Things and stuff
Well, I've completed all my onboarding paperwork, and my first day at the New Job is February 3rd. (They'd wanted to start me this Monday, but they couldn't get my system access set up in time.) Nervous, but also excited. I did get one teeny bit of schadenfreude; shortly before I got the offer from New Place, I heard from a little bird at the Old Place that the decision to let us all go was perhaps not working out as well as the instigator thought it would. Not that I am a gloating person, but HA.
Back in December, the benefits department of the Old Place sent me a slew of paperwork, which I assumed was the usual yearly benefits confirmation stuff, and one of those right-hand-doesn't-know-what-the-left-hand-is-doing things, since I no longer had any benefits with them to confirm. This week I finally opened it up and looked at it, and it turned out to be about pension benefits. When I started working for the Old Place, they had a regular pension plan. Within a year, they'd started up a 403b (which is just like a 401k, except for nonprofits) to go with it, and within another couple of years they'd frozen the pension plan for existing employees, and no longer offered it for new ones. So I never paid much attention to it. I vaguely assumed that 1) there wasn't much in it (correct) and 2) I couldn't access it without penalties till I was 65 anyway (apparently incorrect.)
So it turns out that I'm getting a pension. Not much of one, but as I found out while managing Mom's finances, even a small amount of steady monthly income can sometimes be a make or break thing. For now, I'm just going to plow all of it into my formerly 403b-now-IRA account, so I don't blow it on air-foamed Cheez Whiz or something. 65 is scarily close. Not that I'll be able to retire then - I wasn't able to start saving for retirement till I was past forty. Before that, I was working a series of dead end office jobs with no benefits at all. I have more saved up now than my Mom did, but that's mainly because I don't have any lunkheaded kids borrowing money from me all the time. I don't have anywhere near the amount you're supposed to have (twenty times your yearly salary, or something like that? And that's assuming you only plan to live to 85, whereas I plan to be carried to the boneyard kicking and screaming "I'M NOT DEAD YET, I FEEL HAPPY!" at the age of 115 or thereabouts.) And sooner or later, the stock market's gonna 'correct' itself, so I try not to take even the extremely moderate numbers in my IRA very seriously.
On a lighter note, we've been watching Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance and liking it, and we've just started The Witcher, which seems interesting. Once I get my first paycheck we're probably going to sign up for Disney's streaming service so we can watch The Mandalorian.
Rants Talk to me
Back in December, the benefits department of the Old Place sent me a slew of paperwork, which I assumed was the usual yearly benefits confirmation stuff, and one of those right-hand-doesn't-know-what-the-left-hand-is-doing things, since I no longer had any benefits with them to confirm. This week I finally opened it up and looked at it, and it turned out to be about pension benefits. When I started working for the Old Place, they had a regular pension plan. Within a year, they'd started up a 403b (which is just like a 401k, except for nonprofits) to go with it, and within another couple of years they'd frozen the pension plan for existing employees, and no longer offered it for new ones. So I never paid much attention to it. I vaguely assumed that 1) there wasn't much in it (correct) and 2) I couldn't access it without penalties till I was 65 anyway (apparently incorrect.)
So it turns out that I'm getting a pension. Not much of one, but as I found out while managing Mom's finances, even a small amount of steady monthly income can sometimes be a make or break thing. For now, I'm just going to plow all of it into my formerly 403b-now-IRA account, so I don't blow it on air-foamed Cheez Whiz or something. 65 is scarily close. Not that I'll be able to retire then - I wasn't able to start saving for retirement till I was past forty. Before that, I was working a series of dead end office jobs with no benefits at all. I have more saved up now than my Mom did, but that's mainly because I don't have any lunkheaded kids borrowing money from me all the time. I don't have anywhere near the amount you're supposed to have (twenty times your yearly salary, or something like that? And that's assuming you only plan to live to 85, whereas I plan to be carried to the boneyard kicking and screaming "I'M NOT DEAD YET, I FEEL HAPPY!" at the age of 115 or thereabouts.) And sooner or later, the stock market's gonna 'correct' itself, so I try not to take even the extremely moderate numbers in my IRA very seriously.
On a lighter note, we've been watching Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance and liking it, and we've just started The Witcher, which seems interesting. Once I get my first paycheck we're probably going to sign up for Disney's streaming service so we can watch The Mandalorian.
Rants Talk to me