Tag: retirement

retirement plans? what retirement plans?

Seems as though some people plan their retirement as meticulously as they plan their weddings or their families. For years, they’ve envisioned what retirement would be like: whether there will be travel plans and to where, whether they want to make time for the grandkids, for volunteering, or for having a newfound social life. They know how much money will be coming in from retirement benefits, pensions, and other sources of nonworking income, and they will have it earmarked: so much for this and so much for that.

Then there are the rest of us. We don’t have a clue what retirement will look like, how much money we will be bringing in to live on, or, really, how much we will need. We also may not realize what we will be doing day to day.

I am planning my retirement much like I did having kids, which means I’m basically winging it.

I planned to work till I couldn’t any longer. I had a half-time to three-quarters-time remote job that I enjoyed and that paid a decent hourly wage. I was able to fit it into my life very well, even when also watching my grandkids a couple days a week and amid other numerous obligations.

Then down came the boom, and I was let go, most likely a victim of the artificial intelligence (AI) movement. I’m collecting unemployment benefits while applying for work, but so far, no luck. At my age, despite my extensive experience, remarkable work ethic (I never took a single week off in the past four years), and excellent performance, I am very likely to not be hired anywhere.

In other words, I may have fallen into retirement by no choice of my own.

Since I consider myself still looking for work, I am not calling myself retired, though. There is always the prospect of getting freelance work if a steady job does not come through. Most of my life, I have worked on a freelance basis, so I’m no stranger to this platform. Still, it doesn’t offer benefits of any sort, not even unemployment benefits when a company suddenly (or not so suddenly) stops calling on you. If you get sick, you work through it. You don’t like the assignment? You take it anyway. In fact, you take everything that comes your way, whether you have the time or not. If you get into the habit of saying no (or do it even one time), you run the risk of being pushed aside by the 30 other freelancer who are an email away who will be happy to jump on assignments and whom the company will come to rely on.

With my newfound free time, I have been able to get around to little jobs around the house: putting in baseboards, wallpapering (I’m getting there next week, most likely), cleaning closets, cleaning drawers, decluttering, shredding old paperwork . . . in other words, all the things I couldn’t get to when I was working 30 hours a week.

I also have time to read, and read I have. I just finished my 38th book of the year today.

But to be honest, I’m getting a little bored. If I had my druthers, I’d still be working. And I’m learning that free time isn’t all that freeing: If you’re a person who likes routine, and I’m one of them, you need to stick to a fairly regular daily schedule, working or not. I do sleep in about 30 to 45 minutes longer than I used to when I was working, but I get up no later than 7:30 every day. I follow a breakfast and lunchtime schedule, I walk the dog one or two times a day, and I start making dinner starting around 5 p.m.

What I’m having trouble with, though, is feeling guilty about postponing or not getting around to certain chores or errands that I know I need to do. For example, I have procrastinated booking an appointment with a mechanic because, I swear, I have PTSD from having had so many repairs in the past go wrong or cost much more than the vehicle is worth. It’s a horrible feeling to shell out what often amounts to a lot of money; and many of us are at the mercy of our mechanics.

But I have found that the only way to get an unpleasant job out of the way is to do it. I promise to make an appointment next week.

I’ve been out of work for a month already, so having free time is still pretty fresh for me. By the time I actually do retire, I hope to have it planned out a bit better.

navigating unemployment insurance . . . and contemplating retirement

I applied for unemployment insurance (UI) about a week after losing my job. My position (there were three of us) was taken “in-house,” I was told, so I am eligible for UI since I was let go through no fault of my own.

Let me say that navigating the ins and outs of UI is not so easy, but I was able to apply, include all the pertinent information (including adding up all earned income over the past 18 months), and, today, uploaded a resume to the linked job board. (When filling out government forms, I always feel for the people for whom English may not be their first language or those with a limited education.) I will diligently look for work, but nothing looks promising so far. I constantly checked the job boards even when I was working, but couldn’t find anything in recent months that even came close to a job like the one I had had.

I have been watching YouTube videos of people who have recently lost their jobs, and those are not encouraging either. This is especially true for the people posting and commenting who are in their 50s and 60s. Of the couple jobs I’ve applied for, one firm has not responded, and the other rejected me in one day. These jobs were not perfect matches, so it’s understandable.

I know of people my age being out of work for over a year. No matter what anyone says, age discrimination is real in the job market. Of course, we are not asked for our age or date of birth, but subtracting a college graduation in the mid-1980s from the year 2025, for example, is pretty simple math.

If no job comes through in a reasonable amount of time, I will contemplate retiring. But with a meager SS payment coming my way and not a whole lot stashed away in retirement savings, my retirement income will not be what I am hoping for. Still, we need to pull the plug at some point.

The husband of a friend of mine has come down with a form of dementia. He’s 74 and was a medical professional. He was active and physically fit. He had retired back when he turned 60, and although that seemed young at the time, what an advantage that proved to be for him. Had he waited to retire until 66, 67, or 70, he would have had only a few symptom-free years instead of the 10 or so “good” years he’s had.

My best friend, who is exactly my age, has been retired for 3.5 years. She was a public employee who, fortunately, has a pension and will also be eligible for SS benefits. For her, the stress her work brought her and the fact that she had a decent pension made the choice easy.

So, it’s food for thought. No one knows what the future will hold; when to retire is a gamble: Do we hold out for a few more years of income until retirement and then more accumulated retirement benefits, or do we start Social Security early, taking in less per month but having more free time and getting our benefits sooner? It depends on what we think our lifespan will be and our other sources of income.

It’s a crap shoot for sure.

when the honeymoon of leaving a job is over (or, what do i do now?)

face realityIt’s been more than three months since I left my last part-time job. It was a job I took with excitement. After practically a lifetime of working freelance from home and raising four kids, I looked forward to getting back out into the “real” world, working in a field I really liked and collecting a steady paycheck. Because of circumstances somewhat beyond my control (a difficult boss, health issues, the reality of the cost of commuting to a job that paid very little), I decided to leave my entry-level job. I continued to work remotely while I held the part-time job and would have to leave better-paying work at times to drive to my barely above-minimum-wage gig. It was starting to make little sense. So, when two coworkers were promoted and replaced with inadequate substitutes and another left for a full-time work-from-home job, I began questioning my part-time career choice. So, I packed up my things and I quit, swearing to my besties at the office that I’d come by every so often.

The Honeymoon

The early couple months of leaving the job were amazing. My last day was seventy-two hours before my birthday, and I was delighted to not have to find someone to cover my shift so I could take the day off. I spent my birthday the way I wished. I did miss being out of sight and out of mind, however, when I received no happy-birthday wishes from any of my previous coworkers. My name was still on the birthdays list on the whiteboard in the break room. Did no one remember?

But Christmas and New Year’s, two and three weeks later, were quite pleasant. I had time to shop, cook, bake, buy a tree, decorate the house, and hang out with family and friends without worrying about having to run off to work or fitting those tasks in around a schedule. I also had time to have coffee with a good friend I hadn’t seen in at least nine months, go on a hike with another I hadn’t spoken to for even longer than that, and meet up with yet another longtime girlfriend. I was beginning to picture not only what I had missed while holding down that job but what I had in store for me in the immediate future and beyond, namely the freedom to do the things I wanted.

The Reality

But then reality hit. It’s now three and a half months later and not only have I not seen a single one of those three friends since, but I almost never hear from the couple-dozen people I used to work with either. I haven’t set a hiking boot on a trail, nor shared conversation over a latte, even though there’s a Starbucks on nearly every corner. I missed the constant companionship of acquaintances and good friends at work whom I could see on the regular. I also realized that people are busy, too busy to incorporate old friends who are not in the everyday picture into their lives.

The Phases of Leaving a Job

I have read that there are stages of retirement or leaving a job, something like the stages of a marriage. You start out with giddy anticipation, enjoy a honeymoon phase of doing those fun activities that had been postponed while working, and then  spiral into the reality of your new situation, which often comes with disenchantment. What at first had sounded like a permanent vacation or at least a sabbatical turns into the reality of not having enough to do to feel fulfilled. Boredom, laziness, and feelings of disillusionment can set in, and money can become an issue if the income you were used to is not there. It’s great to meet friends for lunch or a round of golf, but it’s not so wonderful if you’re on a fixed budget after a source of income has dried up.

The Next Stage

Most people do adapt to their new situation. They learn to live within their new financial means. Many fill their days with other activities to substitute for work, like volunteering or traveling.

I’d thought my freelance work would make up for what I was losing leaving my part-time job. But freelancing is a fickle work situation. (Think feast or famine.) One of my sources of income–the work I enjoy most–slowed way down this year. I had had four assignments in January and February of 2018. This year I had zero. In fact, I’ve worked on only one, single, small assignment since then.

Yes, I’m saving money by not commuting. (I spent at least $1,500 a year in gas and another $1,300 in car repairs while commuting). But when the money doesn’t appear in the form of a paycheck, it’s harder to see the savings, and many people chuck the “freedom” of being out of work with what they left: They look for another job.

A New Job?

Today, I have a phone interview for a part-time position. I’m not sure I even want this job. It sounds like it comes with a good deal of responsibility and I don’t know the exact number of hours per week or even which days and times of the day I’d be working. I also don’t know what it pays,  but from reading some of the job boards for this institution, pay likely is low, though probably a bit more than what I’d left. And the commute is shorter, not in-my-immediate-neighborhood shorter, but about half as far as the last job.

So, I’ll give the interview a go, but if I take this job or any job, it will be on my terms this time. No more nighttime work; no more weekends. I think of all the Saturdays and Sundays I gave to that last job and it kills me. That is one thing I do not regret about giving up that position.

Plus, I’ve just gotten used to my old routine of being home again. Even though I’m not bringing in the money right now, that can change, and I do like being able to throw a load of laundry in when I think of it or running to the store or walking the dog when I get the whim and not when I’m exhausted from having been on my feet and then stressed from driving home.

The honeymoon may be over on leaving my job, but I look forward to continuing in a long-term relationship with freelancing. Whether I take on a little side action is yet to be seen.