corporate strategy.
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I would have been talking to a lawyer three months ago.
 
As some others have said, whatever it'd take to convince me to walk away from my job. I'm 10 years from 'the number' that'd allow me to retire at some arbitrary level of income that'd keep me comfortable (I still have no idea how to come up with a number that's anything more than a WAG), but if I came into some money that'd put me at that point today - that'd be life changing. One advantage I have is my wife being younger - she can handle the medical side of things if I ever wanted to pull the cord early.

Doesn't necessarily mean I'd quit - I still enjoy what I do - but it's an entirely different thing to 'work' on your own terms.
 
kayoh190 said:
Doesn't necessarily mean I'd quit - I still enjoy what I do - but it's an entirely different thing to 'work' on your own terms.
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:yeahthat:

Exactly. I still practice engineering, but I do it for free for organizations that need it.



kayoh190 said:
(I still have no idea how to come up with a number that's anything more than a WAG)
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Well, instead of a WAG you might at least get to a SWAG if you work toward a number that would let you sustain the net income you have now, assuming you're already living comfortably, with investments that will keep pace with inflation. Remember that some of the deductions you have now will likely go away (SS for one, contributions to a 401k or a Roth IRA, etc.), so you won't need the same gross, which may also reduce your taxes a bit. Once you start drawing SS, the money in your nest egg will no longer have to provide all your income, so factor that in, too.

Leave yourself a little slack so you can make adjustments when necessary. Being debt-free helps with that a lot. When times are good you'll eat steak, but when things get a bit tight you'll eat chicken and hamburger helper for a while, just like you've probably been doing all along anyway. Maybe some years you'll eat out at Golden Corral instead of Ruth's Chris, but so what?

One thing that helped me feel comfortable with the retirement leap was to observe other retirees. When I realized that they were happy and enjoying retirement on substantially less money that I was worrying about having, I decided I'd be fine and it would work out.

You might enjoy this book: https://www.amazon.com/You-Retire-Sooner-Than-Think/dp/007183902X The investment strategies are a bit meh (and vague), but the stories and overall philosophy are excellent. It focuses on enjoying retirement and having a happy life, and you can probably do that for a lot less money than you expect.
 
kayoh190 said:
I still have no idea how to come up with a number that's anything more than a WAG
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One method that has worked for a number of people to include me is to accurately determine your current life expenses/overhead down to the nickel. Track them for at least 3-6 months or until you can get a firm amount spent. Then take that amount and deduct all work related expenses to include any pre-retirement financial expenditures like 401k deductions, etc. This result should give you a solid foundation for what it costs you to live after retirement. Now the guessing starts as you calculate the expenses you will endure in the life you retire to. The funny thing is once you're retired the issues you thought there would be are non-existent and life takes on a whole new meaning plus leaving you wondering how you ever had time to hold a job. But the key to all this is that you must retire to something and not from something.
 
Appreciate the response, @Half Fast . My WAG is actually pretty close to what I take home right now, but I live well below my means and think I'm likely to be one of those guys that grossly overestimates what I'll spend in retirement. The big issue is that I was a late bloomer in the kid game, so punching 10 early also means I'll still have my financial albatross amazing daughter living under the same roof. :p
 
Bell206 said:
The funny thing is once you're retired the issues you thought there would be are non-existent and life takes on a whole new meaning plus leaving you wondering how you ever had time to hold a job. But the key to all this is that you must retire to something and not from something.
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:yeahthat: :yeahthat: :yeahthat: :yeahthat: :yeahthat: :yeahthat:

And let the congregation say "AMEN!"
 
kayoh190 said:
Appreciate the response, @Half Fast . My WAG is actually pretty close to what I take home right now, but I live well below my means and think I'm likely to be one of those guys that grossly overestimates what I'll spend in retirement. The big issue is that I was a late bloomer in the kid game, so punching 10 early also means I'll still have my financial albatross amazing daughter living under the same roof. :p
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Yeah, that complicates things. I suppose you could list her in the POA classifieds and see how much she'd bring on the open market, but your wife might raise an objection of some sort....
:devil:
 
I need my kids to have life changing money so they can give me grandkids!

Anyway, a friend was recently switched to an Rx that’s nearly 10k a month! Does the government (Medicare) plus supplemental insurance pay for these things when you hit 65 or do they say, not covered?

Because setting enough aside to cover an extra 100k per year isn’t feasible for me. I definitely need to win the billion dollar poa powerball (glad to know that the board software upgrade donations were so lucrative)
 
Randomskylane said:
Does the government (Medicare) plus supplemental insurance pay for these things when you hit 65 or do they say, not covered?
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In general, yes if you elect to have the appropriate coverage. But with so many variables to that question there is no single accurate answer.
 
Randomskylane said:
…Anyway, a friend was recently switched to an Rx that’s nearly 10k a month…
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As mentioned, this is an instance of it depends is the real answer. But, why someone would not be involved in a decision of that magnitude is beyond me.

Not doubting your friend, or anybody’s decision to go that route, but if I’m conscious, I expect informed consent before bankrupting myself. Had a dentist look at what appeared to be a severe ulcer in my left cheek a few years ago. She wanted a $500 image that wasn’t covered, so I asked what was the likelihood she would be able to both tell me more AND do something about it. Slim and none was the short answer so I asked what type of doc she’s refer me to. Turned out to be an OMFS. I went to an OMFS I know who runs a pay first/pt files insurance practice.

For $750, imaging and procedure to resolve the issue. Filed with my insurer for reimbursement after the fact and was reimbursed in full.
 
More money isn't very "life changing" when there isn't likely to be much lifetime ahead. You get to a point where you're on financial cruise control that isn't impacted much by money in either direction.

At 76 I'm working on a project that could be very lucrative, knowing full well that I probably won't really benefit from any of it financially. What you leave behind can be very rewarding nonetheless, and the satisfaction comes from being the architect of that reward.
 
@Brad W have you looked into looping? There are at least Facebook pages for loopers, not sure about a loopers of America board. Many are stuck in Chicago with temperatures dropping because a drawbridge is stuck down (for weeks at this point) but seems like an epic bucket list adventure.
 
Ed Haywood said:
Money can buy time. Once you have enough to live off your investments, you do not have to work. That's 40-48 hours a week of time gained. That's my goal for the next two years.
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Hmm, I am retired and cannot figure out where I fit in my working hours. :D
 
Terry M - 3CK (Chicago) said:
@Brad W have you looked into looping? There are at least Facebook pages for loopers, not sure about a loopers of America board. Many are stuck in Chicago with temperatures dropping because a drawbridge is stuck down (for weeks at this point) but seems like an epic bucket list adventure.
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The Great American Loop? Yes, I've thought about it several times. It's not the highest route on my dream list...but if my pipe dream of a liveaboard boat ever came through...depending on the boat's air and water draft.... it would be on my list of possibilities for sure....at least parts of it. If I ever did it, I'd probably try to do it over more than one season, and extend side trips up the Mississippi and maybe up the Ohio a bit too.
 
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