I’m not in eastern MA. These are all tacky science fiction books. All paperbacks. Many have been boxed up for 20 years. I think they will go to the swap shack at my landfill. If they don’t want them, it’s a short walk to the recycling bin.
Sorry for diverting topics of selling house and donating books.
What do you think of dollar cost averaging investing in mutual funds when you are in the early 60’s? We are definitely in the risk averse camp.
We did dollar cost averaging in various mutual funds in the 90’s and early part of 2000’s until my first kid started college. It stopped from that point on.
I am not active in my individual stock portfolio, the older I get, the more afraid I am of losing money! 
Now with some extra funds to invest, I am thinking of CD’s or mutual funds.
What do you think? Too conservative?
I don’t make my investments these days. I think we dollar average going into equities. Seems like a reasonable approach. However, we are getting 5% in a portfolio of tax free municipal bonds. I think we pay a 0.5% annual fee for the management of this portfolio. So net 4.5% I guess. Could that work for you?
@shawbridge - We were part of a large group of corporate families transferred to CO, and I have heard of friends moving in retirement to be near siblings. In one case it is old home town, parents gone. In another case it is because sibling found a nice place to retire, and they’ve enjoyed their visits (and their daughter near there too, at least for now). More common though is to move near grandchildren.
Down the street from us two sisters had houses next to each other - they were in their 50’s with H’s still working - and then jobs took at least one of them elsewhere. H and my siblings are spread out, and my two DDs who now are only an hour apart now will be in different states probably in the next year as DD1 moves with her H’s career.
I have a friend whose parents moved next door to them - she has the only grandchildren and she is very close to her parents. Parents are lovely people and her H was all OK with this. I am sure they respect boundaries. The parents have remained in very good health. Worked out great for them.
SIL’s brother’s parents share their home (the wife’s parents) which has bedrooms on both sides of the house - and they help with the house payment - it works out for them.
Want to be close to grandchildren, at least for some longer periods than a weekend or a week. Will see. They will like the babysitting and opportunity to travel w/o kids.
DH had his “last Monday” (and last Tuesday) at work. His party last Friday was fantastic (including surprise visit from Boston son). I’m actually glad to have that detail over and done.
Congrats. In my earlier post, I apparently said our generation was moving near siblings. I meant near their kids. My parents didn’t do that.
Wohoooo! I attended the retirement seminar yesterday, picked up all my paperwork for the process and have a retirement date! I found out that I can take accrued vacation at the end. I will work 4 days in September, but officially retire at the end of September - which give me an extra month of retirement credit. I know which departments I need to contact, and will have an appointment in July with HR to finalize the date/beneficiary choices/ health insurance choices. I’m counting down the days, but more to do with DD’s pregnancy than with the retirement. Yeah!
Congrats, @anxiousmom! As a retiree, I welcome you to the fine club in September!
40 more weeks to retirement for me!
Congrats to @busyparent as well! The club is growing!
I have a question about something I’m thinking of doing.
I worked a part time job a long time ago for a municipal government. They have a state employee retirement plan. I just got a statement and I have a grand total under $9000 in the refundable account. I no longer live in this state.
What I think I would like to do is take this money and put it into another retirement plan. I don’t think I will want to draw off this plan, right now my better option is social security and I think I can’t draw both and either way it’s under $100/month.
Now my question, can I take this money and deposit it into my husband’s 401k? Or do I need to open an IRA in my name? Our strategy has been to save all of our retirement money in his 401k. It was easier to have our retirement savings in one account.
I think @CountingDown used to be a plan administrator so I’m tagging her and see if she has any advice. If anyone has any insight, I’d really appreciate it. I’m open to any suggestions or advice. And if I got my posters mixed up, sorry.
@deb922 - You can’t merge different people’s retirement accounts. I think your only options are 1) withdraw, 2) keep it there, or 3) transfer to an IRA in your own name.
Not being familiar with the type of plan you have, I can’t say with certainty, but I’e never heard of taking money from a retirement type fund and putting it into a spouse’s name when both people are still alive. I always thought it had to be attached to the same ss number.
What are the benefits to putting it all into your husband’s name?
You can’t roll it to your husband’s retirement account. Retirement plans are never jointly held. You can roll it to your current employer’s retirement plan, set up a low-cost IRA, keep it it in the state plan or take it in cash.
This assumes the funds were contributed by your former employer or that you made them on a pretax basis. You also may be able to roll it to a Roth IRA, but would need to pay taxes on the distribution. OTOH, it wouldn’t be taxable when you withdraw from it later.
If you are under age 59.5, there is a penalty for early withdrawal *on top" of fed/state taxes you owe (unless you convert to a Roth).
Your former employer is required to give you a disclosure form describing your options before you take a distribution. I’d start with that in case the government plan has different rules than ERISA-covered plans. Some government plans offer other benefits (ie retiree medical eligibility) if you keep your funds in the plan, so be sure you’re not giving up a valuable benefit in exchange for taking out cash. Feel free to PM me.
Thanks for this information, I wasn’t sure what I could do.
No retiree health plan, I wasn’t ever eligible as I only worked part time.
I’m under 59.5 so I do need to roll over any withdrawals, maybe I should wait.
The reason I don’t want to draw off this account is that I’m afraid that if I do, I wouldn’t be able to draw off my H’s social security, 1/2 of his will be larger than my benefit. I’ll have to look into the rules and make sure but my mom had to give up drawing off my dads social security when she took her state employee retirement. I am trying to figure out my options.
The only reason I’d put it in my H’s 401k was that it would be easy as it’s all set up. I’ve never contributed to another as we put all of our savings in his.
Someone else can verify…but I don’t think your social security benefits are affected by other pensions or distributions you receive.
Unless they would be affected anyway. I live in a state where public school employees don’t contribute to SS…and if we did at any time, our benefit is reduced by the windfall and offset provisions. And we can never collect SS off our spouse earnings. @deb922 perhaps that was the issue with your mom?
Yes, exactly my concerns @thumper1.
I had no idea that a part time job years ago for a municipality would affect social security. I did not contribute those years to social security and am really concerned about it now.
I agree with Counting Down about the retiree health benefits. I would double check, very carefully. Sometimes the rules for eligibility for retirees are different, and the savings can be substantial. I initially thought that I was ineligible for subsidized retiree health benefits in my city/district. Then, I carefully studied the grandfathering rules from back in the day, and I discovered that I was covered at a savings to us of over $12,000 annually. I am not saying that you will definitely be covered, but it is important to investigate carefully.
@deb922 you need to talk to a human about this…but there is usually a %age of time employed that is considered with the no social security jobs.
For example, in CT, there are plenty of folks who have entered teaching as a second career, and only worked for 10 years or so in public education. BUT they worked 20 or more years contributing to SS. The formula takes this into account.
If you only worked for a short time in the public sector, and worked the greater %age of time contributing to SS…It might not have a huge impact on anything.
Now…if you decide to collect a pension that is there from the public sector years, there might be some restrictions…but really, you need to talk to someone in your state about this…from where you were employed in the public sector.
You won’t know the answer until you speak to someone…and they usually are very helpful…so call!