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My retirement journey
- Thread starter dave123
- Start date
Well, I intentionally left this thread because I wanted to wait for a full update. The process was murder, the buyer had issues with the IRS and of course everyone blamed the virus for the delays, but FINALLY, I have completed the process.
So, without further adieu, here we go:
I had a new buyer come and offer more than my list price. Lots of issues, but we closed yesterday! I'm now living in my new home and life is wonderful. I thank God for getting us through this; I almost backed out of the deal more than once from sheer frustration.
Now I have enough money to pay off my new home and I'm in the dilemma of, should I pay it off now, or maybe part, or maybe none. I have another thread that I'm going to update concerning just that, so if you have input, feel free to join.
https://www.tsptalk.com/mb/retireme...e-tsp-retirement-2.html?highlight=#post640235
Oh, the chance to extend my working status for one year was still processing when my retirement date came up, so I just left. My pension has not kicked in yet, but I got a nice check for all my unused annual leave, so we are good.
Wife and I have a part time job here. We fish off our dock, and swim, and garden, and play tennis, and watch the sunsets over the lake. I hope all of you get blessed the way we have.
Thank you for all your advice and good will throughout this process.
So, without further adieu, here we go:
I had a new buyer come and offer more than my list price. Lots of issues, but we closed yesterday! I'm now living in my new home and life is wonderful. I thank God for getting us through this; I almost backed out of the deal more than once from sheer frustration.
Now I have enough money to pay off my new home and I'm in the dilemma of, should I pay it off now, or maybe part, or maybe none. I have another thread that I'm going to update concerning just that, so if you have input, feel free to join.
https://www.tsptalk.com/mb/retireme...e-tsp-retirement-2.html?highlight=#post640235
Oh, the chance to extend my working status for one year was still processing when my retirement date came up, so I just left. My pension has not kicked in yet, but I got a nice check for all my unused annual leave, so we are good.
Wife and I have a part time job here. We fish off our dock, and swim, and garden, and play tennis, and watch the sunsets over the lake. I hope all of you get blessed the way we have.
Thank you for all your advice and good will throughout this process.
Buffalo_Nickle
Member
yep, sounds normal for Fed"s.. Stay Cool.
PessOptimist
Well-known member
Congrats dave123. The snail mail from OPM will get there giving you your claim number, then you can log in to SOL (great acronym eh?) and get frustrated by how hard it is to get info there. Welcome to the OPM SOL club. For most of us retirees on the MB it all worked out right but waiting for it to happen is frustrating.
One of my surprises was that once the retirement package was accepted by OPM and my final pay was sent to my account, my former agency no longer had anything to do with me. Not to say that coworkers and HR types that handled my retirement blew me off. Just your former agency said bye and you no longer exist HR wise. Or otherwise.
Glad to hear the selling/buying of the houses turned out all right. Sounds like you are sittin on the dock of the bay…
As far as what to do with the proceeds from the former house, like I think NASA said in the other thread, it’s your money, crunch the numbers. If you make a couple mortgage payments on the new place while deciding, so what.
If like me you have a wife’s second cousin’s ex wife’s friend who is a financial expert who says you did it all wrong, tell them thanks for the advice. This of course can be your own whatever cousin. They are always going to be there.;-)
Sounds idyllic. PO
Thanx all for the kind words! It has been a journey for sure.
Pessoptimist, I got something in the mail that must be what you are talking about. Its' from the office of personnel management. "Welcome to the federal employees retirement system," it is a retirement services reference card with my number on it, and states I will receive a password soon.
p.s. I decided not to pay off the home. I put a few thousand into my etrade, and I'm most likely going to let the Ric Edelman guys manage my proceeds from the home. The TSP will stay where it is until I'm 59 1/2, then I will reevaluate. I figured better to have the cash and hopefully make enough to offset the 3.5% on my new home then to pay off the home and have to dip into TSP if anything past normal living comes up. I do hope it's the right call.
Pessoptimist, I got something in the mail that must be what you are talking about. Its' from the office of personnel management. "Welcome to the federal employees retirement system," it is a retirement services reference card with my number on it, and states I will receive a password soon.
p.s. I decided not to pay off the home. I put a few thousand into my etrade, and I'm most likely going to let the Ric Edelman guys manage my proceeds from the home. The TSP will stay where it is until I'm 59 1/2, then I will reevaluate. I figured better to have the cash and hopefully make enough to offset the 3.5% on my new home then to pay off the home and have to dip into TSP if anything past normal living comes up. I do hope it's the right call.
PessOptimist
Well-known member
Yeah, that’s the card. When you get the password and log in to https://www.servicesonline.opm.gov/ for the first time prepare to be a little frustrated.
First, cut and paste doesn’t work. Security probably.
Second, the number on the card is not what you input. No spaces, look at what is all ready entered in the log in claim number box. It will demand a new password according to their rules. Again, no cut and paste so I recommend something secure but easier to jam in on the keyboard.
Third, I found it lacking in information I wanted at first. Eventually when I was able to view statements it was better. They were very slow to catch up.
I retired on 12/31/18 and received my first interim payment on 2/7/19. On 3/1/19 I received 2 interim payments. On 4/1 I started getting my final amount. Not bad for .gov I suppose, and they did pay me something almost on schedule.
Download and save the Annuity statements occasionally as the disappear after a year or so and it is extremely cumbersome to try to get older ones.
Sounds like you are on the normal track for an annuitant.
You will get an “annuity booklet” soon. Info was a little lacking I thought.
The decision on paying off or not on the house was yours. Make a couple mortgage payments while you figure it all out.
Best of luck and welcome to the OPM SOL club.
PO
Bullitt
Well-known member
Wow. I had his first book, The Truth About Money (1998). He was an advocate for 'taking out a big mortgage and taking your time paying it off'. His thinking was, take the 30 year with the lowest payment and invest any extra money instead. He was huge into the Roth IRA, but at the time 401k plans were just terrible (HIGH fees, class B shares or front end loads) and heavily weighted towards company stock.
He doubled down on the big mortgage philosophy in 2010 when he published an updated version of the book. I'm not sure where he stands now with the tax write off basically gone for the working man, but I did learn a great deal from him early on.
I actually see he has a recent book, The Truth About Your Future (2019). Our library has a copy, I will give it a read.
Boghie
Well-known member
I used his GPS Allocation tool as a basis for my three standard allocations - Normal, Conservative, and Risky. I recently (late 2017) became a client of his company after working with them on a free visit with my father. I am very happy with the service I have attained.
His company still advises a mortgage, but the advisors work closely with you to determine what works for you. I don't use a Roth, but I don't think they highly recommend them because politicians (we know that fickle breed).
My advisor - Ron Sisk - spent hours with me breaking down the various price points for my recent home sale, home purchase, credit payoff, cash nest egg, and what/how should the rest be invested. It was very fair and it was very tailored to my needs and my risk. Everything was laid out on the table. Since then we have had more than annual meetings (phone in my case since I attained their services in San Diego and I now live near Raleigh) and he will call (rarely, not a pest) to keep me on an even keel. He knows I am not a panicker. The most interesting was the most recent. He actually taught me a LOT about financial planning with a very deep dive. He brought out the internal numbers and guidance for allocations such as mine - much more advanced stuff than what is normally presented because he thought I could handle it and would enjoy it. One last thing, Ron has NEVER pushed me into investing more with Edelman - in fact when I freed up cash flow he recommended investing more into TSP rather than with Edelman.
Got my first installment (about 1 and 1/2 month pay) a week ago. I think that's pretty good. I did log in, and it says 0, last check.
As far as the mortgage, I think when Edelman said "don't pay off the mortgage," CD's were making about 4% as apposed to about 1 now
My thinking is more along the lines of "who cares if I die owing money on a home."
I haven't signed on with Edelman yet, I have an appointment with Edward Jones company tomorrow.
thanx all for the input.
Happily "SOL."
As far as the mortgage, I think when Edelman said "don't pay off the mortgage," CD's were making about 4% as apposed to about 1 now
My thinking is more along the lines of "who cares if I die owing money on a home."
I haven't signed on with Edelman yet, I have an appointment with Edward Jones company tomorrow.
thanx all for the input.
Happily "SOL."
James48843
Well-known member
ok- my journey is not as smooth as I had hoped.
I retired August 31. Today is October 13.
I still have not received my lump sum payout of annual leave. Am expecting 155 hours, but have no idea when to expect it. My agency made it sound like it would be here by now. No go yet.
I have NOT gotten anything in the mail from OPM yet for an account number, although today I got A PASSWORD in the mail for SOL online.
Last week, out of the blue, I did get a payment out of the blue from OPM. It was about half what I was expecting for an annuity payment.
So I can't check the SOL as I have no account number, and no annual leave payout yet.
Any ideas how long after the password comes before I can expect the welcome letter and account number?
And should the interim payment really be only about 50% of the final number, or do they take deductions for insurances, etc out of the interim too?
I retired August 31. Today is October 13.
I still have not received my lump sum payout of annual leave. Am expecting 155 hours, but have no idea when to expect it. My agency made it sound like it would be here by now. No go yet.
I have NOT gotten anything in the mail from OPM yet for an account number, although today I got A PASSWORD in the mail for SOL online.
Last week, out of the blue, I did get a payment out of the blue from OPM. It was about half what I was expecting for an annuity payment.
So I can't check the SOL as I have no account number, and no annual leave payout yet.
Any ideas how long after the password comes before I can expect the welcome letter and account number?
And should the interim payment really be only about 50% of the final number, or do they take deductions for insurances, etc out of the interim too?
James48843
Well-known member
oh- and can anyone tell me when to expect the FERS supplement? is that held up until after the final payout of the FERS payment?
PessOptimist
Well-known member
I feel for you James. Waiting without knowing sucks.
FWIW to you here is how mine went down. Retired 31 Dec 18. Got a normal pay check 3 Jan 19. Got a final pay check with the leave payment 17 Jan 19. These were my normal paydays when employed. Depending on when your normal payday would have been you should have got a normal paycheck the first one, something on the second one. You may have to contact your agency. Can you still log in to wherever you did to look at your pay? Fortunately, I could but only because I had a login established with the pay agency. DFAS for what that is worth.
OPM was another issue. I got my password about a week before I got my account number. It is called SOL for a reason? On 2 Feb 19 I got an interim payment smaller than expected. On 1 Mar I got two interim payments, one smaller than expected and one really small, possibly a makeup? On 1 Apr 19 I received what turned out to be my adjudicated amount. They take withholding I think at married with two deductions rate. They take survivor benefits and I think FEHP but not dental or vision deductions. I did have to make a couple months vision and dental payments myself. I’m not positive about FEHP but can look it up if you want.
It took SOL a few months for the online statements to catch up and to this day they don’t seem to be correct but are very close. Be patient. Hard to do I know especially with the leave payment not there yet.
Having said all that, be of good cheer. Having followed most of the other retirement stories on the MB eventually everyone got paid. I would contact your agency about the leave payment.
Can’t help with the supplement as I was 66 when I retired.
PO
James48843
Well-known member
Hmmmm.
Well, I retired on August 31. I only worked one day in that pay period, so when I got paid on Sept 22, there was one days pay, less normal deductions, which ended up being $179 in the hole. The next payday cake and went- I was able to log in and see it was a no pay earned, nothing taken out, leave balance still showing 155 hours of annual. That was as of October 5.
Today I just logged in to employee express, and it shows that I am (or should be) getting my lump sum payment this paycheck ( 3rd paycheck period since retiring.).
I hope it shows up on Tuesday- which would have been my normal payday. That would be great. It means I won’t have to touch my TSP before at least next year, which is the plan.
I still hope to tweak the TSP account to over a million bucks. That was the goal I set 25 years ago- and I’m over 900k now, so even just growth can get me there. Cross my fingers, anyway.
I should have stayed working another year, but this whole Covid thing just got me to a place where I needed to go now.
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