Chapter One Refresh

Welcome to the “End of Chapter Resource Page” for the first chapter of The Golden Albatross book. As a refresher, in Chapter One I discussed how and why I came up with the metaphor Golden Albatross. I coined this metaphor to define the tension a person can feel between the desire to leave their pensionable career on one hand, and the desire to stay for the pension money on the other. Sometimes, people use the term Golden Handcuffs to describe this situation. However, unless you’re a highly compensated executive with a lot of deferred compensation coming your way, then technically Golden Handcuffs is a misnomer. Thus, Golden Albatross instead.

Of course, the Golden Albatross idea won’t make much sense if you don’t understand the basics of a pension. The resources linked below can help those unfamiliar with pensions and/or those in need of a refresh on the topic. If that’s you, no problem. Once you have read two or three short of the short articles I linked below, you will be up-to-speed. More importantly, you will put that knowledge to good use in future chapters of the book. As a result, I highly recommend that you make sure you grasp the basics now.

Defined Benefit Pension (DBP) Plans and Other Resources

Investopedia

Linked below are several articles from the online investing and personal finance encyclopedia known as Investopedia. The articles discuss the basics of Pension Plans, Defined Benefit Pension (DBP) Plans specifically, and Golden Handcuffs:

• • Pension Plans
    • https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/pensionplan.asp
  • Defined Benefit Plan
    • https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/definedbenefitpensionplan.asp
  • Corporate Pension Plans
    • https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/corppension.asp
  • Golden Handcuffs
    • https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/goldenhandcuffs.asp 

The Balance

A personal finance website whose articles are short and to the point. The link below lists all of the Balance’s articles about pensions, several of which include videos or other multimedia resources:

• • Search results for DBPs on The Balance’s web site
    • https://www.thebalance.com/search?q=defined+benefit+pension+plans

The Pension Series

My series of articles covering various aspects of pensions and their use to achieve Financial Independence (FI):

• • https://grumpusmaximus.com/category/pensions/

Future Intent

I intend to update all of the “End of Chapter Resource” pages from time-to-time as I find or create content that specifically addresses relevant topics from those chapters. However, since this is my first book, and my first attempt at building resource pages for a book, let me know if you think I missed something crucial. You can email me at grumpusmaximus@grumpusmaximus.com, or just leave a comment on this web.