Anyone close to retirement? / when do you start counting the days?

My husband is a federal employee. He filed for retirement last year after working his last day Jan 9,2016. Today we were finally informed that retirement will be processed in the next 3 weeks. He was with the government for 22 years as a customs officer

That's a long time to process. Were there papers initially missing?

No, everything was there they just have a backlog. Yes, it's a very long process but luckily I think we may finally be nearing the end

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I always thought I would be a freedom 55 guy but waiting a couple of years made more financial sense. I'm 56 now so most likely sometime next year or early 2019.

More Cruising is definitely part of our future but as my wife and I get older, our desire to get to point B from point A to hop on that ship is waning. Would like to do Europe or Asia trips but getting there will be the challenge.

Waiting on a Star Trek like transporter to be functional in the next 2 years!

Finally made it! DW retired 7 years ago, but I stuck it out (for various reasons) until this past January after turning 62.

We've been cruising for many years now, but will be enjoying our first one this September since my retirement. I'm still getting used to this new thing called 'retired life', but am definitely enjoying it so far! DW and I feel very fortunate to have the means to continue our passion for cruising, but we also sometimes look at each other and say, 'you know what, we earned this'! :)

After a working career that for me spanned nearly 50 years, I'm beginning to believe it! :D

59 days for me, 30 years in the fire service and loved every minute of it! Looking forward to the next chapter[emoji41]

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Last week I announced to my supervisor my intention to take early retirement in October. I thought there would be some discussion but he merely told me to send him an email when I am 60 days out. I guess I won't start the countdown until the summer. On the plus side, it will be a short countdown.

Set for early May 2017 retirement but using vacation the entire month of April (use it or lose it situation). Sort of like a retirement test drive I guess! :cool:

sentrydriver - Unfortunately, I think your experience is not uncommon today.

Hi all.

My DH and I are planning on retiring in 4 years. We will be 57 y.o. It seems like it is flying by and now I am starting to get nervous. If you don't mind sharing, are you able to live on $5,000 per month comfortably....AND still cruise? We currently live on $8,800 per month but 1/3 of that pays our house and our RV. We will be debt free at retirement.

The $5,000 would be until we start taking our pension and SSI at age 65.

Thank you to each of you who give input!!

Congratulations on your plans for retiring so young! I wish we had planned better early on, but no use regretting what can't be changed. We have just recently met with a CFP to discuss our retirement possibilities. We too plan to cruise in retirement and look forward to being able to go when we like! As it stands we will begin our retirement with $70000 per year but that will actually increase when we draw SS when we turn 70. Our advisor planned out to age 100 with different scenarios. If you haven't met with someone yet I would advise it. Maybe try living on the 5k now to see how that feels ( not counting your current payments) . What concerns me is the cost of insurance and taxes. We've just recently become intentional with our plans. I plan to retire in 5 years at 65 and DH will slowly cut back starting in 3 years until age 70. I think we could live on 5k per month if we budgeted carefully but taxes and insurance would be the deciding factor. I think the key is budgeting. A great book to read is "Retire Inspired" by Chris Hogan. He describes things very well and includes some pitfalls to avoid.

Congratulations on your plans for retiring so young! I wish we had planned better early on, but no use regretting what can't be changed. We have just recently met with a CFP to discuss our retirement possibilities. We too plan to cruise in retirement and look forward to being able to go when we like! As it stands we will begin our retirement with $70000 per year but that will actually increase when we draw SS when we turn 70. Our advisor planned out to age 100 with different scenarios. If you haven't met with someone yet I would advise it. Maybe try living on the 5k now to see how that feels ( not counting your current payments) . What concerns me is the cost of insurance and taxes. We've just recently become intentional with our plans. I plan to retire in 5 years at 65 and DH will slowly cut back starting in 3 years until age 70. I think we could live on 5k per month if we budgeted carefully but taxes and insurance would be the deciding factor. I think the key is budgeting. A great book to read is "Retire Inspired" by Chris Hogan. He describes things very well and includes some pitfalls to avoid.

Hi Misty. Thank you for replying so quickly. One of the only reasons we can retire so early is because our insurance will not change once we retire. My husband is retired military so we get a fantastic insurance price. Regarding taxes, we meet with our financial planner in two weeks . That is a great question. I am going to write it down to remember to ask him that specifically.

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Well the 8 of us got back from our cruise a couple weeks ago after me retiring on February 24th, so this has been quite an adventure for me, as well as the rest. I believe they really enjoyed the cruise, especially the ports/islands we visited, and I heard remarks of wanting to visit them again, ONLY not by cruise. I think the reason being, and I DO understand, it really is a hassle flying in/out to the airport, getting transportation, going through security, etc., (I do understand) just to get on/off the ship. Most of the time we were together, but a few times, some of us separated and went a different direction.

This is off the subject, but more than likely no matter where you work, there is always someone that no matter what you do/say, they will not like you. I believe I told you I was a receptionist for a very large company for 19 years. During this time, there was a lady that filled in for me every other month for my 2 breaks and lunch hour, and I could always tell, she "did not" like this, just by her actions. I have always been one of these people to "trust" a person, and had always trusted her, until she "burned" me about 3 times, and I changed my mind about her. She was a very nosy person, gossipy person, and some people like to HEAR from her, what the latest gossipy was. Also during this time I trusted, I would "remember" how I had left my computer, and which areas were open/closed. When I came back more than one time, I could see that she had been very nosy, so I decided to write a "pretend" letter to my lover, and see if she still would see it. To make the long story short, my husband's middle name is Wayne. I wrote the letter to Wayne, and put all the right details in there, just to see how nosy she would be. To make the long story short, She printed off the letter (I have no proof, but she is the only one that had access to my computer at that time) and mailed it to my house. My husband got it (I did not know she had done this), and to say the least, I had a LOT of talking/explaining to do, just to get him to believe that I was trying to catch her in a trap. All this time, I never told my supervisor until the day before I retired, and she told me she had wished I had told her sooner, but I didn't feel that I should. If you remember, I told you they did a BIG (it was to be small) retirement party for me with the president flying in from NY, and about 200 people coming. Now whether what I told my supervisor, and some other things she had done to others may have played into it, when I got back from our cruise one of my dear friends emailed me and told me she was GONE (no retirement party for her), and no one knew the reason why, or could not talk about it. As my friends have told me, what goes around, comes around. So we must always be truthful and honest, and it will pay out in the end!:)

Beshears....all I can say is "You go girl!!!" People like that are a real pain! Anyway, I haven't been on here in awhile but I do remember your name. I retired 2 years ago and would never go back to teaching again. I do help my husband with his business a bit, but so much better than before. Anyway, enjoy your retirement!!!😊😊😊

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Zlacrusing, thank you for your nice comments.:)

Yes, it is a little hard for me to adjust to retirement, but it is coming together. Actually, I am having to do it the hard way right now. For at least two years or more, I have not had any Menier's spells, and I have had 5 (3 real bad) within less than a week, so to say the least, these have slowed me down. I heard from one of the men (I was planning on going back to my company and "visiting" everyone before they moved to Kansas, but I was hit with the Menier's yesterday again) that I used to work with. He was sort of catching me up to date on what was going on at DFA. He informed me that others have left, and there will probably be more. Also a very dear friend that I haven't heard from in over 30 years that lives now in Arizona, called last night. We are trying to catch up on all the time we missed, and who knows, maybe I will be seeing her there. So maybe my retirement won't be too bad, just catching up with people that I have not been able to see for several years. I know some of my friends that have already retired a few years ago emailed me last week and said they wanted to get with me. Maybe I will be kept busy after all.:) I still want to be able to cruise if at all possible, if not anymore this year, next year. :)

Next Monday I'll take one more marble from the jar....then I only have 21 more to go. (Each marble represents a month - when I've lost all my marbles I'm done!)

Since I've discovered that that one of the best ways (for me) for the time to go quickly is to book cruises, I've done just that. Next fall I'll be sailing on the Crown Princess (Canada/New England), February 2018, I'm on the NCL Epic (Western Caribbean), and the third cruise is planned for January 2019 on RCCL Anthem of the Seas (Southern Caribbean). The latter will be my retirement cruise, as I'll be on vacation but officially retiring at the end of the month. I'm not wishing time away but I'm looking forward to these cruises with anticipation.

Sasksilver, well it sounds like you are making progress, by taking a marble out each month, which does make them go away. :) Sounds like you have several cruises lined up as well, and wish I could do that, but MONEY is a big object with me. I don't know if you have ever heard of Branson, Missouri, but I live in KC, and Branson is a little over 3 hours away from us. Anyway Paul Anka, and Neil Sedaka, and some others like that are coming to Branson in the fall, and I'm hoping to see them. They are not cheap, but at least they don't cost as much as airline flight and cruise. :)

Paul Anka and Neil Sedaka versus airline flight and a cruise maybe back in the 70s i would go for Paul and Neil but not today ( just saying ).

Telebax51, I DO understand where your coming from. The reason we want to see Paul Anka and Neil Sedaka is they are in our age range (maybe a tad older than us), and we have NEVER seen them, so that is the reason why.:) Since I have retired, my money is NOT flowing like it used to, so thus, we decided to just do one of the shows. The reason being, we will NOT received a refund if we have to cancel for any reason. Now if the entertainer does not show, then we will receive a refund. The cost of the ticket was not cheap, even for row 15 back (all others sold in front), but when they start adding all the different taxes, etc., it does add up. It is not so bad when I do a flight or cruise, as I always take insurance out, so I know I will be covered if something happens. :) Even with the flight and I have to cancel, as long as I take it within the year period, I will be fine.

I wish I could start counting the days, but I'm having trouble setting a date. We are going on a cruise to Alaska this summer and when we booked it I was thinking it might be to celebrate retirement. But now I'm wavering and thinking of staying on until March. So it's something between 90 and 300 days left.

Although I retired after 19 years at a very large corporate office the 24th of February, I "thought" maybe I should have waited a little longer, to stay with a few more friends that I had from the beginning of those 19 years. Well..............I have just heard from some of my friends that are still working there (our company moved from Missouri to Kansas), that some of the people that I "thought" would be there quite a bit longer, they are either quitting, or retiring as well. I think most of

them found that after they moved to Kansas, they were not as happy there as they were where we were originally, so I don't feel so bad about retiring in February like I did. :)

Beshears....all I can say is "You go girl!!!" People like that are a real pain! Anyway, I haven't been on here in awhile but I do remember your name. I retired 2 years ago and would never go back to teaching again. I do help my husband with his business a bit, but so much better than before. Anyway, enjoy your retirement!!!😊😊😊

 

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Hi,

I have not been on this site for a while myself. My granddaughter attended kindergarten at the school I teach at so I was busy. She would come home with me each night until about 6:30 pm.

I am getting close to that retirement time. I figure two more years so about June of 2019. My partner is retiring at the age of 70 but I don't plan on going that long. We are going to Alaska in August with my son and family from Chicago.

Read52, good to hear from you. Well all I can say is it is HARD for me to STAY retired. I am finding myself sleeping in later, and I don't like that, as I was so used to getting up early in the morning. :) I have been trying to help my husband "clean up" a lot of his mess that he just leaves almost anywhere (important papers, documents, etc.), but never seems to be able to "find" anything, wonder why???:confused: I believe I have mentioned that I am very organized, so hopefully I can get his papers in some type of order where he will be able to find things better. I have always had my own system for myself, and then if he gets into some of my papers, he never puts them "back" where they belong, so thus, you can guess what I go through, trying to find my papers.:) I would still like to find something part time, but last week I went out of town with my son/grandson to take care of some business in Branson, MO., and then my husband and I went to Branson this past week, and then my friend called and wants to go to Branson the end of this month, so I "think" I will be busy for a while. Everyone that is either retired, or getting ready to do this, and counting the days, I hope it works out the way YOU want it to. :)

Read52, good to hear from you. Well all I can say is it is HARD for me to STAY retired. I am finding myself sleeping in later, and I don't like that, as I was so used to getting up early in the morning. :) I have been trying to help my husband "clean up" a lot of his mess that he just leaves almost anywhere (important papers, documents, etc.), but never seems to be able to "find" anything, wonder why???:confused: I believe I have mentioned that I am very organized, so hopefully I can get his papers in some type of order where he will be able to find things better. I have always had my own system for myself, and then if he gets into some of my papers, he never puts them "back" where they belong, so thus, you can guess what I go through, trying to find my papers.:) I would still like to find something part time, but last week I went out of town with my son/grandson to take care of some business in Branson, MO., and then my husband and I went to Branson this past week, and then my friend called and wants to go to Branson the end of this month, so I "think" I will be busy for a while. Everyone that is either retired, or getting ready to do this, and counting the days, I hope it works out the way YOU want it to. :)

Hi,

Once I retire, I will still do something part time or sub. I do like to sew and have made several things for my 6 grandchildren. For my partner, I made a quilt for her retirement. All the present students decorated a small square. Then I had the teachers write a message to her on other squares. She was very happy to get it. That was the first time I made a quilt.

Read52, when I was younger, I was doing a lot of sewing as well, making clothes for myself, and even shirts for my twins to match my dress. :) I did crochet 3 baby blankets, and gave them to each of my 3 sons, once their first child was born. I even make 3 very large quilts, doing all the work by hand, down on my knees in our wreck room where the quilt was on the floor on newspapers for me to tack or sew together. I gave them to each of my sons when they got married.

For your partner the quilt you made with everyone signing it, etc., sounds very nice, and I would have liked something like that as well. I never dreamed it would happen, but DFA had a very large picture frame (left the glass off until about 200 or more people signed it, and then delivered it to my home)for people to sign, and now I have it hanging in my dining room, as I am so proud of all the signatures, and well wishes, that takes me "back" to those people I had worked with.

I just found this thread. I am retiring in 25 weeks on 22 December after 31 years. I booked my retirement vacation to Tulum, Mexico starting on 23 December for a week, then come home and head out on the NCL Dawn on 7 January. Can't wait!

I was able to retire "Quite Comfortably" at age 55. I took to it right away, didn't EVEN need training. I've been widowed for quite some time. I am a certified bowling Instructor/Coach, I bowl in three leagues, and give free lessons whenever possible. My "Boys" Jake and Clancy both Golden Retrievers. Jake is 9 months old and weighs 81 pounds, Clancy is 18 months old and weighs about the same. I spend a lot of time with them. I am also a certified dog trainer, and do that for free. I have been on 17 cruises so far, the last two I did by myself. I felt VERY alone. My wife and I used to cruise a lot. I have a "British Isles" cruise coming up the last week in August. I'm a bit apprehensive about going solo, but I DID sign up for the "Meet and Greet", I should be able to make some new friends there. Sorry, I got a little off topic.