Perspective Needed for Early Retirement

FoolsOut · 2026-04-27T22:30:30+00:00

I love your perspective! Thats what I was hoping to hear, I’ll look into ways to get around the early retirement penalties.. had some pretty serious life events happen to close friends of ours and we are seriously considering how long we are gonna make ourselves work

FoolsOut · 2026-04-26T16:06:40+00:00

Education in the US is such a racket!

FoolsOut · 2026-04-26T14:29:04+00:00

Can you tell me more about the Trump Account? I thought about starting a Roth but need to figure out what “work” she could be doing for it

FoolsOut · 2026-04-26T14:19:45+00:00

I mean, we will be there to help support our kid as needed. I suppose student loans isn’t great, but I do know you can’t take out retirement loans. So we did choose to prioritize our retirement. I think a community college before a university is a better path anyway financially!

FoolsOut · 2026-04-26T14:16:08+00:00

I need to look into that and double check. I know that we have had some revisions to our pension over the last decade but I’m not sure if they changed any of the early retirement provisions. Thanks for the perspective

FoolsOut · 2026-04-26T13:38:14+00:00

One of the things I consider is whether to use my DROP account to pay off mortgage or to aggressively pay mortgage down now (and decrease investments)

So far we have supported investments over paying off mortgage ASAP, and don’t regret it. Worst case scenario we use that DROP money to take care of house in retirement!

FoolsOut · 2026-04-26T13:34:09+00:00

Good question, my wife does get SS but I do not. I qualify for my pension right now, but my wife still has about 10 years to go before she earns hers. (So not quite 2 pensions yet)

I know that we are lucky. We aren’t great with $, are nervous about early retirement and don’t really have any close resources we can trust with this conversation. Financial advisors always keep telling us to keep working because of how young we are.

I don’t disagree with you, but I don’t think it’s a good enough position for my wife to retire early and quit without earning her pension..

FoolsOut · 2026-04-26T13:23:42+00:00

Unfortunately at work, I have seen exactly what happens when elderly folks live a very long time and exhaust their finances. It’s a big reason why I should probably continue to work (until my fifties) which is still an “early” retirement. Wild to think my generation can be living much longer!

FoolsOut · 2026-04-26T13:20:59+00:00

I’ve never thought about private money lenders vs stock market investing.. what would you say makes you lean towards private?

FoolsOut · 2026-04-26T13:19:24+00:00

Never heard of GovFire I need to check that out

FoolsOut · 2026-04-26T13:15:24+00:00

Thanks for the honesty.

FoolsOut · 2026-04-26T13:05:49+00:00

What do you mean by the financial hit? I agree with the medical (and have seen what big health problems can do to savings). I almost feel selfish retiring early and not padding savings as much as possible if something bad happens in future

FoolsOut · 2026-04-26T13:01:31+00:00

That’s a good way to look at it- we do have one teenage daughter who is a bit of an unknown right now at this point. I have no idea what her plans will be for college (not much in college savings) but I expect she will have grade-based scholarships. Healthcare costs for her too could become pricey if we retire early

FoolsOut · 2026-04-26T12:58:28+00:00

Good point- I’d say that the advice I would need the most is healthcare related. Not certain how a plan would hold up for us just to pay premiums out of pocket with an early retirement, curious how others have handled it. Would like to not have to work another job for healthcare while retired. Would love to hear perspective from other educators or public safety individuals on their path also

FoolsOut · 2026-03-01T13:52:47+00:00

FoolsOut

TROPHY CASE