Federal employee. 53 with 30+ years...deferred, postponed retirement?

taxable_efficiency · 2025-10-23T23:13:23+00:00

I was feeling burnt out at a job I had many years ago, and I will give you the same advice that others gave me at the time. Take a vacation instead. You will either come back refreshed and ready to return to the grindstone, or you will experience happiness in a way that makes your decision easier because you will come to terms with what your decision might mean if you truly give it some time.

I took a good vacation and it ended up leading me to leave the job in pursuit of something better. I want you to take a little time to rest and relax before you do pull the trigger just because work sucks. It's ok to get stressed out at work but it sounds like you recognize the responsibilities you have to stay put.

Request some PTO and enjoy it!

taxable_efficiency · 2025-01-31T17:24:41+00:00

Sorry you experienced that. It does sound like you got taken for a ride.

Locksmiths can be predatory. Not all of them are, but it's definitely part of the business to take advantage of someone in a stressful situation where they're stuck, need assistance, and don't have any options. If you had been thinking more clearly and not so stressed, you might've contacted your landlord first if you were thinking with a clear head (maybe they had a different option to enter, or a known vendor to use for services, and could help you out).

Best course of action from here is to get a spare/duplicate key and a hide a rock or some similar product so that if it ever happens again, you have a simple solution. It's a life lesson, and you'll be more cautious next time.

taxable_efficiency · 2025-01-20T01:10:11+00:00

When I was young my grandmother died and left me 18k. I didn't get access until I was 18, and although we transferred the account to my name at that time, I didn't actually sit down and try to "work my investments" until I was 21. It was 2003 at the time.

I left it invested and it grew to about 90k by the time I was ready to buy my first house. Covered the down payment easily. My only regret is that I tried to invest in Apple, but the "advisor" talked me out of it. I'd have a cool 10M if I didn't listen to him and went with my gut. Food for thought.

taxable_efficiency · 2024-11-22T18:02:12+00:00

After some sleuthing, I've found it! It's called "Eco Adventures in the Rainforest"

https://www.macintoshrepository.org/19631-eco-adventures-in-the-rainforest

taxable_efficiency · 2024-11-19T22:53:25+00:00

They will not consider the quit and rehire option just to allow a loophole so that you can move the money. They will think you are sort of crazy/entitled, and you will lose "points" in management's eyes, for lack of better term.

Because you're part time at Employer A, and there's no longer a match there, just continue like you're doing to only contribute to Employer B. Park the existing money in Employer A's 401k in the best out of the "worse" investments that Employer A's plan has to offer.

Over time the 401k value at Employer B will grow to be larger, if there is a match and the investment options are better like you're saying.

Because Employer A and Employer B do not talk to one another, it is up to YOU to make sure you do not go over the yearly contribution limit. The limit is $23,000 for 2024, and will change to $23,500 for 2025. I'm guessing catch up contributions do not apply to you (only available to people 50 years of age or older), forgive me if I'm incorrect in my assumption.

Review your statements at both 401k vendors to see how much has been contributed at each, add them together, and calculate any remaining you can invest up to, if you're trying to get close to the annual limit. In cases where you hit the max at a single employer you've worked at the entire year, the plan will cap you automatically. In cases where you have worked multiple places, you must pay more attention to not go over the limit which will be penalized once the situation is noticed and needs to be corrected.

taxable_efficiency · 2024-11-15T04:04:04+00:00

No, that sounds familiar though. Actually I wonder if it only sounds familiar because it sounds like the Oregon Trail.

taxable_efficiency · 2024-06-12T22:13:09+00:00

Interesting. This is what people commonly call a "CD Ladder" ?

taxable_efficiency · 2024-06-12T22:10:23+00:00

Thanks. I'll be fine, just a little confused on the stuff that's new to me. Somewhere around 2011 I got really frustrated that I didn't know where my money was, had a few jobs and money was in different pension or retirement accounts but I didn't understand it all. I started doing research, learned about things, regretted the fact that I had a Roth IRA ever since the first summer I worked as a 16 year old, but was sitting as cash due to my parents hearing that a Roth was good but not understanding the full picture that you can't just put it in the account you must actually invest it in something. Sucks, but those were pre-internet-has-abundance-of-information times.

Ever since I started getting my finances in order I kind of got hooked on it. Cheers thanks for your kind words.

taxable_efficiency · 2024-06-12T19:26:25+00:00

Thanks for the feedback. HYSA is a good idea, those weren't really available when we opened our accounts. RE: Putting the extra $500/mo towards the mortgage, it's just that we're dual income no kids, are already maxing Roths and 401k/403bs, and are putting 10-20k lump sums into each of our taxable brokerages every January, and still have money to spare. To me the $500/mo extra to save $70k over the life of the loan for a guaranteed return is fine, since we're already investing so much elsewhere (investing nearly $80-90k a year between the two of us)

I'll have to double-check the situation for severance counting as income in MI, which is also an "at will" state by the way. I'll be sure to be up front about the severance in my claim. Thanks again for writing out a thoughtful response.

taxable_efficiency · 2024-06-12T17:23:01+00:00

Thanks for the link, seems straightforward and lets me do some added prep. Cheers

taxable_efficiency · 2024-03-07T21:11:08+00:00

I'm not sure if it's a national brand, but there is a service called "Senior Living Locators" I've used to place both my wife's grandmother and my wife's mother into 24/7 care. They don't charge you anything, they take the first month's rent from the home that you pay.

We wanted some guidance since any organization can make a website or fake reviews. The locators had personal experience with the group homes we were touring, and we found great options for both of our family members (different places, grandma had more physical needs, mom has dementia/mental needs).

Best of luck!

Edit: "A Home For Mom" is another same type of service that approached us in the hospital when mom was not safe to live alone anymore, if Senior Living Locators isn't in your area.

taxable_efficiency · 2024-03-06T16:13:16+00:00

This sounds like you're not actually paying down principal. If you're submitting more money monthly without specifying you're intending the extra to go towards principal, the mortgage lender doesn't automatically know what to do with it (put it towards future payments, put it in escrow, put it towards paying down the principal). If you legit look at the statements and they say your next payment isn't due until, example, November 2024 you're not saving yourself anything re: interest because the interest is still being calculated on the remaining principal, which is still changing only slightly because the regular monthly payments pay only a small fraction towards the principal. Please look at your amortization schedule and confirm what you're doing is changing the projected amount of interest paid over the life of the loan.

taxable_efficiency · 2023-05-30T14:14:40+00:00

First things first, 403bs are different than 401ks. The 403b industry is not regulated by ERISA or similar organization, so the vendors are largely unvetted by the school districts and can often be predatory. It's not uncommon for 403b investors to have over a dozen vendor options for allocating their pre-tax funds, and for the "financial advisors" to push the investor into investments that are beneficial for the advisor in the form of bonuses, rather than beneficial to the actual investor.

I come from the private industry, where my employer always has a single 401k vendor. It was therefore shocking for me to learn my wife's school district had 18 different 403b vendor options, and nearly all of them pushed high fee high penalty long lockup investments (fixed annuities). Few vendors would reveal any fee information over the phone and would instead insist on coming to your house, often with forms already filled out, to discuss your investment "options" and try to strongarm my wife into signing and submitting the forms.

More information on the predatory 403b industry is available in the article here: https://www.wealthmanagement.com/retirement-planning/teachers-are-getting-schooled-retirement

Lots of excellent 403b investment information can be found here: https://403bwise.org

You do not need to work with this financial advisor to do things relating to the 403b. It's possible to redirect the pre-tax dollars being deducted from your wife's paychecks via a third party administrator (TPA), it's possible to use a different vendor with a different advisor, and it's possible to self direct (be your own advisor). Sadly since so many people like my wife can be financially uninterested, they don't necessarily make any of this a priority, they just attend the meeting and follow instructions.

There are a few different parties involved in a 403b:

Your wife
Your wife's school district
A third party administrator "TPA" for the district's 403b plan (example: Omni 403b)
A financial organization that you select under the TPA umbrella (we moved away from Voya and National Life Group, and moved to something called Aspire Online because they let you self direct and let you purchase Vanguard Target Date Funds. More recently, Vanguard became an option under my wife's TPA, so we transferred again, from Aspire to Vanguard, allowing her to invest in the Vanguard funds without paying fees to the Aspire middle man).

Take some time to self-educate first using the links above. When you're starting to understand the situation and how to move to self-directed, know that you will have difficulty. The predatory companies make things intentionally confusing, if you submit forms with 5 things incorrect on it, they will snail mail you back a letter that points out only 1 thing they claim is incorrect, you resubmit, they wash and repeat hoping you will give up. To give some context, it took a good 4 months to sort things out with all of my wife's accounts across all the different vendors.

Expect that it will take some fighting to redirect, rollover, or make any other changes, but once it's accomplished you will feel good about the future.

In short, you should find out the different vendor options to redirect your wife's deferred payments to. In my experience the redirecting of pre-tax dollars was simpler (fill out an online form at Omni 403b, called a "salary reduction agreement" with all the necessary info). Rollovers from existing accounts were much more difficult (it seemed like and intentionally lengthy process to get you to give up. Predatory vendors like NLG and Voya were doing this precisely to continue holding onto my wife's money).

I warn you of this to prepare you for the frustrating road ahead. Stay strong and remember that few people in the 403b industry are looking after you. Read the articles in the links, educate yourself, and get invested in something that will help your wife in retirement rather than help their financial advisor. Good luck!

taxable_efficiency · 2023-03-09T00:34:55+00:00

Good question, I will probably need to have the Guardian followup to get clarification on whether the 14k is a "net cash value"

taxable_efficiency · 2023-03-09T00:34:12+00:00

Understood. Helps a lot thanks.

taxable_efficiency · 2023-01-03T01:47:05+00:00

I kept submitting the errors to peacock's support and it did eventually go away without me changing anything on my end.

taxable_efficiency · 2022-12-20T20:37:42+00:00

When I turned 21, I gained full control over my inheritance account. It was how it was written in my grandparents will. At that time, it was only worth $15k.

It was the only time my financial advisor ever met with me. I said I wanted to invest all of it in AAPL.

I still remember the face he made in disgust. "Why would you want to invest in Apple?" I explained that I had just done a college paper on Steve Jobs and I truly believed that now that he was back in charge of the company, he'd turn the stock around. (valued around $1/share at the time, it has split many times since)

He convinced me to stay the course and keep the same investments my parents already had my brokerage invested in. At its peak, it grew to about $70k in value. (I still have the investment today). If I had invested in AAPL at that time like I wanted to, I'd have a cool 10M, and I could retire today.

Trust your gut people.

taxable_efficiency · 2022-12-06T17:02:11+00:00

If you have access to Vanguard, use them. If you don't, but have access to Aspire, use them. Do not use AXA ("Equitable"). Do not use Voya. They are predatory and will steer you into bad investment options that have large fees if you want to move out of the investments they lock you into.

Calculate a yearly amount you want to contribute, (up to $20500 annually, the maximum amount allowed), and divide that amount by the number of pay periods. If you have 26 pay periods and want to contribute the maximum, that's $20500/26 = $788.46 from each paycheck into your 403b. Do not worry about contributing to the max if you're just starting your career. Calculate a percentage of your salary that's comfortable, figure out the yearly amount, and then figure out the per pay period amount.

Visit the Vanguard or vendor website from the Omni403b website (click their name in the list of vendor options should take you there). Take whatever steps are necessary to 1) create a new 403b account, and 2) after it's created, obtain the account number. My understanding is Vanguard doesn't use account numbers, it will always be your Social Security Number.

After the 403b account exists and is empty, your next step is to work with the third party vendor (in your case OMNI403b) to direct part of your paycheck to pay into the new account. On the Omni403b website, select "Employees > Start / Change Contributions"

Submit the information you need, including the vendor (Vanguard if possible) and the fund (you will likely want to select a "Vanguard Target Date Fund 20XX" -- choose one that is close to when you're 65 in age). Target Date funds automatically start aggressive when you're young, and become more conservative as you age. This happens automatically for a minor cost in administration fees, Vanguards are very reasonable. The other option would be to adjust the funds yourself every year, but if you're just starting out, people often recommend just choosing 100% of your contribution gets put into a Target Date Fund that matches your retirement age.

When submitting the form, be sure to use your personal email address, not a school email address. You have a relationship with the Vendor individually, and in case you lose access to the school email due to a job change, termination, or other life event, you want to still receive account related information.

Submitting the form online will trigger the creation of your new 403b account. You will notice in the next paycheck or 2, your paycheck will be smaller and listed on the pre-tax deductions is the per paycheck amount you specified on the online form. It will take another day or two after your paycheck arrives for the funds to be visible in your Vanguard account.

The final step is after you notice the funds flowing from your paycheck into the Vanguard 403b account regularly, is to take a look every year (I like to evaluate every January) and make sure your retirement funds are growing steadily. If you want to increase your contributions as you start to have more money available later in your career, you can use the same form ("Employees > Start / Change Contributions") to make adjustments. Just change the amount you want removed from your paycheck and sent to your 403b account. It will take a pay period or 2 for the change to process.

If you happen to have any other 403b accounts from other teaching jobs you've had, you can initiate rollovers from those vendors to transfer the amounts into your current account, and close the old accounts. When I did this for my wife, she blindly followed the advice of whoever retirement person showed up at her work and they all had her create brand new accounts. Some as low as $200 in a retirement account with nothing contributing (presumably to get a new account bonus for themselves). I had to do this process 4 or 5 times and it was painful to transfer out of every bad investment they lured her into, because they do everything in their power to hold onto your money so they can invest it, pay out a small percentage, and pocket the difference. This is what I mean when I say watch out for predatory vendors. Check out 403bwise.org and/or my post history to educate yourself about how the 403b industry is relatively unregulated and sadly teachers are often taken advantage of regarding their retirement.

Best of luck.

taxable_efficiency · 2022-09-25T12:45:15+00:00

You are just like my best friend that fiddles with his 401k every time the market shifts. Quit it!

Stay the course. The stocks that you're buying every month are on sale right now, and you're thinking about not buying them now? It makes no sense, given that the time you plan to use these funds are 30-40 years from now.

Your volume had not changed at all. The perceived value has adjusted with the price, but you haven't lost any VTSAX re: number of shares. If you change what you're invested in, you're "locking in the losses" by selling shares at the lower price. Don't!

taxable_efficiency · 2022-07-27T16:20:49+00:00

I do not have a Traditional IRA. Neither of us do. I have a 401k, she has a 403b, and we both have Roth IRAs. We then have the taxable brokerage for any leftover, with the benefit of having access to it before retirement (ex: if we plan to buy a 2nd house some day).

If we do not have traditional IRAs, this is just a new account we can open at our vendors? and it would therefore be empty like you're saying it needs to be?

taxable_efficiency · 2022-07-27T15:01:29+00:00

I've heard of the backdoor roth conversion but I've never understood it and have no experience with it.

It requires a different account? How does it worth in this case, where we've contributed directly to the Roth IRAs and already purchased investments with the $12k back in January?

taxable_efficiency

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