Is it time to retire?

One of the options looming in my immediate future is possible retirement. Although I still have lots of projects at work to keep me busy, the main one I was working on has been indefinitely postponed. So I have to look into the option of retiring if only to see if financially it would be a viable option.

This week I attended a Retirement Planning Workshop at the new CalPERS building in downtown Sacramento. It is obvious they are still moving into the building as I saw more construction workers than PERS employees. The parking garage was almost empty. Most of the parking spots around the building were available at 8:30 in the morning. I'm sure that will change in the next 12 months.

The workshop was a small class - about 20 participants. We had to preregister for the class which meant they knew who was going to be there. The instructor had looked up the retirement/employment information on each of us so that he could answer our questions with specifics instead of generalities. And the small group size allowed us to ask all the questions we wanted. I thought I knew quite a bit about the benefits I could expect (since I was instrumental in contracting with the plan in the first place) but I still learned enough to make attending this workshop worthwhile.

One thing I learned is that I could indeed postpone receiving benefits for several months so that I could get a higher percentage of my final salary but that it would take 15 years or so at the higher benefit level to make up for the months I didn't receive a benefit. Sort of makes it a moot point.

Another thing I learned is that I have the opportunity to purchase additional years of service credit so that I could effectively double my retirement benefit. Unfortunately, it would cost me approximately $150,000 to do that. Not exactly the kind of spare change I have lying around. Since the additional benefit cannot cost my employer anything, it is like buying an annuity on my own. That option, of course, is available to anyone at any time and the price depends on your age, health, sex, etc. The bottom line is that if this were the only retirement fund I had, I'd need to keep working 15 or 20 more years. Fortunately, we do have other funds and kids that are mostly on their own now so retirement is definitely an option.

As a side note, I found it a very interesting exercise looking for a cartoon or photograph to illustrate this post. Most of the cartoons just didn't fit my situation and most of the photographs illustrated the stereotypical retirees fishing or walking along the beach into the sunset. I finally settled on the man reading a newspaper because that is probably the way I'd like to start each day and then do something different every day. It's hard to illustrate that in one photo.