The Pension Series (Part 3): What is Your Pension Worth?

Grumpus Types Too Much

Anybody else exhausted from Part 2 of the Pension Series? I know I am. At 3200+ words it wasn’t concise. Amongst all those words, you may remember my promise to help you determine your pension’s worth in future posts. Well, the future is now, or at least partially. Unlike Part 2 though, I intend to break up the discussion over the next several posts. How many? I don’t know yet; at least two, maybe more. Since calculating your pension’s worth is more of a “how to process”, I hope the articles don’t need to be overly verbose. I understand people don’t have time to read 3200+ word posts every week, and frankly, I don’t have the time to write them.

Calculating Your Pension’s Worth … Ain’t Like Dusting Crops

For this post, I will examine the three key inputs in determining your pension’s worth. I will also examine some of the basic mathematical formulas used to calculate your pension’s worth. I will keep it simple because I am not a math genius by any means (liberal arts major here!), and more than likely you are going to use a pension calculator to make the calculations anyway. However, you should understand the inputs and formulas because like Han Solo said in Star Wars: A New Hope: Continue reading →

Test Your Retirement Plan: FI Numbers Don’t Lie, But … (Part 2)

Posted on 27-August-17 by Grumpus

Sister, I killed Colonel Grumpus in the Drawing Room with a lead pipe.

Grumpus The Confessor

I have a confession to make. I put off writing this post for a while. When I first started my blog, I had always intended to demonstrate how to test your retirement plan. I wanted to do this by using a high powered retirement calculator. Doing so would complement what I consider the biggest strength of my website: the series of practical “How To” retirement plan articles in the Planning section. However, I needed to tackle some other topics first. I wanted to walk financially novice readers up to a point where they could understand the subject matter of this article. Yet, I essentially hit that point weeks ago, and still, I delayed.

Part of that delay was due to the complexity of what I intended to describe. It’s hard to write effectively about the steps needed to test your retirement plan. A technically savvy blogger would simply post a video of how to do this, but that is beyond my capability at the moment. As a point of reference, I was happy enough when I figured out how to embed a spreadsheet into this post. Maybe someday I will circle back and create a video once I obtain the skills, and find the time. Continue reading →

FI Numbers Don’t Lie, But They May Mislead (Part 1)

Posted on 19-August-17 by Grumpus

Stop What You’re Doing …

Cuz I’m about to ruin the Grumpus sense and style that you’re used to?

In the now timeless words of Chris Farley, “Holy Schneikes!”. I saw a lot of negativity on the interwebs this week, which made me regret getting a Book of Face account. I only got an account in order to run a Financial Independence (FI) blog. Prior to that I was as anti-FB as they come, and had never had an account. In fact, I still do not have personal account, just this semi-awesome public persona with his two avid followers (thanks kids!).

I used to simply listen to podcasts about the cognitive dissonance people engaged in on the internet, now I get to see it first hand. I used to read well thought out news articles that would lay out facts, points, and counter-points forcing me to think about all sides of an issue. Now I get sucked into the visceral, opinion laden, and nonfactual diarrhea that spews out from peoples’ minds, through their thumbs, and into their comments box. Is it me, or do people just like to shout “fake news”, strap into their echo chambers, and argue past each other with no intent, or hope, in reaching common ground. It’s enough to make a grumpy guy like me point out that people suck … I mean REALLY suck.

What does any of that have to do with personal finances, FI, and retirement planning? I don’t know, but I felt it needed to be said. If that loses me an occasional reader, so be it. As Bob Dole once said, “…the exits, which are clearly marked, are for you…“. Continue reading →

Retirement Planning: How to Calculate Your “Gap Number”

Posted on 24-July-17 by Grumpus

Grumpus Maximus Comment: I originally wrote this post with the intent to create a clear and concise step-by-step on how to calculate your Gap Number. Turns out I wrote another tome. Some of you may prefer my ramblings. If so you are probably one of my relatives or friends. Or maybe you are waiting to laugh at another of my $750,000 dollar financial mistakes. Fair enough, all I can do is laugh about it too. But in case you don’t prefer my ramblings, I thought I would quickly refer you to some other resources that are clear and concise.

First off, check out Darrow Kirkpatrick’s website Can I Retire Yet?. I’ve talked about him before, so I won’t rehash my book and website review for him. On his site under the Index link, if you scroll down to the Retirement Equation section, he walks you through everything you need to do in order to make your calculations. The Mad Fientist also has a Planning section under his archive, which has several useful articles. Finally, check out the two booklets I reviewed in my book review section entitled Early Retirement Solutions: How Much Money Do I Really Need to Retire & Achieve Financial Independence? and Retire Sooner!: How to Optimize Your Plan to Achieve Financial Freedom by DJ Whiteside. They are what I used to make my calculations.