Retirement: I think it's time

[crazyliblady]

Over the past couple of years, I've cut back from full time to part time to per diem at my job. In 2023, I mostly worked 8 hrs/wk, and sometimes 4 or none. A couple of weeks I worked 12 hrs but that was the exception. I decided that for 2024 I would cut back to 4 hrs/wk. I scheduled myself for 16 hours in January but ended up calling out one shift when I had COVID so I actually worked 12 hrs all month. By the time I sat down and picked shifts for February, there were only 2 shifts I really wanted so I only booked 8 hrs for the month. At that point, I started to realize that continuing to work was kind of silly. The money I'll make in 8 or 12 or even 16 hrs/month is not enough to move the needle on our retirement plans.

I ran Firecalc again, checked our SS estimates, and touched base with our CFP. Everything is in place for me to stop working with no problem and 100% predicted success rate. Plus, I used 150K as our spending figure for all of the calculations but I'm estimating that our actual spending this year will be 15-20K less than that for various reasons (cheaper health insurance being the main one) which makes the math even better. My wife is totally onboard with me stopping work so no issues there.

I already had a meeting scheduled with my lead physician next Tuesday for something else so I'm going to use that as my opportunity to give notice. Our contracts require 4 months notice so that means I should be done mid June. I'm looking into some of the non-financial logistics like how I inactivate my license, if I will still have any continuing education requirements, and stuff like that, but none of that is anything that would interfere with the plan. I just need to know how it all works.

So it looks like I'm going to be retiring in June!

Congratulations! That's awesome!

[scfr]

Congratulations and thanks for the update. It will be interesting to hear about your next steps.

[myrdale]

I'll save my congratulations until June 15th. Until then get back to work!

It is exciting though, good job! Other than Ebay and Disney, do you have any hobbies you're looking forward to spending more time on?

[disneysteve]

Other than Ebay and Disney, do you have any hobbies you're looking forward to spending more time on?

Not really. Since I've been working so little the past year and a half, retiring isn't going to suddenly give me a bunch of extra free time. Since August 2022, I've averaged under 7 hours/week of work, and since 1/1/24, I've only worked 16 hours in 6 weeks. I'm already busy pretty much all day every day.

My wife and I are trying to get back to cooking more and I had slacked off on exercise but I'm getting back to it now.

I'm hoping that now that my mom is doing better post-surgery and my wife is better as well, we will feel safer going away for a couple of days here and there. We haven't done any traveling, not even overnight, since last May. That's very unusual for us but there's just been too much going on. Assuming we do get to Mexico this month, it will be our first week-long vacation since October 2021. We've always done 3 or 4 weeks away each year so that's been wildly atypical. Our last cruise was December 2016 which feels like forever ago.

But no, nothing new or different that I'm planning to do.

[disneysteve]

I gave notice today so it's official. I don't have the end date confirmed yet but it will most likely be June 8 as that's the end of the pay period closest to my 120 days notice (June 12).

My lead physician had very mixed feelings. She is excited for me but also very sad to be losing me. I've been an integral member of the team for nearly 8 years and have taken up the role of group spokesman to a large extent. I'm typically the one who communicates my colleagues concerns to administration, whether via email or being the one to speak up at our staff meetings or in a one on one setting with our lead or medical director. Many policy changes have been made because of issues I've brought to their attention, so she is very sorry to be losing that voice at the table.

After notifying her in person, I then sent an email to our director to make it official, and then later sent a message to the full provider team and all of our managers, so the nice messages have been pouring in from them.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

That's great news. you have given notice and are on your way out!

[srblanco7]

I was on the road all week for Leadership Group meetings. Took advantage of the "in person" engagement to let the group know that I plan to transition to regular part time in May. Plan to work approx 20-24 hours/week (monday thru wednesday) thru the end of 2024 and then reevaluate whether it makes sense to continue. For the remainder of 2024 will transition to DW's health insurance as she has decided to remain at 30 hrs/week thru the end of year.

Will be a very busy couple of months leading up to May but am looking forward to the transition to part time (just in time for golf season ).

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Congratulations srblanco

[disneysteve]

Sounds great, srblanco7

[bjl584]

Congrats srblanco7

[jenn_jenn]

A little late to the party because I missed this thread but congratulations!! Sounds like a great slow transition into retirement.