I got my final retirement date from the university today. They'd orginally told me August 21, now they're changing it to August 11. I'm not sure it matters as I'll just do a bit of clean-up, perhaps sit in on some candidate interviews etc between when my summer teaching ends in late June and then. The university health insurance continues until the end of August when we'll switch to DH's health insurance.
That switch may take some getting used to. He has a variety of plans from which to choose, so we'll need to look those over more carefully, especially now that DD is getting more intensive allergy treatments. I'm busily booking dentist and a variety of doctor's appointments as we've already hit the copay with our current insurance.
I've decided to take the lump-sum incentive as a 403b contribution. I will hit the upper limit for those almost exactly with the incentive. Because I don't want that settlement money exposed to current volatility, I changed my mutual fund selections today and will temporarily stash that in a money market fund. We're considering all sorts of possibilities including keeping a base in the US when we move to the UK. It will be nice to have that money a bit liquid.
I can also escrow sick leave to buy into the state insurance plans later which I will do once I hear all the options. I have some time to decide that and have any appointment with the state benefits people later in June.
Lots of decisions! And still...lots of grading to finish.
In simpler news, it was a no-spend day, I hung a load of laundry outside and DH and I ate leftovers for lunch and chicken burgers and a cucumber salad for dinner. I'm itching to do some house things, but back to the grading. Grades due on Thursday, but man, I'd like to finish this sooner.
May 21st, 2022 at 02:38 pm 1653143927
It sounds like you are planning well for your retirement! Good job! I know I've enjoyed it a lot.
May 21st, 2022 at 06:46 pm 1653158819
May 21st, 2022 at 08:55 pm 1653166540
It's been 13 years since I left academia, and I don't particularly miss it. I miss the university library access to journals, but that's really about it. I live near 3 universities so access to campus events is easy, as long as I make the effort to find out what's going on on campus (which I haven't really done since the start of the pandemic).
Best of luck!
May 26th, 2022 at 12:56 am 1653526613