How We Caught the Travel Bug

Le Anna and I have had the travel bug since I took a 2 + year job assignment in Zambia in 1988.  I was 41 and the farthest I had been from the US was a couple of short trips to Mexico ( I'm not counting Canada).  Le Anna had never been East of the Mississippi.  Zambia was 2 overnight airplane flights from Seattle, and a whole world away.  Our kids were still in high school at the time, but they got to come over for summers, and after they went to college, Le Anna came over for about 8 months before the job ended.

Zambia was a true third world country (still is), and it is no exaggeration to say that the experience there changed all of our lives forever.  As a result, our entire family has had the travel bug ever since - wanting to see more and more of the wonderful world we live in.  The cause of this affliction is very strange, since living in Zambia was definitely not easy, nor could it really be called pleasant except for some occasions.  But every day was a new adventure, and a moving experience.  Le Anna likes to say that every day something made her weep with sadness, and every day made her heart sing with joy.  The Zambian people have a great positive attitude in spite of having absolutely nothing in terms of material goods.  We made several good friends among the locals, as well as with expats from a number of countries around the globe.

So Zambia stirred the urging in us to see other new places in the world, and meet new people.  In my work life since Zambia, I have gladly volunteered for assignments in Alberta, Canada, Shemya Island at the end of the Aleutian chain, Qatar, England, and Moscow.  For pleasure we have traveled internationally to Mexico,  South Africa, Aruba, Costa Rica, Panama, the BVI, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Italy, Portugal, and Spain.  But we feel like we have barely scratched the surface.  Every trip makes us want to see more.  This is the Travel Bug, and to the best of our knowledge, it is an incurable affliction.  We view this as a good thing.

Now that my retirement is opening up many possibilities, we find ourselves envying other seniors who have become real nomads, selling their homes and living in different locations until they feel the urge to move on to another new spot.  While this is very appealing, our practical natures tell us that we still need a home base to return to at least a couple of times a year, to visit doctors and take care of personal business.  Maybe in time this will change, but for now we will hang onto our home in Washington, and travel as much as our budget will allow.

So over the last 3 months we have planned 3 month-long trips during the first 6 months of my retirement.  Trip planning is half the fun for us.  We like to discuss all the possible routes and means of travel, and especially places to stay.  It's time to see more of the US though we have lived many places and traveled quite a bit throughout the US, it's a big country and there's always more to see.  

We are not high-budget travelers, and believe in saving money where we can, without totally sacrificing comfort.  Our first trip will be a road trip in our personal car - kind of a "shake-down" trip for 4 weeks in the Western US. 

We plan to travel from our home in SE Washington, out to the Oregon coast, then south down the coast to the California Redwood parks.  We will try tent camping for the first 4 nights, then spend 2 nights in Napa Valley at a modest hotel.  Next we go to the San Francisco area where we have booked a houseboat for 4 nights - that should be different.  After SF, we head east to Yosemite National Park, where we are camping for 3 nights, then driving up to South Lake Tahoe where we have a timeshare rental for a week to relax.  Le Anna's brother and sister-in-law will join us there, which should be fun.  From Tahoe we are going over Donner Pass and up to Mt. Shasta for a night.  Then we are treating ourselves to a night at Crater Lake Lodge.  From there, we go to Bend, OR, a place we always enjoy, then we will drive back to Richland and relax for 3 weeks before our next big trip.

We will get into the next trip later.  Stay tuned as the adventure begins; our retirement is in sight.

Remembering What's Important

Blogging and preparing for retirement took a leave of absence for a couple weeks as life offered a strong wakeup call . . . we lost a good friend and traveled from WA to MN for services.  She was only 59 and had battled the ravages of ALS for a couple years.  Bob had worked with her husband for 20+ years and she and I had become good friends.  ALS is one of the saddest conditions and she faced each day of it with courage, dignity, strength and grace.  It’s so sad to lose her and our hearts reach out to her husband, who was her primary caregiver, and to her family.  

 http://www.alsa.org/

Yes, life offered one of those wakeup calls and the time is now to heed the lesson.  Bob is only days away from retirement and we have a long list of “things to get done” before we start to enjoy retirement.  But really, we need to appreciate now because none of us ever know how much time we have.  Sadly, our friends didn’t get to enjoy retirement because they didn’t make it to that point together.  We are blessed to be able to look forward and have retirement in sight.  Remembering what's important is what's important.

Ex Marks the Spot

It's always good to simplify your life and that includes your financial life.  Now that filing taxes for the past year is behind us I've been concentrating on doing some spring cleaning of drawers, cupboards, closets and filing cabinets.  I'm very guilty of keeping paper . . . hesitant to throw anything away.  I haven't yet joined the ranks of "only electronic filing" and that turned out to be a good thing last week.  I haven't worked for the past few years but my last job was with the government and I ran across an old file that had my paperwork in it.  When I left the government I took my "thrift plan" with me and rolled it into my IRA.  However, I still had a very small amount of money in the pension program.  I'd left it there because it was tied to the number of years of service and if I would have taken it out I would have forfeited those years.  In the back of my mind I knew that those years were important and if I ever chose to return to government service it would be nice to have credit for those years.

But now full time retirement is nearing and it's time to go after my money which has been accruing interest all these years.  I downloaded the forms for withdrawal of the funds and it seemed like the biggest challenge was to decide whether to roll it into my IRA or just take the payout.  Since I'm well over 59 1/2 there was no concern about early withdrawal penalties on retirement funds so the payout was worthy of consideration.  At this point all my retirement funds are taxable income when I take a distribution.  But also rolling it into my IRA seemed reasonable since I don't plan to tap into my IRA funds for a few more years.  

Filling out the form (3106, Application for Refund of Retirement Deductions) was pretty routine until I got to question # 11 which asked if I'm married and if so what is his name.  Well, I know the answers to that but wondered why it was necessary to disclose that.  And then came question # 12 which asked if I'd ever been married before, to whom, and the relevant dates of marriage and divorce.  Now I'm kind of irritated by the whole thing because my marriage to my ex ended 16 years before I ever went to work for the government. 

Form 3106

I read the fine print which stated that you had to disclose any current or former marriage that had lasted more than 9 months if I had also had 18 months of service with the government at any time.  Well, that was the situation regardless of the fact that we'd been married and divorced prior to my government service.  Crazy!  But even more ridiculous is that the attached form 3106A required my current spouse to actually sign the form.  And you guessed it, form 3106A also required my ex to sign the documents. 

Form 3106a instructions

Why?  So that he would be aware that I was getting retirement and he wasn't going to get any of it . . . even though I didn't work for the government when we were married.  My current husband had to sign for the same reason but we were married while I worked for the government so I guess in theory he would be entitled to know what happened to the retirement money.

I'm lucky; truly I am.  My ex and I are friends and have managed to be more than civil through the years.  Until a couple years ago he lived in CO but recently moved down the road about 60 miles to a small SE Washington town.  I was able to call him and explain the situation and ask if we could meet and he could sign the form.  My ex understood and also commented that this might be a good example of excessive government.  Yes, my dilemma was solved because my ex was willing to mark the spot.

Reading the fine print again I learned that if I'd been unable to track down my ex  I would have to swear that I didn't know his whereabouts, or let the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) try to get him to sign the papers by providing them with his address.  If he would have refused my request to sign the papers I could have two witnesses sign an affidavit that I'd tried to get him to sign.  I think my ex is right; it seems excessive.

What insight into retirement am I offering by sharing this situation?  Cleaning out files is a good thing.  Simplifying your life, including your  finances is a good thing.  Keeping a healthy relationship with an ex is a good thing because strangely you might actually need something from them even though your divorce was eons ago.

Social Security ~ Time to Sign Up!

There's lots of advice out there on how to get the most out of your Social Security benefits - articles, websites, and newsletters.  I'm not going to attenpt to cover the whole subject in this blog, but will give you a few pointers.  We read many of them in order to prep ourselves for starting our SS benefits.  Some of the better sources of info include fidelity.com, Forbes, or Prudential.com which has a downloadable report called "Innovative Strategies to Help Maximize SS Benefits" research.prudential.com/documents/rp/InnovativeSocialSecurityNov2012.pdf.

But also don't forget to check the government SSA website, ssa.gov.   There are a lot of tricky moves you can make if you do not need to start taking distributions immediately, but the main thing to know is the longer you can delay starting your benefits, the more your benefits will grow.  Although you are eligible for SS benefits at age 62, your benefit increases at a rate of 8% per year for each year you delay - a pretty good rate of return.  This increase continues to age 70 when you are required to start taking your benefits.  I held off until age 67, when I decided that work was not much fun any more.

Going to the Local SSA Office

Another avenue for good information is to go meet in person with your local Social Security Administration office.  Le Anna and I did this several months ago just to see what we could learn.  Let me just say that you will see a lot of interesting people at the SSA office.  After taking a number and waiting for our turn, we

were able to meet with a very knowledgeable and friendly representative.  She clearly explained the primary options for each of our own benefits and our 'Spousal' benefits, and which combination would most likely be the best for us.  Since both Le Anna and I had worked for many years, we were both eligible for benefits.

Our Choices

Since Le Anna just turned 66, both of us are now full retirement age, which opens more options for how you take your benefits.  For us, the option that made the most sense (translation = highest benefit) was for Le Anna to file for her spousal benefit (50% of my benefit at age 66), and for me to file for my regular benefit.  But at the same time, Le Anna can let her own benefit continue to grow at 8% a year until age 70 1/2, and then switch from her spousal benefit to her own, which will then be worth more than the 50% spousal.  Follow that?  Anyway, there are several other options for married couples which can increase your overall benefits if you have some flexibility on when to start drawing.

Signing Up

So we went back to the local SSA office last week to sign up, after making an appointment ahead of time.  We live in a fairly small town, so the local office is not overly crowded.  If you live in a large city, you might want to opt for filing online instead.  For us the process was easy and only took about 15 minutes.  Our SSA rep was again friendly and helpful, and willing to answer all our questions.  One thing we learned was that the benefits are paid in arrears, which means your first check will come in the month following the start of your benefits.  Don't forget that your SSA benefits are potentially taxable income, so it's probably a good idea to have some taxes witheld, or allow for the benefits in calculating your quarterly estimated taxes, so you are not shocked next year at tax time.

You've heard a little about our experiences getting signed up with Social Security.  If you are getting ready to do the same, we hope that we have given you some insight into the process and options.

Meet the Family

The countdown toward retirement continues and we are only a month away!  This last weekend we visited with our family and they were full of questions about what our plans are.  I almost felt as if they think we should have our entire life planned out . . . wish we had that much insight into our retirement but we don’t!  Anyway, I thought maybe it was time to introduce our family. as I know they will continue to play a major role in our thought processes and decisions.

As mentioned in an earlier post Bob and I have been married 34 years and this was not our first rodeo.  We’d both been married before and I have two children from that relationship.  Bob has raised them since they were 9 and 11, so now you know the “kids” are not kids anymore!

Enjoying an evening at a fundraiser!

Amy is our amazing daughter and she is married to Mike who I think actually likes his mother-in-law.  Amy is a very dedicated young woman who has worked most of her career in the non-profit world, currently working as a front-line fundraiser for a large NW cancer research center.  She studied drama and English lit in college and brings a lot of passion to every endeavor. Mike has spent his career in administration within the corporate education arena.  Amy and Mike are parents to Daisy, a sweet rescue golden retriever.

Shane is our amazing son and he is married to Alex who also likes his mother-in-law, or so I believe!  Shane works as a Human Resources manager for a tech company and dreams of making wine and having his own vineyard.  Alex is a trained IT specialist who is currently enjoying a stint as a stay-at-home spouse and enjoys genealogy.  Shane and Alex are parents to Portia, a border collie who is never without a ball in her mouth.

A Seattle landmark!

All of the family lives in the greater Seattle area but they visit the drier side of WA frequently.  For many years Shane and Alex owned a vacation home in Walla Walla and Amy and Mike currently own one there.  Walla Walla is a small town in SE WA, and is known for its many vineyards and winery tasting rooms.  We have to admit that Walla Walla keeps popping up on the short list of “maybe we should consider” as a possibility.  I’m not sure the kids really know that, but it’s going to be an interesting journey as we navigate the transition into retirement.

Ready for harvest at Walla Walla vineyard

Fields outside Walla Walla

Amy and Shane had an early introduction to the greater world when we moved to Zambia, Africa and they were able to visit for extended periods.  That experience tapped their cultural curiosity and they enjoy travel as well.  We are confident no matter where we land our family will embrace the experience and I'm sure they won't be shy about providing insight into our retirement!