I am in a position right now where I could retire in 6 months when I turn 55, or I could retire in 2013 when I reach 30 years in a public service job. It's tempting to consider walking away from my career soon, especially because it has been made apparent to me that I am no longer valued or wanted at my place of employment. My responsibilities keep being reduced and I keep being given mindless clerical work that should be done by someone who is physically no longer capable of doing the demanding job that our work requires. So it's become obvious to me that my employer is eager to be rid of me ASAP so they can hire someone younger and cheaper, that is, if they even decide to replace me at all, given the sour state of our economy in Ohio. So I am contemplating obliging my employer and stepping aside to free up their budget to either hire a younger person who needs a job and is willing to be paid at a cheap salary or leave my position vacant and thereby save on my salary anyway. Another reason I want to retire is the better health care given to retirees, but my concern there is that I will be forced to pay the entire price of the premium myself instead of cost sharing it with my employer, which is what I do now. That could get very, very expensive given the high cost of health care these days. I will receive two thirds of my final income for my pension and since my pay has been frozen at the same level now for 6 years, that won't amount to much, meaning I will have to get another job, but in this economy, who's going to hire someone in their mid-50s, even though I am perfectly healthy and never miss a day of work? I don't want to work full time anymore and would prefer to work on my own terms, but aside from being self employed - a hard row to hoe under the best of economic circumstances and the moreso in these tough times - there aren't any jobs out there that let you pretty much show up when you want, work as many or few hours as you want and let you have as much time off as you want. So working for myself seems like the most attractive option. I've considered learning how to be a professional genealogist, but when I did the research on what that would involve, it's far more complicated than I ever imagined. You have to have a
Bachelor's Degree in Genealogy, and I do not have the money to return to college let alone try to find a school that offers that degree program, and you have to be certified and accredited, which is a very expensive and lengthy process. I was hoping that I could just learn it on my own and then hang out my shingle as an independent genealogist who would help people with their family histories. I've already discovered, just helping one friend do her maternal family genealogy, that when there is a common surname, it can become extremely challenging going back a few generations unless you can place someone in a particular town and state. I also discovered that past a certain date, censuses only included the head of the household with all other occupants merely listed by number, as in males by age, females by age, slaves by age, with no names attached, making it very difficult to trace people further back than a few generations, at least online. I suppose you'd have to travel and/or write letters to courthouses for things like wills and such, newspapers f0r obituary notices, historical societies and archives for things like military records and more. None of that information is free and you have to pay to have it copied and sent to you, so would need enough money to pay for all this work to be done and my guess is that after a while, it could get rather expensive to do a deep and extensive search, especially if you want to trace ancestry back to the Old World, which has its own challenges. I would need to learn how much to charge for doing genealogies, I suppose based on how far back I could get and how much it cost me to do the work. Since I did my friend's maternal genealogy online using various web sites like Ancestry.com and others (I have access through my job to Ancestry.com), I didn't charge her anything for it because I was both curious about her family since her mother died when she was an infant and I wanted her to know about that side of her family because she never really ever got to know them. I also regarded it as a learning experience for me to learn some of the ways that you can do genealogy on your own using largely online sources. It made me realize that maybe I could do this for a living after I retire, but there are some folks with whom I would have a tough time looking into their family history. For example, I have one friend whose family named was changed upon coming over from the Old World and trying to trace the family back to the Old World when the original name is unknown would be terribly difficult and I do not know how you would approach that problem. Children of immigrants would be hard because most of the records of their families would be overseas and possibly in foreign languages that I do not read. So that could present its difficulties as well. I don't know how to get around such vexing problems as these so I don't know whether it would be worth my time to pursue the idea of being a self employed, self taught genealogist who doesn't have the education or certification to be a "real" professional. I'd just like to do something that would allow me to have more control over my own time again and not have to worry about getting to a job and on time, and then playing that ridiculous little dance known as "office politics" where you have to be someone and something other than your true self. Steve Jobs, who died this week, said that he would get up every day and look in the mirror and ask himself, if this was the last day of his life, would he want to be doing what he was doing? And if the answer too many times was NO, then it was time to change. Lately, I've been feeling that same nagging feeling, that no, I don't want to be doing this anymore, I want more time for ME do pursue my passions, but my pension won't be enough money to allow me to fully retire. I do not have an annuity, a 401(K) or an IRA because I've never wanted to gamble my savings away on Wall Street and I know of no other ways to save other than a savings account at a bank and they no longer pay interest so you can't really make money saving at a bank and anyway, it's impossible for me to have enough disposable income to put away in some sort of retirement account when it takes almost all I make currently to pay bills and survive. So I really don't know what to do right now regarding my hopes of retirement and what to do afterward. I'd hate to hang out my shingle as a genealogist and then have someone come to me whose genealogy turns out to be too complicated for me to pursue without travel, say, overseas or to another state, which in no way could I afford to do. But I'm tired of working for someone else and would rather be in charge of my own time to do as I please. I figure that after 30 years, I deserve that much. It's just that I can't afford to survive on two thirds of my current income when I am barely making it now still employed full time. So I don't know what to do and I don't have much time left to make up my mind. I have to have a clear plan in place when I finally submit my retirement papers in the next year and a half or two. I know the time will go fast so I'd best figure out a plan of action soon, the sooner, the better, in fact. If anybody's got any suggestions about how to approach this, I'm all ears!
I am in a position right now where I could retire in 6 months when I turn 55, or I could retire in 2013 when I reach 30 years in a public service job. It's tempting to consider walking away from my career soon, especially because it has been made apparent to me that I am no longer valued or wanted at my place of employment. My responsibilities keep being reduced and I keep being given mindless clerical work that should be done by someone who is physically no longer capable of doing the demanding job that our work requires. So it's become obvious to me that my employer is eager to be rid of me ASAP so they can hire someone younger and cheaper, that is, if they even decide to replace me at all, given the sour state of our economy in Ohio. So I am contemplating obliging my employer and stepping aside to free up their budget to either hire a younger person who needs a job and is willing to be paid at a cheap salary or leave my position vacant and thereby save on my salary anyway. Another reason I want to retire is the better health care given to retirees, but my concern there is that I will be forced to pay the entire price of the premium myself instead of cost sharing it with my employer, which is what I do now. That could get very, very expensive given the high cost of health care these days. I will receive two thirds of my final income for my pension and since my pay has been frozen at the same level now for 6 years, that won't amount to much, meaning I will have to get another job, but in this economy, who's going to hire someone in their mid-50s, even though I am perfectly healthy and never miss a day of work? I don't want to work full time anymore and would prefer to work on my own terms, but aside from being self employed - a hard row to hoe under the best of economic circumstances and the moreso in these tough times - there aren't any jobs out there that let you pretty much show up when you want, work as many or few hours as you want and let you have as much time off as you want. So working for myself seems like the most attractive option. I've considered learning how to be a professional genealogist, but when I did the research on what that would involve, it's far more complicated than I ever imagined. You have to have a 
Bachelor's Degree in Genealogy, and I do not have the money to return to college let alone try to find a school that offers that degree program, and you have to be certified and accredited, which is a very expensive and lengthy process. I was hoping that I could just learn it on my own and then hang out my shingle as an independent genealogist who would help people with their family histories. I've already discovered, just helping one friend do her maternal family genealogy, that when there is a common surname, it can become extremely challenging going back a few generations unless you can place someone in a particular town and state. I also discovered that past a certain date, censuses only included the head of the household with all other occupants merely listed by number, as in males by age, females by age, slaves by age, with no names attached, making it very difficult to trace people further back than a few generations, at least online. I suppose you'd have to travel and/or write letters to courthouses for things like wills and such, newspapers f0r obituary notices, historical societies and archives for things like military records and more. None of that information is free and you have to pay to have it copied and sent to you, so would need enough money to pay for all this work to be done and my guess is that after a while, it could get rather expensive to do a deep and extensive search, especially if you want to trace ancestry back to the Old World, which has its own challenges. I would need to learn how much to charge for doing genealogies, I suppose based on how far back I could get and how much it cost me to do the work. Since I did my friend's maternal genealogy online using various web sites like Ancestry.com and others (I have access through my job to Ancestry.com), I didn't charge her anything for it because I was both curious about her family since her mother died when she was an infant and I wanted her to know about that side of her family because she never really ever got to know them. I also regarded it as a learning experience for me to learn some of the ways that you can do genealogy on your own using largely online sources. It made me realize that maybe I could do this for a living after I retire, but there are some folks with whom I would have a tough time looking into their family history. For example, I have one friend whose family named was changed upon coming over from the Old World and trying to trace the family back to the Old World when the original name is unknown would be terribly difficult and I do not know how you would approach that problem. Children of immigrants would be hard because most of the records of their families would be overseas and possibly in foreign languages that I do not read. So that could present its difficulties as well. I don't know how to get around such vexing problems as these so I don't know whether it would be worth my time to pursue the idea of being a self employed, self taught genealogist who doesn't have the education or certification to be a "real" professional. I'd just like to do something that would allow me to have more control over my own time again and not have to worry about getting to a job and on time, and then playing that ridiculous little dance known as "office politics" where you have to be someone and something other than your true self. Steve Jobs, who died this week, said that he would get up every day and look in the mirror and ask himself, if this was the last day of his life, would he want to be doing what he was doing? And if the answer too many times was NO, then it was time to change. Lately, I've been feeling that same nagging feeling, that no, I don't want to be doing this anymore, I want more time for ME do pursue my passions, but my pension won't be enough money to allow me to fully retire. I do not have an annuity, a 401(K) or an IRA because I've never wanted to gamble my savings away on Wall Street and I know of no other ways to save other than a savings account at a bank and they no longer pay interest so you can't really make money saving at a bank and anyway, it's impossible for me to have enough disposable income to put away in some sort of retirement account when it takes almost all I make currently to pay bills and survive. So I really don't know what to do right now regarding my hopes of retirement and what to do afterward. I'd hate to hang out my shingle as a genealogist and then have someone come to me whose genealogy turns out to be too complicated for me to pursue without travel, say, overseas or to another state, which in no way could I afford to do. But I'm tired of working for someone else and would rather be in charge of my own time to do as I please. I figure that after 30 years, I deserve that much. It's just that I can't afford to survive on two thirds of my current income when I am barely making it now still employed full time. So I don't know what to do and I don't have much time left to make up my mind. I have to have a clear plan in place when I finally submit my retirement papers in the next year and a half or two. I know the time will go fast so I'd best figure out a plan of action soon, the sooner, the better, in fact. If anybody's got any suggestions about how to approach this, I'm all ears!
No comments:
Post a Comment