Wait, You Told Me You Knew How to Fly This Thing! – Snakes in the Grass

Bylaw 1.7(a)(4-3) of this blog’s charter states: “A topical post relevant to retirement must be published at least once a year”

No matter what the weather is like where you live, the calendar is telling us that spring is definitely here. Garden and planting preparations are currently being schemed (peering over your way, Ms. Judy), closets for many of us are being sorted and cleaned, and even opening day has come and gone already (“Play ball!”).

It’s also the time of year when the bean counters at this blog’s HQ have a mandate that I write an update about my retirement journey. Or as I prefer to call it, the accounting of another year’s effort in avoiding responsibility.

This coming August will mark ten years since I retired at age 55. It was necessitated partly for health reasons (thankfully resolved), but also because I literally woke up one day — and with sincere apologies to the late, great Conway Twitty — I realized I no longer had any professional want to. Whatever career zen I once held was fast disappearing right behind any remaining vestiges of ambition. Escape fantasies became a daily and mindful presence. So with a buyout offer on the table from my employer, along with a path to continuing health coverage at a rate I felt I could afford, I made the decision to take early retirement after a 32-year career.

Oh, and I would be remiss if I failed to mention being married to a working spouse who I also viewed as a very attractive and sexy ATM machine. A sibling of mine pointed out that our dad also retired at 55, aided no doubt by his own full-time working spouse (a/k/a Mom). It goes without saying that any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

But enough history. I can hear fingers being tapped by those annoying bean counters…

The primary change for us over the past 12 months is in deciding to part ways with our financial advisor. We had signed up with him beginning in 2019 with an annual agreement that included two reviews, each at six month intervals. The timing turned out to be prescient. He helped us to navigate the pandemic period, followed by the tumultuous stock market drop that happened afterwards. His allocation models prevented deep losses while at the same time allowed for recovery when equities snapped back again last year. Viewed from on high, ignoring one bond fund for Gorgeous (a victim of high interest rates), he fulfilled his contractual duties with little-to-no financial complaint from us.

Where we did both find some displeasure was in his bedside manner, or rather the lack thereof. His email responses in answer to follow-up questions, while to the point and (mostly) punctual, we nevertheless found to be needlessly curt and devoid of much emotion. We also felt the same when speaking to him on the phone or in the rare video session. I don’t want to be pals with my financial advisor, but I am looking for a smidgen of warmth, a pinch of patience, and a absolute show of interest in my financial affairs. We chose not to renew with him at the end of the last term.

We’ve decided to take our time in looking for a replacement. Experience has given us a few pointers on what we want the next time around. Since last summer, I’ve slowly started to compile a list of candidates who I will make contact with later this year or early next. I’m not comfortable going too long without some professional oversight, but I also don’t feel any great need to rush into another arrangement either. It’s more important that we find the right person.

In the meantime, I’ve taken the wheel myself to monitor and make incremental changes to our savings. Except for my very brief and unfortunate dive into the live cattle commodities market, which tragically resulted in our arriving home one evening and finding a trailer filled with Holstein Friesians outside our front door, I have mostly stuck to the cash, stock, and bond mix that was in place. It hadn’t changed very much in the previous three years anyway, so at the moment I’m satisfied staying on roughly the same course.

One rather consequential milestone is approaching later this year, though: I will be signing up for Medicare late this fall, to take effect when I turn 65 in December. Because I robbed the cradle in marrying my lovely bride, I will need to stay on our current health insurance plan for her sake until she also pulls that milestone lever in two years. This particular policy from Blue Cross coordinates quite well with Medicare, but I know there are less expensive choices out there to have as our secondary coverage after she turns 65. So starting next January, health insurance becomes more robust for me personally, just with a higher monthly cost.

As for Social Security, I am continuing to wait until either my full retirement age (FRA) of 66 and ten months, or sometime up to the age 70 cutoff date. For each year one holds off from applying for benefits, there is an increase of approximately eight percent in the monthly amount one can receive. This is assuming Congress doesn’t allow the system to become permanently underfunded, of course. Fortunately, I am in a position to be able to delay; especially since that sexy ATM machine of mine shows no desire to stop working. Diabolical? Well, yes, actually.

So that’s the score for this year, fellow nest egg nestlers. The only figurative difference between myself and Fed Chairman Powell is that he’s landing an Airbus and I’m doing the same in a canard biplane. Feel free to leave a comment here about your own journey. Contact Mr. Powell directly, however, if you’re upset about the price of chicken thighs. I ain’t touchin’ that one.

Until next time…