I'm still working, but for a long time now I've considered that the '
One More Year' final-episode of my working life would be something that I'd really want to do, and would look forward to, if and when the time comes.
Whilst the above is an interesting read, it feels like an over-complication on my own plans (
or it certainly feels like my own plans aren't well enough thought through at this stage - and the jury is still out on that one!), which I think would likely centre on a number of key themes -
1. My final 'One More Year' salary would go completely untouched, and feed directly into my planned 'Emergency Retirement Cash' fund. If I decided that I'd want a certain level of 'Emergency Cash' when I finally throw the towel in, then given that I'm likely to know the rough 12-month level of diverted wages into that 'Emergency Cash' fund during that final year of working, then I can plan with some precision that the 'Emergency Cash' fund is likely to be
fully funded at the end of that 'One More Year' final episode...
2. With my 'One More Year' salary being fully diverted into the 'Emergency Cash' fund, I would be able to 100% test my '
You're on your own now, pal' retirement-funding plans. I can 'pretend' that my 'One More Year' of working is
actually my first year of
retirement from a 'retirement funding' point of view, and I can set up and test all the necessary account processes and 'living on investment funding' actions that would be required were I to
actually be retired at that point...
3. Some of the key benefits that I think I'd get from doing something like the above would be -
- A beneficial and welcome 12-month 'mental adjustment period', allowing myself to enjoy my final year in work in a way that I'd perhaps not had before, and also allowing myself to drift with some real purpose towards a 'you're not going to be doing this for too much longer' head-space.....this is a key driver to this plan...
- A potentially risk-free run at testing all the financial levels required to get through that dummy-run year, *just* set against my planned investment income - basically 'learning to live with' the expected investment-income following that safety-net year....
- The ability, with a fair wind, to call the whole thing off if there's either anything intrinsically wrong with my initial scenario-planning, and if I were to find that more funding were to be needed by potentially delaying retirement beyond that 'One More Year' period. Key to this is simply not telling anyone else at work at all that I might actually be in my final-year period...
- A rapid method of topping up what's likely to be over and above a 'single retirement year's worth' of 'Emergency Cash' pot-building using my 'One More Year' wages...
There's no doubt some more benefits and pitfalls in all of the above, but given that I've probably got a few years yet before I would want to put the above plan into real-world action, I'm happy to allow myself to day-dream the above 'One More Year' scenario further, and perhaps fine-tune it to accommodate further issues and benefits, but as a potential
landing-zone on that final run towards retirement, the above ticks an awful lot of boxes for me, both mentally and financially, and it's something that I've considered would be a big advantage to me for a long time now...
Cheers,
Itsallaguess