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IT TOOK FIVE FALSE starts to write this column. Each time, I’d inundate readers with information. So, here’s a sixth try.
Have you ever seen those questions to financial advisors on the internet that say, “I have [insert dollar amount]. Can I retire?”
How the heck could the advisor give a reasonable response? To answer the question, it takes more than simply knowing how much you have in the bank. You need a lot of personal and financial information to make the decision to retire. Much of it has to do with personality and family situation.
Let me tell you how I decided to retire at 60. Retiring at that age wasn’t my plan. But I came to the decision that it was for the best. Here’s why.
I’ve generally had at least two or three jobs for most of my working life. I’m not a workaholic. But you do what you have to do when you have a good wife and five kids.
My wife Cindy and I have contributed to 401(k)s and IRAs for decades. She stayed at home to raise our kids for 12 years and she’s nine years younger than me. She works at a local bank as a teller. Cindy plans to work until age 59.
Our ace in the hole for retirement has been my pension from 43 years of active and primarily reserve military duty. The pension started at age 60, increases each year with inflation, is larger than my future Social Security check and includes a family medical insurance plan through Tricare. We have no debt and we had two children in college at the time I retired. Both were covered by scholarships then and both are now employed.
My last civilian job was working as an accountant for a company that printed magazines. Well, paper and ink had a good 2,000-year run, but that has been rapidly ending with the invention of the internet. The company had been dying a slow, painful death. That’s just the way it was.
Many jobs were done away with over the years. But that was not the case with me. I watched folks above and below me get pink slips. Then their work would fall on my desk. I seemed to have had two important attributes: I could get the job done and I was a bargain. I never got paid overtime because I was salaried, and yet I did endless overtime.
All the overtime and stress at a company that appeared to be on the road to bankruptcy was affecting my health, with high blood pressure and other medical problems. But I just couldn’t seem to pull the trigger and retire. The plan was to bank my military retirement checks and work until at least age 65.
Then one Sunday, which was routine for me, I was at the plant and a supervisor I knew came by my desk. We got to talking about retirement. I mentioned that I could retire if I wanted to. I had run the figures once, and then had a financial advisor see if he agreed. He did.
My friend looked at me in astonishment and said, “Ken, why are you here on a Sunday if you can retire? This isn’t a dress rehearsal for life. This is it. You don’t get a second chance.”
He was right. If you enjoy what you’re doing, then by all means continue to work. It will probably extend your life a lot more than retiring. But if you have the means to retire and you really don’t like what you’re doing, it’s time to go. The extra money you make might not pay for the medical bills that could result from your decision to stay. You only have a limited number of years in what I call your “life bank.” Don’t spend most of this bank account doing something you don’t want to do.
Retirement worked for us. Our marriage got stronger by bringing down our family stress level. I do all the housecleaning, laundry, dishes, mowing, grocery shopping and 1,000 other little tasks around the house. Cindy trusts me with everything but cooking. Smart girl. All Cindy has to do is commute two miles to work and come home in the evening. Also, we eat out a lot. Smart boy.
Sometimes, retirement is the best answer.
Ken Begley has worked for the IRS and as an accountant, a college director of student financial aid and a newspaper columnist, and he also spent 42 years on active and reserve service with the U.S. Navy and Army. Now retired, Ken likes to spend his time with his family, especially his grandchildren, and as a volunteer with Kentucky’s Marion County Veterans Honor Guard performing last rites at military funerals, including more than 350 during the past three years. Check out Ken’s earlier articles.
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Great read and good decision. You’ve worked very hard for many years, time to enjoy these years!
Your sixth try is a winner. I retired back in March, a couple of days before my 67th birthday. I worked for family (not my family thankfully) business. Since 2020 there has been a lot of family drama. Things got really bad last summer. July 2022, I went to the ER (almost passed out at work) with my BP 200/110. (I’m on BP med now and it’s under control.) My boss at the time was forced to leave the company and I was targeted shortly thereafter. I had hoped to finish out 2023 but things came to a head in March and I said “no more.” I had been diligently saving and have a small pension from a previous job, plus 401(k) and IRA. After crunching all the numbers, I realized I would not be increasing my social security by much if I stuck it out. Plus I realized that with the pension and social security I am making about the same as when I started with the company 7 years ago. I am happy with my decision. Hubby is still working, from home. I have been able to work on things that I’ve been putting off, i.e. cleaning out the basement, yard work, among other things. It’s just not worth it to sacrifice my health to try to please others.
Great article Ken. My wife and I also retired well before 65 because our jobs were adversely impacting our health. We were very fortunate in that we worked for a company that allowed one to retire and receive a pension after 30 years. That was always our goal and we started an aggressive savings plan in our early thirties to enable us to get there. Interestingly enough, I was an avid reader of Jonathan Clements articles on investing in index funds and that is where all our savings went. That investment strategy allowed us to assume that the historical growth of the market would on average be around 6