# Countdown to retirement **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 25, 2023, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-retirement/981653 "2023-03-25T17:37:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 33
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2024, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-retirement/981653/641 "2024-04-29T22:08:05Z")
> [@OttoDaFe](#): > > If you’re still working and have coverage when you turn 65, the window for B/D (or C) is based on the month in which you lose coverage. So it’s the three months before, the month itself, and the three months after. If you miss that window you’re subject to surcharges and eligibility determination. Actually if you’ve been working and have had health coverage through your employer, you get an 8-month “special enrollment period” to sign up for Medicare B (I think C and D as well, but would have to check) without penalty, starting the day of your separation from work. (You’d want to be covered in some other way if you chose to wait, though.) > [@OttoDaFe](#): > > Be aware that if you wait till after 65 you’ll have to provide proof from your employer(s) that you had continuous coverage during the interim. This is correct. > [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > I texted them all this past April 1 and said I was ready to come back. You’re making me wish I’d thought of doing that. Maybe next year! ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2024, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-retirement/981653/642 "2024-04-29T23:02:21Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > You’re making me wish I’d thought of doing that. Maybe next year! I’m going to make a note to myself to do it again on 4/1/25. mmm ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2024, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-retirement/981653/643 "2024-04-29T23:50:56Z")
> [@OttoDaFe](#): > > Be aware that if you wait till after 65 you’ll have to provide proof from your employer(s) that you had continuous coverage during the interim. What form might that proof take? We get a document every year, during tax season, in which it states that we had coverage for the prior year - I think to prove we had mandatory coverage due to Obamacare requirements. Something like that? Would the employer send something like that on termination as well? Or would a pay stub showing insurance coverage do? Barring something really dramatic happening in the next couple months, this IS a scenario we expect to have to deal with! ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2024, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-retirement/981653/644 "2024-04-30T00:00:17Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > What form might that proof take? Here’s a page from the CMS site: [https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/CMS-Forms/CMS-Forms/CMS-Forms-Items/CMS009718](https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/CMS-Forms/CMS-Forms/CMS-Forms-Items/CMS009718) I THINK this is what you’ll need. ---
**Author:** ![Raza](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raza/32/213_2.png) [@Raza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raza)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2024, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-retirement/981653/645 "2024-04-30T02:14:31Z")
From the below page at [medicare.gov](http://medicare.gov) it mentions, among other things (bolding mine): ### If you (or your spouse) have health insurance from a job: If you or your spouse are still working, you may be able to wait to sign up for Medicare without paying a late enrollment penalty. [Where you have group health insurance that’s available to everyone at the company.](https://www.medicare.gov/basics/get-started-with-medicare/medicare-basics/working-past-65#) - If you don’t have to pay a premium for Part A (Hospital Insurance), **you can choose to sign up when you turn 65 (or anytime later).** > **[Working past 65](https://www.medicare.gov/basics/get-started-with-medicare/medicare-basics/working-past-65)** > > If you (or your spouse) are still working when you turn 65, Medicare works a little differently. Answer a few questions to find out when to sign up, or review some common situations. I am certain I signed up for Part A (only) around my 65th birthday, even though I continued to work for another year and was covered under an employer plan. Also: the CMS-L564 form was what I had to send to Medicare to show I had previous coverage after age 65. It was a bit of a pain getting it from Fidelity, who managed certain aspects of such things for our large company. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2024, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-retirement/981653/646 "2024-04-30T02:55:50Z")
> [@Raza](#): > > the CMS-L564 form was what I had to send to Medicare to show I had previous coverage after age 65. Yes, this is the form referenced by the link that I posted earlier. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2024, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-retirement/981653/647 "2024-04-30T18:28:00Z")
Thanks! The info I pasted in earlier was from my company’s “getting ready for retirement” intranet page. I knew I’d need to do some more checking into it to be sure of my facts. From the Medicare link: To avoid a tax penalty, you and your employer should stop contributing to your HSA at least 6 months before you apply for Medicare. This is because: - If you’re 65 or older, your Part A coverage will start up to 6 months back from the date you sign up for Medicare or apply for benefits from Social Security (or the Railroad Retirement Board). - You’re not eligible to make contributions to your HSA after you have Medicare. This is pretty annoying. I mean, if I / my spouse decide to quit / retire on somewhat short notice, and we sign up for Medicare at that point, suddenly we’ve ALREADY made excess HSA contributions. Or if we PLAN to retire mid-year, that means it’s risky to do any HSA contributions. Of course, elsewhere, they say that Medicare won’t start until the month after you sign up. For part B, at least. Definitely confusing as hell. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2024, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-retirement/981653/648 "2024-04-30T19:15:45Z")
LAST day of work for me today. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2024, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-retirement/981653/649 "2024-04-30T19:22:25Z")
Congratumalations!!! ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2024, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-retirement/981653/650 "2024-04-30T19:45:08Z")
Thanks! It feels a little strange… but I’m sure I’ll get used to it. ---
**Author:** ![InternetLegend](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/internetlegend/32/13154_2.png) [@InternetLegend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InternetLegend)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2024, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-retirement/981653/651 "2024-04-30T19:45:12Z")
Woohoo! Have fun! ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2024, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-retirement/981653/652 "2024-04-30T19:58:36Z")
Retirement party coming up. I am preparing answers for the question “What are you going to do now?” 1. Have been accepted into Clown College. My clown name is “Crumpo” 2. Tour guide at Macu Picchu 3. Contract work with international import group. Can’t say more than that. 4. Telephone sanitizer 5. Am going to sit in the mall and mumble incomprehensibly at passers by 6. Finally collate and complete my matchbox collection of over 600,000 boxes 7. Lots of sex. Maybe even with another person. 8. \< fill in blank \> ---
**Author:** ![teelabrown](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teelabrown/32/8412_2.png) [@teelabrown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teelabrown)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2024, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-retirement/981653/653 "2024-04-30T20:43:45Z")
I’m about two weeks shy of being retired for a year. The first few months were a scramble of getting Medicare set to rights, getting the 401(k) rolled over to Schwab, starting monthly payments out of Schwab, and paying off our house. We were going to then sell the place and move, but decided we hadn’t had any time yet to enjoy our retirement, so we put the move on hold. Then last month when we decided to really get going on the move, we decided that the 55+ community we were going to move to was not actually a place we wanted to move after all. So some expensive stuff we had done in preparation was all unnecessary, gah. But overall I’ve liked retirement. It’s hard to shed the habit of fifty years of working, and I’m still having to consciously slow down on tasks and errands and remind myself that I now have plenty of time to get everything done. John Steinbeck had a good turn of phrase in his book _Sweet Thursday._ A tired older waitress was invited by the protagonist Suzy, her assistant, to take a few hours off in the afternoon and go home and lie down. The older woman resisted at first, and then took the advice. Lying down in the afternoon became “. . . first a sin, then a luxury, and finally a drug.” That’s how I feel sometimes. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2024, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-retirement/981653/654 "2024-04-30T20:47:18Z")
> [@teelabrown](#): > > getting the 401(k) rolled over to Schwab Although I’ve been retired for (gasp) over 7 years, my 401k is still with my former employer. I’m now ready for roll it over to a Fidelity IRA. Was this process a hassle for you? Did you have to ‘cash out’ your 401k and then deposit the money in the Schwab account, or were you able to move the holdings directly from 401k to IRA? ---
**Author:** ![teelabrown](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teelabrown/32/8412_2.png) [@teelabrown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teelabrown)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2024, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-retirement/981653/655 "2024-04-30T20:54:30Z")
> [@Railer13](#): > > Although I’ve been retired for (gasp) over 7 years, my 401k is still with my former employer. I’m now ready for roll it over to a Fidelity IRA. Was this process a hassle for you? Did you have to ‘cash out’ your 401k and then deposit the money in the Schwab account, or were you able to move the holdings directly from 401k to IRA? The 401(k) people that my employer used were kind of cheeseball. I tried to do it all online, but it was non-intuitive and in the end it didn’t work. I had to hang on the phone with them and in the end just had them cut checks (one for the money in the traditional part of the 401(k) and one for the Roth portion). They **had** to be made out to Schwab c/o Me, or was it Me c/o Schwab? Can’t remember. Then I had to sit and sweat for several days until they arrived in the plain old U.S. mail, as the 401(k) people wouldn’t FedEx them to me or send them directly to Schwab. Then I took the checks in hand and physically drove to a Schwab branch and handed them over for deposit. It was a bit of a debacle, but mostly due to the 401(k) company being semi-incompetent dicks. My husband had no issues whatsoever with doing it all online, as his employer was Apple and they had a very sharp and professional benefits department. Hopefully your experience will be more like his. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2024, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-retirement/981653/656 "2024-04-30T20:56:34Z")
> [@teelabrown](#): > > It was a bit of a debacle, but mostly due to the 401(k) company being semi-incompetent dicks. Jeebus, that’s something that I certainly don’t want to deal with! I hope my 401k folks are a bit more competent, but I’ll guess I’ll find out. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2024, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-retirement/981653/657 "2024-04-30T21:20:41Z")
> [@Railer13](#): > > Although I’ve been retired for (gasp) over 7 years, my 401k is still with my former employer. I’m now ready for roll it over to a Fidelity IRA. Was this process a hassle for you? Did you have to ‘cash out’ your 401k and then deposit the money in the Schwab account, or were you able to move the holdings directly from 401k to IRA? The two times we’ve done rollovers, it had to be “cashed out”. In fact, IIRC, both times we were literally MAILED a check (that we then had to take to a Fidelity location). So yeah, it was a little bit of a hassle. With mine, the funds were not in standard funds you could find on the stock exchange; I had worked for an accounting firm, and due to independence requirements, they have their own versions that mimic more traditional funds - e.g. something that is almost like the S&P 500 index. So there was no way they could have done a direct rollover. With my husband’s: his were in standard funds, but still had to be liquidated. Which of course poses the concern over “float”. You don’t want to cash it out on a “down” day then redeposit it after the rebound, but you really do not have the ability to guarantee that timing, of course. And, make sure it’s cashed out in a way that does not act as a disbursement to you. I think they have to make the check out to your new brokerage house, but it’s been long enough that I don’t recall the details. Decades ago, a friend cashed out her 401(k) to roll into an IRA; the servicer did it wrong, and withheld taxes. So when she redeposited it, she had the option of 1. Just deposting that cash. The difference (that was withheld for taxes etc.) would become taxable income that year, and would have incurred an early-withdrawal penalty, as she was in her 30s at the time. 2. Come up with enough money to make up the difference, so the amount she deposited with the brokerage house was the same as the balance of the 401(k). Luckily, she was able to do the latter. If you’re actually at retirement age, at least there would not be a penalty involved, but most likely you do NOT want to take all of that as income Right Now. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2024, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-retirement/981653/658 "2024-04-30T21:25:31Z")
> [@teelabrown](#): > > checks (one for the money in the traditional part of the 401(k) and one for the Roth portion). I’m kind of wondering how the Roth versus traditional will work out, when it’s time to start drawing down. I cannot easily see what the breakout is, in my account - nothing like “traditional, 300,000; Roth 125,000” or whatever. I can see the DEPOSIT history, but not how the two sections have grown. My current 401(k) is with the same brokerage as our various IRAs; I don’t know if that would make a rollover easier or not. Like with the accounting firm job, there are several funds that mimic traditional ones but are company-specific. Not sure why, mind you, as it’s NOT an accounting firm and has no independence requirements. Maybe since it’s a big enough employer, they’ve negotiated lower fee ratios or something. I suspect I would indeed have to liquidate them, but it might be more of a straightforward transfer, than the whole BS of mailing a check. ---
**Author:** ![teelabrown](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teelabrown/32/8412_2.png) [@teelabrown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teelabrown)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2024, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-retirement/981653/659 "2024-04-30T21:31:25Z")
Now I remember - the checks were made out to “Charles Schwab & Co., Inc., fbo teelabrown”. In our case, we used Schwab’s “Intelligent Income”, a robo-controlled income producing IRA feature. It created two IRA accounts, a regular one and a Roth one. Each received its respective check. When drawdown started, Intelligent Income was set up to take some out of the Roth and some out of the regular IRAs. We wanted some withheld for taxes, and we were able to program them so a certain amount was withheld from the regular IRA. No taxes, of course, for the Roth. The payment amounts were combined and come to us as one payment, once a month. Today was payday, as a matter of fact! It was all pretty easy to set up, fund, and get started receiving payments. ---
**Author:** ![Raza](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raza/32/213_2.png) [@Raza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raza)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2024, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-retirement/981653/660 "2024-04-30T21:49:07Z")
On the potential brighter side: our company 401k was managed by Fidelity, and my decades-old IRA was also at Fidelity. A 10 minute phone call got it all rolled over just fine. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-retirement/981653.md?page=32) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-retirement/981653.md?page=34)