Tag Archives: worth vs. worth it

Pensionable Careers: Fed vs. Military Benefits (Part 1)

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A Word from the Publisher

This post is the first of a two-parter from longtime friend of the blog Chris Pascale. Chris was a US Marine who served in Iraq in the mid-2000s but is now a US federal employee. If you want to know more about him, you can read his short bio at the end of the blog post.

Chris is also a published poet!

Chris writes here in a private capacity, which is good because he has several strong but fact-based opinions on which pathway (federal or military) provides the better retirement benefits value proposition from a “worth vs. worth it“ perspective. I emphasize the term pathway because judging the worthiness of a pensionable career should be more than just an examination of the retirement benefits provided. It should also consider the pros and cons one will experience while working towards those benefits during their career, which is what Chris does.

In that light, Chris clearly believes the federal path is the better one. That’s a critical view to represent since I spend so much time on this blog talking about the advantages of my military retirement benefits. That isn’t to say that Chris doesn’t support those making a career in the military; he simply believes the career and retirement benefits should be more equitable. The remainder of this article and the next explain why. Take it away, Chris! Continue reading →

The Pension Series (Part 30): Pension Maximization

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Pension Maximization

Helping pensionable workers determine the value of their defined benefit (DB) pension to make well-informed Golden Albatross decisions is the raison d’être for this website. Thus, I write most of my articles for pensionable workers trying to determine whether staying for their DB pension is worth it. However, those aren’t the only articles I write. Although much smaller in number, I also publish articles for pensionable workers who decide to stay. If a unifying theme to those articles exists, it’s pension maximization.

What’s pension maximization? In practical terms, pension maximization ensures your pension’s positive impact in retirement is as significant as possible. You maximize your pension by taking active steps during your pensionable career. My Gap Number, Roth vs. Traditional, buying back years, and pension geoarbitrage articles provide examples of actionable steps pensioners can take. That said, unlike my Golden Albatross-themed articles, I never laid out a framework for pension maximization. In other words, after a worker decides to stay, I never answered the simple “now what?” question.

The remainder of this article, and its follow-on, layout my framework for answering “now what?” I call this framework Grumpus Maximization.

Yes, it’s a somewhat cheesy metaphor. But, Grumpus Maximization is a catchphrase designed to stick, much like the Golden Albatross. Who knows? It might even aid future marketing attempts like printing t-shirts with “Got Pension?” on the front and “Get Maximized @ grumpusmaximus.com” on the back …

That’s not helping, is it? Fine, I’ll sidebar the marketing discussion for now. Continue reading →

The Pension Series (Part 29): The Golden Albatross vs. Women’s Pensions

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Recent History

In Part 28 of the Pension Series, I stated that age, tenure, and (in some cases) gender mattered more than any singular pension design element during a pensionable worker’s Golden Albatross pension decision. I based that statement on the evidence from my master’s thesis research. For my thesis, I ran a survey for pensioners and pensionable workers which I called the Golden Albatross survey. To complete the thesis I statistically analyzed the results of the survey, which I discussed in Pension Series Part 28. This post expands on the gender portion of those findings by focusing on the impact of defined benefit pensions for women in retirement.

Much like Pension Series Part 24 (Black Pensions), for this article I examine if and how the Golden Albatross decision-making framework should be modified for a specific sub-set of pensionable workers. In this case, that sub-set is women. In doing so, I specifically focus on the disparities in retirement savings between men and women and the impact of defined benefit (DB) pensions on women’s retirement outcomes. I conclude that the Golden Albatross calculation is different for female versus male pensionable workers. Continue reading →

Worth vs. Worth It: Homeownership

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A Word From The Editor

Guest post time! This article is another from friend of the blog, Chris Pascale. Never one to shy away from the controversial money topics, Chris takes on the homeownership versus renting debate. He does this by comparing the running costs of homeownership to renting over decades. In doing so, Chris concludes that while owning the property in which you live is usually a money-losing proposition, it’s a vastly smaller money-losing proposition than renting. Therefore, since we all have to live somewhere, owning is the most efficient use of one’s housing money.

Chris’s cost comparison methods are vastly different from my opportunity cost method, which determined my first home’s $750K opportunity cost. While I focused on what my down payment money could have been doing, Chris concentrates on the housing option with the least cost associated with it over time. Mine was very much a “property as investment” argument, while he makes a “most bang for the smallest buck” argument. Same topic, different points of view. We value differences of opinion at GM HQ, especially when backed up by numbers. That’s a royal “we” since GM HQ is still a one-man show.

Financial Independence (FI) enthusiasts who like to optimize their financial decisions for efficiency may find Chris’s homeownership argument particularly persuasive. Where FI adherents often look for the financial option with the 1% better outcome, Chris’s analysis shows that owning creates financial savings with a much higher order of magnitude. Not only that, but he presents his findings in a much more concise manner than I ever could.

Golden Albatross readers will recognize Chris’s “worth vs. worth it” argument as well. He’s good at relating his Life & Money articles to the basic value proposition this blog is built upon. For Chris, homeownership is very much “worth it.” So, with that introduction out of the way, sit back and enjoy the read. As always, the words are his, but the pictures and comments are my attempt to provide some levity!

   — GM Continue reading →

Guest Post: How to Optimally Ruin All Your Plans

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A Message From Your Sponsor

This post is the latest in a series from friend of the blog, Chris Pascale. While his previous posts were mostly about the often strange intersection between life and money, this one is about fiscal planning.  Specifically, it’s about how your plans need to change to remain relevant when confronted with new circumstances. It’s a theme that fits in particularly well with this blog for several reasons: Continue reading →

A Guest “Worth vs. Worth It” Post: Is It Worth Your Life?

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Is Your Crap Really Worth It? By “It” I Mean Your Life

I was at an estate sale. Among the hundreds of cups and glasses, I bought a dozen for $3.

Inside the house, passing a glass-encased wall display of ceramic dolls, I went to the basement. It was wall to wall hardcover popular novels – read once and then occupying shelves beyond the owner’s death. I wouldn’t buy them for a quarter, and the library wouldn’t take them for free. At $20 retail, there was at least $10,000 worth of purchases.

Leaving the basement and seeing more commemorative glass sets for sports teams and other themes, I saw that this was a theme – whatever they had, they had a lot of.

All of it cost money, and each purchase was a trade-off that initially appeared to be cash for a Stephen King book, a New York Mets beer stein, and a fourth coffee maker. Continue reading →

The Pension Series (Part 24): The Golden Albatross vs. Black Pensions

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Black Pensions Matter

On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, while supporting a Black sanitation workers strike (Hutchinson, 2019). Most Americans probably know those sad facts because they either lived through them or studied them at school. However, most Americans probably don’t know that the sanitation workers’ demands included a “10% wage increase, fair promotion policies, sick leave, pension programs, health insurance, and payroll deduction of union dues” (Estes, 2000, p. 158). Civil Rights advocates, like Dr. King, saw pensions and the organization of Black labor as one of many ways to improve the lives of Black workers and a method to level the economic playing field (Schmitt, 2008). So, believe it or not, Black pensions matter, and have for a long time.

Jobs and civil rights. The issues haven’t changed (Library of Congress, 28th August 1963).

I don’t wade into the subject of race and pensions lightly. But, up to this point, my work on the Golden Albatross worth vs. worth it decision framework has focused solely on the issues a generic pensionable worker would need to consider. And, since I’m a White-guy, it’s reasonable to assume that my vision of that generic worker was White … and a guy.

My lack of consideration for how the Golden Albatross decision framework might need to adapt based on either sex or race seems myopic. It looks incredibly myopic when considering the global re-emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, as well as the unequal devastation caused by the COVID-19 along racial and socioeconomic lines. As a result, this article marks my first effort to correct my mistake. Continue reading →

The Pension Series (Part 22): Analyzing Public Pension Plan Safety

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How Safe Is My Pension?

Pension plan safety is one of the most popular and relevant topics among the potential pensioners who read my blog. It’s popular because much like Social Security, chronic underfunding of certain types of pensions receives a lot of bad press in the U.S. As a result, many people think that all pension plans are circling the drain. While that isn’t true, as with most things in life, determining the truth about your pension plan’s safety is a somewhat subjective and complicated journey. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t strive to answer the question, especially if the Golden Albatross has trapped you in its maw.

Pension plan safety

Instead of a circling the drain, how about a black hole sun?

There’s a reason why I started the Pension Series with the topic of pension safety. I said it then, and restated it more recently in my book; no issue cuts straight to the chase quicker than pension plan safety. That’s especially true when trying to determine if staying for a pension is worth it. If you are facing the gut-wrenching stay or leave decision at your pensionable job, and you decide there’s a high probability the pension won’t be there at retirement, then you may not require any further analysis. In other words, the realization that the pension won’t be there as promised effectively ends the internal debate. Continue reading →

Worth vs. Worth It: Stretching Out The Family Van

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Guest Post Time!

Howdy Folks! Friend of the blog, Chris Pascale, slipped me this article a few weeks ago to tide everyone over until I get another break from my master’s program. He took my Worth vs. Worth It decision process (which I developed for the pension decision and showcase in The Golden Albatross book) and applied it to his decision to replace his family’s van. Whereas my original article explained the theory, this post shows you the math. It’s a quick and easy read that will help you the next time you consider buying a car. It was worth my time to publish, and I believe it’s worth your time to read it.

— Grumpus Maximus Continue reading →

Thankful For My Bronze Medal

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Thankful, Again

Happy Thanksgiving to all my U.S. readers! After a long hiatus, I’m back to writing new blog posts. My return just happens to coincide with my favorite American holiday and is in time for my annual Thanksgiving post. Fittingly, I have a long list of reasons to be thankful this year, some of which I will discuss in this article and some of which I will discuss in future ones. But, first things first. Does anyone know how much work it takes to properly retire from the U.S. military after 20 years of service?

thankful

The Grumpus Maximus household has a lot to be thankful again for this year.

I can reliably report that it takes a lot of effort if you want to do it correctly. Between Veteran’s Administration (VA) medical appointments, retirement paperwork, turnover with my relief, and a plethora of other tasks, my last few months of active duty just flew by! And then like that, it was over. I say that because in the last month I started Terminal Leave and hosted my retirement ceremony. Continue reading →