A colleague had confided to me that she was aching to retire. However, it is still more than 5 years of waiting. If she retires now, she gets the same benefit although she will be unemployed. The big amount of retirement pay is tempting to her. She said that she can use the money for business. She plans to buy a vehicle that she will rent out for tours and excursions. And without much ado, she resigned last week. Now she is feeling the realization that she will be jobless at the end of the month. I'm hoping her retirement pay can take care of her and her family in the years to come.
@Corie Henson Corie, given the uncertainty of the future, my feelings would be to encourage her to GO FOR IT! I did, and have never regretted it! Frank
Yes, I agree with @Frank Sanoica. She will need encouragement, ask questions about her future business. She should be looking forward at this point.
I'd go for it..YES..I worked out in the job force 38 yrs. At 67yrs. I retired and was ready for it. Your friend sounds young enough to look into a business and that's wonderful and really sounds exciting. When she gets set-up, she needs to really ADVERTISE...ADVERTISE..Get a web page going too...
I am not an adventurer when it comes to career that's why my advice to Carmel (that's her name) was to stick it out with the company while making a solid plan of what business she's talking about. I'm afraid that she and her husband would just squander her lifetime savings and be left with nothing some years from now. There are so many cases like that, employees who were tempted to resign just to avail of the retirement pay. There's another colleague who had retired early about 5 years ago. He put up a gasoline station from his retirement pay. But his gas station is not doing well. He comes to his friends for help in his cash flow. He has been borrowing money often. Carmel knows about that colleague and I wonder why she had resigned and would still pursue her planned business. Well, I'm still hoping for the best that she would succeed.
I see your concern @Corie Henson...Do they have a choice of taking the retirement in monthly checks, or is it only in full? I had a choice like your friend either way and chose monthly pension payments. This was at Libbey Glass where I worked 25 yrs. Does she get SS? it kicks in full amount at age 67 I guess I'm to much an optimist and believe, " Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained." Pip left the casino in NM after working there 11years as a tech. He does photography and was really making more money with photography then the casino. Plus the only photographer in town retired. Pip bought most of her equipment and has a nice set-up and clientèle. Now when he moved here to Florida he lost the casino job, and the clientèle from the photography. He's making a come back and taking pictures of estate sale antiques. Auction items, so photography took him in a different direction. Not just taking wedding pictures alone. If your friend doesn't do the tourist drive, she can charge to get clients to the doctor's office, grocery, Oh airport runs. I do that myself at times. Never thought in a million years, I'd stand at Southwest Regional Airport Ft. Myers and do a run to Naples in dress black slacks and white tailored shirt with the person's name on a sign and pick people up. That alone is $80.00 round trip mostly contacts around here. But doing it for a living I'd need a chafferer's license no big deal. So life takes us in different directions. AND IT'S EXCITING....
@Marilyn Pahl, our retirement pay in the office is given in full a month after the last day of office for the retiree. We have no option unlike in America where they have packages of different kinds. Over here, the retirement is usually in cash (literally by way of a check). In our company, those who have worked for 20 years or more gets 2 months salary for every year of service. So if you fall under that minimum requirement then you will receive the equivalent of 40 months of your salary for your retirement pay. It's big money, if you will ask me, so some of the old timers in our company have been contemplating on resigning (actually early retirement) just to get the big money.
Wow I'd go for it and get the new business going and the business cards ready. We have magnetic signs that can be posted on the side of our cars or vans with our Businesses information on it. Some neighborhoods won't allow the painted ads, on vehicles saying it's to tacky looking. Magnetic signs you take off when entering your neighborhood. Those are communities that have a Home Owner's Association and a laundry list of rules. Couldn't live like that...