10 February 2020
Today marks the anniversary of my last day at work. Several people have asked me how it feels. Well, it feels good with a couple of caveats.
Most of the last month has been dealing with financial issues. Transferring monies out of the State of Michigan’s defined contribution plan has been a nightmare. The plan contains a clause that you cannot move the money for forty-five days after your termination date. At this point, 30 days since my retirement, Voya cannot tell me what my termination date is yet so I can count out 45 days for the rollover.
My advisor at TIAA was surprised. Apparently only two companies of any size enforce this kind of rule relative to 401k rollovers. Give to the State of Michigan to ensure walking away is not easy. I talked to another friend who works in the industry and her comments were that Voya was the worst financial company to try and move money from. Ugh, it has been issues like this that have eaten up just a ton of time. Don’t get me wrong I expected some of this, but Voya is in a class all by itself in term of being befuddled and aggravating.
On the other hand, I have dropped into new routines. First, I created a block of time for writing. Every single day I spend between 1 and 1 ½ hours at the public library in either a lovely room with a nice wood table or out in the general flow of the library, again at a wood table, working busily away. I work in time for laundry, making the bed and daily shopping. And, there is the mall walk. I try to get about 30 minutes of exercise in according to my Apple Watch.
Getting set for the first trip to Portugal took a little bit of time. We have some commitments here in the form of meetings and the like. However, the flight and flight insurance and parking for the car have now been arranged. One night’s reservation has been made. My thinking is that I will wrap of the rest of the reservations this week. Once in Portugal the ritual will change dramatically.
So how do I like retirement, well so far so good.
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