Quote:
Originally Posted by dradernh
If you've got a government job that you really like, it pays well, and the pension is attractive, that can be the trifecta for a retiree.
I say this after seeing someone retire while earning a high five-figure salary after a long career at a CA city agency, never really leave as she's now consulting (i.e., doing the same job part-time for 75% of the salary (she's rated "indispensable")), her pension is indexed for inflation, and she and her husband are old enough to collect SS. For a variety of reasons, the husband never worked or earned much, so SS is his only contribution. The tldr of their situation is that their cash flow is almost 3X what it was when she was still an employee. The time she spends part-time doing the job is well under 20 hours a week, and it can be done anywhere there's an internet connection, including while waiting in line at Dunkin Donuts. Don't laugh, I'm not kidding.
I'm able to keep up with their income by making a fairly good guess as to their SS income and via this terrific site: https://transparentcalifornia.com/. There's a lot that the Golden State struggles to get right, but I think Transparent California is an example of the state offering its citizens a very informative and valuable source of public information. |
The gummint gave me the option of staying with CSRS or switching to the new system (FERS); which was SS based. They tried to tell me what a great system it was and I was highly encouraged to switch. Well, I might have been born at night, but it wasn't
last night! Them telling me just how wonderful FERS was just verified to me how bad it was! FERS is a decent system for the single, but CSRS is still better. I didn't/don't qualify for SS anyway.
I did have the trifecta for a career! There's nothing like the adrenalin rush of packing 10# of airplane in a 5# airport. I also got to work the busiest hour LAX had, or will ever have; 135 arrivals to 4 runways in an hour. There were two of us, I handled about 95 of those!