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MY ALL-TIME FAVORITE movie is the Coen brothers’ 2000 classic, O Brother, Where Art Thou? At one point, Holly Hunter’s character, Penelope, declares, “I’ve said my piece and I’ve counted to three.” Her estranged husband, played by George Clooney, understood from long experience that once she had “counted to three,” her mind couldn’t be changed.
Last summer, I wrote an article that explored the decisions my husband and I are working through about our retirement date and location. I concluded, “This is harder than it might seem. I may be writing a completely different article six months from now.” Well, here I am, not much more than six months later, and my own immediate future is coming into focus, at least the “when” part.
In my earlier article, I said that we were deciding between July 1, 2025, and July 1, 2026, as our retirement date. I received a lot of great questions in the comments section, including several along the lines of “You sound ready—why wait?” and “Run the numbers. Would an extra year really make that much of a difference?”
Why wait? My university pension will be based on three things: a multiplier based on my age at retirement; my years of service credit; and the average of my highest three years of salary. The age factor maxes out at 60, so that’s no longer a consideration.
At my rank—I’m an advanced full professor—I get reviewed for merit increases every three years. I was reviewed in 2022 and was fortunate to receive the highest possible raise. I decided then that, unless a health crisis intervened, I should stick it out until at least 2025 to lock that final pay increase into my pension calculation. That’s also the year I’ll turn 65, hit 35 years of service credit and become eligible for Medicare. It just feels like the right time to me.
By next year, I’ll also have enough credits for one more quarter of paid sabbatical, which I already have approved for this coming winter, and then I’ll return for my final quarter of teaching next spring. (If you take a sabbatical, you can’t go straight into retirement or a new job, or you’ll have to repay the university for that time.) I earned that sabbatical and don’t want to leave those unused credits on the table.
Run the numbers. As I intimated in my previous article, the reasons behind the possible later 2026 retirement date were financial. But like some readers, my husband encouraged me to “run the numbers,” so I did. It’s impossible to know to the penny what my pension would be in 2026 vs. 2025, but I can get pretty close. I estimate that an additional year of service credit would add $468 a month, or $5,616 a year, to my pension. That’s a nice sum, but it isn’t worth an extra year of my life if I’m ready to leave the workplace.
What’s changed? In hindsight, I think I was looking for a sign that would guide me toward one retirement date or the other. Then I got some news in January that has made it crystal clear to me that I want out as soon as possible.
Thankfully, it wasn’t bad news from the doctor. Rather, it was very unpleasant and surprising workplace news—a departmental reorganization that’ll dramatically change my day job. I was already tired and burned out after a few rough years as department head during the pandemic. This latest development clarified for me how ready I am to be done with this institution.
Though I still enjoy teaching, advising graduate students, research and writing, I can do some or all of those things when I’m retired. In fact, recently one of my publishers contacted me and asked if I’d do a new edition of one of my books. I asked if I could write it starting in July 2025, and if I could add a younger co-author, and the publisher said yes to both.
I think that a writing project during the year after I retire will be an enjoyable way to ease out of the workplace, especially since it allows me to mentor a younger scholar during the process. I’ll also be finishing up on several students’ doctoral dissertation committees in 2025-26, which professors are allowed to still do after they retire.
Finally, one other thing that’s changed: My husband and I are both coming around to the idea that we don’t need to retire at the exact same moment. As I have outlined, it doesn’t affect our bottom line much if I work an extra year or don’t, but it would make a difference if he continues to work. He still feels valued and motivated in his job, and he doesn’t have a clear vision yet of what he’d do with his time if he were fully retired. He may keep going for several more years, possibly cutting back on his hours over time.
For me, though, it’s 2025, and I’m not kidding. In fact, I’ve counted to three.
Dana Ferris and her husband live in Davis, California. She’s a professor in the writing program at the University of California, Davis, and is the author or co-author of nine books on teaching writing and reading to second language learners. Dana is a huge baseball fan and writes a weekly column for a San Francisco Giants fan blog under the nom de plume DrLefty. When not working, she also loves cooking, traveling and working out. Follow Dana on X @LeftyDana and on Threads, and check out her earlier articles.
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Good for you.
Good for you! Lots of things for you to look forward to and plan.
All good reasons for your planned retirement date. For many people, however, the signals are less clear and they dither as to when to pull the plug. This is especially true I think for people with few outside interests or activities. As a result, my advice to anyone considering retirement has been “Have a plan for what you are going to do with your time after the “vacation” aspect of retirement passes.”
Agreed! 👍🏻
Good choice. I thought you were beginning to describe a “planets-coming-into-alignment” moment, and then you pivoted to explain how the real world of organizational insanity intervened. That is one of the real world things that forces one to step back from looking only at the money and the pension ‘delta’ between now and your target date. I’m sure that the more you began to compare the incremental dollars for one more year against “freedom”, it probably became a no-brainer for you. I won’t say “money isn’t everything”, since money does count for something. But I will say “a little more money sure isn’t everything, and sometimes it isn’t anything”.
Honestly, things are so icky at work right now that it’s taking a lot of self-control not to put in my retirement paperwork NOW to retire THIS July 1. As you said, the $ delta vs the aggravation/stress is an important calculation.
But I want that sabbatical, I have a few projects and students I want to finish up with next year, and 2025 just sounds right to me.
My decision was that I would be 70 in the next year that I left the job. That’s all I looked at and it was so simple.
My husband may go all the way to 70, at least part time. Not me, though!
Congratulations to you, Dana! It certainly appears that you have thought through your situation carefully and intelligently.
Thank you!
Congratulations! Sounds like a comprehensive due diligence with a great answer. Have fun!
Thanks!
Dana, hearty congrats and you’ll reap the benefits of your very careful planning for and thinking about retirement.
It can be a very happy time—it has been for me—and I know you’ll enjoy it.
Thank you!
Congratulations Dana. It’s great you will get to go out in your terms.
Thanks, Rick!
I retired 3 years earlier than my wife.
I was in IT and encountered a problem I simply knew I wasn’t going to ever be able to understand.
Since I couldn’t give my employer full value – or more – in return for my paycheck, I decided to retire.
Since I only gave them 2 weeks notice almost everyone thought I was taking another job.
Nope.
I couldn’t do the work anymore so I retired completely.
When someone from the organization called I did try to help, but soon even those calls stopped.
Strangely … I still get emails from recruiters even though I politely decline whatever position they’re trying to fill.
When you know, you know. Good for you! Congratulations on your joyous, life-affirming choice!
Thanks, Stacey!
Exactly.
Congratulations! When I was planning to retire from my IT career, I had a Plan B – if I were laid off – and a Plan A where I could choose when to quit. I wasn’t laid off, but my IT group was reorganized and our work location changed, meaning a much longer commute. That and some other unpleasant changes made me decide to give six months’ notice. Because I was leaving, I didn’t have to go to the new location, and I had time to interview and train my replacement. I hope your retirement works out as well for you as mine has for me.
Thanks—it sounds like you got “the sign” that it was time, too!
Oh sweet clarity and certainty! Congratulations, Dana! Best wishes for a long, happy, and healthy third act of life.
(Please don’t let the book squeeze out writing for HD.)
Thanks for the kind words. I’m sure I’ll still have time to write for HD if Jonathan will still have me!
Dana, You made a thoughtful decision, and I wish you the best in your transition. I would bet that you also reached a point where you met all your academic goals. Retirement will give you a fresh slate to use your skills to meet new challenges!
It’s funny you said that. When I started my career in my early 30s, I did have some aspirations: Write a book. Be a plenary speaker in a big ballroom at a conference. Be a journal editor. Mentor Ph.D students. Oh, and this week: get invited to give a talk in Hawaii! (I’m writing this from my hotel room in Waikiki, having given my lecture yesterday.)
I think I’ve pretty much checked all the boxes. I even learned how to teach effectively online (thanks, COVID).
Congratulations Dana. One of my best decisions was to leave an occupation that had changed in a way not to my liking. I then spent 20 years working on my terms and I loved it. You and your husbands thought process could serve as a roadmap for others approaching retirement.
It’s a privilege to get to make those choices, for sure. I know not everyone has the freedom that I have.
Dana, congratulations on your book project and your well-thought retirement decision. I’ll look forward to an article on where as your husband’s retirement gets closer. Good that you have the book and dissertations going while he continues to work.
Btw the mere mention of O Brother, Where Art Thou? made me smile. Good way to start the day.
We’re still wrestling with the “where,” but that becomes much easier to consider once I’m retired. My husband works remotely, so we could move anywhere (in the U.S., that is). We may still just stay put—the leading option—but we have a couple alternatives to sort through in the next year-plus.
We love “O Brother” so much that we re-watch it about once a year, often on New Year’s Eve if we don’t have other plans. We can both quote dialogue throughout the movie, and we often play the soundtrack.
“Do. Not. Seek. The. Treasure!”
”We thought you was a toad!”
You have indeed counted to three, and very thoughtfully. Congratulations on the clarity of your thinking and best wishes for next year’s slide into retirement.
I’m referring to it as my “victory lap”! 😂
Sounds like you’re ready. While the details are different, I similarly struggled with the decision of when to retire. It was complicated because my situation (not unlike yours) was a pair of golden handcuffs as the numbers just kept getting better each year I waited. But as a wise colleague once told me, when you’re ready you’ll know. Sure enough, a time came when I knew I both had enough money and I was just emotionally ready. I didn’t hate my job, but neither did I want to be there any longer. I simply was ready to move on to the next phase of my life. Coincidentally, for me it also was when I turned 65. Enjoy the rest of your career and best wishes as you launch into the next phase of your life next year.
That’s it. That’s exactly how I feel about things. Thanks!
Sounds like a plan to me, a well considered plan. The retirement thing is much easier for those of us with good pensions to back us up.
It certainly is. I went to work for a state university when I was 30, and my husband got his legal job with the state when he was 36. We didn’t really know from pensions or retirement options—we were just trying to get/keep jobs and raise our young family. I remember my dad, a pretty savvy businessman, saying, “You guys are set. You’re in the best pension system in the country now.” I don’t know if it is the best one, but it’s pretty darn good. Once we got our minds around what our CalPERS pensions and medical benefits might look like, it took a lot of weight off our shoulders in ensuing decades. We know how lucky we are.
I think it’s the pensions that keep quality people working in government/education. My sister, a retired school teacher in Oregon, has a pension that pays more than what she earned in her final years. Good for you Dr.!
I’m going to be pretty close to that when you consider that my pension contribution, Social Security, and voluntary retirement contributions won’t be coming down.
Lucky bugs!