So after having coming off a super crappy week, I was ready for a better one. My wish was granted.
Are you wondering about that title? Well, 2 of my friends have recently given their notice and are retiring. Rene made the decision to retire at 63.5 and pay COBRA for 18 months until she qualifies for Medicare. She's going part-time in April and will officially retire in early June. Anne met with her retirement people and decided to do the same. Despite it being 3.5 years out, she already told her supervisor. Now I only just turned 59 and like my job but it's all got me thinking.
I met with my retirement guy and he assured me that I'll do fine. If the market tanks, my money will run out when I'm in my 90's. If it does OK, I'll have money still in my 90's. 90's! What are the chances I'll live that long? But I digress... He also mentioned something about my break even year being when I'm 81. From what I understand, it means that whether I start collecting social security at 62 (nope), 65 or the 70 they always recommend, I break even at 81. So you get more per month if you wait until you're 70 to collect but it takes until you're 81 to make up for the 8 years you didn't collect. Does that make sense? I think that's the deal. I had always thought I'd wait until 70 but won't I need more money when I'm younger and still travelling? I will get more info when I meet with him next month to transfer my Roth IRA to Fidelity from Horace Mann, which I'm dropping like a hot potato as soon as my car is back from the body shop. So lots of thinking about retirement.
Which continued on Thursday. The only thing on my calendar for Thursday was lunch with Dodie, which I always look forward to. So when Dodie messaged me that she was calling in sick, I got inspired. Now I don't take mental health days. I blame my manager from Valueland who instilled in his mostly student workforce that if you could fog a mirror, you got your butt to work. I can count on one hand the times I've called in when I wasn't sick in the 22 years I've been at UNL but I called in Thursday. I absolutely enjoyed sitting in the sun knitting the morning away but my mind was a whirl with thinking about retirement. While I do like my job and the people I work with, if I can get past the guilt to call in when I'm not sick, maybe I will feel like retirement is worth it when I'm 63.5. I guess only time will tell but it's absolutely on my mind.
I was supposed to be on a 600/900 week and did OK at the start of the week but got worse and worse as the week wore on. I tried to fast on Saturday and not eat until supper but caved mid-afternoon and ended up eating way too much once I started. I'm finding it really hard to stick to rotating but am not happy about my weight. Hmmm.... gotta find something that works.
I was inside all day Saturday, which was enabled by the bank run I did for the Friends of the Library on Thursday afternoon. The sun was shining and I sat in my happy spot knitting all morning on Saturday and only managed to pick up the kitchen and do the pots and pans in the afternoon. Otherwise I was in full on veg mode.
Sunday I was meeting Helen at The Ponderosa in Weston for my birthday breakfast. Helen works 7 on 7 off and so couldn't get together on my birthday weekend. I'd been wanting to go to this restaurant for awhile, enticed by Facebook posts of yummy looking food. Well, the breakfast was not only not special, I'd have to say it was below average. Oh well. From there we went back to my house and Helen and I had a lovely afternoon of knitting and chatting, which doesn't happen very often with our busy lives. She was there until almost dinner time and I only had time for a single load of laundry before caving and ordering a pizza for supper, which I enjoyed with my favorite vanilla blond beer and a DQ peanut butter sundae for dessert. So much for my diet.
So it was a much better week than the previous one (darn good thing!) and I had lots of recharge time. I'll take it. And I'm sure the retirement thoughts, which I talked about over lunch with Layton on Friday, will be a recurring theme. Let me know if you have any wisdom to offer on the subject. Please.
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