My wife and I both retired in 2020. They shut down the schools, and she was a paraprofessional. I could’ve worked, I WANTED to work at least two more years, but health issues caught up with me, and being 65, I figured it was time.
She didn’t go back. Working in a public school, she had had enough of the uppity kids, and the “ho” moms.
My wife is a public school teacher with a masters so she is at the top of the salary range. She has a little less than 3 more years to go to get a full pension and health insurance. She also has a 403B and if she starts collecting SS at retirement will receive in today’s dollars $2800.00/month. We have paid off our mortgage 5 years ago and have no debt so when she retires in 2025 we can live off her pension and SS and put all of my pay into savings and retirement which is what we are basically doing now.
I have a traditional IRA, a 401K with company match, a Roth 401K and we both have Roth IRAs that we contribute the max every year. I intend to wait until I’m 70 to start collecting SS in today’s dollars that is $3200.00/month.
We have spent most of our adult lives being irresponsible with our finances. About 5 years ago we grew up a bit and paid off our debt which we just finished doing. Now we put quite a bit of money aside and into our 401s which are a disaster right now. But if everything goes even semi-according to plan we will still have more funds available to us than we need.
While I’m pissed at the way the economy is being run we are not as wacked out about inflation as I see most of my co-workers. We have had a reversal in our thinking about our finances and lifestyle and so happy we did, yes we have stopped doing some things but we have eliminated a lot of money drains also.
I walked out of my classroom 12 years ago after nearly 30 years of “shaping the future”.
Not once have I missed it. Not once have I questioned my decision and the only regret that I have concerning the whole situation is that I didn’t retire a year earlier as I originally planned.