I think if we had a bunch more money, such that there would be no question we would ever run out, he wouldn't feel that clingy about his job. He has lots of interests and could find things to do. But as it is, unless we are a lot more careful and cost cutting, we MIGHT find ourselves short if there are unexpected expenses, especially health care, which is the wild card in all of this. (OTOH, I am sure we could survive on what we have now if we had to -- it just might not be as easy and comfortable as what we are doing now.)
I have to say that he has gone through this every few years at this job. He has worked for the same organization for more than 30 years, and every time there is a change there has been a mini-crisis. But he's so much older now it makes him more nervous. He's had some job interviews with really good places but hasn't made the cut.
I've tried the past couple of years to spend less and cut some things out just to see if it works for us but I can't force him to do likewise, and we're really both pretty frugal to begin with. As I said up thread, the things we could cut might add up to a few thousand a year, not enough to make that much difference.
We are going to talk to someone at the retirement plan for my old job this week and have them look over all our finances -- it's a free service they provide, so I thought it would be worthwhile. We did it a few years ago, and it was absolutely not a sales pitch of any kind, just informational. It seems most fee-only planners charge about $5,000 for this, which seems like a lot to me, so I hesitate to plunk that much down unnecessarily.
