The retirement countdown to the left has changed!  I am sure about zero people noticed this so I am going to give you an update on our retirement plans.  Retirement is still on but with a modification.

My previous retirement was to be 10/24/15.  I would have just turned 55 and reached 30 years at my office.  The 30 years is important because that would give me fully covered health insurance, no cost to us, for at least 10 year.  But the 2015 date was axed for a couple of reasons.  Primarily due to the fact that we received a 4.25% COLA for the FY2015, this made a difference in retirement pay!  We were also in the middle of building a new building and I am in charge of the technology for that.  Also we really still needed a year to start getting rid of things and paying down some bills.  It made sense to wait another year.

OK.  We add one more year.  10/24/16.  No big deal.  After all I am still getting paid while I am working.  Since setting that date, however, things have got more interesting.

We were always wondering what to do with our house.  We are going to start our journeys for at least a 6 month stint but it might be longer.  I will never buy, or live, in California again.  The state itself is great but with all the taxes, political crap, etc, it is not for us anymore.  We will be selling the house in Visalia but as to when?

Normally we would not want our house to sit empty for a long time.  We could sell, and will eventually, or have a property maintenance company to take care of it.  But we are doing something different.

Our son is going to rent the house from us.  He will move in with his fianceé and up to 3 kids every other weekend.  That way we can take off when we want.  We can also come back to visit as it really won’t be our home anymore, our trailer will be our home.  When we come back to visit we still have the trailer parking:

One thing that has made the move-in a bit more exciting is that they are going to move in next weekend!  This means we have spent the last 2+ weeks cleaning out 3 bedrooms in the house (we will be in the master bedroom until we leave) and having a HUGE yard sale.

But how does all this fit in with my retirement date?  That has changed a bit also.  I have ran the retirement numbers for each month from 6/30/16 to 12/31/16.  It turns out that the new date is going to be 12/31/16.  There are numerous factors for that.  The difference in retirement salary over those 6 months is not insignificant.  Check.  Roxie also mentioned that she would like to wait until after the holidays for us to start our escapade.  Check.  More time to get rid of things and get the rig ready.  Check.  Easier to end my salaried life and start my retired life on a year end/start.  Check.

Everything is just falling into place to make this our current plan.  So we hope to start our retirement travels on New Years 2017!  I have updated my countdown clock on the website and at work:

Hard to wait even that long!