My husband is getting ready to retire at 55 years of age. We are lucky in that he can collect a pension or take a lump sum. We have been living a semi- mustachian lifestyle. Our house is paid for and our only debt is a car payment on a Honda Fit that I use for business. We have two children, the oldest is on his own and the youngest is in college but most of that is paid for. For the past year we have been living on half of husbands paycheck and putting the rest into deferred comp where we have about 125,000 dollars. We also have an IRA that is about the same. My career as an artist is really taking off and my husband plans on helping me when he retires.
We have a couple of choices with his pension We can take the monthly payment, which is about what we live on now. Use his pension as our base salary, then use my income and deferred comp for any shortfalls. We realize that inflation will eat away at his pension but I am counting on my income to grow to make more investments. This is without counting on our IRA or social security.
The other choice is to take the lump sum and invest it, so the returns will grow ahead of inflation. We are not that skilled at investing and I do not like paying the fees or the volatility of the stock market. According to a financial adviser the lump sum, if invested correctly, could give us a payout close to the monthly annuity and stay ahead of inflation.
My head is spinning over these decisions and I would appreciate any advice from this community.