plan for retirement

I have been retired since June 1, 2008. I turned 55 in January, much too young to just hang around the house. I do about 25 hrs of volunteer work a week, all with an animal shelter and a spay/neuter program. I am starting to look for a part-time job so I’ll have enough money to weather the current recession-pension is fine but no extra money since the IRAs and 401Ks are tanking.

i’ve been really involved in planning for our retirement lately. been learning lots about it and have been setting things up to make sure we’re going to be comfortable – 401k, roth ira, life insurance, ltd, etc etc etc.

now we just need to start budgeting to put more into our plans, creating our wills, and possibly setting up a trust.

I’m 54 but I work for government and they gave us a “window” to make early retirement more attractive than working more years for the state. I am retiring May 31, 2008 making a larger pension per month than if I retired in 2009-2015. Signed the papers!

I want to do a better and more detailed job of planning for my retirement. I get my social security statement mailed to me periodically and have a pension from a company I worked for for 14 years. I know the social security thing is not reliable and have to get off my butt and setup a detailed plan. I wish there was some online form or spreadsheet that made this simpler. I should google for one.

Went to retirement board. I can retire with full benefits now but best dates are June or August 2008.

I have an appointment with the retirement board 8-7-07 to look at when is the best time to retire in order to get the highest monthly pension. I can retire at 54.

I’m moving to this to make room for more immediate goal. First I have to figure out how to live in the here and now. Let me get income rolling again then back to this.