**Apologies; I've written a book here. I appreciate anyone who'll read through it. I need outsider perspectives and thoughts on what we're not thinking about.**
Okay, we're 99% sure my husband is going to leave secondary ed altogether after this school year (his tenth, eighth in public education) because it's getting worse, less and less opportunity to teach each year, more drama, and it's making him miserable. I like my job.
He'll probably go to grad school to finish a hard science master's degree, and he'll almost certainly get an assisstantship, given his background. That would cover his tuition and enough stipend to buy books and gas. The degree he's looking at should take two years. He nearly finished a hard science master's once before, but felt his thesis was indefensible because of needed results rechecked at the time that his federal research grant ran out. Those credits are now ten and more years old, and we don't think he'll be able to salvage any.
On the job front, he'll work through the end of May and be paid through the end of next September. We live in a state that witholds some of teachers' pay each month to pay out over the summer after the school year because teachers can't be trusted to save for their own predictable expenses ( often true, sadly).
We can live, easily, on my salary- currently we're putting everything I make into retirement accounts and living on his slightly smaller salary.
I do not get paid in the summers on my regular contract, but for three more years, I'm in an administrative role that pays for summers. One thing I need to do is sit down with some of the new leadership we have and make sure everyone's aware of this - fortunately, it's in the college budget, so I think what I'm doing is just making sure no one is blindsided. -- The "slightly smaller" reference to his salary is before my summer work, so that's bonus. I should get a small raise with tenure and promotion for next year. (Or no tenure and I'm out of work, too, but the chances of that are so small that frankly, even my usually over-the-top worrying can't get going on that.)
One complication: he's almost vested in what is a pretty secure government pension, but he'll be two years short (of ten) at the end of the year. We can buy in anytime up to five years after he leaves by buying back military years for him - the two he needs to be vested would run around $10,000 if the estimate I have from the pension fund is correct (need to check that; it's more than I thought). He's also eligible to buy the two years based on private school employment. That's supposed to cost more, but I don't yet have the estimate. His pension payout if we choose for me to get a full survivor's pension (probably a good idea since women in my family routinely live past 100) would start at about $670 a month and would get some COL increases once it starts, but not before. He'll be eligible to draw in 2030. I figure we get back the base $10k we'd need to put in to buy vested status in 15 months, though we of course would lose any compounding interest we could get on that elsewhere. We could wait out the five years before buying in, but the cost goes up. He could pull out what he put in, but none of the employer match and no interest. I don't know what that amount is, not yet.
One thing I intend to check into is whether any of his 403(b) options at work would allow for a rollover into a pension. I don't remember if he has a 457 available - his fund options were so bad we just decided to max mine instead, and we couldn't do both. But if we could get the $10k in there and buy the time pretax, it would save us a ton and would be short enough time frame that I'm thinking the fees won't matter as much as the pretax benefit. I need to check into this more, too.
Other considerations:
I am also paying into the same fairly secure (good as they get these days) state pension. It's mandatory, and I have 5.5 years to vest. I know that puts some more eggs into that particular basket.
I make (base pay) 44,050 a year - that reflects a merit raise since the last time I disclosed, if anyone's counting. My summer stipend is $10,000, none of which can go into retirement accounts.
He's already on my employer health insurance, which is so much better than his that it's cheaper to buy that way than to take the employer subsidy on rates through his (no subsidy for spouse through my place, but still cheaper, just in premiums, in deductible, and in out of pocket max, and more coverage besides). So that's not an issue.
I'm slightly ashamed to say I don't know offhand what we have in non-pension retirement accounts, but it's roughly 1x my gross, not all that much.
On a related note to the low savings above, we own our home free and clear. Property taxes are under $1k a year and about to go down next year because we're putting a conservation easement on the acreage.
We have about $26k in cash, so if we had to pay out on his pension from post-tax funds, that would leave (right now) an emergency fund of $16k, which we could easily make last a year if I were to lose my job. I pay for LTD insurance which pays out 60% of salary after 90 days, and I'm definitely not wanting to change that now. That's cheap through work. We have a little over $200k of life insurance on me, also cheap through work, and $30k on him. Until he leaves work, we have similar coverage on him through his work, both life and LTD.
We don't have/ can't yet get homeowner's insurance. Getting the house finished enough to insure is something we need to do before we go one income. We have the supplies we need, I think. May need some more fuel for the backhoe, but nothing much. He can do that this summer - he built the house.
We will have about $27k net coming in from his job before the checks run out, assuming we don't start dumping some into a 403(b) designated for a pension rollover.
We get $75 of salary a month for me (retirement funds, remember)? We can raise that to ~$2500 a month if we quit with the 403b and 457k. We're also maxing a family HSA and I don't think I want to change that because we do use it for medical expenses. Why pay tax?
My car has nearly 250k miles on it, and it's not a Honda. We don't need to replace it yet, but we need to keep about $2500 laying around for replacement, I'd say. If he goes to the masters program, we either fix up his 86 Tercel so it's more reliable or he drives his 15mpg Jeep. He's advocating the Tercel, and I think I agree. In a pinch, I can drive the Jeep to work, but not the Tercel unless we can find a replacement seat- the current one no longer slides forward or back, and I can't reach the pedals.
The college where I teach doesn't offer any master's degrees; we're strictly a four-year school. My university system doesn't offer any tuition discount at all for family members, sadly, or he might be looking at more schools - as it is, he's looking at the closest, which is out of state, but which wouldn't matter at all if he gets an assistantship, and even without, we pay in-state prices because we're in an adjacent county to the one the school is in.
He already has a professional license in science. He could go back to work for twice what he's making now, maybe a little less to start since he's been out for a decade, but not starting pay since he's qualified to stamp projects now. But it would mean lots of travel, lots of wear and tear, and, anyway, he doesn't want to, I don't think. We're not FI, but there's no reason he needs to work a job he doesn't want. The masters degree would give him options where he could make as much or more and come home every night. Given how low a teacher's salary is, with an assistantship I'd put the break even point at four years from the day the last check comes in from the high school, more like six if we have to pay tuition.
So, I have some more research to do. What else do I need to be thinking about? What would you do? What else do I need to tell you?
Thanks to anyone who's read all the way through.