Wife wants husband to retire at 65 but keep his $280,000 salary
The logistics executive works 60-hour weeks, and the couple has about $2.6 million in savings, his wife wrote.
A woman wants her husband, a logistics executive working 60-hour weeks, to retire at 65, but she does not want to give up his $280,000 salary, according to a letter published Monday by MarketWatch's The Moneyist.
MarketWatch used her description of their dispute in its headline on the letter to columnist Quentin: "We had the worst fight we've ever had."
Her husband, a senior vice president at a logistics company, handles work calls in the evenings and on Saturday mornings, she wrote. She said he missed their granddaughter's school play last March, leaving her beside his empty seat with his program in hand.
At Thanksgiving, he fell asleep at the table while the kids acted as though they had not seen it, she wrote.
She said he has become short with people and complains about his team throughout dinner. She could not recall when she last heard him laugh at anything other than something on TV.
The couple has about $2.6 million in savings, she wrote, with most held in his 401(k) and individual retirement accounts. She also listed $450,000 in a brokerage account and her own IRA.
It was unclear whether the brokerage account and her IRA were included in the total. His age and his views on retirement were also unclear.
Retirement withdrawals can bring tax costs. Old North State Wealth News, a financial-planning site, said every dollar taken from a traditional 401(k) or IRA is taxed as ordinary income.
The site said required minimum distributions start at 73 for most of today's retirees, or at 75 for people born in 1960 or later.
The period between leaving work and starting those distributions and Social Security is often when income is lowest, potentially creating an opening for Roth conversions, the site said. It said a large Roth conversion at 63 or older can increase Medicare premiums because the program's income-based surcharges use a two-year lookback.
Nova Wealth Management, an advisory firm, said withdrawals during an early-retirement market downturn can leave fewer invested assets available to benefit from a recovery.
