Hi Paintbrush,
If I'm correct, you are with Delta. Needless to say, this is a real mess.
I'm retired for a number of years. I spent my career in the Technology Industry. Never was with a company long enough to acquired a decent pension. So, I decided to do my own retirement planning and not rely on any pension fund to take care of me.
Having said all this, here's my suggestions:
First, I assume that you are still flying and hopefully earning a decent salary.
Second, determine your net worth. Value of your home and all your assets. Then determine your debts. The difference of the assets value and debts is your net worth.
Third, start a retirement plan. For example, an investment plan with a Mutual Fund company that offers no load, low fee products is the place to be. One example of such a company is Vanguard. There are others, but I favor Vanguard.
Forth, prepare an assets plan and invest your current liquid assets as suggested by the plan. Then plan on adding to your investment on a monthly basis. The greater risks that you take, the more likely you are to get greater returns. However, there are no guarantees in the stock market. As you approach retirement, you should start shifting into an asset allocation plan that produces a stream of income. This would include shifting in bond funds, treasuries, GNMA's, etc. However, you should keep a percentage of your assets in cash and securities. The cash will provide you with funds if needed, and you won't have to sell any of your income producing investments nor your equity investments.
Fifth, in the event your retirement plan doesn't offer you the amount of income needed to support your life style, then you will need to consider working past 60 years. I don't know about continuing your flying career outside of commercial aviation, but I suspect that you have other marketable skills. If not, then you should consider developing new skills, ie, selling real estate, consulting to the aviation industry, teaching at a local Community College, etc.
You can go to Vanguard's web site and get a lot of information on developing a retirement plan. Use a search engine and you'll come up with a lot of retirement planning information. Just make sure that the web site is safe and legit.
By the way, when ever possible, try using tax sheltered accounts, ie, IRA, SEP's, etc.
I hope the about comments are useful. If you wish to continue this discussion, you can do it in the public forum or a private message me.
Good luck,
Stock Bull
PS: I have a number of friends who are retired commercial airline pilots. In their day, they did very well and are enjoying a very comfortable retirement. However, one of them retired from Delta. I would assume his pension plan will continue without any changes. Am I correct in this assumption? |
