That’s what a lot of people do, yeah. Always mixed opinions on that though :) Maybe he wasn’t getting the matches at all until he realized?

Damn – thanks for the insight!

PS…40 percent of teachers are not covered by Social Security because they teach in jurisdictions that have not elected to participate in Social Security. That includes almost all teachers in 15 states….Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Texas.

Even if they worked in the summer, like most teachers have to do, and have jobs pre. and post teaching career, that pay into S.S., there is a law (Windfall Elimination Provision – WEP) that will reduce any future S.S. payments by about 70%. Think your getting $1200 a month?Nope, more like $300. Don’t believe the S.S. statement you get in the mail or check online if you are a teacher from on of the 15 states. This really hits single widowed women the hardest. If you somehow work 30 years pre/post teaching, like my dad did, then you do get your full S.S. benefit….but your widow does not get to collect the higher amount when you die…Be warned, these are things they never tell you about when you get your teaching job.

PaulaH and Liz,
I concur with your concerns about the viability of tax supported pensions. In our state, the TRS pension is actuarily viable and sustainable, however, it is a political issue with the state so it does have some vulnerability. I am comfortable with that low risk and will have patterned my life in retirement to live off very little of it anyway…probably close to leanFIRE with a paid off home when I finally hang it up.

I would challenge your assertion that my low six figure pension is not justified. If you read the handbook, conform to its guidelines, get vested and work hard, whatever you are paid within those guidelines is justified in my book. And I would offer that I have dedicated my working life to a public service career and have not been compensated near what I would have been in a private sector position. Please excuse my lack of humility here, but based on my experiences, education and work ethic, I would be a top earner in the private sector and would have substantially more retirement savings than I do based on 30 years of heightened income. I do recognize as PaulaH points out that I might not have the nut to generate a six figure pension however. At 4% withdrawal, $2.5m would be necessary and I might not have gotten there. Instead, I figured out my gig early on (year 1 or 2), did the math and have excelled in my near 30 years. Everyone has their own path and I have been blessed on mine. I appreciate your thoughts and enjoyed reading them.

Thanks for the all the kind words of support! I appreciate all your thoughts and not going too harshly on my scorecard assessment…would love to have done some things differently, however, I will take the +/-/x as noted and be thankful for all of it.

On the tithing portion, I hope my comments did not seem to be “prosperity gospel.” I am not an adherent of that idea but do agree with Rho and J$ that when you open your hand and give you are blessed.

Thanks again and J$ keep it up man!

I have to agree that a six figure pension for a 30 year teaching job is not justified. I would not count on that being sustainable in the future. 70% of new jobs pay less than $20 an hour and a significant number of people have unsustainably high housing costs already. The tax revenues from all these low paying jobs will not support these huge bloated pensions. Are these people to become homeless to pay these pensions??

Y’all inspire the crap outta me…

We give a lot more than we used to (money and time, if you count helping people with finances?!) but I sure could be better about tithing :( I like the idea of slowly increasing it by 1% like we talk about with all our other goals so why should it be different?!

(Have also seen more money/opportunities come the more we give away too… really is amazing how that works!)

Those city/state pension plans are no joke, especially if you started in a smaller town in the 80s/90s…my father is a retired fireman pulling a six figure pension. He never made 6 figures while working. It’s insane. Good on you Jimmy for taking advantage!