I’m working on my “60 things to do before I turn 60” aka 60 x 60, and goal #3 was planning my retirement. You can see the original post here (“60 x 60”: Goals 01-05 – Death, life, retirement, reading and writing).

Now, there are a bunch of elements to that bigger goal. Some of it is the detailed financial planning that is required. I also have thoughts about what I need to do in terms of psychology. And more pointedly, one aspect of the psychology around retirement is the resulting isolation adjustment with the loss of the people at work that I deal with regularly. All of those will bear some thought. I may even add in some physical planning for retirement such as certain mobility exercises to better aid me if I’m going to be playing golf or walking a lot or whatever.

But today is not the day for that type of discussion. Today, I’m just picking the day.

Pick a card, any card

If you start considering some of the basic variables, you can start ticking off options on your fingers.

For the first finger, picking my retirement date seems simple. When did I start, add 30 years, bam, I’m done. Right? That would give me a date in basically September 2026, if I hadn’t taken any special leave, etc.

For the second finger, it gets a bit more complicated. While I would have 30 years of continuous service in September 2026, and thus I would be eligible to retire without penalty, I can also buy back some “non-continuous” service. In fact, I have 14 months sitting there. Yes, I should have bought it back years ago, but no I didn’t have the money then; if I buy it back now, it nominally pays for itself in about 7 years of retirement and then a bonus after that, although the “source” I use is more complicated (see below). But I could buy back 14 months, thus moving my date forward to about August 2025. Ish. It’s 8 months that I worked as a co-op student way back in ’93 and 6 months of probation / non-pensioned service when I started CIDA.

For the third finger, the middle finger perhaps, I could put in my papers tomorrow and say screw it, I’m done. I can’t afford to do that financially, or at least not without some major changes in lifestyle, but sure, it’s a possibility. Call it July 2023.

For the fourth finger, I could stick it out to 35 years. Basically, my pension kicks in at 30 years of service with 60% of my best five years of salary and no penalty, but every year after that counts as 2 extra percent. If I worked until 35 years of service, I would get 70% of my salary (5 years x 2 percent for 10 more percent to a maximum of 70%). So call it September 2031 if I went with no buyback or August 2030 if I did.

For the fifth finger, maybe a fist, that’s where the rubber hits the road for more complicated decision-making. You estimate the expenses you’ll have in retirement with whatever standard of living you plan for, how long you’ll live, how long your spouse will live, when they’ll retire, add in their incomes, add in some contingencies for things like health, if you want to leave money for others when you die, etc. Basically, you calculate your long-term expense stream and match it to your income stream, adjusting your retirement date to when it all evens out.

For me, there’s an added element related to that buy-back question I mentioned. As I said, the ideal scenario is to go back in time and buy it back 25 years ago. I don’t have a De Lorean available, so that’s out. But I can buy it back still, and it is still beneficial. Or as the advisor from the Retirement Planning Institute course told us, “We’ll do all the calculations, help you figure it out, and then tell you that yes, you should buy it back”. The only time it WOULDN’T make sense to do so is if doing so means you have to pass up a more lucrative investment option. But the bar is kind of high…golden pension? Guaranteed for life? Indexed for inflation? Kind of hard to beat that in the long run for security.

In my case, I can deduct it from my salary for the next five years. Or I can pay in cash (except I don’t have the liquid cash after the recent bathroom renos). Or more excitingly, I can transfer the money from my RRSP and buy it that way. Hmm…that DOES have its advantages, I must say. But when you start looking at all the options, all of them come with opportunity costs too. I know the buyback is worth it within 7 years, nominally at least, but if I was giving up a good investment to take a smaller return through pension, yet likely to run for about 21 years of retirement (if I live to say 79), etc. etc. etc. Ultimately, the fifth option doesn’t really determine “when” for me, it is more about how with how much cushion, although there are aspects in there of when Andrea retires too.

I know that I can retire without any other decision involved somewhere between September 2026 and September 2031. Even without a buyback. If I go for buyback, it could move the 2031 date closer, but not enough to likely affect things.

So it seems more like a magic trick…pick a card, any card, between 2026 and 2031. That will be my retirement date.

A day that resonates

Often when I think about my work life, the daily grind, my life spent working, I think of my father. He spent almost 40 years on a shop floor in a factory. And when he retired? He was done. I feel somewhat the same way. I confess I would love to retire tomorrow. There are days when I feel like Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon — “I’m too old for this sh**”. 🙂

And strangely enough, there is a day in that period from 2026 to 2031 that resonates with me. My father was born in 1927, and if he had still been alive, he would have turned 100 that month. So I have a date that heavily resonates with me.

August 27, 2027.

A 100 years from the birth of the man who taught me what work means.

If I don’t buy back my years of service, I’ll have about 30.9 years or something like that; if I do, I’ll have 32.3 or so. This means that the buyback doesn’t affect my date anymore, just how big my pension will be per month after that date.

Sooooo, how many days is that?

That’s a little over four years away. And I could simply stop there in calculating. 4 years and 2 months as of today. 1,522 days by the calendar.

Except I don’t work 7 days a week, now do I? 🙂

By raw work days, aka Monday to Friday, it would drop to about 1090 days.

Then I would have to deduct all the stat holidays between now and then. New Year’s, Easter, Victoria Day, St. Jean de Baptiste, Canada Day, Labour Day, Reconciliation Day, Thanksgiving, Remembrance Day and Christmas. Between now and the “big day”, it’s about 50 days or so, dropping me to 1040 days or so.

But I have vacation days and personal days in there, plus family days. And accumulated sick days which I am likely to use more of as I age. I actually could take off up to 272.3 days in there for current and future leave. Which would drop me all the way down to 768 more days of work.

That’s not a lot, in the grand scheme of things. I didn’t even factor in additional leave for increased years of service, nor a big wrinkle for the last one to two years that I might consider.

Transitioning out

If your boss agrees, you can reduce your hours in the last two years of service to gradually transition out of work and into retirement. There are some basic rules, such as that you have to actually put in your papers and you can’t change your mind and stay longer. You can, however, say after 3 months, “You know what? I’m done, this is silly”.

Because many people do. They reduce to 4 days a week for a while, and that seems nice, an extra day off every week, a long weekend perhaps. Every Friday is common. Some do it mid-week and take Wednesdays off. 2 days on, 1 day off, 2 days on, 2 days off. And then they move to 3 days per week at work. But a lot of people start to realize that they simply don’t care enough anymore to keep doing it when their larger life is calling them. They were committed to their work, but once they start transitioning, they are often like, “Why the heck am I doing this to myself? I’m too old for this sh**”. Or at least that’s what they say when they put in their revised departure date and say, “Nope, just process me out.” Sure, you have to have your 30+ years to avoid any penalties, but I will have that.

So I might consider arranging a transition out over the last year. Meaning even fewer days than the 768 total I mentioned above. It probably won’t quite seem real to me until it is less than an estimated 500 days, though.

So that’s it. The first part of my retirement plan is “set”. Four years and two months from today is the plan. August 27, 2027.

In previous posts, I talked a lot about going out, and getting out of the house to do various activities, all of which include some incremental or extra effort to accomplish them. Hence why I might put them on a 60×60 list — it isn’t just business as usual, I need to plan for them, schedule time perhaps, and even figure out HOW to do them in some cases.

Today’s grouping is a bit different. I want to complicate my home life, at least in the kitchen.

Andrea does most of the cooking in our house, with exceptions for barbecuing or more complicated meals where I am mostly sous-chef. Pre-pandemic, I was in charge of sandwiches and things for lunches, but that is mostly down to just Jacob now, and for which I have a disturbingly frequent habit of ordering pizza on Sunday nights so I have pizza slices to plunk into his lunches for the week. He would take pizza over a sandwich any day of the week…heck, let’s be honest, he’d take it EVERY day of the week.

For me, I frequently plan forays into the kitchen more like small skirmishes against a welcoming army of one. Andrea would abdicate if I wanted to take up permanent residence probably. But my choices frequently run to fried or more unhealthy choices than she would make, and I’m inconsistent. Today, I’m adding 5 goals related to cooking and eating at home.

Five cooking goals

14. Try 60 new recipes. I have more recipes to try than I can shake a stick at, and I think a few in the vegetarian cookbook might even show me how to prepare sticks. I feel like my recipe candidates are divisible into three general categories. First, there are the types of recipes, such as individual ideas (ice cream, tiramisu, a cassata, short ribs) or larger groupings (ground beef, soups).

Second, there are recipes to make with specific tools such as the Dutch oven (lots of ground beef ones in there), Instapot (we found a chicken thigh one that is amazing a few years ago), or our relatively-new toaster oven (broiled pork chops turn out amazing with little fuss). We just had to replace our stove, and in doing so, we upgraded to one with dual ovens AND an air fryer option. Last night, we air-fried Italian sausages and with a little time adjustment from a generic online recipe, they turned out perfect. Honestly? The best sausages we have ever made at home. Light, not heavy; perfectly cooked; lower on grease. I would hesitate to ever call sausages a “healthy” choice, but they were pretty damn good. We had a medium-sized air fryer that a friend had given us, and it was good, but a bit complicated. The oven option? Easy as pie. Without the pie. 🙂 I have about 20 cookbooks downloaded off the internet with air fryer recipes, and I am going to be pushing a bunch of those to try over the next five years.

And then finally, I have a third category which is more about the “source” of the recipes. Cookbooks, obviously, but not just ANY cookbooks — some are from work, one is a gift with recipes from the Coconut Lagoon, and there is even a set of Raddish Kids recipes that we signed Jacob up for at some point, got a ton of good stuff, and then shut off the tap for a while. Finding recipes is never the problem — finding ones that I think will work well for Andrea, Jacob AND me together is more the challenge. Jacob’s untrained palate knocks out most strong spice options, for instance, although I’m also not a big fan of heat, and Andrea is only slightly more tolerant than either of us.

15. Bake 60 items. We have a bread maker and various bread-making tools (silicone moulds, for example). And as my great-grandfather used to be a baker, my father used to bake when I was young. Buns, tarts, and cinnamon buns were his specialty. Me? I want to learn to bake some things from scratch, particularly bread, of course. But I’ve made a more granular list of things to “try”…bread, cakes, cupcakes, cookies, pastries (pies and tarts), and pudding. I don’t have a grand plan for all this beyond bread, but I’ll figure it out as I go.

16. Curate 10 recipes. A few years ago, we went through a bunch of nacho options and tried them out. In the end, I came up with my “recipe” for 8-layer nachos. We tested different chips, were more flexible on salsa, and considered various types of ingredients that often go in (olives were a pass), and in the end, we have a great recipe that works well for our family. Panda nachos, if you will. I want to do the same for another 10 recipes, approximately 2 a year, and I have a small working list so far. Bread, as I mentioned above, is something I want to do much more often. In a perfect world, I’d like a standard bread that I made once or twice a week with some variations occasionally. But I need to “nail” which bread form and tool I want it to be. I rarely get off the printed page with recipes, as I can never remember the order or quantity for ingredients. It’s more like a scientific experiment, but I’d like to get to the “cooking as art” stage with bread.

A co-worker did a series of similar tests with homemade pizza, which seems like a great endeavour. Peanut butter cookies are on my list, as my mom used to make them when I was a kid and they were my favourite. I’ll add quesadillas and tacos to the list, although for tacos, I mean mostly adding a “hard taco” to the list of options, if I can. We do soft tacos all the time, more as fajitas though. I mentioned cinnamon buns above, my father’s special skill, so that makes the list.

We’ve made homemade burgers a few times. Mixed a bunch of ingredients together to make thicker, better patties to cook on the barbecue. It often gets done in large batches to fill up the freezer, but when they’re gone, I go months if not years before replenishing. Recently, I got some from Farm Boy that had a bunch of cheese options in it. They wouldn’t last long if made by hand, as they would probably have to be used/cooked that day, but I like the premise of coming up with some better-than-store-bought patties. Again, with lots of testing of ingredients, maybe some spices (my wife has boatloads of Epicure spices to try), and some other less frequent ingredients (peppers, cheese, bacon bits, etc.). So burgers make the list.

And I really want to do wings. I’ve played with this idea multiple times over the years, at least mentally. I love wings, I admit it. I have it narrowed down to four main variables for me to play with…source of wings, type, cooking method, and sauce.

For the source, I’m not wedded to the idea that they absolutely have to be fresh. I’m willing to take ones that are sold in meat departments just as much as consider the frozen food section for plain bulk wings. Ideally, they would be fresh, but if it adds to the complication for the other variables, I’m willing to consider any and all sources. Similarly for the type of wings. I don’t want breaded wings, that’s easy. Probably split. But I’m willing to consider other configurations. For cooking, I assumed my choices were going to be oven or BBQ, and while I like the premise of adding the BBQ taste, ensuring consistency is more challenging for me. I don’t want them burnt or undercooked. I also don’t want to spend 20 minutes flipping them and then starting back at the beginning.

Finally, for the sauce, as I mentioned above, my wife has tons of Epicure spices. Plus I’m willing to buy various types of rubs or sauces out of bottles to see what I like. I’ve tried a few from a couple of BBQ stores, and while they may have been the most popular ones in the rack according to the store owners, they did NOTHING for me. I am NOT looking for heat, which is a bit of a sacrilege when it comes to ribs and wings, I know. Normally, I prefer adding sauces or glazes rather than using rubs, although I also don’t want to need a hose to clean off when I’m done eating, so more of a light wet coating than having it dripping off the wing.

For a time, I thought about having a bunch of people over to try out different wing recipes, a more in-home option for Mid-month Movie Madness for Men who like Meat, without restricting it to men or including a movie. Just some people in the backyard, trying out different wing sauces. I am more interested at this point in just doing my own thing, and now that we have a large air fryer option for the oven, I don’t have to worry about the inconsistency of results on the barbecue nor the complications of “layers” in the countertop air fryer. I am 99% sure that I’ll be going with air frying in the oven as my main method, so I can now return to the source and type of wings before moving on to sauces, rubs and glazes.

If my math is correct, that gives me 8 recipes to “perfect” or curate. I don’t yet know what the other two will be, although ice cream sounds attractive. I’ll find others as time goes by. A good stew would be nice to have in the arsenal or three sisters soup.

17. The breakfast spread. This one is a bit odd, although I’m not sure why. In movies or TV, you frequently see a large family or group of friends together and they’re enjoying a large breakfast spread. It looks amazing, there are lots of choices, all of that, with lots of people around the table. But do you know what amazes me most though? That people seemingly think everyone knows how to make all of those things, can do so easily, and have them all come out at the same time?

I am not looking to replicate that experience in the broader sense. I don’t want 20 people for breakfast, I don’t want to prepare 19 different types of omelettes. But I like the idea that I could, in theory, prepare ANY of those big options myself at home. Let me start with the most obvious and perhaps the most embarrassing. Eggs.

I suck at eggs. I can’t crack them easily, I have to use a hand-held egg cracker most of the time. And then I nuke it in a container in the microwave.

But if I’m frying them? Sunny-side or over-easy would be my choice in the restaurant, but I end up getting grease splatter, and over-hard is a far more likely outcome. Scrambled or poached are also hit-and-miss for me, let alone even hard-boiled (I like HB eggs, although I like the white more than the yolk). I would also like to have a really good omelet recipe. I’m not quite ready to commit to a curated omelet option, but I am attracted to that option.

Bacon? I hate frying things, and thus am always on the hunt for some simple way of doing non-greasy crispy-but-not-burnt bacon. Mostly I don’t bother. I would like to add peameal to the list of options though, beyond simple strips.

Regularly when we go out for breakfast, most big places have skillet options. They’re good, a different config than most breakfasts. It feels more like a cowboy out on a range, mixing stuff together. I love the premise, and the taste, but have no idea how I would do it or even what I would put in. Potatoes would be an obvious side option if I didn’t want to go full skillet.

And then we come to my son’s favourites: pancakes! I’ll throw french toast, waffles, and crêpes in there too. It isn’t something I cook very often, and while I know they aren’t difficult, the issue for me is mostly consistency and simple flavouring. If I have to look up what I’m going to do, I probably won’t do it, it just seems too involved. But there are lots of Sunday mornings that I would love the idea of cooking breakfast for the three of us with their favourites and mine.

You wouldn’t think that toast would make the list, and it doesn’t, not exactly. It is more the idea of toast made from fresh bread, or the options of fresh bagels.

Then we move into the healthy fresh fruit medley. We have some on-hand, almost always, but I like the idea too of finding ways to merge with the crêpes.

Cereal is fine, oatmeal okay (although I’d like to come up with ways to add my own flavourings), various yogurt combinations, or add in smoothies and different juices, all part of the “buffet”.

While that would be a good place to “end” my list, I wonder too about some breakfast sandwich options. Westerns, paninis, melts. Outside of grilled cheese, melts rarely make my list, nor paninis even. I would love a good Western sandwich more regularly, but I don’t bother. And again, if I do it, I want it to be consistent.

Sooooo, where does that leave me? As I said, I don’t want to open my doors to breakfast for 20 people, and I’m not looking to make ALL of these for one go. But I do like the idea of knowing how to do them all relatively easily and consistently. I just need a bit of a plan. Maybe I’ll designate September as “fried egg” month before moving on to scrambled and poached. 🙂

18. Grow something to eat. Okay, this one is a bit different. I have very little interest in gardening. But I do like the idea of eating something fresh from a garden. Andrea and Jacob gave me some seeds for my birthday, so we’ll try doing celery and green beans in the backyard. It won’t be some big garden, just a small planter. It’s an experiment. Just something that I’ve never done.

Wrapping up

Another five goals have been added to the list. I confess that I struggled with some of them today, similar to what I was talking about yesterday. Should perfecting / curating a recipe for wings be a separate goal? Or do I merge the 10 under a general curation goal? For the breakfast ones, my list has 12 separate categories to do better on, but I could have separated out crêpes from pancakes, I suppose.

Part of what drives me in my extra noodling is the amount of effort involved. Perfecting the wing recipe? That could take me months of trial and error. Yet it only gives me 1/10th of an overall goal? On the other hand, I could walk a 10K distance, and that only gets me 1/60th of a goal, so maybe consistency in goal effort is the hobgoblin of little minds. Anyway, carrying on…