At what age did you (or are you hoping to) retire?

Hold up there.  I'm a teacher who worked for 10 years becoming a teacher and paid into social security.  I pay a percentage of every single one of my checks into a state teachers retirement account.  Teachers in CA do not pay into social security.  In fact, due to the windfall elimination provision, I will not get much social security (in which I am vested) at all.  It's crap.  Want to talk about paying for others retirement?  Let's talk about how teachers get screwed out of THEIR money paid in to social security because they had prior careers to pay for others retirements.

Teaching private lessons pays MUCH better than teaching in a school. When I was teaching full time, I was too trashed at the end of the day to contemplate giving lessons. But now that I'm down to two days a week at school, the other days are great for lessons and I make in few hours what it takes me all day to make at school. I've made a niche for myself working with younger students and those who are neuro-diverse - all my years of public school teaching have equipped me for those kids while many musicians throw up their hands and don't want to deal with them.

This year will be year 25 in the classroom, I'm turning 50.

I have a 2nd grader and a 7th grader, we owe for 10 more years on the house. I figured that at 60 I can retire. House paid off, youngest graduates HS.

My DH has been "retired" since 2008 mostly. He's a general contractor and real estate broker with a BA in Business Marketing so when the market tanked, his work pretty much disappeared for a few years. He went to culinary school and decided he didn't want to own a restaurant anymore after that. He's built a few houses her and there for people but has been a SAHD since 2011 when we had our first kid.

I carry the insurance and when I retire we will have to live off of my teachers retirement which will not be equal to what I make in my last year(s) of teaching. Teachers NEVER get 100% of their pay in retirement. It's crap.

It is striking how much teacher’s healthcare differs by state.

Right? My son works for the city and we pay into the same retirement program, but he can get two people insured for half of what I paid for myself 20 years ago. How is that even possible?  My employer also paid in half at the time.

I am 66 and can not retire until my husband who is 5 years younger hits 65. I am a teacher but got into it as a 2nd career. My retirement will be 1% of my pay for every year I have worked. I have worked 17 years and 17% is not much even combined with Social Security. 

I was around 40 when I retired. I went back to school with my daughter when she started college. My husband retired when he was 65. I am five years younger than him.

He received Medicare when he retired. I went without medical insurance for five years until mine kicked in. It was a calculated gamble but I knew that I had lucked out in the genetics department and we had plenty of savings if I had needed it. Medical problems in my family are extremely rare.

Neither of us had pensions but we paid off our house about 7 years after we bought it and we hadn't had a house payment in decades. Other than utilities we have never had any payments/bills of any type. We have never put anything on payments other than our two homes and those we paid off quickly. We have always lived well within our means and have a large savings that we have never touched, even to this day. Not for any reason except we just haven't needed it. We still save around a thousand a month out of our SS checks. We have always been able to afford anything that we want, but our wants are small.

I got a call from my husband's secretary one day asking if we had deposited his last paycheck because it hadn’t shown up on her books. I started looking around and it was buried under a pile of papers on his desk here at home. I would have found it eventually but we just didn’t need it so I didn't notice.

We have remodeled and done a lot of other work on our house over the years but we do all of the work. My husband can do anything and he taught me. I even roofed my house while he was still working. He helped me on the weekends as it took about three weeks to finish it. He does all of the work on our cars. We both love working on our house and cars.

Luckily we both have always been on the same page financially. One of our goals when we first married was to have enough money that we never had to stay in a job that we hated and that we could afford anything that we wanted. Neither of us wanted be forced to stay in a job we hated just for the paycheck. We saved like crazy the first few years we were married and then everything was easy after that.

Our main goal has always been to spend as much time as possible together. Being retired is the best thing ever as we are now together 24/7. We love retirement.