If you have read the About This Site page https://www.takingearlyretirement.com/about-the-site/, then you already know I retired at age 52. It wasn’t a military retirement or a government post office retirement, it was a corporate retirement. It was really an alternative to being laid off. I had over twenty years of service and I was over 50 years of age, so I was offered a retirement package as a “Thank You” for my long company service.

Yes, I got a package. The firm I worked for was merging with another and some of the middle management staff at my firm were being replaced with middle management from the acquiring company. I was on the departing team. I had been a manager with this firm since I started there 22 years ago and had slowly risen through the ranks to be the senior manager of technical and contract services.

My retirement package was pretty sweet. The company I worked for would add five years to my age for retirement purposes and add five years to my years of service. I knew that the best benefits were paid to those employees with over 25 years of service and by adding five years to my years of service put me in that better bracket – 27 years. Also because they were adding five years to my retirement age, the amount I would get would be based on an age of 57. So although I was not 57, I was 57 as far as my retirement package was concerned. My pension would be small – under $1,000 – but I was going to take the lump sum and roll it into an IRA anyway, so it did not matter.

I learned an important lesson when I was in my first year of Army service. I learned that I should pay myself first. No matter where I worked or what I did to earn a living, I was to always pay myself first. It doesn’t sound like that big of a deal, but it really was. By paying myself first I was able to max out my retirement contributions and live on what was left over.

I started this website to try to teach younger people how they did not have to work their whole lives to retire and take it easy. I will discuss annuities, variable annuities, stock investing, earning the best return on your retirement money, having a “play” investment account, charting your investment progress and goals, retirement calculators, and a whole lot more.

Jeremiah John

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