When is a good month to retire?

D

Doodlemoll

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I have 40 years service in public sector..I always thought I'd retire at minimum retirement age 60. Now that the magic number is approaching in October I wonder should I retire on the birthday or at the calender year end.
 
I would say at this stage go for year end as you should need about 6 weeks minimum to sort out starting your pension payments, etc. it can just take a few weeks to verify all the steps needed and with multiple people retiring all the time from the public service there may be a delay in triggering the process. Many people give months of notice of their intention to retire. Best of luck & enjoy.
 
There's a certain neatness from a tax perspective to having your salary end at the end of 2022 and your pension start at the start of 2023, so that your pension avails of your monthly tax credits. Don't forget that if you have any plans to make a last-minute AVC you must do it before you leave the employment, but with 40 years' service, you might not need or want to. Enjoy the next phase of your life.
 
Horses for courses. All things being equal I'd retire on my birthday (I've never worked my birthday). However, if for example, you are managing a SUSI application you might want to push your lump sum into the next tax year, depending. I plan to be in a position to retire at 60. My birthday is in November but I might not retire until the end of the following January.
 
The best month to retire is April/May with the Summer to look forward to.
Not Oct/Nov heading into the Winter (unless you plan to head to the sun for the first few months).
 
Forgive my ignorance, but is there not an element of ‘waste’ once you go over 40 years’ service?

i.e. you’re still paying for a pension, but you’re already maxed out.

Plus you’re not collecting your pension.
 
Gordon Gekko said:
And you’re still contributing to a pension but receiving no benefit.
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Correct.
Gordon Gekko said:
Plus, presumably, you could die and lose out because of that?
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I'm not sure I follow. Apart from the very obvious, I don't see how you can be worse off from dying. Once you've made your 40 years' contributions your spouse is entitled to a full survivor's pension whether you retired at 60 or not.
 
Gordon Gekko said:
And you’re still contributing to a pension but receiving no benefit.

Plus, presumably, you could die and lose out because of that?
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The sensible thing to do, is to retire, join an agency and offer yourself for rehire.

Loads of nurses do this. So , you get the full pension, then you get a wage ( with no superannuation deductions). Plus you can pick and choose your hours.
But some people might not have the agency option, because their skillset may not be as transferable as nurses. So, why would those people keep working? Maybe they just like going to work.
 
NoRegretsCoyote said:
Correct.

I'm not sure I follow. Apart from the very obvious, I don't see how you can be worse off from dying. Once you've made your 40 years' contributions your spouse is entitled to a full survivor's pension whether you retired at 60 or not.
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I don’t know the answer…does the surviving spouse get the tax free lump
sum if the person hasn’t retired yet?

Intuitively, I’d have thought they don’t, they just get 1/2 the pension or something like that.

For someone on €100k, that could be €150k…tax free.
 
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Unless you plan to holiday in the Caribbean, for more than a couple of weeks, November is not a good month to retire. Days are dark, cold and miserable. You may as well be at work, explaining to colleagues that you are not taking on new work because you're retiring in a few months. Retire in Spring and adjust to your new found freedom. There is much more to retirement than weather and money. The psychological adjustment can be difficult.
Disclosure: I retired a couple of weeks after passing the 40 years, in November, but went straight to a part time gig, which I am struggling to give up, 4 years later. Want to retire, again, but hesitate to pull the plug!
 
Gordon Gekko said:
I don’t know the answer…does the surviving spouse get the tax free lump
sum if the person hasn’t retired yet?

Intuitively, I’d have thought they don’t, they just get 1/2 the pension or something like that.

For someone on €100k, that could be €150k…tax free.
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A public servant's spouse would get the Death in Service benefits, which would include the full tax free lump sum, plus half the pension,.

If the employee has no spouse, the tax free lump sum would go to their estate.
 
Gordon Gekko said:
Definitely?

Does a 40 year old get the same?
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The Death in Service gratuity is attached to the employee's pension accrued. So, a 40 year old who has 20 years service would have accrued a tax free lump sum, pro rata , for that salary.

The Spouses and Children's scheme is a different benefit and grants a pension to the surviving spouse, based on reckonable service. Reckonable service is the amount of time the individual could have worked, if they hadn't died. So the 40 year old could have accrued an additional 20 years ( or more) and the pension would be calculated on that amount of time.

I'm open to correction, but I think that's how it works.
Its quite a good benefit, but , of course, you have to die to get it.
 
The Pension benefits (max pension of 50% + lump sum of 150%) are entirely separate from the Death in Service benefits.
The Pension benefits are payable on retirement (with a surviving Spouses pension of 50% of the members pension on the death of the member in retirement)
The Death in Service benefits, typically a lump sum of 150% of salary at Death plus a Spouses pension of 50% of the members pension expectation (based on salary at death and projected service to normal retirement age).
 
Conan said:
with a surviving Spouses pension of 50% of the members pension on the death of the member in retirement)
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To complicate it further - the surviving spouse's pension is 50% of the member's pension for a Class D retiree. It is calculated differently for a Class A retiree and it gives slightly more than 50% of the members's pension - but still less than the survivor's pension would have been if the member had been on a Class D pension (uncoordinated).
 
Thanks to all for the replies and guidance think I'll aim for retirement in the spring and hopefully benefit from the public sector pay rise due 1st march 2023
 
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